Nevermind,
I'll find,
Someone like you.
She knows, from past experience, how to make the pain subside. She needs to form new friends, bury herself in her work, and just distract herself. Pain, she knows, never stops, but not thinking will make her feel less guilty. Perhaps even stabilise her emotions.
That was what Tom is supposed to be, initially. A random man she meets for comfort, until he isn't random anymore. She likes him, so she never protests when he makes declarations of love and sweet promises to her. He is nice, stable. Good for her. Almost too good. Sometimes she thinks of the other 'Tom" she had heard of, in another world. It is quite hilarious to mentally compare the Dark Lord to this meek, innocent, and almost naive man, who clearly misreads her completely, since he asks her to marry him. She is taken aback by his proposal at first. She says yes, when she regains her senses enough, because he is ideal for her and everything will be perfect. At least that is what she tells herself.
She pretends that the other man who has been her source of solace over the two years doesn't matter to her in the same way, or rather, much much more. She pretends she doesn't see so much of her old friend in the man whose mask has slipped ever so slightly in the recent past. She pretends everything is all right.
Until the day Sherlock returns and she realises she let herself get carried away. This had never been the intention. Distractions were not meant to become habits. Tom is good, but he is not for her. He is almost a fake, a facsimile of Sherlock. She is mad at him for seeing through her within such a short time of returning, but she is secretly relieved because he has saved her.
But she, despite the cold-hearted names she refers to herself by, needs someone to her that night, and only one name comes to her mind. She doesn't pick up the phone. It is fruitless, she tells herself.
She regrets it for a long time.
Notes: Shorter chapter, but we must have a chapter about Tom! :D
(Original found at: (slash)s/11953837/1/Irises )
The song lyrics at the beginning are from Adele's 'Someone Like You'.