104 Tom's POV
I was woken up at half six in the morning by Buzz, and so my day started. I got him out of bed, cleaned his teeth, got him dressed in sensible, comfortable clothes, got myself dressed in a more presentable outfit, made breakfast, fed breakfast to Buzz, and started on a few jobs. It was therapy day, and that meant I lost two hours, two hours that I usually spent doing jobs. I had to speed up on therapy days, to make sure everything got done, which was exhausting. Still, it had to be done, I couldn't ignore it, or let things slip. Buzz needed a nice, stable, clean house to live in, and nobody wanted to live in a dirty house anyway, so it had to be done. It was my job to do it, so I did it.
I paid special attention to everything today, making sure it was all spotless, more so than usual. I had to make up for my mistake earlier in the week, couldn't let it define who I was, or let anybody think for even one second that I couldn't do this. I had been doing so well recently, I couldn't let that slip, couldn't let anybody realise that I wasn't cut out for any of this. I had to get it right, had to get it all right, had to get my wife's voice out of my head, stop her mocking my actions.
"Tom, it's time to go." Danny told me, just as I finished packing a bag for Buzz, so he had snacks and things to do while I was in my session. He wasn't really allowed in anymore, Natasha said I was more open when he wasn't in hearing range, and that it was better for him to not be in the room. I didn't like the idea, not one bit. But I didn't argue, I never argued, everyone knew better than me, I had to go along with their orders, there wasn't any other way to go about it, not really.
"Coming." I slung the bag over my shoulder, picking up the baby carrier, where my son was already strapped in, setting him up in the car, letting Harry drive me. He always insisted on driving, and if that wasn't bad enough, everyone else insisted on coming with us. I wished they didn't, really wished they left me to get on with this by myself. It was bad enough that they knew that I was in therapy, let alone forcing them to see the building, talk to my therapist. And that was without the fact that this meant inconveniencing them too, forcing them to come out with me, instead of doing what they wanted to do.
Again, I didn't argue though, what was the point? It would only cause arguments, make everyone uncomfortable, and make us all talk about the issue. If there was one thing I didn't want to do, it was force us all to talk about my issues for a petty reason. If I could, I would erase all their knowledge of this, so they never had to know. But I couldn't, so I did my best to act like it wasn't happening at all, that it was business as usual. I was good at business as usual, had gotten very good at acting like everything was normal, even when I was walking on eggshells daily, feeling like I was nothing I ever did was right.
Soon, the building loomed up ahead, all of us heading down the corridors to Natasha's office, where she greeted us at the door. I took a calming breath, handed my son over to Danny, and went inside, prepared to talk about everything that had happened this week. I didn't want to, didn't want to feel uncomfortable, to talk about how horrible I had felt all week. But, I had to, because that was what was expected of me, what everyone wanted for me. Even though it felt useless, like it was only causing more problems than solutions.
Sighing, I sat down in the normal chair, the door closing behind me, the sound of it clicking into place sounding more like a lock shutting me away.