1"My arms were made to hold you,
So I will never let you go
Cause you were born"
"And here I thought I was the only girl you sang for anymore," Jude said softly. She leaned against the doorframe, wrapped in a terrycloth robe, eyelids heavy from sleep. She had woken to a half-empty bed and followed his voice down the hallway until she found him.
"Sorry, Big Eyes. You're gonna have to share that privilege from now on," Tommy grinned up at her.
"With her? I think I can get used to that." Jude responded. She moved to sit beside him on the bench. She tucked her head against his back, so she was able to look over his shoulder and reached a hand toward the bundle in his lap. "How is she?" The baby blinked up at them, wide-eyed and alert.
"She's fine. She woke up maybe twenty minutes ago. I think she was hungry."
"You could have woken me up. I would've-"
"Girl, relax," he chuckled, "you need the extra sleep."
"No, I'm fine."
They sat there quietly for a few moments, staring at their little girl, reveling in her very existence. There were so many times throughout their lives together that had made them wonder if they would ever reach this point. Tommy felt like he had built up too much bad karma with the mistakes of his youth to ever deserve something so perfect to watch over.
"She's so beautiful," he said, tracing a finger over her cheek. He leaned back and kissed Jude gently. "Like her mama."
Jude smiled back at him. "She'll have all the boys after her," she said teasingly, "or girls."
"Oh!" Tommy scoffed, "that will be the end of me for sure."
"Just wait until she's 15 and in love with her 22-year-old producer."
His eyes went wide and he blew out a breath. "Remind me to apologize to your dad again. For the rest of our lives."
Jude chuckled quietly. The baby gurgled in response. "Is there more to it?" She asked with a yawn.
"Hm?"
"The song."
He smiled and chuckled quietly. "Some."
"Can I hear it?"
"It's not finished."
"Tommy."
He looked down at his little girl and just marveled at the sight of her. "Hi, baby," he said softly. She yawned, bringing her little arms into her chest and then out again.
He looked at Jude then, his wife, the woman who was now the mother of his child, and thought about the gift she had given him, the incredible little person drifting in and out of his sleep in his arms. Who was he to deny her anything? "Okay."
He glanced at Jude again, then looked back at the baby and began to sing:
"Love your mother
Yeah, she's a good one
She'll build you armor,
Keep you warm as a hen
The stars may fall
The rains may pour
But I will love you evermore
Cause you were born
To make this right
Cause you were born
To chase the light
You were born"
He stopped, startled, when he felt Jude's tears hit his back. "Jude-"
"No, it's okay," she said as she dried her tears on his shirt, "I love it, Tommy. She's gonna love it."
"I love you."
She leaned around and kissed him. "I love you," she replied, running a hand over his cheek.
They watched the baby silently for a few minutes as she drifted back into a peaceful sleep. Tommy gingerly repositioned her into his arms and lifted her into the bassinet. Jude double-checked the monitor, then they both said their goodnights and tiptoed out of the nursery and back to their room to settle into bed together. Jude was almost asleep when he spoke again.
"You should record it," he said quietly.
"Tommy," Jude warned, sitting up to face him. She hadn't recorded anything professionally in some time, and she didn't intend to, especially now that they had a newborn. He knew that. She played still, even recorded raw and uncut using their home equipment, but she hadn't been with a label in a while. It was, at times, a sore subject between them.
He had the decency to look sheepish. "I know, I didn't mean it like that. Just…don't you think she'd like a song from her parents?"
He had been thinking often, since Jude told him she was pregnant, about his own parents. He had so much love and adoration for his infant daughter—he had since the moment he found out about her—that he couldn't begin to understand how his parents had treated him the way they had. His mother hated him; she never had a kind word for him. He had only felt a sort of guilty relief when she eventually died. As for his father, he had nothing from him but his name. No memories, no heirlooms, no idea what he even looked like, and Tommy didn't care to know. He couldn't imagine, and he would not allow, his little girl to ever feel that way. And there was no better way, for him or for Jude, to immortalize how they felt about her than in a song.
Jude eyed him warily, but her gaze quickly softened. He knew that she knew exactly what he was thinking. She always did. Still, she shook her head.
"It's your song to her, Tommy," she said gently, "not mine."
"It's not finished," he reminded her. He motioned to her nightstand, where she always kept a notebook filled to the brim with half finished song lyrics. "I know you've written for her too."
Jude sighed.
Of course she'd written about the baby. She and Tommy always dealt best with their emotions by channeling it into her music, just as he'd once advised her. He'd seen her sing little melodies to her growing bump throughout her entire pregnancy. He'd even occasionally thrown in a lyric or two when he heard her get stuck, and every night, he'd seen her write down whatever she'd come up with in her journals.
Finally, he watched her exhale a shaky breath.
"Okay," she said at last, "sing it again".
She scribbled down the lyrics he'd sung then frantically flipped through her mostly full journal, pausing at a certain page. She ran a thumb over the words. He watched, uncertain. "This might fit," she said finally, handing him the journal.
Tommy looked from the journal back to her, recognizing the significance of the lyrics she had shown him. "Yeah," he responded, voice thick with emotion, "this is perfect".
"I didn't know how to put it into words then. I don't think I could have," she said. "But now that she's here…"
"You're ready now?"
"Yeah. I'm ready now."
Jude's mom had died just two months before she was due. They were never that close. Jude and her dad had connected through music, but Victoria didn't have the same admiration for it. Then, Victoria had run off with her divorce lawyer, and her relationship with her daughter had fractured even more. They only really reconciled when Jude told her she was pregnant. Jude had told Tommy that she was looking forward to having her mother around. Her death had devastated Jude, and he knew that the only thing that had pulled her through had been their little girl.
He watched as she closed her eyes. He felt like he could hear the words shifting in her head, molding to fit the melody he'd created, and when she began to sing, it was as if her lyrics had always been a part of his song, like the two pieces were always meant to come together. It was them.
"Oh my precious, oh my love,
When they come to take me
I will hold you from above
I don't know why we're here,
And I don't know how
But I'm here with you now,
I am here with you now
Cause you were born
To change this life
Cause you were born
To make this right
Cause you were born
To chase the light."
Author's Note: This ship has been my OTP for years. Every once in a while I fall back down the Instant Star rabbit hole and I have a fic or two come to mind for it. This is the result of the most recent spiral.
The song used is "You Were Born" by Cloud Cult. You may recognize it from an episode of How I Met Your Mother.
