A rocky routine developed over the next few days. Jude would go to work and class, Connor would go to class. They watched movies, sitting on opposite sides of the couch, and they didn't talk a lot. Jude cried often, and that was one of two times that Connor was allowed to hold him again. The other was at night. No matter how they had gone to bed at night, they always woke up wrapped around each other in the morning. And Connor was so glad that he often woke early than Jude, because he got to treasure those moments where Jude was close to him again. On Jude's days off, when Connor was finished class, they would go for long drives. Jude liked to do that now. Sometimes they listened to the radio, but Jude seemed to prefer listening to the wind rushing in the car windows. Connor had taken to keeping food like cold chicken and salads in the fridge so that he could quickly pack the cooler and follow Jude out the door. And it was one of the few things that Connor could consistently get Jude to eat – that and the bakery rolls. Jude was losing weight and, though Connor was worried, he didn't know how to talk to Jude about it, though he didn't have to. He knew Stef and Lena had mentioned it to him, but only because he had gotten out of the shower earlier than Jude expected, and he overheard Jude on the phone with them.

It was Wednesday evening and Jude had just gotten off work. Connor was seated on the floor, doing his Thursday's readings at the coffee table, while Jude was laying on the couch, channel flipping. On the edge of the coffee table, Jude's phone began to vibrate. Connor glanced over and saw Taylor's name.

"Are you ever going to answer her?" Connor asked.

"No."

"Why not tell her that?"

"I shouldn't have to," Jude said. "She should know."

"She loved you too."

"That doesn't matter."

"Jude –"

"Connor!" Jude sat up and Connor turned to face him, leaning back. He didn't like the feeling of Jude towering above him. "What if it had been a man that killed your mother instead of cancer?"

"I, um, don't know." He'd never thought about it.

"I just need to cut her out of my life. Nothing could ever be the same, so why put either of us through something that's just going to be painful?"

Connor wasn't sure if he was reading too much into it or if Jude might have actually been talking about more than Taylor. "Forgiveness is supposed to help."

"Do you forgive your ex for everything he did to you? If he showed up right now, would you talk to him like you forgave him?"

"It's different," Connor whispered.

"It's not and I don't want to talk about it. Taylor can rot in hell for all I care." Jude slumped back against the couch, his arms cross tightly over his chest.

Connor glanced at his notebooks and then at Jude's legs. He rested his head against Jude's shins. "I'm sorry. It wasn't my place, was it?"

"No." Jude's arms unfurled and his arms fell to his sides. In Connor's opinion, he seemed to have a harder time holding onto his anger lately. "When it comes to this, I don't want you to give advice or bring it up first. I just want you to listen to me."

"I can do that. I'm a good listener, Jude."

"I know. What are you working on?"

"Poetry."

"Anything good?" Jude asked. "You promised to read to me, remember?"

"I remember." Connor picked up the course packet. "It's mostly been love poems so far."

"I don't mind hearing about love," Jude said. "Just because it doesn't work out for me doesn't mean it's not real."

Connor was glad that Jude still believed in love. It made him hopeful.

"Come sit up here and read to me," Jude invited, shifting his legs.

"Then we eat dinner."

"Then we eat dinner," Jude agreed. "Come here, ba –" Jude grimaced. "Come here, please."

It also made Connor hopeful that Jude was still making that mistake, but he didn't know if that would just come back to hurt him in the end. He pushed himself up on the couch, spreading the booklet across his lap.

"Um. This one is by Lang Leav. It's called Afraid To Love," Connor said, feeling self-conscious as Jude turned the TV off and focused completely on him. "I turn away and close my heart – to the promise of love that is luring. For the past has taught to not be caught, in what is not worth pursuing – To never do the thing I've done that once had led to my undoing."

"Rhymes make things seem nicer, don't they?"

"Yes," Connor agreed, "but at lot of these don't rhyme."

"That's okay. Read me some more?"

"Sure. I've got five or six short ones left," Connor said, turning the next page and trying to count quickly.

Jude nodded and Connor slowly started to read again. He worked his way through the rest of the poems quickly. The first four were about love, one was about a cat, and then, the last one, was about love once more. He cleared his throat and glanced at Jude, who had gotten closer during the readings, but not so close that Jude was resting against him.

"I'll throw my voice into the stars and maybe the echo of my words will be written for you in the clouds by sunrise. All I am trying to say is: I will love you through the darkness," Connor read slowly, the formatting of the poem keeping him moving at a snail's pace. "Christopher Poindexter."

Jude didn't have a comment for that one at all. Connor put the book down on the coffee table and faced Jude, who let out a little sigh before getting to his feet.

"Food. I promised."

Jude held out his hands and Connor stared at them. It took him a moment to realize that Jude was offering him help up. It had been so long since Jude hadn't been in the depths of sadness and had initiated physical contact. Connor slid his hands into Jude's large, warm ones and let Jude pull him up. Jude didn't back up and Connor nearly tipped into them. They were chest to chest, Jude's face close to his, and Connor's heart bled with want. He tightened his grip on the hand that he hadn't let go of.

"Those eyes," Jude murmured.

"Jude –"

Whatever Connor might have said was lost as his cell phone rang this time. Jude let go of his hand and walked off to the kitchen while Connor picked up his cell phone.

"Hi, Dad. How are you?"

"I'm doing good. How are you? How's your paranoia?"

"Dr. Scott and I keep talking about it. It's not as bad anymore. I still wear my hat outside most of the time. But the odds of him finding me are big. I know that. I just have to remember that."

"And how's Jude?"

"On the mend," Connor said, turning to watch Jude in the kitchen. He dropped his voice and whispered, "It's a long road."

"Grief is like that," Adam said. "How are you and Jude?"

"I'm not sure," Connor admitted. "But I think it's unfair of me to expect anything. I just want to be his friend."

"That's a mature way to look at it," Adam said. "I was calling to talk about your birthday."

"It's not that soon," Connor said.

"Connor, it's less than two weeks away."

Connor bit his lip. Right. He supposed that was quite soon. "What about it?"

"I was thinking that you should go out for a nice birthday dinner. Take the card I gave you, okay? It'll be a gift from me on your birthday. You and Jude could go out, you could even take Jake and Amy if you wanted to."

"Dad, I told you that I haven't talked to Jake in a long time."

"That doesn't mean you can never talk to him again," Adam said. "Sometimes people need breaks for personal reasons. I thought you'd realized that you can't hide from life."

"I know, but, I'm just not there yet. He doesn't know about my past or anything. I don't think it'd be fair to make him get involved. And, you know, if something happened, if I were to be found, Jake might not see a problem with telling anyone where I was. Jude wouldn't say anything."

"Think about it, anyway. I still think it would be nice if you and Jude, at least, went out somewhere. I want you to do something nice for your birthday, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you, Dad."

"Have a nice night, Connor, I love you."

"You too."

Connor hung up his phone and placed it next to Jude's on the coffee table.

"What was that about?"

Connor explained, walking into the kitchen to pour drinks to go with the plates Jude had prepared.

"I forgot your birthday was so close," Jude said, and he really did sound apologetic about it.

"It's okay, Jude. It's not like you had any reason to try and remember and you've been going through a lot lately."

Jude's hands stilled over the potato salad he was covering. "Connor, I'd say we're sort-of friends, wouldn't you?"

"Yes," Connor whispered, and he sounded breathless. "I mean, I'd like to think so. We're … Um, we're more than strangers, aren't we?"

"Yeah." Jude gently nudged his shoulder against Connor's in a casual, familiar, intimate-feeling gesture. "So, your birthday?"

"We don't have to do anything," Connor said. "It's just another day."

"No, it's your birthday and you made a big deal out of mine."

"We were dating then."

"It's not like I stopped caring about you the minute you left," Jude said, passing Connor his plate. "That's the worst part. Life would be a lot easier if I had."

"I wouldn't be standing here if you had."

"No," Jude agreed, and, though Connor hadn't been expecting him to deny it, he had underestimated how much it hurt to really hear it.

"Do you still –"

"Yes, but I don't want to and I really don't want to talk about it," Jude said. "But I need someone and I can't burden my moms anymore. You're all I have left. For whatever that's worth," he added bitterly.

"I'm sorry."

"Sure," Jude said. "Let's eat."

Dinner was silent and the stool they left between them now felt like a canyon. Connor picked at his chicken, eating as Jude did.

"So," Jude said, "what would you like to do for your birthday?"

"Nothing special," Connor insisted. "It's just a day."

"No food you want? Nowhere you want to go?"

Connor shook his head. "I would … would like to spend it with you."

"For sure. So, why don't you let me find somewhere? Let me do some planning?"

"You don't have to do that."

"I know," Jude said. He met Connor's eyes. "Is it okay if I want to?"

"Thank you, Jude."

"Something with cake," Jude said. "A good birthday should always have cake."

"That sounds about right."

Connor couldn't look away from Jude's face. He wanted to reach over, hold their hands together, hug him until his arms cramped from being in the same position for so long. He had to put it away. He had to not feel it anymore. But, even after barely a week in Jude's apartment, that was becoming more and more impossible to do.

"Just trust me, okay?"

"I do. You know I do."

"What if nothing I knew about you is true?"

"It all was, except for those texts."

"I need time to figure that out."

"You can have whatever you need. I just want to be here for you. If it doesn't work out, then I'll always be sorry about it, but I won't ever blame you for it."

"Just words," Jude said.

"It's all about words."

"Three, specifically," Jude said.

It wasn't until he was lying in bed that night, Jude already asleep and tangled in his blue comforter, that Connor figured out what Jude was talking about.

I love you.

(-.-)

Jude woke the next morning, his heart pounding in his chest. He'd been dreaming about Callie and about being in the car when the car accident happened. He'd been in the backseat, unable to do anything, unable to save her. He had just sat and watched. But when the windshield broke, he startled awake, just as he always did and grabbed onto Connor, who was still sleeping. Connor wrapped his arm around Jude.

"Nightmares?" he asked, voice thick with sleep.

"Yes," Jude said, and he hid down inside the blanket, hiding his head against Connor's side.

"It's okay, I've got you."

It wasn't okay. It would never be okay. Okay wasn't a word that applied anymore. But Connor's reassurance helped.

"I hate how every morning I have to wake up and remember that it happened all over again," Jude said. "Why isn't it just a bad dream?"

"I don't know. It should be."

Callie deserved to live. She hadn't done anything. She had just been trying to help. He tried to push the tears down. He had felt like he'd been crying for a month straight and the pain was still so real, but he thought that it might be time to try to stop, to try and deal with it in a different way than breaking down. He wasn't sure what that different way was but, one thing he knew for sure, is that Callie wouldn't take anything lying down. She would be strong, putting one foot in front of the other, and he had to try and do that. He had to try and be more like her. She had been his role model for his entire life and now he had to live up to the standards that she had set.

He had to live on, but that was easier said than done.

He poked his head out of the blanket, his head resting on Connor's arm. He felt Connor's hand in his hair, like Connor remembered how much he liked it and how it made him feel better. Connor probably did remember, but Jude still wasn't sure if he wanted him too. Just because he still felt for Connor didn't mean that he wanted to be with him again. How could he do that when he felt like he couldn't trust him?

Could he trust him?

Jude closed his eyes. It was too much to deal with at once and he just felt so tired.

"Go back to sleep, Jude," Connor said. "There's still time."

He had been so careful not to fall asleep in Connor's arms, though Jude always put himself there when he did his usual two a.m. wake-up. Now, Jude didn't care, and he turned, his head on Connor's forearm and his back against Connor's side. Behind him, Connor hesitantly shifted around until he was spooned against Jude's back, his head tucked down against Jude's head, and it felt like it used to. It felt like nothing at all had changed.

"Is this okay?"

"Yes," Jude answered.

Connor's arm slid around his waist and it felt like a puzzle piece dropping into a place, like something becoming whole. It brought a sense of peace to Jude's broken heart and another tear slipped from his eye. He didn't know what to do at all.

One foot in front of the other, he reminded himself. It was the only way to survive now.

(-.-)

Connor slid the casserole he'd made into the oven and shut the door, turning to look in the fridge. He'd spent his Saturday focusing on the strawberry dessert he'd made for Jude and he tonight, thinking that it would cheer Jude up, even a little bit. There wasn't a lot to it, it just needed a lot of time to sit but it looked ready.

The door opened and Jude walked in.

"Hey, how was work?"

"Today felt hard," Jude said. "One of those days."

He kicked off his shoes and went straight to the couch, not even bothering to change out of his work shirt. He collapsed onto the cushions and kicked his feet up on the other end of the couch. Connor crept out of the kitchen and leant on the back of the couch.

"Can I help?"

"I don't know, Connor. I just want to be able to be happy about something but I don't have anything to be happy about."

Connor reached his hand down and gently touched Jude's forearm. Jude's hand grabbed onto his own.

"Anything," Jude said. "I want to be happy about anything, even if it doesn't last."

Connor remembered what it felt like to be in that place. He remembered thinking the same thing, his mind on his mother and everything he had lost.

"Want to have dessert before dinner?" Connor suggested. "Or dessert for dinner?"

Jude used his free hand to wipe at his eyes, though Connor couldn't see any tears falling. "Do you think that's really going to work?"

"It can't hurt to try, can it?"

"No," Jude agreed. "I guess it can't."

"Besides," Connor added softly, "it's your sad day rule."

Connor paused and watching Jude's face for a moment, just to make sure that Jude also remembered what he was talking about. When he saw that small smile and glimmer of recognition, he turned and hurried back to the kitchen, collecting the large mixing bowl from the fridge and two large spoons. It was too much and it was too decadent for the two of them to finish off in one sitting, but he figured that it didn't matter quite so much right now. He circled around to the couch and Jude had sat up, allowing him space to settle on his usual part of the couch. He offered Jude a spoon.

"Looks good, babe."

Connor didn't know if Jude just hadn't noticed his slip up or if he had really decided not to care anymore, and he hoped it was the latter. He hoped it meant something, but he didn't comment on it. He just offered Jude a spoon and Jude gently clicked the metal against Connor's own spoon.

"Cheers?" Connor said and the smallest smirk washed over Jude's face.

"Cheers."

Jude dug his spoon into the side of the bowl. He fit it into his mouth and picked up the remote, turning the TV on and letting the same channel they'd nearly fallen asleep watching last night start to play again. It was another reality show, this one about athletes trying to battle their way through an impossible looking obstacle course.

Jude took his second bite.

"What do you think?"

"I think it wasn't the worst idea in the world," Jude said. "It does make me feel kind of better."

"Good, I'm glad."

"You don't have to sound so awkward around me. You can talk to me like you used to."

"I think I do," Connor said. "I just think you've stopped finding it quirky or endearing."

"I don't know if that's true. I guess I just miss how things used to feel because I was happy. Everything felt right."

On the table, Jude's phone began to ring. Jude shifted the bowl into Connor's lap and turned it off and then he melded back against Connor, sliding Connor's arm around his shoulders. They sat and ate and it felt to Connor that it could be like it used to. He trailed his fingers across the bare skin of Jude's arm, sliding it up underneath the sleeve of his shirt.

Jude let out a soft snort. "That kind of tickles."

"Sorry."

Jude dipped his spoon into the dessert again and held it up to Connor's mouth. "You haven't been eating a lot of this. Trying to make me fat?"

"No, but you could probably gain some weight again."

"Are you saying I look bad?"

"No," Connor said. "I wouldn't think that but, um, it doesn't necessarily make you look better."

"Looks aren't really my focus right now."

"Maybe they should be," Connor said. "It wouldn't hurt to focus on something else, you know? It doesn't mean you don't care about what happened or that you've forgotten. You're allowed to think about other things."

"I know."

Connor moved Jude's thin hair out of his eyes. "You could start with a hair cut."

Jude let out a laugh and it sounded genuine. The sound lifted Connor's heart, made him feel like he could take off flying. He had forgotten just what Jude's real laugh sounded like.

"It's not so bad to smile, is it?"

Jude looked up at him, a slight smile on his face still. He didn't reply, but he lifted his spoon to Connor's lips again. Connor took the bite off the end.

"It's not so bad to eat some of the dessert, is it?" Jude asked.

"No, it's not."

"Neither's smiling," Jude said.

Jude put his head back against Connor's shoulder, snuggling in. Connor held onto him and rested his head against Jude's, inhaling the scent of him.

"I'm going to change the channel," Jude said. "I can't watch this while eating strawberries and whip cream."

"And Jell-O," Connor added.

Jude chuckled softly. "Even more reason to change it."

"Let's watch something funny," Connor suggested. He thought it might cheer Jude up, even just temporarily, and he wanted to hear Jude laugh again.

"Let's see what there is," Jude said.

He kept channel surfing and Connor let his hand slip further down Jude's body until he had an arm around Jude's waist. Jude dropped his spoon in the dessert bowl and dropped his hand on top of Connor's. Connor thought he was going to be pushed away, but, instead, Jude drew his arm tighter around his body so they were snuggled together. Connor never wanted to move again.

The chapter's title is after the song Safe by Katie Armiger. If you have a song that reminds you of Barefoot And Bruised and would like it to be on the playlist – and possibly a chapter title – send it in and let me know! I'd love to hear your playlist suggestions! (Chapter titles are mostly chosen via shuffle.)

So, on tumblr I'm: we are all of legend now (with dashes between every word). If you want to find my replies to anon reviews, add backslash tagged backslash anon dash replies. If you want to see anything I post about Barefoot And Bruised, go to my tumblr URL and add backslash tagged backslash barefoot dash and dash bruised dash. Punctuation is spelled out due to Fanfiction's restrictions. If you're having any trouble accessing the tumblr content please send me a pm and I can format it for you in a different way.

~TLL~