Before The After (Tom Hiddleston Fan-Fic)

Chapter 39

Lol, I'm back, fam. Miss me?

-

Tom's Perspective

It ends up being Kelly from makeup that tells me Kate is back in London.

"You don't watch those entertainment channels by any chance, do you, Tom?"

Kelly's so amazing when it comes to washing my hair. Long, professional fingers so methodical in their rhythmic massaging that it always gets my eyelids drooping dangerously until I'm dozing off. And normally she lets me have these fifteen minutes to myself. To think. To sleep. To grieve.

"Hmm?" I have to ask her to repeat the question I barely heard.

And when she does repeat herself, I think it's just the start of another bout innocent small talk, the sort that I never mind having with fellow cast or members of the crew. The type of conversations that are normally insubstantial and don't warrant much effort to keep chugging along, but the anxious tone in Kelly's voice sounds out of place, hesitant and is so jarring it catches my attention.

"No, I don't. Sorry," I said, opening my eyes after a moment to look up at her. Grey eyes similar to mine peer back down at me with an anxious and furrowed brow. I felt my features start to mirror hers as I began to worry. "Has something happened?"

I don't know what I was expecting her to tell me. Maybe that there had been some developments with that Donald Trump who was allegedly running for the American presidency. Maybe yet another tragedy had befallen a legendary entertainer and the world had been thrown for a loop.

But I knew when Kelly's face paled that it couldn't have been anything so delightfully impersonal.

"It's uh... actually, you know, I'd rather show you. Do you mind if I just get my phone real quick? I know you left yours—"

"Kelly, what's happened?" I said when she'd started to ramble, hoping to soothe her nerves before she got too worked up to give me the news. "Just tell me."

"They're saying your ex is in London," she tells me with an overwhelming amount of sympathy in her eyes. Like she's telling me my dog's passed. Or that my house was broken into.

"Kate?" I ask, as though she could possibly be talking about any another 'ex' of mine. My ears have started ringing, and I think that if I somehow narrow my gaze on Kelly's lips as she speaks that it will help me hear over the noise.

But the 'noise' isn't the ringing anymore. It's me. Screaming.

-

When I arrive home from my meeting, I think the reason why the house is so silent is because she's sleeping. The strange mix of disinfecting cleaning products and randomly chosen scented candles fills my nostrils and I remember.

She said last night she was going to clean.

Kate's taken to 'stress cleaning', a technique my therapist says is common after mothers lose a child. A way to be useful when you feel useless. An attempt to control the internal chaos by controlling the external chaos around you. And while I resent the matter-of-fact way with which my therapist speaks, the way he generalizes our grief and prescribes us bottle upon bottle of sedation to render us dull and indifferent, I do listen to him.

His words are what I keep in mind when I walk into our home, stunned to silence when I notice that the laundry's been done and the sink no longer has dishes piling up in and along the rim of the sink. I'd never noticed how ridiculous the mess had gotten until it suddenly was gone.

Glad to step into a freshly cleaned home and ready to seek out the woman behind the magic, I remove my shoes from my feet and pull at my tie until loosens and frees me. Then I tiptoe quietly up the stairs, anticipating that I'll find her fast asleep, exhausted from her labors.

But upon opening our door, I find that the bed is untouched and empty with only Kate's UGG boots kicked off near the head of the bed. Our bathroom door is closed, however, and I start for the French doors, a little thrown when the knob doesn't budge in the slightest.

The door is locked.

"I might clean tomorrow," She told me late last night in the dark. Must've been four in the morning, but we rarely both slept through the night anymore.

"Don't feel the pressure to," I had told her, kissing her bare shoulder then nuzzling it with my nose. "I can have Luke call the cleaning service he mentioned a couple of weeks ago."

"I'll do it," Kate says, and she sounds more certain. "I need to. For me. For some kind of... closure. We haven't cleaned since the funeral."

"Kate!" I shout now, shoving away the memory of last night to focus on opening the bloody door. "Kate, open the door!"

-

"She's going to be a little disoriented, Tom," the psychiatrist tries explaining to me. She's standing so close to me, attempting to foster a relationship of trust by being in such close proximity. But all I feel is nauseated.

There are so many people in the room, watching me, watching her--us. Tablets in hand as they type away, taking notes--bloody notes. Like this an assignment, and it probably is for some of them, the students. I can pick them out from the seasoned lot, their bright eyes hungry, bloodthirsty, while the tenured doctors' eyes have glazed over with something akin to boredom.

Like Kate's just another frog on the table, waiting to be dissected.

If I wasn't so exhausted, I'd probably scream.

"It's probably best if you don't crowd her," the older Scotswoman tries again, less subtle with her intentions this time. But it's not her words that cause me to bristle. It's the hand to my shoulder that accompanies them.

"Actually, it's best if you don't crowd me," I tell her, looking directly at her for the first time all night. Her hair is only grey at the temples, face not as wrinkled and worn as my mother's though her tone reminds me so much of Mum. "The love of my life slit her wrists a few hours ago. So, you'll understand if I hover a bit, yeah?"

The biting words fly from my mouth without a thought, and the apology I can't seem to muster dies along with the last bits of my sanity and strength. But I don't have time to process the hurt look on the older shrink's face because there's movement coming from the bed.

I swing around and quickly seat myself beside my stirring fiancée, my hands immediately going to grab hers until I remember her wrists are covered in gauze. My fingers, listless and a little awkward, find their way down to rest atop Kate's thigh while my other hand goes to hold her cool cheek.

"Darling." My voice cracks as soon as the endearment is spoken aloud. "Katie, love, open your eyes for me. Come on, baby. Open them for me."

She frowns and it brings the first bit of life back into her face. With cracked lips, she mumbles something I can't quite make out and then her hazel-green eyes open, squinting up into the harsh light until she fully adjusts. Her mouth drops open in shocked horror before I watch her shut her eyes again, a low, heavily disappointed sigh resounding from deep within her.

I watch with barely contained fury and relief as she opens her eyes again and turns towards me. "I said, 'did you do it?' Did you stop me?"

"Yes." Shocked by the amount of clarity in her eyes, I'm too stunned to do anything else but answer her. "I-I found you."

"You weren't supposed to come home," she says and then scowls at me, and it's then that I understand she's actually probably just as angry with me for saving her he as I am with her for trying to leave. "What happened?"

"I came home," I tell her lamely, and a stranger's eyes look back at me, completely devoid of any emotion but detachment.

-

Boom! Okay, so I'm working on fifteen other things, both on here and in real life, so please bear with me! I'm trying to update as often as I can! Thanks for reading, as always.