Everything but time [Tom Hiddleston] {EBT book 1/4}

Gossip girls

Recording the Pirate Fairy had been an amazing experience. Tom had recorded his first song and made a lot of new friends. Voice acting presented such a different challenge for him and he hoped he had done a good job. As he said his goodbyes and returned to his LA apartment to pack, his mind once again went to her. Kate. A couple of weeks earlier curiosity had got the better of him and he googled her. There were few photos of her, mostly professional head shots for Disney. He had listened to the work she'd done on the soundtracks and had her songs stuck in his head. Her voice was strong and raw, and yet sweet. She was also apparently a talented musician and did most of the arranging for her charts. He had assumed when he heard her the first time she had someone else playing the piano but now he wondered if she had been alone. He could imagine her sitting at the piano, her fingers moving effortlessly over the keys while she sang in that sweet intoxicating voice...

Tom's phone buzzed and a reminder appeared on the screen. Time to head back to London.

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Kate's first 2 days were meetings again, and she quickly adjusted to late Spring in LA. Planning for the upcoming films, release dates, promotion, D23, blah blah blah. Finally on Wednesday she got the chance to focus on making some music to finish the Pirate Fairy soundtrack.

"How did Frigate that Flies go?" she asked Steve while they were setting up.

"Really well actually, the arrangement was perfect and the guys had a lot of fun with it. I'll play it for you when we're good to go."

Mae wandered in just as they were about to hit play and pulled up a seat.

"I'm impressed," Kate said when the vocal was finished. "Tom has quite a nice voice, I had no idea."

"You think his voice is nice, you should see his butt."

Kate and Steve both raised their eyebrows at Mae's comment. "What? No harm in looking!" she paused, "OK I'm going to let you get some work done. We drinking tonight Kate?"

"Sure are, 7 at mine."

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"Oh gosh be grateful you missed it. Millions of screaming fans all day every day. His fans are very... fanatic!"

Raven and Mae were filling Kate in on the last few weeks over a glass of bubbly.

"It's the accent," Raven said wistfully, getting chuckles from Kate and Mae.

"You're a nerd, why aren't you more in to him?" Mae questioned Kate.

"Hold up, just because I watch a lot of nerdy stuff and help Zach out at comic con that doesn't mean I'm... yeah OK I'm a nerd. I dunno. I think what he did with Loki was pure genius, but I'm not sure why that makes him some sort of god!"

"Again, exhibit A, his ass." Mae giggled. "You haven't seen it!"

"Nor do I need to!"

"He asked about you"

"About me? Why? Asked what?"

"He wanted to meet you. Peggy said he heard you singing the first day he was here and you must have made quite an impression."

Imagine that. Kate thought. Tom Hiddleston, asking about little old me. Probably wanted help with his singing.

As always, Kate threw herself hard in to work and had everything done ahead of schedule. She had started trying her hand at composing, something she'd never been good at. It was her dream to write an original song and have it used for a film. Sitting at the piano she put her head down on her hands. Her tablet pinged with a new email and she welcomed the distraction. It was an invite to the wrap party for the Pirate Fairy in LA in August at the beginning of the D23 expo for Disney fans. Another email quickly followed from Peggy. They wanted Kate to sing one of the songs at the beginning of the party.

No. They've never asked me to do this before, why now? I can't do that, all those people looking at me.

Recording was one thing but singing live was something else. Kate wondered if there was a way out of this and headed to Peggy's office.

"Kate, it won't be that big a deal. It's not a premiere, you know how these things usually go."

"There's no way I can get out of it then?"

"Well I can't physically force you. But you won't be popular if you don't."

Bugger.