When I Met Tom (A Tom Hiddleston Fan Fiction)

Chapter Twenty Six

The time while Tom was away for filming passed me by so quickly because I kept myself so busy, filling the days with dance, visiting my Aunt and Uncle, reading new books, familiarising myself with the city of London again – kind of against Tom’s wishes as he didn’t really want me out in the town by myself – but I had James with me most of the time. I even asked James very nicely if he would drive me back down to see Dani to see how she was doing.

Before I knew it Tom would be home that very evening. I spent the morning cleaning the apartment and preparing something for dinner before throwing on my dance gear and heading down to the studio for some ‘me time’.

My Aunt met me there because she wanted to see how my dancing was going. I hadn’t performed in front of anyone in years and I was actually kind of nervous to be showing my Aunt first, who had been my very first dance influence and teacher.

In the main hall I began my stretches as my Aunt pottered about, checking on things. Eventually she appeared at the door and I watched her reflection in the mirror as she came through and sat herself down on a chair at the side of the room.

“So,” she began, “What dance are you working on?”

I straightened up and turned to face her, “Well, I did start working on my ballet again but it’s nowhere near as good as it used to be, so I’ve been doing some more modern stuff. Not modern like ‘shaking it’ to a pop song, but artistic modern.”

“Let’s see it then.”

I hesitated.

“What’s the matter, Charlotte?” she quizzed me.

“Nothing, it’s just...” I stopped mid-sentence but I knew I would be pestered for a response all day, so I decided to continue, “...What if this is all just a silly dream, you know, being a dancer. I haven’t done it for so long and I don’t even know if I’m still any good at it. Tom bought this place and did it all up for me because he knew how much something like this meant. There’s so much history and sentiment behind it, but what if it was a waste?”

My Aunt looked down at her hands as she twiddled her thumbs in her lap. Then she looked up at me and said, “How will you ever know if you don’t try? Show me what you’ve done so far, honey.”

I didn’t reply, I just nodded and turned to the docking station to shuffle through the tracks to find my song. I’d been rehearsing to Josh Groban’s song ‘The Moon is a Harsh Mistress’ so when I came to it, I pressed play and got into my starting position. Luckily all of my songs were now programmed to have a five second silence at the beginning to give me time to get into position like this.

When the music started, I began to move slowly. I went through every single step that I had come up with all by myself, moving around the space and across the floor. I got completely lost in the moment then. I was not even thinking about where I was, what I was doing or who was there to watch me do it. I was completely immersed in the world of dance.

I did this for the duration of the song and when it ended I was there in my final finishing position. A few seconds after I nipped over to the iPod and pressed pause just before the next song on the playlist I had made began to play.