Oh, I keep forgetting to say, the only things I know about drugs are from Wikipedia and Go Ask Alice¸ so if I get stuff wrong… sorry. I'm not exactly an expert :shrugs:

Jude sat, twiddling her thumbs, waiting for the verdict. She'd been in rehab for a month, and her only visitors, Sadie and her Dad, hadn't told her what was going on in the outside world.

Her Dad, when he came, wouldn't let her get a word in edgewise. He babbled on and on and on, and Jude knew it was because he was afraid that he'd blow up at her. She knew he was disappointed in her.

Sadie, who came more frequently, consistently refused to bring her newspapers or even tabloids. The only piece of information she'd gotten was when she'd asked if Jamie or Tommy were coming. Sadie had said that only family were allowed.

Jude wasn't even allowed her guitar.

--

When Jude got home, finally home, she grinned like a lunatic and ran upstairs, laughing. When she got up to her room, she saw her Telly, and her heart swelled with happiness. With a newfound feeling of love in her heart, Jude picked up her guitar, and wrote another song.

--

"I'm in love with my guitar," Jude finished, just as her dad appeared in her doorway.

"Figures that the first song you'd write after a month away would be about that thing," her dad said. He smiled, and Jude knew, just like that, that she was forgiven.

--

For the next week, Jude went to school, ignoring the stares sent her way.

She tried calling Jamie, several times, but he wouldn't answer.

She did all the grocery shopping, all the cooking, a feeling of goodwill ever present in her heart.

And through it all, she never once let go of her Telly.

--

After a week, Georgia called.

"Jude, we want you back in the studio," she said. She sounded hesitant. "If that's okay."

Jude laughed. Georgia was so amazed by the sound, and she realized that it was the first time she'd heard Jude laugh since before she had started using drugs.

"Georgia, I'm fine. I'm not glass, I won't break. Let me rise, let me fall…" she sang softly. But this time, the lyrics held that passion, that essence of Jude, that they hadn't the first time she'd sang the song. Georgia grinned.

"Alright, but EJ's going to want to talk to you." Jude laughed again.

"I can handle EJ, just make sure I get some studio time, too."

--

Jude opened the doors of G Major, and was met with silence.

And stares.

Stares of pity, stares of disgust.

Stares of curiosity, stares of empathy.

But none were emanating from the face she was looking for.

When the face did appear, it wasn't staring. It was grinning like a madman.

Tommy ran towards her. "Jude!"

And, for the first time in a week, Jude dropped her Telly, and hugged him back.

--

As soon as an intern had come into Georgia's office and said that Jude was here, EJ had stormed downstairs, ready to tell Jude off for the biggest PR disaster a G Major employee had ever had.

She was stopped in her tracks by the sight of Tommy and Jude, embracing fiercely, Telly lying forgotten at Jude's feet.

--

Jude began crying silently, and she soon felt Tommy's tears mixing with her own. She inhaled his scent, memorizing him.

She still didn't know how she felt, but at that moment, she wasn't going to linger over it.

She did know that here, in Tommy's arms, she felt completely safe, and whole.

--

That day, Jude and Tommy recorded I'm In Love With My Guitar and Let Me Fall.

And then, EJ came in.

"Jude, we need to talk," she said tightly. She was obviously extremely mad. She turned to glare at Tommy. "Alone."

"Nope," he said cheerily. "I'm staying with Jude."

"Fine," EJ said. Jude sent Tommy a grateful glance.

For the next hour or so, EJ yelled at Jude. When she was done, Jude and Tommy drove home.

Jude didn't feel so happy anymore.

--

"She was right, Tommy, I was stupid."

He sat down on her bed and pulled her into his lap. "Yeah, but that's my fault."

"Tommy, don't say that! I was a stupid, stupid girl." Jude flashbacked to the day her mother had left.

"Mom!" a happy, eight-year-old Jude yelled, running into the house and waving around a copy of Garbage's debut album. The CD store Jude usually went to had a "Birthday Bin" where they put CD's released on that day, from the current year and years past. "You've got to hear this song!"

"She's gone," a ten-year-old Sadie said in a small voice. Jude noticed tear tracks on her face. "She came back, got a suitcase full of clothes and didn't even say goodbye."

Jude's face fell. Her arms fell and the CD did too. "Stupid Girl," she whispered. "Should've known it was a sign."

"Jude, everyone does stupid things. You want to know how you make up for it?" She nodded. "You write one song about your pain, and then you move on and show the world that you are a different person."

She sniffled. "I can do that."

"Good," Tommy said. "Take your time."

--

Jude did just that. For the next month, she did any interview someone asked for. She strongly denied going back to drugs, and she unflinchingly told the story of how she'd gotten addicted, referring to Jamie as 'a friend.'

"Jude, why did your friend let you do this to yourself?" one interviewer asked.

Jude sighed. "He didn't."

"He?" the woman asked. "It wouldn't happen to be Little Tommy Q you're speaking of, would it?"

"He hates that," Jude said absently. "And no, it's not Tommy."

"Well then, who is he?"

"Look, I don't want to bring him into this. For the period that I was on drugs, he was a great friend, and I was a crap friend. He doesn't have any involvement in this really. In fact, on the bus ride home from Manitoba, he made me swear that I'd never touch E again. I broke that promise, and he won't talk to me anymore."

The interviewer paused. "Alright, Jude."

--

In her free time, Jude worked on the song. After two months, she was almost finished.

Her inspiration for the chorus lyrics, the last element of her song, came as she was walking down the hallway at school one morning.

"Stupid girl," someone muttered. Sadie, who was walking next to Jude, knew full well the sting of that insult. She squeezed Jude's shoulder, but Jude ignored it. She spun around.

"Got something to say?" she asked. "They say it. Don't be such a wimp as to say it quietly. Say it to my face, bastard!"

The guy sneered. "Stupid girl," he repeated.

Jude went home with a bloody nose.

He went home with a black eye and a broken nose.

--

"…goin' the wrong way down a one-way street, where the feeling is criminal, nobody helps me out when I bleed, just a look, look, looking for someone like me, where the feeling is mutual, can anybody see what I see, cause I don't see me." Jude stopped, waited.

Tommy smiled. "Better?"

Jude let go of a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "Yeah."

Whew, so the heavy stuff's over. For now.