A/N: Holyyyyy it has been a very long time, but here's another chapter for anyone out there who might still read this, or to anyone who might come across it now! (I'm not entirely sure how active the Instant Star fic community might still be.) Again, my apologies for the delay, and for the slightly boring chapter (in my mind, at least.) Next chapter is the album release party, and things get a biiiiiit crazier then. :) Enjoy!

She had resigned herself to not seeing Tommy that night – there was no way Victoria was going to not be vigilant over the hallway. Her phone on her nightstand buzzed with a text and she flopped on her bed, thinking it was Tommy, coming to the same conclusion she had.

It was from a block number, but she opened it anyways.

"You looked so beautiful tonight."

She couldn't stop the smile that spread across her face.

"You looked extremely handsome yourself. Sorry we can't be together. :("

She waited impatiently for the telltale buzz to sound again; she lightly fingered her necklace and realized she was happier in this moment – Victoria not withstanding – than she could remember in the past few months.

"Did I? I couldn't tell if you noticed me. Couldn't seem to take your eyes off Loverboy."

Jude sat up straight on her bed, phone in hand. She stared at it as the cold feeling of dread filled her stomach. Fingers lightly shaking, she managed to get out another sentence.

"Who is this?"

She closed her eyes as she waited for a reply. Please be Tommy, please be Tommy, please be Tommy.

"You're not living with me. But don't worry hunny, I'll get to know you. Even if I have to take out the competition."

She barely comprehended the last sentence before she jumped up and ran out of her room, vaguely aware of the sound of her nightstand toppling over as she didn't unplug her charger first.

"Tommy!" She pounded on his door loudly, not caring who she woke. "Tommy!"

He opened his door, clad in his boxers, undershirt, and unbuttoned dress shirt. "Jude?"

She jumped into his arms, burying her face in his neck.

"Oh thank god you're okay, thank god, thank..."she murmured incoherently as he absently stroked her back, still confused about what was happening.

"What is going on?" Victoria was the first in the hall. "Jude, didn't I just stop this?"

"Jude, Jude, you have to tell me what's going on," Tommy spoke softly as he tried to detach her and have her stand in front of him.

"He just…and he knows, Tommy, he knows, and he said he would take out the competition, and I just, I thought it was you, and oh, you're okay, you're okay…"

"Calm down, Jude, I need you to tell me what's happening," Tommy told her in a voice that didn't belay his true feelings.

"He texted me, Tommy. He texted me!"

After that, it was like Tommy shifted into a different mode.

"Find Bear," he told Stuart, who had come into the hallway as well. "Ace should be downstairs, and he'll know where Bear is on patrol. Meet in the kitchen." He looked at Chaz, also late to join the impromptu party. "Find Darius. And after that, find my mom. She has a hotel nearby."

He looked down at Jude, who was still standing in front of him in her maid of honor dress, looking scared and small. He adopted a different tone for her, but still tried to maintain some semblance of being calm and in control. He couldn't afford to lose it right now.

"Do you still have your phone, Babe?"

She thrust it out to him, almost dropping it with her shaky fingers.

"Good job," he praised softly. "Do you want to change before we go downstairs?"

She cast a wide-eyed glance to her room behind her and he knew that she didn't want to be alone, which was understandable.

"I'll take her to change," Victoria volunteered from her place down the hall. Tommy spared her a glance but didn't respond as he took off his dress shirt and helped Jude put it on over her dress. It was better than nothing, he figured. He leaned back in his room and grabbed his dress pants and a hoodie off his dresser close to the door and got dressed quickly while Jude still stood in front of him looking lost.

"Let's go," he wrapped an arm around her and began to guide her down the hall.

"What should I do?" Victoria called after them.

"You've done enough for one night," Tommy called back without stopping.

"What happened?" Darius barked out as he stepped into the kitchen flanked by Ace and Chaz.

Jude was sitting on a stool in the middle of the kitchen by the giant island with Tommy sitting next to her, their knees touching.

Bear had entered a few minutes prior but aside from taking the cell phone, he had told them that going through the story once should be all that Jude has to do.

Jude took a deep breath and looked up from the coffee she was getting lost in currently. She felt more calm, but the more thought she put into it, the more freaked out she got.

"I had just gotten back to my room and I got a text from a blocked number. I thought it was Tommy at first."

"Why would Tom text you?" Darius cut in, but was silenced with looks from around the room.

"He texted me things he shouldn't know," Jude whispered. "He told me I looked beautiful tonight. And he knows I'm staying with Tommy. He said he would take out the competition." Her eyes instinctively found Tommy's and he was taken aback by the emotion there. The worry and fear and protectiveness swirled within her blues, and he didn't know how to take them away and ease her mind.

"What does this mean?" Darius asked the room at large, although no one was clamoring to be the first to answer, all ruminating in their minds.

"He was here tonight." Jude was the first to break the silence, saying the one thing that they all did not want to be true. "He saw me. Followed us here. And he had to have known when I got back to my room – it was too timely to be a coincidence. Probably saw the light turn on or something. He knows where I sleep." Her voice broke on the last word and Tommy's hand moved to her thigh, stroking softly, trying to reassure her.

"Ace, get this to Ram." Bear held out the phone. "Try to get a trace on it. He was probably using a burner phone, but I want to be sure." He lifted the phone out of Ace's reach and turned to Jude. "Jude, we're going to need to look at some of your text history. If that's not okay, let me know right now and we can find another way."

"Of course that's okay! She has nothing to hide!" Darius threw his hands up in the air.

"Darius!" Tommy had to physically control himself to stay seated. "It's Jude's life, it's her choice."

"You can go through it," Jude said quietly. "Thank you for asking."

Ace took off at a brisk pace and Bear turned to the rest of the group, now including Stuart.

"He does know that she is staying with Tommy but given the lack of details in his texts, I don't think he knows where that is. It's possible he's just making an educated guess. Who knows that you're staying there, Jude?"

"No one, really. Tommy's mom, my immediate family, Darius, Chaz…maybe a few other people at G Major…"

"Everyone at G Major has been told explicitly to keep their nose out of your business, and to keep it quiet if they do know something, or they're out of a job."

For all his flaws, D did want to protect Jude, Tommy acknowledged.

"Any chance at all for a leak there?" Bear asked seriously.

"Wait a second, you think there's someone inside G Major giving this psychopath information?" Tommy couldn't not stand, too rankled by the mere thought.

"The information is too specific, Quincy." Bear looked as if he'd rather be anywhere else. "Do you see any other paparazzi here? No, because the location was well-maintained for this. You haven't had a tail for the past few weeks because there's no way that would go undetected by my team. That, plus the other notes –"

Jude knew something was up by the way Tommy stiffened.

"What other notes? The ones from the beginning?" She looked between the men in the room. "What notes? I haven't received any in weeks. Right, Tommy?"

Nothing.

"Tommy?"

"We received a few more in the last week…"

Jude took a stumbling step away from her stool, spilling coffee all over the island.

"You what?" Her eyes drifted between Darius, Bear, Tommy, and her father. "Did you all know about them?" Silence answered her question.

"Babe…"

"I can't…" Jude's eyes darted around the room, trying to understand what was happening. They were all keeping things from her – important things – and she was supposed to be okay with that? These were things that could very well hurt her and they were over there, not willing to share them with the one person it involved the most.

"How could you?" She finally asked. "I trusted you. I trusted all of you! What did they say?" No one rushed to answer and she felt her composure start to slip away. "Answer me! You all seemed to have seen them, so what did they say?"

"We didn't want you to worry, Jude," Tommy tried again, taking a step forward. Jude countered with her own step back, causing Tommy to stop midstride. She was acting as if she was afraid of him, and that was the one thing he didn't think he could handle.

"Well, I'm plenty worried right now since finding out everyone I trusted has been lying to me," she spat.

"We have pictures on my phone, Jude," Bear said softly. "I'd be happy to have you look at them and shed some light on them, but they are more of the same. I'd understand if you wanted to look tomorrow."

Jude pitied Bear slightly, as he couldn't have been the one that came up with the idea to hide things from her, but the fact of the matter was that he was head of security – he could have easily overruled anyone and shown her the notes if he thought it was important enough. From the corner of her eye, she saw Kate enter the kitchen door and realized she needed someone that wasn't one of the men that had betrayed her.

"I don't really want to be around you guys anymore tonight. I'll look tomorrow." She turned to leave and saw Tommy start to follow. She abruptly turned around. "Especially you, Tommy." She had to force herself to turn away from the hurt in his eyes and look at Kate.

"Do you think you could stay with me tonight? I don't really want to be alone."

Kate truly showed her worth by simply nodding, not voicing any of the hundreds of questions she had to have had.

"Jude," Tommy called again. This time it was he who was taken aback by the hurt in her eyes accompanied with tears waiting to fall. She shook her head slightly, as if to tell him not to try, but he had one last thing to say. "Stay in…stay in my room tonight. I don't feel right letting you sleep in your own, especially if it's compromised."

"He's probably long gone, Tommy," Darius spoke up from the corner.

"Still," Tommy insisted. "Please."

He didn't say please very often, and the few times he did choose to say it usually had Jude melting in the palm of his hand. She had half a mind to refuse, but she knew that would be cutting off her nose to spite her face. She was scared of her room and regardless of Kate's presence, knew she wouldn't be getting much sleep in there. Tommy's room was hardly better, but it was better.

She nodded once and turned away, following Kate out the door and up the stairs.

"Do you want me to go across the hall and get you something to sleep in, or will you be okay sleeping in something of Tommy's?"

Jude almost laughed – after all, most of her sleep clothes were just Tommy's clothes that she had claimed for her own, but she couldn't bring herself to.

"I'll be fine in my dress." She didn't want to think about Tommy right now. Or smell him. Or feel his clothes.

"Nonsense. Those sequins chafe about twenty minutes into a wedding, let alone after a night of dancing. Let's get you out of that dress and into a shirt, okay?"

Jude nodded, not willing to put up a fight. She was numb. She felt so betrayed and hurt and then conflicted because she felt pathetic that she still wanted Tommy here, to tell her everything was going to be okay and to hold her until she fell asleep.

Kate helped her unbutton Tommy's shirt and get her out of her dress and undergarments and into a loose fitting shirt and some boxers.

"You sure you don't have any daughters? It seems like you've done this before," Jude joked weakly.

"Maybe one day," Kate said softly, tracing a finger down Jude's face. "I think I've got some makeup remover in my bag. Let's get this cake off you so you can get some sleep."

She removed the makeup and was currently sitting behind Jude on the bed cross legged, brushing her hair for her. The motion was putting Jude to sleep and she felt her pulse finally start to climb down from whatever mountain it had climbed before.

"Aren't you going to ask me what happened?" Jude finally asked, feeling calmer about the situation.

"Chaz filled me in on the texts from the stalker. As for whatever happened between you and my son, I trust that you can fill me in on your own time if you'd like. If you want to talk about it, I'm here, but we don't have to."

The rhythmic motion of the hair brushing gave Jude the beats in between to decide whether to speak.

"I know he thinks it was for my own good. But it wasn't. And he's really lucky that more harm didn't come from it."

A pause in the brushing.

"Okay, darling, I'm good, but I'm not that good. You're going to need to give me a little more than that."

Jude slowly turned around so that her and Kate were sitting face to face.

"They've gotten notes from my stalker in the past week. Notes. As in plural. And they all chose not to tell me."

From the pursing of her lips to the furrowing of her eyebrows, Jude could tell that Kate was not a fan of that idea from the get go. She wasn't trying to get her to be on her side or what have you, but she was curious as to a mother's perspective on the whole ordeal.

"And you're angry at them and feeling betrayed right now?"

"Yes. And, okay, this is going to sound crazy, but I'm retroactively scared? Like, what if something had happened that me seeing those notes could have prevented? All those men down there claim to put my safety first, but would they ever have forgiven themselves if their keeping stuff away from me hurt me?" She let out a harsh bark of laughter. "I don't even know what the notes say now, so this might all just be crazy. I know he thinks he was protecting me. I do. But where is the line? I don't want to be in a place where the line between protecting me and hurting me gets as blurry as it is right now."

She looked up at Kate, not knowing what to expect, but needing to hear some reassurances.

After a minute, Kate finally spoke. "I think his intentions were not to betray you. I think Tommy's protective instinct goes into overdrive with you, and he never wants to be the one that makes you scared. If I know my son at all, he just wants you to be happy and enjoy the wedding and your album release and to not have all your thoughts clouded with this mess."

Jude accepted that and looked down, feeling slightly depressed with her answer. She was taking Tommy's side after all.

"That being said…" Jude looked up again at Kate, whose eyes were sympathetic and understanding. "The wrong thing done for the right reasons is still the wrong thing. He should have told you. He shouldn't have kept things from you, and if he is going to want to make your relationship work at all, he needs to know that."

"Yeah, some relationship…" Jude trailed off, a few errant tears escaping down her face.

"Try not to hold this against him for too long, okay dear?" Kate cupped Jude's face gently. "He is probably going crazy across the hall at not being able to hold you right now and apologize. This whole situation is scary for him, too. No one is prepared for this." She brushed some hair off her forehead and tried to stifle a yawn. "You still too wired, or do you want to try and get some sleep? I can't imagine tomorrow – or, today, since its 4 a.m. now – will be any easier for you."

"You must be exhausted, Kate. Please, lie down and try to get some sleep. I don't think I'll be able to, but I'll try. Promise."

With that, they turned off the lights and snuggled under the comforters in the king sized bed.

"Thanks for being here, Kate."

"Anytime, Jude. Anytime."

Jude finally rolled over and let her tears soak the pillow that smelled like Tommy before drifting off into a restless sleep.

He was right outside the window, texting her. She could see him and she was trying to get out of the room as his texts became darker and darker, threatening to break the glass and come and get her. She banged on the door harder and harder, screaming and crying for Tommy to come help her. Finally her phone stopped buzzing and he wasn't at the window anymore. She put her phone down gingerly on the nightstand and backed up to the door, eying it. Could it be this easy? Could he have just given up?

She finally felt herself calm down and began to think rationally in the quiet. She could get out of this. She could find Tommy. She would be okay. She just needed to think. And then the phone buzzed.

Jude fell out of bed, crying and screaming in a tangle of blankets, scared out of her mind. She was vaguely aware of someone trying to calm her down but she was stuck in the twist of blankets and she couldn't get out and he was coming to get her and she just couldn't stop screaming.

The door burst open and Tommy ran in, straight to Jude.

"Shh, shh, Jude, it's okay, everything is going to be okay," he hushed her as he furiously ripped the blankets that were constricting her away. Finally she was free and she attached herself to him, wrapping her arms and legs so tightly around him that he found he couldn't stand. He was content to sit on the floor, hushing her and holding her and letting her cry into his neck. His own heart was racing, unable to slow despite her being in his arms. Her screams were so loud and piercing; it was a sound he was not going to be able to forget.

"What happened?" Bear asked, as he had followed Tommy in just as quickly.

Kate stood against the wall, eyes wide at the last minute of drama.

"It was my fault," she said softly, making eye contact with Tommy over Jude's shoulder. "I set an alarm for this morning. She didn't sleep very well and when the alarm went off with the buzzing, she just…" She indicated to the current predicament Tom was in.

Bear nodded and went back into the hallway where he could be heard having a hushed conversation with Darius. Well, his side was hushed anyway.

"See, this is why I didn't want to tell her about the other notes," Darius said, his voice carrying into the room. "She's just a scared kid and I didn't want this getting into her brain."

At his words, Jude stiffened in Tommy's arms. She pulled back slowly, coming face to face with him. Her hand subconsciously went to her heart in a futile effort to slow it down, but her fingers grasped her necklace that Tommy had given her as well. She traced the outline of the pendant and finally found the courage to meet his eyes.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"I'm mad at you."

"I know."

"I'm nervous about what else you haven't told me."

"I know." Tommy gulped. "But that was it. No more. No more secrets."

"How do I trust that?"

Tommy was silent for a moment, his face twisted in pain and guilt.

"You don't," he said finally. "But maybe you can. If not now, then soon. I will do everything I have to in order to prove to you that you can trust me."

"You lied to me." Her voice was strong, despite how weak she felt inside. Despite how weak that simple admission made her.

"I didn't-" Tommy's protest died on his lips. A lie of omission was still a lie, after all. "I did. And you will never, ever, know how sorry I am."

"Don't do it again."

"That's it?" He didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he expected a full blown angry-Jude for the next week at least, with the added prospect of her holding this over his head for the next few months.

"I can't do this by myself. I can't be mad at you right now, not with everything going on. I just need you to be here, with me. And I need to trust you."

"You can. And I will. Be here with you, I mean. I love you, Jude Harrison," Tommy whispered, resting his forehead against hers. He was still rattled from the night before, having gotten just as little sleep as Jude had, plus the added angst of her anger.

"Love you too, Tommy."

"I'm sorry," Jude said quietly as they sat in the back of Bear's SUV, headed back to their lives in the city.

"For what?" Of all the things he expected, it was not an apology from her lips.

"I know you were looking forward to driving the Aston Martin this weekend."

"You're such an idiot," Tommy muttered affectionately, pulling her close so that her head rested against his shoulder.

"Be nice to the girl, Tom," Bear chided from the driver's seat. "She's been through a lot."

"Yeah, be nice to me," she poked him in the ribs and gave him an impish smile. "I've been through a lot."

They had finally left the beach house earlier that afternoon after a long, drawn out conversation between what felt like everyone in Jude's life. There was the security team and their report - or lack thereof - and their plans for the coming week. Then there had been Darius and Jude's fight of a lifetime, where she demanded that the album release party not be canceled. There had been many concessions made on both of their parts, but the final result was one that Jude was pleased with: the party was still on. Finally, there had been a conversation with the family. Sadie and Kwest were surprisingly benevolent about it all, understanding the gravity of the situation. Stuart was a bit naive about the entire thing, and Victoria was another thing entirely. She had eventually been removed from the room with a not-so-subtle recommendation to return to Europe. Her presence was serving no good.

So when Bear said that she had "been through a lot," he wasn't kidding in any sense of the phrase.

"And it might get worse before it gets better," Bear finished, which wiped the smile off of Jude's face and put a small, slightly indulgent one on Tommy's.

As they stopped at a light, Bear reached over to the passenger seat, where his laptop lay open, and removed a small rectangle that was plugged into a USB port. He clicked a plastic casing over it and snapped a cap onto it and held it in his hand, meeting Jude's eyes in the mirror.

"I want you to do me a favor, Jude. The second you feel something slightly off, the second you feel like something might not be right with a situation, I want you to click this button." A small, barely visible button protruded from the plastic casing. "This is a panic button. The USB inside is a GPS locator, but the button itself is an audio recording device, with a small pinhole that will take snapshots every few seconds after it is activated. It will then transmit those images to me, to better locate you should something happen."

Jude took the small fob with shaking hands. This had suddenly gotten so real.

"Do you really think something will happen to me?" Her voice sounded so small to her ears, she was almost disgusted with herself. Where was the self-assured, fearless Jude?

"No." Bear's instant response made her feel better, something she didn't actually realize she was capable of. "It is only a precaution. Like I said, it's a favor. Please keep it on you if I am not in sight."

"No favor necessary," she hurried to say, slipping the fob into her pocket. "I am taking this serious, Bear. This is more than...whatever I thought it was. So no, no favor, no asking me nicely. I'll do it because I am serious about staying safe."

Tommy squeezed her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her hair. Hearing her say that meant more to him than she knew. He couldn't even put it into words, but he felt a lightness in his chest that hadn't lifted since she received those text messages the night before. She was going to be okay, and he knew that.

"He's not going to like this," Jude said absently, distracted by Tommy's wandering hands.

It had taken them almost twice as long to get home, due largely in part to Bear's evasive driving techniques. While he had assured both of them that he knew what he was doing and had been trained extensively in regards to that, Jude had to admit that it didn't take 'extensive training' to drive in circles. Either way, he had finally gotten Jude and Tommy safely ensconced in the Towers, convinced they had not been followed.

After a brief dinner, the pair found themselves on Tommy's couch, Jude's back to Tommy's front, just relaxing and decompressing. Well, they were decompressing until Tommy's hands started tracing idle patterns on her bare stomach where her shirt had ridden up. After that began, Jude felt distinctly compressed.

"He's just going to have to deal with it." Tommy was much more focused than Jude, thankfully, given the subject matter at hand.

With everyone involved with her security fairly convinced that someone at G Major was feeding the stalker info about Jude's life, she had been tasked to come up with a list of those at G Major that she trusted implicitly. It would be those people and those people alone who were privy to any knowledge of her whereabouts and schedule for the coming weeks. Jude never would have imagined having to come up with such a list, or how hard it would be. How do you start separating people in your life into categories based on who you think might be trying to kill you?

"But think about it. Darius hates being questioned. He essentially hired everyone at G Major, so the second I say that I'm on the fence about someone, it's like I'm questioning Darius himself. He's going to be pissed."

"Yeah, he'll be pissed at whoever might be responsible for this, but he won't be pised at you, Jude. And let me handle Darius, okay? Don't worry about him." He bent and put what was supposed to be a quick kiss to her neck, but turned into something with a bit more passion behind it. Jude couldn't hold back a moan as he laved her neck with his tongue, his hands gripping her hips in time to the rhythm of his tongue. "A weakness?" He murmured questioningly against her skin before continuing his ministrations.

"Pretty sure anything you do to me is a weakness of mine," she managed to get out, craning her neck to give him better access.

"Then this might be a good time to mention that you still haven't decided on him."

The reminder caused her to stiffen and Tommy silently cursed himself as he pulled back; he knew she needed to make a decision but perhaps he could've encouraged that decision-making to happen after they were done.

"I know," she said quietly.

"I'm not saying this isn't a big decision for you. I'm not trying to downplay it at all."

"But…"

"But, he doesn't have to known your decision either way. There isn't going to be a memo put out to all G Major employees with their status. Whatever you decide stays private."

"But I'll know."

"Yeah," she could feel his nod above her. "You'll know."

Almost a minute passed with no verbal communication between the two of them, before she finally reached a decision.

"No. I don't trust Jamie."