They didn't say "I love you."

Tommy thought it all the time, sometimes thought it near constantly when he was with Jude, but somehow this seemed like a barrier they couldn't cross yet, a major part of the boundary that defined "taking things slow." So he didn't say it when she sang, when she made him laugh, when she curled up next to him in bed with her head on his chest. He didn't say it when she talked him down, kept him from tearing all the pages out of his notebook in frustration and giving up on the idea of a solo album altogether. He didn't say it when they made love and it felt like the words would come bursting from his chest. Instead he just kissed her or he said "you're so beautiful" or "thank you" or he just said her name, breathed "Jude" like the word was sacred.

In the end, it just slipped out. He was leaving for a meeting with Nora to pitch his album, and he was running late because he couldn't find his cell phone. Jude called "found it!" from his bedroom and quickly came back down the hall. "It was under the bed," she said as she held it out to him. "Must've fallen off the nightstand and gotten kicked under there."

He gave a sigh of relief. "Oh god, thank you, you just saved my ass." He took it from her and put it in his jacket pocket. He looked over at the clock and muttered, "Damn, I'm gonna be late."

"You'll be fine, traffic isn't bad," she reassured him. "You're sure you don't want me to come with?"

"No, I got it. I want to do this myself."

Jude nodded. "Okay. Good luck. Call me after?"

"Yeah, of course. First thing."

She smiled. "I'm proud of you."

He laughed as he grabbed his travel mug of coffee from the counter and sing-songed, "Condescend-ing."

Jude laughed too. "Shut up."

As he walked by her, he leaned down to give her a quick kiss. "Love you."

"Love you too."

He was halfway to the door before he realized what they'd just said. He turned back to look at her. She'd realized it too, and was staring at him with her eyebrows raised. He gave a little laugh. "Sorry."

She shook her head. "It's fine."

"I know we… kind of haven't said that yet since we got back together, it just slipped out. Habit."

Jude nodded. "Yeah, me too. No worries."

"Okay." He started to turn back to the door before saying "Wait," and turning back around. "I know we're trying to… take it slow, or whatever, and I may not have meant to say it, but I did mean it. Jude, I love you." He said it pointedly, as meaningfully as he could. "I never stopped loving you. I couldn't– I will never stop. You don't have to say it back, but it's–"

"Tommy," she cut him off with a laugh, walking up to him and putting a hand on the side of his face. "I love you too. Always have, always will." His face broke into a smile and he leaned down to kiss her, threading the fingers of his free hand through her hair. She pulled back after a moment and said, "Babe, you're late."

"Ah, dammit," he muttered, pulling away and heading for the door again. When he had it open he turned back to her and said, "Hey."

She looked back at him and raised her eyebrows. "What now?"

He smiled. "I love you."

Jude rolled her eyes, but she was grinning ear to ear. "I love you too." She laughed when he just stood there smiling at her. "Go, you giant sap!"

He held up a hand. "I'm going!" He shut the door behind him and walked to the elevator.

Just as the elevator doors opened, he heard Jude's voice from behind him call, "Tommy!" He turned around, expecting her to be holding up something he'd forgotten, but instead she just called, "I love you!"

He laughed. "Now who's the giant sap?" He got in the elevator and pushed the button for the main lobby, the sound of Jude's laughter carrying down the hallway and making him smile.

… ... … ... …

"I cannot do this anymore!" Jude cried.

Tommy spit his mouthwash out into the sink and poked his head out of the bathroom to look at her. "Can't do what anymore?"

She turned to look at him. "This thing where half of my stuff is at my place, but the other half is here, so I never have anything that I need when I need it. It is so frustrating. I can't do this. This is not working."

"What did you forget? Do we need to stop by your place on the way to the studio again?"

"No, it's just eyeliner." She sighed and shook her head. "It's not a big deal, but the stupid makeup isn't the point. The point is that this happens every goddamn day. I've started buying two of everything. I have two toothbrushes, two phone chargers… I'm living in two apartments, and I can't do it anymore."

A crease formed between Tommy's eyebrows. "Are you saying you want to stop staying over?"

"No," Jude sighed, walking over to him. "No, no, of course not." She stepped closer to him, putting her hands on his chest and looking up at him. He wrapped his arms around her waist and she leaned in closer. "I love waking up to you," she whispered. He smiled and leaned in to kiss her. When they broke apart she pulled away again. "I'm just saying I can't do this living in two places at once thing. It's driving me crazy."

Tommy raised his eyebrows. "What are you suggesting?" he asked it tentatively, not wanting to jump to conclusions.

"I'm saying… I can't remember the last night we spent apart. When was the last time we even drove separately to work? Tommy, we're basically living together, we're just doing it in two places instead of one."

He smiled. "Is this you asking me to move in?" It was funny, he realized, that they'd never actually had this conversation before. When they'd first gotten back together after Jude's engagement to Alex ended, Tommy had moved out of his London apartment before they left for tour, let the short lease expire without much of a conversation about it at all, at least as far as he could remember. It had somehow just been a given that he'd move in with her. Ironic that it was now, almost two years and a baby later, that they were finally having this classic relationship conversation for the first time.

But Jude surprised him by shaking her head. "No."

Tommy frowned. "So you want to move in here? I mean, that's fine with me, but it's further from the studio, and your place has a nicer–"

She shook her head again, cutting him off. "No."

"Then I'm confused. You don't want to move in together?"

"No, I do. I just think we should get a place together. You moved in with me before, and we've just… never really had a place that's totally ours, you know?"

He smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds perfect. So you want to go apartment-hunting some time?"

Jude hesitated. "What if… maybe we could get a house? Instead of an apartment?" Tommy raised his eyebrows, surprised, and Jude bit her lip for a second, then said, "I know it'd have to be a lot farther from work and everything, but we've talked about it before."

"Yeah…" Tommy said slowly. "But that was sort of different. I mean, that was because of Caroline. We started talking about it when you were…" His eyes widened. "Wait, Jude, you're not–"

"No, no," she said quickly. "But… I don't know. Maybe someday?"

Tommy laughed in surprise. "What happened to taking things slow?"

"I'm sick of slow." She leaned back against the door frame, wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him against her. "It's been almost four months since you've been back. I don't want slow, I want to move forward." She saw his eyebrows shoot up and clarified. "I'm not saying I want a baby, I am definitely not saying that. It hasn't even been a year since Caroline died. I'm not saying I'm ready, not by a long shot, I'm just saying… I want to take a step in that direction, I guess? We took things slow for a while, and it was what we needed to do, but I feel like we've been acting like… like we're still not sure this is going to last, you know?" There was still a slight crease between Tommy's eyebrows, but he reached out and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and nodded slowly. She continued, looking up into his eyes. "Tommy, I'm ready to be sure."

Tommy smiled. "I've been sure for a long time, girl."

"You know what I mean."

He nodded, leaning down to kiss her. When he pulled back he grinned at her. "Okay, yeah. Yeah, let's do it. Let's buy a house."

… ... … ... …

Jude was sitting on their new kitchen counter, humming along to the radio as Tommy tried to figure out which of their poorly-organized moving boxes contained dishes. She swung her legs where they hung over the edge and smiled, amused as she watched him muttering to himself in frustration. When he finally pulled a glass out of the box, he gave an "aha!" and unwrapped it from the bubble wrap, setting it on the counter. After he'd unpacked a few, he picked them up and walked around to put them in the cabinet. As he passed her, Jude stuck out her leg, brushing her foot against him as he passed. "Hey!" he protested, looking over at her and moving out of her way. Jude laughed and Tommy rolled his eyes. "You know," he said as he placed glasses into the cabinet, "you could help me with this."

"I could," she agreed, making no move to get off the counter.

Tommy turned back to her, raising his eyebrows, and when she didn't move, just grinned at him, he rolled his eyes again, though a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You're useless." He shook his head, laughing a little as he did.

"I'm here to encourage you!" Jude joked. "I'm providing moral support."

"Oh, very helpful," he said sarcastically.

"No need to thank me." She laughed as he rolled his eyes at her again and walked back to the box, where he pulled more dishes out. Jude watched Tommy as he unwrapped the dishes, singing along softly to the radio. She felt a rush of warmth as she watched him, and she looked around the kitchen, their new house, finally a place that was really theirs. Her heart squeezed as she looked back at Tommy, who was putting more glasses into the cabinet.

He looked back at her when he was done, and he raised his eyebrows when he saw her expression. "What?"

"Nothing," she said, surprised.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he asked with a little laugh.

"It's nothing," she repeated, shaking her head, but he raised his eyebrows farther. He walked up so he was standing in front of her, and put his hands on her knees, tilting his head questioningly. She shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just…" She glanced around at the kitchen before looking back to him, reaching out and linking her hands behind his neck, resting her arms on his shoulders. "I'm really happy." She was almost surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth, surprised at how true they were.

A slow smile spread across Tommy's face, and he reached out to put a hand on the side of her face, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "Yeah. Me too."

.

The End

A/N: Thank you thank you thank you so much for reading and reviewing. I kind of can't believe it's over! I was nervous to post this story because I worked so hard on it for so long, but I also knew it was a huge departure from the considerably lighter stories to which it is a sequel. It means a lot that I have gotten so many wonderfully supportive comments. Obviously when I started out the Instant Star fandom was about a hundred times larger than it is now, but I so value those of you who have stuck around with me as I continue to write exclusively fanfiction for a show that ended eight and a half years ago.

I did originally plan to write an epilogue to this story, which I may have mentioned. I worked with a ton of ideas, but the more I worked on it, the more I liked the idea of ending it here, with them having found their way back to one another and, more importantly, happy again. That, after all, is the story I was trying to tell when I began this whole crazy journey three and a half years ago.

That said, the lack of epilogue does not mean there will be a sequel. These stories are finished. I think that almost nine irl years, approximately four years of in-story time (from the beginning of Happy Birthday to the end of this story) and this much drama later, this version of Tommy and Jude deserve to keep their happily ever after. If you'll miss it terribly, though, follow my Happy Birthday Extras story. I don't have anything specific planned at this point, but I can't imagine these stories will let me go completely, so there should be new things there at some point. Maybe one day I'll stop writing Instant Star fanfiction, but I doubt that day will come soon. For some unexplainable reason, these characters still inspire me to write in a way nothing else does.

A thing I said I'd address at the end of the story: A couple reviewers throughout this story expressed the opinion that Jude and Tommy shouldn't end up together in the end, that there's a toxicity to their relationship. While I don't disagree that the relationship is dysfunctional, at this point in the stories (both the canon of Instant Star and these three Happy Birthday stories) there's no victory in them ending up apart. Fighting for years to stay together and then ultimately losing your relationship is a thing that happens in real life, of course, and that may have been the more realistic take, but ultimately that would be a crushing loss, not just of one another, but of years of wasted effort. Life is often sad that way, so that would be the more realistic story, but fanfiction isn't necessarily about being realistic. To me, regardless of whether it would be the more realistic, or even the healthier choice to have them end up breaking up and staying broken up, to write that as the ending would have felt like throwing away eight years of work on my part. The greater victory for Jude and Tommy as characters, but also in terms of catharsis for me and for you as readers, lies in them having found their way back to each other. Fanfiction isn't about realism. (If you actually prefer that, though, a more realistic take on the Jude/Tommy relationship without the "love conquers all" lens, I've got an upcoming story you might like, while everyone else probably won't, ha. I tried my hand at a more cynical take on my OTP, and it turned out okay, though I maybe am fighting an uphill battle with the premise. Anyway, keep an eye out for that in the next couple months or so. It'll be called "Closer" #selfplug)

Again, thank you so much for reading. I've really enjoyed reading your reviews and your perspectives, and yes, even the ones I've disagreed with fairly vehemently have been really interesting. An extra-special thank you to my friend and sometimes-beta Chloe (who apparently kept reading even when her bed had become a pool of her tears), to everyone who reviewed, and to all of you who have stuck with me and these stories since I was in high school. I seriously can't believe it's been this long!

–Kari

P.S.: If you have any questions or comments or things you want to talk to me about, my inbox is always open, both here and on tumblr (URL is asortoflight)