Work Text:
"We should take a break, Tom. You're looking a little... somewhere between yellow and green."
His shirt is plastered to his skin, sweat drenching it darker in places. His baggy pants save him from the view of his angry knee – the reason for his current condition. He's bent forward, one hand tightly gripping the parallel bars meant to hem him in and aid with the exercise, one hand gripping just above his good knee as he does his best to keep from retching his breakfast all over the workroom floor. They won't thank him for a review of eggs and jam and toast. He shakes his head, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to swallow down the bile surging up his throat. "I'm – fine. Good. Just. A… minute."
"Uh-huh.” He’s clearly not fooling anyone, particularly Judy. She exhales, “Callum. Make sure you catch him this time when he passes out.”
The man stationed not two paces away snorts in response, “Kept him from another concussion, didn’t I?”
“Barely.”
Judy’s reply comes from farther off. Either he’s two seconds from a blackout or she’s going to get water, or possibly intending to wash her hands of her problematic client. Tom clenches his jaw, sucking in air through his nose before blowing it slowly through barely opened lips, fighting to control the nausea coursing through his body.
Take it slow.
Take it easy.
Don’t overdo.
The warnings they’d issued while preparing him for the road the recovery were all well and good but if he hears another soft assurance that ‘these things just take time’, that his ‘body has to have time to heal’ he’ll… His ears prick, pulling him back from the brink of delirium.
She’s here, talking to Judy. Talking. More like emitting a stream of consciousness in the form of never-ending questions and assertions. Judy is left to half sentences and partial explanations in response to the grilling she’s being subjected to.
He blinks his eyes open, half-focusing on the floor beneath his feet as a small smile tugs itself onto his lips. For once her determined focus isn’t aimed at him, aimed at unsettling her Mr. Stoic, allowing him to view it from the outside and revel in her passion. He starts to stand and feels Callum move closer, the other man offering a steadying grip on his arm.
“Chair?”
Admitting temporary defeat, Tom nods. “Chair.”
‘How is his progress? Is he still on the same regimen? I know you said…’
His pulse is still thumping in his head, but now that he’s seated he doesn’t feel half as unsteady. Maybe it’s simply the fact that Callum isn’t hovering just off his shoulder anymore. He shifts the fabric of his workout pants around, tentatively testing the edges of brace layered beneath. He knows better than to press too steadily on his knee right now. He’d made that mistake at home and spent a good half hour on the floor in agony.
‘…foolishly stubborn when he wants to be.’
He risks looking in their direction, locating Judy first to discover their progress into the room before turning his focus to the woman still prattling on about his condition like she doesn’t get by-the-minute progress reports from a variety of sources. It’s been a month since his release from hospital, a month and change since his medicated and unfiltered truths had been aired, settling into the space between them.
And now she’s here.
‘I read somewhere that swelling can lead to the joint and tendons not healing properly.’
He’s read that, too, in excruciating detail. Not to mention the caution Judy and Callum advise. A fresh wave of nausea stirs his stomach, forcing him to tip forward from the way he’d relaxed against the chair back. Once gain his mouth tastes of bile. It seems no amount of swallowing will soothe the raw feeling in his throat.
“Water?” Callum to the rescue with a water bottle, as well as a towel and weighted pack, a silent message that today’s session is done.
Accepting the opened water bottle, irritation joins in with the swirls of nausea. He’s not progressing fast enough. He doesn’t feel like he’s progressing fast enough. He hates not being able to do for himself, having to rely on crutches and others and feeling like he’ll never be at the level he was before. The doctors had assured him this wasn’t a career ending injury. It’s hard, right know, to see his way beyond this plateau of pain.
He clears his throat, interrupting the one-sided conversation between the two women. “I’m sitting right here.”
He regrets his interjection almost as soon as he says it, realizing that it’ll draw her gaze. He’s in his workout gear, sweaty, and – if Judy is to be believed – looking borderline seasick. Both women pause to look over at him, but it’s not Judy he’s focusing on. He forgets the relative safety of that spot at her temple, zeroing in on the brilliant hazel eyes he’s missed so much.
She may be looking at him, her focus locked, but she’s still talking to his trainers, “He’s listening when you advise him, right? For the good of his health?”
“Ah…”
He flicks his attention sideways to catch the grimace that flashes into view on Judy’s face as she hems out a response. It’s likely the same expression held on Callum’s face, if he felt up to twisting in his chair to confirm Callum’s reaction.
She isn’t looking at his trainers, though. She’s still looking directly at him, reading his frustration and dismay and guilt. “That’s what I thought.” She finally disengages to glance at each of the trainers in turn, “Give us a moment?”
Tom tips his head to flatten his water bottle-chilled palm against his face. This isn’t where he wanted to have this conversation. This isn’t the situation he ever wanted to get himself into. He hears the scrape of another chair being dragged closer to where he’s settled. Her quiet sigh.
“Thomas.”
He tries to smile as he looks up at her. His discomfort prevents it from landing the way he wants it to. He should have called her the moment he was released to be on his own. He’d promised himself he would – and then didn’t want to sound as delirious, deliriously medicated, and weakened on the phone as he knew he was. Bad enough that she’d born witness to his post-surgical state while in hospital.
Each day he’d promised himself he’d call the following day – then the next day would arrive and he’d find another excuse.
And now here they are.
She’s as poised as always, always ready for the public eye. But there’s something else there, detectable beneath her outward presentation, hidden to all those who didn’t know what they were seeing. It was the way she’d done her makeup, how she’d chosen to style her hair. How she blinks. How she breathes. How she sits in the chair, studying him. “You look tired.”
Of all the things she could state about his appearance that was probably the kindest.
He fidgets with the water bottle, rotating it in slow circles within his grasp. “Napping is one of the few things not on the naughty list.” He frowns, remembering the long list of things that everyone told him was ill-advised. Loving her needed to be penciled in. But then that was another list with an entirely different set of long-lasting ramifications. “You look…”
She tilts her head at him, her warning clear: there will be consequences to stating the truth he reads off her. Yes, she may be tired and worried and stressed but if he chooses to delve into that he needs to be prepared for the conversation that will follow.
It’s a conversation they need to have – but not here. He wants… He presses his mouth shut, clamping his lips down on the words trying to air themselves, forcing out a weak smile before pushing his focus away from her face. He’s powerless to keep his attention from pulling back to her. “Come over? Dinner. Tonight.”
Confusion sparks on her face, her surprise fluttering away within a blink of the eye. He thinks, for a second, she’s going to admonish him for the invitation, for the expectation that she’d be free to accept. Then she smiles, “Only if you promise to order in.”
Easy enough to agree to. He has no plans on hobbling around his kitchen trying to impress her. Not that his cooking would impress her, considering what she’s used to. And wine? Wine for her, anyway. Mixing alcohol with his medications was on that long long list of ill-advised actions.
“Tom?”
He blinks himself into motion, realizing that she’s waiting to see if he’ll accept her conditions. He nods slowly. Take away and a long overdue explanation.
It’s a start.
