Before The After (Tom Hiddleston Fan-Fic)

A/N - It's Coming!!

Evening! Hope you guys are doing okay, wherever and whoever you are. If you're reading this, I'm grateful for your sticking around after this long. Readers have come and gone, but to those who await this next chapter, I thank you for trusting me to continue this story.

It's summer break finally, which lends me more time to brainstorm and write. I finished out this semester of university with all A's, and it wasn't easy. I've been focusing more on my Doctor Who fan fiction, The Hybrid, which you should definitely check out if you're interested in the Whoniverse. This story has been placed on the back burner up until recently, and I'm writing this now to let you know there should be multiple updates for BTA coming very, very soon!

I have the next chapter ready to publish and am currently working on the second and third updates after that. I haven't posted the chapter I have finished yet because I realized I wanted the last chapter, Chapter 33, to be a sort of climax of this book with this next chapter being Part Two of Tom and Kate's story. I've also been outlining the concept for a sequel book because I do know for sure I want there to be a sequel, as I'll be finishing this book before the year is out!

As a reward for your gracious patience, here's a sort of prologue of the next chapter and the beginning of the second half of Before The After. It's set five months after the last chapter. Yay! Enjoy, y'all!!

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"Do you ever dream about him?"

Kate stares up at the ceiling of her bedroom, her mind still slowly coming down from the high that was her orgasm. The euphoric smile on her face fades as his question registers, her naked body going rigid in his arms.

She doesn't need to ask him who she's talking about because she already knows. There's a palpable knot in her stomach that develops whenever someone decides to ask her about him.

Tiny hands on tiny arms that are attached to the tiniest body she's ever seen. Eyes closed to forever sleep, with a golden halo of hair circling his head. Tom's forceful insistence that he's going to be fine and that the ambulance is on its way goes in one ear and out the other as she repeats another round of CPR on the lifeless form that is their baby boy, trying to force the air back into his little lungs.

And she can't. Fucking. Breathe.

"Sometimes," she confesses after the painful memory is shoved away. Kate's more than a little startled by how forward he's being. He's usually gracious and immensely understanding to her lack of enthusiasm on the subject. "It's not exactly fun to talk about."

"Tell me," he pleads, rolling over into his side so he can set his gaze on her directly.

Kate swallows roughly, eyes skirting across the ceilings warily. "You're going to force me, Vince?"

"I'm not going to force you to do anything," he whispers to her in the dark, the shadows partially shielding his heather colored eyes. "I never will. But I don't think either of us benefit from you--I don't know, suffering in silence or something."

"It doesn't feel like silence," Kate corrects with a mirthless laugh. "It feels like I've gone hoarse from screaming."

They both let her convicted words dissipate into the thick air, waiting for them to settle before either of them speaks again.

"I'm not everyone else--I'm not going to watch you drown yourself in the shallows because I'm too uncomfortable and unfamiliar with all this. I've been where you are now," he places a finger under her chin, gently tugging until he can see her eyes watering. "'Hell' would be an understatement for what it is you're going through, Kate."

Her lip trembles, her cool facade finally breaking. "Yeah, it would."

"And you'll never be okay. 'Okay' just becomes something you say to get people to shut up," he smiles when her eyes twinkle in amusement. "But the pain ebbs. Eventually. I swear to you that it does."

He sees her doubt, her disbelief and inability to trust his words. So instead of prodding her further, her tucks her body close to his until his chin rests atop her head.

"You don't have to take my word for it," Vincent sighs, knowing exactly what she wants to say before she says it. "Just know I'm here, and that I'm not letting you go."

Kate starts to feel the after effects of a long night of lovemaking, her eyes dropping lower and lower as she clings to her lover's chest. But her brain refuses to let her sleep until she's told him.

"I don't want to go back," she says, and Vincent almost doesn't hear her. "To London, I mean. When I'm done here, I think might start looking for a place in the Village."

Vincent remains silent, resisting the hope mounting in his chest as he awaits her explanation. "Well, I know you've been here for work--setting up the gallery for the exhibit next month--but London is where you live. I thought the condo you and Mercedes stayed in here was temporary."

"It was, it was supposed to be. The break he'd asked for would've been over last week." Vincent feels her shrug, her voice small and saddened. "I never told you because I needed the time to process it all myself, but when I went back three weeks ago, he'd already gone. Moved back into his own place, from what I heard."

Vince frowned. "You started sleeping with me two weeks ago," he says with a twinge of hurt in his voice. "And now you're saying you wanna move back here to New York. Why?"

"Because my engagement is off," Kate said, her heart aching as she said the words. "Tom and I aren't going to get married anymore."