Lion and Lace [Tom Hiddleston]

Episode 37

Tom

I've long stopped trying to hold back my tears. Bec has her back pressed against my front and she holds tight to my arms folded over her chest. The closest I've come to something like this was a mate who accidentally impregnated his girlfriend when we were at RADA and she went on to have an early miscarriage. To be here, in this serene and breathtaking sanctuary, faced with the commemorations of tiny lives that weren't allowed to begin, is utterly overwhelming. I feel as though I'm invading a sacred temple, a sanctorium I have no business being inside because I haven't experienced the devastating loss this impossibly large number of families had to endure.

The idea of what happened to Bec and James happening to so many others makes my heart literally ache in my chest. And yet there is a lightness here, in the white flowers and the reflection of the sun that casts a golden light over the angels. I dare not break the reverent silence that hangs like a thick blanket over the entire area save for the distant song of a bird, so we stand together, and after a while I put my head down so my nose rests on her shoulder, trying to muffle my sobs with the arm that wraps around her chest. Bec reaches back and strokes my cheek, holding my face down next to hers.

When she turns in my arms I wipe my thumbs over her tear-stained cheeks and she presses a salty kiss to my lips. She speaks to me only centimetres from my face in a calm, soft, voice that tears at my heart as though she's been reading me this whole time.

"You're a part of this, Tom. The pain and loss we went through affects you, too. The way you were hurt when I left without an explanation, the times I've shut down and closed you out because I couldn't talk about how I felt, or the times I've dumped everything out on you and expected you to deal with it. I'm not saying you lost a baby like we did, but you lost a part of me that day. This morning that part of me was buried with him, and I can't promise you'll get it back. So it's your hurt, too. Your heartbreak. And you've been so good to me, so loving and patient. I didn't understand why you'd feel like I wasn't your everything, but I did today. I can't run to Nathan for comfort any more, when one day it might be you and me hearing that we can't have children together."

"I love you so much. This is a huge deal to me, Bec."

She smiles up at me, just a little one rather than her usual light-up-the-room smile, but it warms me from the inside out and I'm sure some of the weight has just lifted from her shoulders.

After such an emotional day, I'm hardly surprised when she tells me she's put off dinner with her family until tomorrow. From what I hear they're lovely, but not good at communicating or dealing with their feelings. Back at the hotel I make tea for us both and sit next to her on the couch where she's curled into the corner. Bec lifts her legs so she can rest them on top of mine and looks up at me with puffy eyes. She's been all but silent since we left the cemetery and as much as I usually can't stand it I'm determined not to speak until she's ready.

Today her vulnerability is at its peak, and although she's relayed events to me before she's never allowed me to see her so raw. Stripped back and baring her soul I love her more with every passing minute, and it's all I can do to bite my lip and not say anything. The time we spent at the cemetery almost tore me apart, and my heart still aches at the thought. For all my self-centered thoughts of late I wish with all that I have that she could have had a healthy baby, even if it was with Nathan. Seeing her today with Layla, the way she inhaled against her skin and cradled her so tenderly, tugged at something inside me that goes far deeper than jealousy of her first pregnancy being with another man. I wish James had been born and gone home with them so that she could have experienced holding and mothering her own child, because Rebecca was meant to be a mother. If it turns out she isn't able to have more it will destroy her.