You've Only Just Arrived (a Tom Hiddleston fan fiction)

Part 71

Sitting off the side of the road before the turn to the rental car return, hands tightly gripping the steering wheel, you know you have to pull back onto the road and into the lot. You know what you have to do, but that doesn't mean you want to do it. Right now you'd rather do anything other than acknowledge that the world is continuing, life is continuing, despite the fact that everything about yours is falling apart.

Well, not everything.

You still have a job. You still have Richard, and Mark, and your father, your costars of projects both current and past: Matt, and Andrew, and Ben, and... You even have Bruce and John, maybe, if you choose to believe Richard when he claims their unbiased opinions regarding this mess.

But Tom – the one whose opinion matters the most right now...

The trio of bodyguards always did carry on a running group message. Evidently the melodrama isn't dividing them as it has you and Tom. You'll better express your gratitude to the two abroad when you can actually string a few words together and hang onto them through successful delivery. At the moment it's not something you're fully capable of. Everything comes out strangled, with odd starts and stops.

You were too late – too late to intercept him at the airport. Too late to keep him from leaving the state, leaving everything as things were. When you're motivated and have the means, it's pretty easy to go 'anywhere but here'.

You, on the other hand, get to sit and wait for a flight to LA, which is just what you need right now. Time to think. Paranoia grabs hold of you after a while and every someone that lingers nearby causes you to flinch. Every time you twist your body a bit, preparing yourself for a blurted comment that will stall your heart and deal the final blow. As time passes your optimism, your determination, your desperation – call it what you will – wavers and fades.

You were so certain during your mad dash to the airport – so very certain that he would hear your message and stop. At the very least, you expected some sort of communication. If not a call, maybe a text. Some sort of acknowledgement.

Nothing comes.

Since you weren't planning on being out in public, let alone traveling back home, you don't have the usual buffer – your hat or sunglasses aren't even remotely close to on hand. They're somewhere buried in your bag – probably at the bottom. At least most seem too harried, too consumed over their own holiday misadventures to be concerned with the barely-holding-it-together woman sitting in the corner of the club lounge.

When your hiccups finally subsided after ending the call with your father you'd gotten on the phone with Mark. Your heart was already racing, along with your mind, and – well, poking at wounds didn't matter at that point. Nothing was permanent. Right? All the damage could be undone. Yea. Right.

Except were you sure you wanted to fly blindly to London? After everything? Mark was willing to work his magic and make it happen, but you needed to be sure it was the right move. Which, of course, you weren't. A text, or another attempt at calling, anything would settle matters – but that could either provide relief or destroy you.

Uncertainty drove your decision. LA. You'd fly home, grab something more than the light bag you'd brought with you for the brief holiday span at your mother's, then head on to London to see if you could repair things with Tom. Mark had worked his magic and found a flight that would depart for LA – a goodly five hours after you would be arriving to the airport – but also giving you more time to wait for the call you just knew was due to come from Tom. For the first hour you focused, with every ounce of hope you could muster, on the relief at being able to call Mark back and ask him to rework your flight: London! Not LA!