The first thing Jude heard was a guitar's strings flicking, fingers tapping the hollow wood of the shell with an imaginary drumbeat, to a song only those fingers knew. A gentle hum played along, the only thing disturbing it being the grim, rythmic beep of several heart monitors, all in different syncs from the last, creating an out of tune chant, echoing throughout the space he lie in.

Jude forced his eyes open after a few minutes past, a sudden light shinging into his unprotected eyes like fire. He turned his head.

"Welcome back." It was JoJo, though Jude only saw the corner of his shoulder, his dark hand on the arm of his lighten wood guitar, picking at the strings as though they were delicate flowers.

"Whahappenen?" His voice, to his surprise, is drunkingly slurred, and his tongue feels like it's covered with horse hair, heavy between his teeth.

JoJo snorts, not looking away from his guitar, "I'll tell you what happened, " he says, "if you wasn't bleeding from every hole you got, you would've been deported by now."

Jude let his head sink back into the pillow, a part of him wishing the stiff piece of fabric and old downy feathers would swallow him, "Deported?"

Jojo nodded, avoiding Jude's eye, "Found out you weren't legal. Soon as the doc gives the green light, your outta here."

Jude groaned, images of his barren, miniscule shack and the dirty, broken bottles littering the dirt roads in front, him in the diseased shipyard hoping he'd manage to keep a few fingers before he died flashing through his mind.

"Lucy?" he asked. She'd been there, he was sure, being dragged off by cops while he felt a stick wacking itself on the back of his head.

"Sadie just bailed her out. She's back a Paco's"

He let out his breath, which he hadn't realized he was holding. Alive. With Paco. He couldn't decide which he'd prefer.

"How long I been out, then?" Jude heaved himself to a near sitting position, leaning on his elbows, looking around the room. It was circuler, with beds lining it like circus plates, all filled with sleeping patients, some handcuffed to the bed railing.

He looked down. Yeah. Handcuffs.

"Little more then a day. Doctor says your free to go once you wake up."

Jude scowled, shaking his cuffed wrist for JoJo to see, "Yeah, I can hear the bird's of liberty singin' now."

Jojo looked up from his strumming to tilt his head at Jude, "You know what I mean."

Jude lay his head back on the stiff hospital pillow, staring at the stark white ceiling. "Yeah."

The strumming skipped a beat, and Jojo ducked his head. The light flickered, and another patient's coughing was the only noise to be heard. Jude saw his fingers on his guitar, stretching up and down, back and forth, as though unsure of the next note, "I should get the doctor."

"How's things with Sadie?" asked Jude, in an attempt to avert the subject.

The strumming started again, a sad mixture of heavy lows that seemed to darken the room, the mindset. "You know the answer to that, man."

How did it all fall so fast?

They sat in silence, listening to Jojo play the strings with a brutal honestly that he couldn't seem to convey himself, and the lights flickered, and it all seemed to fade to black.

Just like a movie.

A/N Contest. I had to include the sentence, "Just like a movie" somewhere, so....Sorry if it sucks. It's like, two in the morning,a nd I'm bored, and I got a D on a math test and I wanna cry right now.