Instant Star 1. Chapter 1

_**AN: I'm so sorry this took so long to get up! It's a bit shorter than I wanted it to be, but this is also the fifth re-write for this chapter! I hope you like! Let me know what you think! How many of you realize parts of the previous installment(s) led up to this? Enjoy!**_

**When You Say Nothing At All  
By: AnAmericanMom**

**Chapter One: Disaster Strikes**

Tom Quincy's brow furrows as his phone rings in the middle of a very important meeting with the lawyers involved with Jayden's case and Darius, who as always, was there to protect his family. He recognizes the number instantly as Speiderman's, his mind instantly thinking one thing; _Jude_. He stands, facing both gentlemen, interrupting Darius as he speaks in a worried tone. "If you two will excuse me a moment, I need to take this." The look he shoots Darius Mills, just before exiting the elaborate office, tells him everything he needs to.

He flips open his phone, taking a deep breath, as he puts it o his ear and answers, "What's wrong?"

He can feel his entire world shattering as, his lung constricting as he fights to breath, listening with wide steel blue eyes to the teen rambling quickly on the other end of the phone. He waits, until the boy is completely finished and out of breath to say anything at all, "What exactly does it say?" He flops down into the nearest chair in the reception area, oblivious to the few occupants it has and the bewildered secretary. He doesn't even notice every single person jump as his free hand, balled into a fist, slams down hard on the arm of the chair he occupies.

His tone is livid when he finally speaks again, hushed words whispered into the receiver of the small black cell phone. "Yes, that's exactly what I think Kwest. Get back to the house, now, to hell with the speed limit Kwest. I mean it. Darius can fix any trouble it causes later. I'll be on the next flight home." He twists his fingers, snapping the small bit of plastic closed with a loud crack, in the same moment he's standing, storming back into the lawyer's office and interrupting them once again.

* * *

Speid's on the front porch steps when Kwest comes screeching to a halt in the driveway. Kwest climbs out of his sedan in record time, slamming the door shut and locking it as he quickly closes the distance between himself and Speid. "Anything?" He asks, completely out of breath.

Speiderman shakes his head as he answers sullenly, "Not yet. Quincy called back though, said he'd be here in a couple hours. Darius is flying him out on the jet. Actually, he should already be on it."

"Good. Listen, Speid, this isn't your fault. There's nothing you could have done."

"I guess. I mean, I know… But, she's my best friend, my sister…"

"She's my sister too. Shit, that's the phone." Kwest moves around Speid, darting into the house and snatching up the phone. "Hello?"

He feels his blood suddenly run cold when the voice on the other end of the line comes through, husky and bitter. He swallows, listening to the familiar voice, trying his best to remain calm for Speid's sake as well as for all those involved. "Look, T's coming back, we'll pay anything… Just… She's sick man, don't do this…" His fists clench, listening carefully and remaining as composed as possible. He starts to say something further, only to have the line suddenly go dead on him, hearing Jayden's soft cries in the background.

"Was that?" Speid asks, carefully.

"Yes. I don't think this is going to be as easy as we thought, money won't be able to fix this…"

"You seriously thought money would?"

Kwest shrugs, "We'd both hoped it would, yes. Where's the note?"

* * *

Her lungs burn with every breath she takes, feeling as if her internal organs are literally on fire. Her eyes even seem to burn a little, fiery red lashes fluttering against her pale cheeks before her eyes open. She can hear muffled sounds of a man speaking in the distance, the voice sounding familiar, though she doesn't take the time right now to worry about that. As soon as her eyes open and focus, she looks around the room, realizing instantly she's not bound to the bed she's lying on. She rolls to one side, spotting Jayden who appears to not have woken up yet.

No sooner has she rolled over look at him though, the shifting of her weight triggering it, the four year old begins to cry out, terrible panicked, frightened, sobs. She scoots towards him; glad whoever has taken them didn't bind them, and actually placed them together, making it easy to pull the sobbing child to her chest despite her weak state. "Shh, it's okay, Jay. It's going to be all right."

"Jude!" He cries, turning to wrap his small arms around her neck tightly, burying his tear soaked face into her neck as she shushes him. "I wanna go home!"

"I know, I know… Don't worry, Tommy will get us out of here, I promise." She glances around the windowless room, realizing now, that's why whoever has taken them didn't bother to bind them. There's only one door, and she can almost guarantee it's locked.

It's then that the door to the room opens, shutting just as quickly, a lock slipping into place, the man finally turns to face them with a lazy smile on his familiar features. She tilts her head slightly to the side, her bright blue eyes narrowing slightly as she studies the man approaching them. "Is that… Hunter?"

He chuckles, the sound instantly grating on her nerves only to get worse as he begins to speak, "I'm honored, Jude, to see that you remember me after all these years."

"Why are you doing this?"

"Such a stereotypical question, I think I'm a little insulted. No matter. You're a smart girl, can't you figure out why I might have done this?"

"Hunter… It's been five years. Besides, what good is taking Portia's son going to do? She locked up or in rehab or something, she won't even know!"

He laughs, openly, as he sits down on a chair across from the bed, lounging back against it as he folds his hands across his stomach. "What happened to Tom's intelligent little minx? You've always been the single most import part of his life. Just like my sister was mine. It's their fault I have nothing now and it's high time they paid a price for that, don't you think? Besides, revenge is no fun when it's too quick."

She winces, something about the look in his cold eyes sends shivers down her spine, she clutches Jayden tighter to her, one arm wrapped around him while the other comes up to cradle his head to her chest. "Just let him go. If you wait until everyone's asleep, you can put him back in the house and no one will be able to find you. He's just a baby…"

"You don't seem to understand though, Jude. I need him here as much as I need you. You have been the most important part of Tom's life since you stepped into it, but now, there's also this little boy. Isn't there? He doesn't even know if it's his, and he's still as important to Tom as you. Funny, isn't it? Besides, wherever Portia is, the news will still get to her and it'll cut her all the more that she's powerless. She has to rely on her ex-husband, has to hope that regardless of what the tests conclude, that he'll still be important enough to save. She has to hope, locked away, that he's not willing to just let me keep him in exchange for you."

"Tommy would never do that! No matter who his father is!"

"You know that, and I know that, but do you honestly think she does? Did you know there's a chance he's mine?"

"You're lying."

"Oh, you're right, it's highly unlikely. Truly, the chances he," He pauses to nod his head towards Jayden, smirking as he watches her clutch the boy tighter to her chest, "Is Tom's. Portia and I were careful, and our opportunities to be together were far less frequent than his infidelity with my sister. Of course, I think you also had a little to do with his final decision, to break things off with her. I doubt you were aware of it at the time, but he's always been in love with _you_, just too stupid to realize it. After all, realizing you love someone so much younger, when she's too young to have a hope of returning the affection… It's a troublesome thing. The fact that no one, not even his _wife_, was as important to him as you should have told him something though. He should have left my sister the hell alone, like I told him to."

"You, obviously, know what really happened with the car. So, why are you still trying to punish Tommy for what happened?" She figures, the longer she keeps him talking, the better her chances of escape and the more time she can buy Tommy to find them if she can't get them out of here safely on her own.

"If he had stayed away from her, like I told him to, she would never have taken his car that night! If it weren't for _Little Tommy Q_, I'd still have my baby sister!" He nearly growls out Tommy's name, standing so quickly from the chair he knocks it to the floor behind him with a loud thud. He storms from the room, slamming the door shut behind him as he locks it again from the outside.


	2. Chapter 2

**When You Say Nothing At All  
By: AnAmericanMom**

**Chapter Two: Hanging On**

The relatively small room contains a single bathroom, cold cement floors, no windows, and very little furniture. The floors hold unknown stains that she often finds herself turning into images in her head to help pass the time while Jayden sleeps, or turns them into stories for him when he's awake. The bed they spend the majority of their time on is the only major piece of furniture, and the chair that Hunter always occupies when he comes in to harass her.

Their days, of which she is certain she's counted four of already, are spent alone. Each night, late she's certain, Hunter returns to further provoke the fiery temper she's always been known for. He bullies her, tries hard to tear down her confidence that Tommy will save her. After all, he's made clear his intentions. He wants money, yes, but he also wants to make Tommy and Portia suffer for the pain he believes they caused him. Eye for an eye, so she's reasonably certain he plans to either kill them himself or have someone else do it for him before everything is said and done.

She fights, with all the strength she has, to keep up her spirits and put on a brave face for the scared little boy currently asleep beside her. She idly toys with the charm bracelet encircling her wrist, silently recalling the memory behind each of the charms. Jude chuckles to herself, recalling as he tried each time to add the newest charm link to the bracelet only to have to hand it over to her, due to his lack of nails, to add the recent additions. The most recent had actually been from Darius. He had two very special charms made for her, one is a medical alert directly from the national corp. so that if she is ever hurt and unconscious they can look her up in the data base and find out her medical history, allergies, current medications -anything that may save her life. The other, is a circular disk, representing her first platinum record.

As always, turning her thoughts over to Darius starts her thinking of Portia and the situation D and Tommy were in when they were kidnapped in the first place. They had been in a meeting with the lawyers, trying to find out what the h0ld up has been on the paternity test to determine Jayden's father. To be honest, she's beginning not to have any need for the results herself. The more she spends time with the little boy, the more she can see Tommy in him. Then again, it could very easily be simply that he is picking up on the man's behaviors and personality from all the time they spend together. Ever since Jayden was introduced to her in the hospital, the three of them had become nearly inseparable. They had become a family. It no longer matters to her who the father is, it matters what is in Jay's best interest and she, along with everyone else, believes that is to remain with her and Tommy.

The only people who seem to have a problem with this is the legal system. They don't want to award custody to Tommy unless they have to, simply because of his involvement with a minor. It doesn't matter that the relationship, in many ways, is still innocent or that they have her father's blessing. No, the states wish to be difficult over the whole thing.

Jayden begins to stir beside her, whimpering as he always does before waking. This whole ordeal is terrifying, despite having Jude with him throughout it. She doesn't blame him for being frightened, of course, what small child wouldn't be? She begins to stroke his hair, leaning down to kiss his temple as she whispers soothing words to him, coaxing him awake in as peaceful of a manner as possible, given their circumstances.

* * *

_Four days, sixteen hours, twenty-seven minutes, and thirty-nine seconds. No, make that forty seconds._ Tommy counts to himself with his hands pressed between his knees as he sits in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the clock on the microwave. He's only vaguely aware of the others seated around the table, or standing along the counter around him. Kwest is beside him to the right, from there sits Speid, Kyle, Wally, and of course D. Standing behind them against the counter is Kat and even Jamie. No one dares to say a word about the bags beneath Tom's eyes, the fact he's not shaven once since he's returned, or even to the fact that he's not eaten a thing since they were taken. No one breathes a word of Jayden or Jude. Every person is too terrified it will set him off, or that they will fall apart with the mention of it.

Darius returned to Toronto the day following Jude and Jayden's kidnap, with Tommy arriving the day of. He had settled all that needed to be dealt with in regards to his nephew and arranged everything else to be dealt with once they were safely returned. But, that's the problem when dealing with someone who is quite possibly certifiable. What's the safest way to approach someone like that? As influential as Darius is, the many contacts he has, even he has limitations to what he can do, and everyone is just plain out of ideas. So, they wait. All of them gathered in her kitchen, waiting with baited breath for Hunter to call with instructions, demands, anything! All praying and hoping their loved ones will be fine and that neither Sadie nor Stuart will call to check in. No one has had the heart to tell either of them, to worry them.

The sound of a cell phone crying out into the silence breaks the spell over the kitchen, bodies begin to shuffle and change position as Darius' gruff voice answers the phone. "This had better be good news." The entire kitchen watches the dark skinned man as his eyes widen just a fraction, the way his nostrils flare. They all lean in, hoping to catch something, but then with a roll of his dark eyes he sets the phone on speaker and slides it to the center of the table before speaking again. "You're on speaker, say it again, Anderson."

"We've been trying for days to trace the last call, but this guy's exceptionally good. However, we've also been going over all the details everyone's provided us on her medical history, her physical appearance, all the tiny details that might be considered insignificant. That's when it clicked."

"What clicked?" Speid interrupts, as obviously agitated by the man's long winded explanation as the rest, but the only one willing to be rude and force the man to the point.

"In the report Mr. Mills filed with us he mentioned a little charm for a bracelet that he'd provided miss Harrison with shortly after the start of her chemo therapy. He gave her a medical alert charm, which he of course registered with the national database. What we didn't realize until today, and I'm sure Mr. Mills had forgotten this until now as well, but it also has a tracking device imbedded in the code. It is not only linked to the national database with all of her up to date medical information but can also be tracked. It's an extremely new bit of technology that only people in a position like Mr. Mills can even afford to consider when purchasing such little things as the charms or other medical ID tags."

"Does that mean you have found them or just that you can?" This time it's Tom's rough voice that interrupts Anderson on the phone in front of them all, his dull crystal blue eyes shimmering with tears of hope he won't dare shed in the presence of everyone else.

"We're in the process of running the trace right now. We should actually have a satellite location within the next… Ten minutes. From there, we just have to evaluate where they are located and the safest way in which to proceed. As you and Mr. Mills have both indicated, Mr. Quincy, this man is extremely dangerous and we want to approach this with every precaution to ensure their safe return. But, the fact that we can find them, tonight, is good news. We're that much closer to bringing them home to you. Has he made any contact with anyone recently?"

"No. He's drawing this out on purpose, to make sure that I suffer as much as possible. I know his ultimate goal is to kill them both, I know him. I know how his warped mind works, but he wants to try and leave me with some sense of hope for a while, to make it hurt more."

"Well, I will be in touch within the next couple of hours with further information. If you hear from Hunter, please, don't hesitate to call."

"Thank you." Darius, picks up the phone, flipping it shut and placing it back in his breast pocket as he claps a comforting hand on Tom's shoulder briefly. "This is good news, T. We're going to find them and bring them home safe."

* * *

_**AN: To all of the readers who have remained loyal and have anticipated this chapter. I apologize that it has taken me so very long to update! There's been a lot going on here between the holidays, starting a new job, going back to college, and of course being a mom! I hope that as my schedule begins to regulate itself and steady in the next couple of weeks that I will be more able to update! I do hope that this chapter is a start to make it up to all of you! I hope to have another one out, two if I'm lucky, by the middle of next week! I appreciate all of you sticking with me through all this delay! **_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note**_

_Well, I know I have been absent from my writing for more than a year now. Life and writer's block have thoroughly kicked my butt. However, after making an attempt to find fanfics to read myself… and stumbling across ones I really like, only to find out the author has abandoned them or at least not updated in a very long time… I figured I would add this to each of my WIP stories and see which of my pieces my readers are most interested in me updating first. The one with the most reviews or emails by August 4__th__, will be the one I work on first, and then the one with the second most reviews/emails, etc. So, whichever one of my pieces you are receiving this from, let me know if you're still reading and anxious for an update! Thanks!_

_An American Mom_


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Instant Star, Drama, Romance