9A/N: Oh hi there. I have so much homework I should be in disaster mode and frantically working. Instead I wrote this.
Set early-mid season four (like pretty much all my one-shots, ha) somewhere between "Changes" (4x03, which is the one with the house party) and "We Belong" (4x05, which is the one where Tommy finds out he has to go back to New Brunswick). What happens in the intervening episode is that their relationship goes public, and whether that's happened yet or not doesn't matter for the purposes of this story.
Tommy has always been a puzzle, a million scattered pieces of an ever-mysterious past. It used to intrigue Jude, and each little piece of himself he revealed felt like a prize she'd won, a precious gift he'd entrusted her with, something to link them like every stolen kiss and every look shared just with her that meant he loved her too, even when there were a thousand reasons they couldn't be together. She lived for the rare moments of openness, when he'd let her in a little more, and another puzzle piece would fall into place.
But now she's his girlfriend. Now that he's said the words "I'm not running," that he's told her he loves her, talked about forever and meant it, the puzzle isn't intriguing anymore, it's infuriating. He knows her inside and out, and sometimes she can't help but feel like she doesn't know him at all. Every bit of his past he withholds is just another barrier between them, another reason to fear he'll never really be hers. She tries to be understanding, tries to tell herself he's just a very private person, that it's hard for him to be open, even with her, and just because they're together now doesn't mean that part of his personality will change overnight. She tries to believe it's not a reflection of how much he cares, but sometimes…
These thoughts are already weighing on her mind when he says it. They're sitting on his couch, about to watch a movie, and Jude is eating M&Ms. Tommy takes one from her and casually says, "When my brother was little he wouldn't eat the yellow ones."
It's a completely innocuous comment, but it hits a nerve that's already raw. Jude's head snaps up, and she sets the candy down. "Wait, what?"
"He said he didn't like them." Tommy shrugs. "We told him the colors don't actually change the flavor, but he was pretty insistent about it for a while. Kids are weird." He sees her face and frowns. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"You have a brother?"
"Um… yes?"
"You have a brother," she repeats, the anger building in her by the second.
"Uh, yeah, a half-brother. So?" He raises his eyebrows at her.
"I cannot believe, after all this time…"
"Okay, what the hell, Harrison?"
"You've never told me!" she cries.
Tommy is looking at her incredulously. "Never told you what?"
Jude stands up from the couch. She's aware that she sounds crazy, but this fight has been brewing in her for a long time now, and this is the last straw. "I never knew you had a brother! All of the time we've known each other, all of the time we've been together, and I didn't have any idea."
"Jesus, Jude, so what?"
"That's such a fucking basic thing to know about someone, and I had no clue!"
Anger overtakes confusion in Tommy's expression. "Okay, you need to calm down, because clearly you have lost it."
"Do not tell me to calm down," she hisses. "You know literally everything about me, Tommy!" She laughs once, hard and sharp. "And you certainly know my sister."
He stands up too, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're really gonna bring that up, Jude? Seriously?"
"I'm sorry, is the topic off limits? Did you want me to have forgotten about the fact that you and Sadie–"
He cuts her off. "It was years ago!"
"Barely a year and a half!" she retorts.
"Whatever! You can't tell me you're mad at me for–"
"For having sex with my sister?"
"You were sixteen, Jude!"
"So you decided to date my sister? That doesn't make it any better!"
"What the hell is wrong with you?!" he cries. "Jesus Christ! If I had it to do over again, I'd make different decisions, but it's in the past! I thought we were past this. Sadie and me, we weren't right, we were never right, and I shouldn't've–"
"This is not about Sadie!" Jude shouts, cutting him off. "This is so not about Sadie. Believe me, I'm not wild about the fact that my boyfriend and my sister used to sleep together, but I'm past it. I don't care. That is not what this is about."
"Then what the hell is it about?!"
"You know me!" Her voice cracks a little as her eyes fill with tears. "You know everything about me, Tommy. You have every bit of me, and I still know nothing about you!"
Tommy's shaking his head as she speaks, and when she pauses he snaps, "You are not entitled to every piece of my past, Jude." The comment stings, and he must see it in her face, because he lowers his voice and his expression softens. "You do know me, okay? You don't need to know every detail of my past to know me."
"This was not some little detail, Tommy! I didn't even know you had a brother! That's the kind of thing you know about people! I am your girlfriend, Tom! When you love someone you don't keep huge pieces of your life from them!" She's shouting again, the tears beginning to fall.
"You need to calm down," Tommy says in a low voice. "You are acting completely insane, and I do not want to deal with this right now."
It's condescending and dismissive, and anger shoots through her veins like ice. Her expression hardens. "Fine," she says harshly. "Then don't." She turns on her heel and storms out of the room.
He gives a heavy sigh, but follows her, saying, "Jude, wait." She doesn't stop, and it's when her hand is on the doorknob that he says, "I haven't spoken to my brother in almost six years."
Jude stops and turns to look at him. "What?"
He speaks in a low voice. "The last time I went home, I was 18, on a break from a Boyz Attack tour. Tristan was 15, and I haven't seen him since. I don't have his number, or e-mail, or…" He shuts his eyes for a long moment, then sighs and says "Come on." He turns and walks to his bedroom, not checking to see that Jude is following. When they enter his room, he says, "sit," and gestures to the bed. She complies, and he goes to his closet, rooting around the top shelf for a moment before pulling out a shoebox. He brushes some of the dust off of the lid and opens it, looking through the contents until he finds what he wants. He comes over to the bed and sits next to her, handing her a photo. "This is my brother Tristan," he says, pointing to a cute freckle-faced kid with a wide, gap-toothed smile. "I think he was probably seven or eight."
Jude's eyes are drawn instead to the taller boy standing next to Tristan. His dark hair is disheveled, long enough to be in his eyes, and he's standing with his arms crossed, a frown on his face. "This is you?" Jude asks quietly, trailing her fingers over Tommy's image in the photo.
"Yeah," Tommy sighs.
"How old?"
"Eleven, I think?"
Jude studies the picture, the familiar face, those same blue eyes, and her heart clenches. "You look… sad."
She looks up at him in time to see the little flash of pain in his expression before he shrugs and says, "I wasn't a very happy kid." She wants desperately to ask why, and he must sense it, because he says, "Look, I don't talk to my family. I don't visit, I don't call, I don't write, and neither do they. That is why I don't talk about them. They're not in my life, and it–" he cuts off, shaking his head, and she wonders if he was about to say "it hurts."
She slips her hand into his and squeezes his fingers, nodding. "Okay."
He looks down at their clasped hands and says quietly, "I've been a lot of people I'm not proud of, Jude."
"I don't know what that means," she protests, though she keeps her voice calm this time.
"It means… there are going to be things about me you don't know. There just… are. Okay?"
Jude pulls her hand out of his. "No, Tommy, not okay. You can't keep things from me! You can't!"
"It's not like that!" he protests.
"The last time you wouldn't be honest with me about your past, it almost ruined us, Tom! I don't know if you remember the part where I got held hostage with a knife, but–"
"Don't throw that back in my face," Tommy snaps. "That is not fair."
He looks hurt, and she feels guilty immediately. "I'm sorry," she sighs.
"Look, I know okay? I know I messed up not telling you about Hunter." He looks down at his hands and his voice gets quiet and strained. "Every time I think about what might have happened I–"
"Oh, babe, no." Jude puts her hand on the side of his face, turning his head to look at her. "No, no. I shouldn't have brought that up. All I meant was that I can't deal with you keeping things from me, not after that."
"This is not like that," he says adamantly. "Jude, I am trying." His voice cracks, and he pulls away from her, standing up and turning away from her with his hands linked behind his head. He takes a few deep breaths and then turns around again dropping his arms back to his sides. "I don't lie to you." He looks imploringly at her. "I told you I would be honest with you, and I am, I swear I am. But there's a difference between that, and…" he gives a frustrated sigh. "I don't talk about my family. To anyone. It has nothing to do with you."
"I'm your girlfriend, Tommy!" she protests. "I deserve to know you!"
"And you do!" he insists. "That's what I'm trying to tell you! Jude…" He sighs again. "My past is not me, okay? There are things I don't talk about, but it does not mean you don't know me."
"How can you say that? How can you say you're honest with me and then keep things from me? You can't have it both ways!"
"Why are you doing this?" He looks almost betrayed.
"Because I'm scared!" she blurts out.
He raises his eyebrows. "Of what?"
"Of… I don't know." Jude shrugs, embarrassed, looking down at the carpet. "I feel like… you don't want me to know you, and I'm worried it's because…" She sighs and mumbles, "Because you think this isn't gonna last."
Tommy lets his breath out in a whoosh. "Oh, Jude…" he sighs, all of the anger and irritation gone from his voice. He kneels on the carpet in front of her, brushing the hair out of her face with one hand and gently making her look at him. "Girl, no. It is nothing like that."
"You don't trust me," she whispers, her eyes filled with tears again.
"Of course I trust you. Jude, I love you." He sighs again. "Look. I don't talk about my past with you or with anyone, but it has nothing to do with trust, okay? It's just that… There are things I don't like to think about. There are things that I've done, people I've been, and I just… I don't want to relive them. I don't want to be the person I was before I met you. I want to move on, and I want to do it with you, and that's because I know this can last. Don't you ever doubt that."
"I just want to know you," she says quietly, a few tears escaping her eyes. She puts a hand on the side of his face. "I just want to be able to believe that I know you."
"You know me," he insists. "You get me, I mean it. More than anyone else ever has. I haven't always been a good guy, Jude, but look. When I am with you," he speaks slowly and deliberately, "that's when I can be the man I should be, and that is the person I want you to know." He leans up closer to her, stroking her face gently. His eyes are pleading. "That needs to be enough."
The speech finally wears her down, her heart breaking open at the sincerity. She pulls his face towards hers and kisses him passionately. He responds enthusiastically and with more than a hint of relief, managing to stand up without breaking the kiss, and pushes her back onto his bed.
She feels a twinge of something, something nagging at her. He basically admitted to a dark past, and a Tommy he doesn't want her to know. The last time he gave her that line, about being the man he should be, it was before everything with Hunter. She starts to worry again, worry that some day the past he won't tell her about is going to sneak up and she'll be caught in another web of his lies, that the fact that he can't trust her to love him for his past self too will tear them apart again one day, and probably sooner than later. But his lips are on her neck now, his fingers undoing the buttons of her shirt, and the thought slips from her mind as he murmurs, "I love you," into her skin. She runs her fingers through the hair of the man who used to be the sad little boy in the photo, and she lets it be enough.
A/N: This idea has been in my head for a while, regarding how much about Tommy's past Jude really learns over the course of them dating in Season 4. I think that if they'd already had this fight the way it unfolds in this story, the course of the episode We Belong would actually be a little different. But hey, that's why it's fan fiction and not canon.
I also snuck in the stuff about Sadie because goddamn, that has to be so awkward, knowing your boyfriend and your sister used to sleep together, and I think a lot about whether that would have come up at all between Jude and Tommy in early season four. Obviously it's not something they'd be eager to think about, but I kind of like the idea that it's sometimes in the back of Jude's mind, and that when she gets angry enough at Tommy for old grievances to surface with the new ones, it's something she'd throw in his face in the heat of the moment. The thought process behind all my stories could pretty much be boiled down to "Jommy is my OTP five-ever, but their relationship is suuuuuuuuuuper unhealthy and I'm sad about it."
Anyway, I have to go back to analyzing Holocaust literature now instead of a teen drama from the mid-2000s. Reviews, as always, are very appreciated (especially as the Instant Star fandom dwindles. It's starting to get lonely around here!)
