As long as we both shall live [Tom Hiddleston]{EBT book 3 of 4}

Quarantine

Tom woke early the following morning and felt Kate's body snuggled in to his. It took a few minutes to remember that he wasn't allowed to run, or work for the next two days. He laid his head back on the pillow and sighed. He felt marginally better, but that could be because Kate was here taking care of him. Tom knew he would go stir crazy not being able to do anything, and he silently cursed himself for getting so run down. The team would be so disappointed in him, he already felt like he wasn't doing a great job, now he was having two days in bed while they carried on without him. After half an hour enjoying having Kate in his bed, her warm naked body close to his, he couldn't take any more lying around. Pulling on a pair of shorts he went to the kitchen for a cup of tea.

An hour later Kate wandered to the lounge room with a frown on her face. If Tom had gone running she would be furious, he was supposed to be resting. The least he could have done was wake her up! She found him on the couch reading his script with soft country music playing and her frown disappeared. At least he wasn't running.

Tom looked up and shrugged. "Please don't be mad at me. There's only so long I can lay in bed and do nothing, and you looked so peaceful I didn't want to wake you. I'm not doing anything but resting, see?"

She sat down next to him. "No singing though. Reading only. You'll hurt your voice."

"Yes boss." he kissed her lips and she put her arms around his neck.

"Have you had breakfast?"

"No, I was waiting for you. I'll get a smoothie in a minute." he saw her eyes narrow. "Packed with good stuff, I promise. Breakfast is the only thing I haven't had a problem with."

Kate took his hands in hers. "I'm really worried about you, Tom. You're always a perfectionist but you're not normally so hard on yourself. What's going on?"

"I don't know," he sighed. "I think because playing a real person, telling a story that actually happened, that has to be completely accurate... it's so different to what I've done before. I mean I've done this before, but not playing someone so far removed from myself. I'm honestly not sure I can pull this off." His voice shook and Kate moved closer to put her arms around him.

"It's the criticism from his family, isn't it?"

"Yes. What if they're right?"

Kate thought for a moment. "Put yourself in his place. A movie is being made about your grandfather, let's say he's a folk singer from East London." Tom laughed and nodded before she went on. "So they ask you and you see the screenplay and its brilliant and its all accurate. And then you find out they've cast a New Yorker who has never sung folk in his life. How would you feel?"

Tom thought for a few moments. "It wouldn't matter how much effort they put in or how well they did, they'd never be good enough."

"You need to accept the idea that no matter how many thousands, millions of people think you've done a great job, you might not win everybody over. That's a really hard thing to swallow, I know."

"When did you get so smart?"

"Ha! I hang around this lovely British man who thinks he's clever with his big words, I'm just trying to keep up." Kate smiled.

She took the script out of his hands and flicked to a random page, and read another character's line. Tom responded without even thinking, as though they were just having a conversation.

"You already know this," she said, putting it down on the coffee table.

"Yes but I need to work on the dialect. And the songs."

"OK then. After breakfast. Then you can have a rest, lunch, make love to me and nap."

"Ooooooohhh. I like bossy Kate."