Timeless // T.H

24// Good things

Typically, they say that good things come in threes; the same can be argued for bad things. Thing number one was obviously Tom leaving. No matter when it happened it would have felt like it couldn't have come at a worse time. The goodbye was the hardest part for Betty. When they pulled up at the airport, Tom and Betty sat in silence for a while. She tried in her mind to pretend like it wasn't happening; she tried to trick herself into thinking that they had just pulled up at Tesco and that her mum and Tom's brothers were looking after Roo till they got back, together, as a unit.

However the bright blue of the ribbon attached to Tom's suitcase was painfully visible in the mirror and was ruining the illusion. Tom had said his goodbye to his brothers and Ruben back at the flat, knowing it was better that way than for Ruben to make a scene at the airport. Roo was only little though and he wasn't really aware of what was happening in the sense of how long Tom would be gone.

They both finally got out of the car and as they walked towards the entrance Betty was replaying the morning after Tom had gotten drunk over in her head. She'd only managed an hours sleep on the chair beside where Tom had crumpled on to the sofa. Roo had come rushing downstairs after finding his mum's bed empty when he'd gone in for his morning cuddle. She had calmed him and then led him to the kitchen to make breakfast together, something they usually only did on Saturdays but that morning felt like an important enough occasion.

The pair wouldn't have even clocked Tom's presence if it hadn't been for his heavy, sheepish footsteps greeting the tiled floor; he looked embarrassed, no it was more than that, he looked mortified at the realisation that he'd welcomed himself drunkenly to her house to deliver horrible news in the worst possible way. Betty, who couldn't decide whether his behaviour had been annoying or endearing, handed him and cup of coffee silently, giving him a look that threatened him to never do that again.

Roo's ecstatic mood at Tom's presence wiped any annoyance from Betty's mind and she decided to forgive and forget and make the most of the little time they had left together. At even the slightest sign of a lifting of the corner of Betty's mouth, Tom was trapping her in a hug and mumbling apologies into her neck. He sat down and explained how he had planned to come straight over to her to tell her but in his shock he'd found himself whisked away into RDJ's car and then couldn't leave till he'd gotten a good number of drinks inside him and that he hadn't meant to just show up he just remembers worrying about her and Roo rattling around the flat on their own whilst he was gone and he'd found himself on her doorstep before he even knew what was happening. She had smiled and kissed him forgiven and they finished off their breakfast discussing where he'd be and when he was leaving and it was all going straight over Roo's head.

Betty didn't tell Tom, but after she'd left him at hers to drop Roo off at nursery, she'd found herself quietly crying in the car park on her own, in her car. She didn't tell Tom about how she cried again later after he'd had to go back to the compound for interviews. She didn't want to tell him about how when he'd given her the news she'd been too concerned with his health to register the sharp stabbing pain that attacked her whole being at the thought of not having him in reach. As she looked at him scanning the departures signs for his flight, she wondered if now was the right time to say anything. Instead she settled for calling him a dork for wearing his sunglasses inside and kissed him.

"Baggage closes soon..." he stated, keeping his head to hers for as long as he could; he wasn't ready to say goodbye yet either. She forced a smile and linked her hand into his and led him toward the baggage drop. He watched as she manoeuvred them through the crowds with ease and he questioned whether it was too soon to tell her he was in love with her. They waited in line for a short while, just wrapped up in each other, he'd decided against security because he got noticed more with it than when he just wore his sunglasses and a tragic hat.