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

Part 68

Previously in YOJA: Dealing with the step-siblings from hell is easy when you only have them to worry about. It's never fun, but it's always survivable. But while your focus is being split, their barbs reach deeper. The wounds they inflict sinking further into you than normal. What has you distracted from defending yourself against your step-brothers? The anger radiating from your soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, Tom.

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His question: Does one more floor, one room, one more inch of space make a difference?

Your answer: No.

No, it might not make any difference because you'll be miserable, but you can't stand the distance between the pair of you despite being inches apart. So when your choices are be miserable together or face your misery alone, you opt for the ways of the past. Time to retreat and find strength within yourself.

Ever since finding out that you were still holding back, still keeping secrets, he's made it absolutely clear that he's unhappy in your presence. Considering that, how can he possibly ask you if you're really going to sleep elsewhere? What choice do you have? Besides, if he was so concerned with the perceived space between the pair of you maybe he shouldn't have been giving you the cold shoulder all day.

You stand in the hallway after quietly closing the door. Only the usual noises of a settling house reach your ears. What you don't hear is movement from the room at your back, nor a soft calling of your name. He isn't coming after you. Not coming to stop you. Well, if he's not interested in trying to reestablish the fractured link it's only proof that deciding to sleep elsewhere is a good plan. You'll only keep trying to startup a stream of apologies – sleepless as your night is doomed to be – and he's still in a state of refusing to listen.

And when will that finally end? When will he finally welcome the first of what will be many earnest apologies?

Lord only knows.

He's not sure about the relationship anymore. That's something that hurts more than his cold shoulder. You squeeze your eyes shut, not that it does any good when remembering the hesitance in his answer when you were finally brave enough to ask if the pair of you would be ok.... Muscle memory turns you towards your old room, your old sanctuary, now containing Katie's fort. No. You can't go there. You're in no state to entertain your niece if she wakes from your restlessness.

It means, of course, that you'll greet the morning with a groan. Sleeping on the downstairs sofa never used to bother you but the amount of tension you can't seem to shake from your body will amplify the lack of support of the well-worn cushions.

You try listening to the faintly familiar sounds of the house, the hum of white noise that once held the power to lull you into dreamland, but sleep will not come. Counting sheep has never worked. Counting in general – someone once told you something about mentally counting down while picturing yourself descending a staircase – always makes you more focused, rather than less. Every time you finally manage to relax your shoulders you realize you're clenching your jaw again, or vice versa.

Quietly stretching doesn't work either. Your muscles refuse to cooperate, to the point that the tendons in the arch of your foot contract and send shooting pains up your leg. Eyes watering, you give up, doing your best to massage out the cramp and let the minutes slip by seemingly at a snail's pace.

In the morning, body as sore as your heart, you're slow to sit up on the sofa in your quilt cocoon. The lack of movement echoing around the rest of the house tells you that it is very early. Being a holiday, nobody is up and out of bed yet. Not surprising. Those that can sleep – and sleep in – are.