"WHAT DO YOU mean we can't leave?" Scarlett asked in contemptuous disbelief. She had been packing her bags that next morning with refreshed hope, ready to get the hell out of dodge, until Faraday came knocking with the bad news.

He grimaced at the disappointment in her voice; it was sharp and cut through him like a blade. "There was a wicked snowstorm last night, and they're saying that nobody will be able to get up here for...weeks," his voice grew quiet at the end, anticipating her reaction.

"Weeks?!" Scarlett yelled with a tone that was a mixture of anger, sadness, and distress. She couldn't survive being trapped up here with Tonya for weeks. Scarlett had a good handle on her temper when she was sober, but if she ever got tanked on this trip, she couldn't promise that she wouldn't march right up to Tonya's door and give her the rematch in the ballroom.

Faraday couldn't do anything except look at Scarlett with a sorry expression. He wanted to get out of here just as badly as she did, but the snow made it impossible. She let out a huff of air and plopped down on the edge of the bed, ignoring the piles of her clothes that she had pulled from all the drawers to be packed. She was dejected and unsure what to do.

"Hey, don't give me that look," he gently chastised her, moving to sit beside her on the bed. She let out a little pouting 'hmph' as she laid her head on his shoulder. He couldn't help but smile a little. He had wanted the best for her, meaning he really had tried every way to get her out of the resort. He would just have to make the upcoming weeks comfortable for Scarlett.

His eyes wandered the room, though they eventually landed on her uneaten tray of food from last night. "Hey," he frowned, jerking his shoulder so she would have to sit up. "You didn't eat the food last night?"

"Oh, no," she waved it off with a flash of her hand. Scarlett stood and started to put the clothes back into drawers. "I was out trying to get Tom to eat some dinner. He wouldn't eat anything for Mark, but I set some food outside his door and when I looked back, he took it, he totally took—"

Scarlett looked up from her drawer with a smile to see Faraday's stormy look. She stopped her rambling and let her smile drop, turning back to the clothes.

"I don't see how Tom is your concern," he commented offhandedly, pretending to be very interested in his shoes at that moment. The thought of her worrying about another man sat Faraday on edge.

She wasn't quite sure how to react. She thought over her words carefully before speaking up. "He's going through a tough breakup, he just needed someone to care, that's all," she nodded in agreement with herself, pleased with how she had worded it. That was the truth she believed, after all.

"Well, if I recall correctly, caring too much about other guys was something that Scott repeatedly asked you to stop doing," his words came out pointed and more malicious than he intended them to, and he instantly regretted saying them. Faraday knew that Scarlett was truly just trying to be friendly, but he didn't want her to mingle with Tom. He cursed at himself mentally for snapping, but it was too late to take it back.

He thought Scarlett would explode, but she just sat there by her suitcase, rubbing the fabric of one of her shirts as she stared a hole into it. He almost expected her not to reply, but she spoke  eventually.

"I don't see how that relates to the situation at all."

Faraday sighed and scrambled to his feet. "I didn't mean it like that. I just don't want you to get some savior complex like this guy won't survive without you," he vented, hoping that he would be clarifying his statement. Instead, he sensed he was digging the hole deeper. "Look," he muttered tenderly, waiting to continue until Scarlett made eye contact with him. "I just don't want you to end up with another Scott, alright? I saw what happened to you after the divorce, I can't see you like that again."

Her uncharacteristic silence was setting him on edge even more. It made him feel shitty; he felt like she was just taking it all and bottling it up. Usually their arguments were give and take, but she was just sitting there in silence. He wanted her to bite back, to show some fight, but those ember eyes of hers were dull and smoldering. The fire in them was extinguished in the storm that had been her divorce.

Suddenly, Faraday didn't want to be in there with her anymore. The air felt too hot and too thick, and he was suffocating. He took long, desperate strides towards the door, his hand hovering above the handle for just a moment. "Remember, you don't know him, Scarlett," he warned over his shoulder. "You don't know what he's capable of."

He watched her and waited for a response, but she just stared at him coolly. Finally, he opened the door and left her alone with her thoughts.

The thing was, she really didn't care what he was capable of. The only thing she knew is that she tended to smile when she thought of Tom - and she was okay with that.

—————

It was three in the morning, yet sleep wouldn't find her. Insomnia - one of the many side effects of a broken heart. Scarlett had been laying in bed for hours, unable to quiet her brain that was unusually insistent on digging up the past. Maybe it was the lack of booze in her system that was allowing these feelings to surface. Whatever it was, she didn't like it.

Defiantly, the blonde kicked off the covers and dangled her feet over the edge of the bed. She was impossibly hot and stiff from laying for so long, and she just wanted to get out and stretch her legs. No one would be out right now, so her walk would be peaceful. And hopefully sleep would find her soon.

Scarlett guided her clumsy feet into her slippers and tossed her hair up into a messy bun. She was wear a black satin, button-up pajama shirt and matching satin shorts. She made sure to pocket her room key before slipping out into the empty, dark hall.

She glanced down the row of doors, stopping her eyes on the rooms of Tom, Mark, Faraday, and finally Tonya's. They were all closed and no sound came from behind them. Everyone was probably asleep.

Which gave her the perfect cover to sneak down to the bar and steal some rum. She didn't want the rum to get wasted, she just needed it to quiet the voices in her head. So, with the reasoning justified, she set off on her course.

Scarlett opted to take the stairs down to the main floor to stretch her legs out a bit. Her muscles ached wonderfully as she descended each step. She felt a bit cold, so she rubbed her arms rapidly with her hands to put some heat back into them.

The staircase deposited her in the empty lobby. Not even hotel services were awake. Her eyes wandered over to the crackling flame in the fireplace that she had stopped at when they first arrived. Scarlett almost walked past it, except the boxer heard a slight shuffle. She nearly didn't see him there, leaned back against the arm of the long couch.

"Tom?" Scarlett called through the darkness. The figure turned to locate her voice, and she confirmed that it was the British actor. She hadn't seen him since the breakfast incident. Scarlett crossed the lobby and stood behind the couch. She was just checking to make sure he was okay.

"Hello, love," Tom replied quietly, looking back to the fire. He didn't slur his words like a drunk man, and he didn't smell like alcohol.

Scarlett felt like she was intruding on his night. She felt the urge to leave, but his detached gaze into the fire told her to stay, just for a bit. "You're feeling better?" Her question was rather a guided statement; she hoped he would agree.

Tom pondered it for a moment. "Slightly, I suppose," he responded dully, keeping his eyes locked on the fire.

Scarlett could have left it there. She could have bid him goodnight and scampered off to find her drink that she wanted so badly. But the way he was acting wouldn't let her leave him, not now. She had seen that look before in her own eyes, and the last thing she had wanted was to be alone.

So, she sat next to him on the couch. She gave him enough room to be comfortable, but she was within arms reach. "You had everyone worried yesterday, Thomas," her voice was reprimanding, but not out of anger - out of fear. She had been one of those who had been worried; true, she didn't know him very well, but she felt personally responsible due to the article and all.

The actor was silent for a moment. Scarlett looked at him expectantly, letting her eyes roam over his figure. He was wearing a dark blue, long sleeved pajama shirt and the matching bottoms. His hair was slightly tousled, as if he had been attempting to sleep but found it fruitless. He smelled faintly of detergent and mint.

"I don't wish to kill myself, you know?" His words were so jarring, so brash, that Scarlett sank back in her seat like she had absorbed a blow. Tom looked at her and raised a brow, but directed his gaze back to the flame and stared at it without interest. "I just get so dreadfully sad...I dream of going to the beach, laying in the sand, and washing away with the tide...just to disappear."

Scarlett gazed at him with utter heartbreak and timid understanding. She had never pieced together her sadness in that way, but she understood it immediately, as if it had been on the tip of her tongue the whole time. Ending her life was never an option, but starting over was a tantalizing thought.

Silence filled the air as Scarlett imagined watching the news one day with the unbearable headline that Tom Hiddleston had drowned in a lake somewhere. She shivered at the mere thought of it, and she suddenly hated his analogy.

"I just don't get how so could do it," he commented with a hint of finality, shaking his head with apparent disbelief.

Scarlett stopped letting her mind wander to vast oceans and set her gaze back to him. "Do what?"

"She moved on. I can't fathom how she did, or how she could bring herself to, but she did," his voice was dejected, broken. "She's living her life to the fullest day by day with that amazing smile I fell for," a sad smile crept upon his lips; a smile of reminiscence that didn't belong and made Scarlett's heart break a little more. "And as I walk around this resort, feeling myself slip into a dazed and foggy state of routine, I seem to miss her more and more."

The blonde reached over and placed her hand on top of Tom's, as if to say that's enough, you don't have to keep going. But the words kept on spilling out of his mouth like an untamed waterfall of emotion.

"My friends all tolerate my unreadable and distant demeanor for now, but soon enough they'll start asking how I'm still in shambles over a woman who doesn't love me anymore. But how do I explain to them the impossible task of telling my heart to stop loving—"

Tom cut himself off bitterly and looked to his companion for some sort of reaction. Sometime during his rambling, Scarlett had began to cry. It wasn't the heartbroken sob that she had been accustomed to, but a weepy show of solidarity. She recognized all his emotions as ones she had felt, and hearing them aloud was driving her back to that dangerous part of her mind that she often quelled with rum.

Tom was in shock to see her crying, and he quickly cast his eyes back to the fire to spare her dignity. "My apologies, Miss Parker," he murmured guiltily, turning his palm up so that her resting hand would fall into his, and he gave it a friendly, reassuring squeeze. "You have experienced your own heartbreak - I shouldn't trouble you with mine."

She squeezed his hand in return and wiped the tears from her cheeks. "I'm not crying because I'm sad," she interjected with a quiet sniffle. "I'm crying because for once in the past six months, I don't feel alone in here," she used her free hand to point to her own heart. Her life had been filled with people telling her to move on, to forget it, to heal - but hearing the words come out of his mouth that had been running through her head for weeks...it was painful and relieving at the same time.

She felt like she needed to explain - to tell of her own heartbreak - and the words started flowing out of her as they did Tom just a few moments ago.

"I think we both knew we weren't going to last," her words were sad and painful, but also therapeutic to acknowledge. She had spent so long telling herself that they could make it work because they were soulmates. Sometimes, you just can't make things work.

"There was something about us that never clicked right. A level of discomfort that we never overcame. But it didn't make us end sooner and it didn't make it hurt any less when we finally did."

She looked to Tom for a reason she couldn't identify - maybe his permission to continue? - but he was just looking at her with soft eyes. It was her turn to look at the fire.

"He told me he didn't love me anymore," her words were just a whisper. "That was so hard for me to accept - I felt as if I had made him fall out of love with me by simply living my life. But, It wasn't even him I hated at the end. I hated who I'd become and that was much worse than anything he could have ever done."

With the words finally out of her mouth and no longer weighing on her heart, she finally felt peace. Her shoulders felt lighter and her eyes felt heavier. The sleep that had been evading her for hours was finally creeping up on her - no drink necessary.

In her state of bliss, Scarlett almost forgot that Tom was there. He cleared his throat and squeezed her hand a little tighter. "Somewhere inside of you, underneath all that scar tissue, is a girl who is recklessly alive and madly in love with the world. I hope you can find her again."

The statement was so thought out and powerful that Scarlett almost laughed. He had such a way with words, whilst she had sat here unable to help his pain. She squeezed his hand and smiled grimly at his words. Tom saw the thank you in her eyes and returned the tender grin. He meant what he said, and he hoped she would return to her former self. He wished to meet her.

Sentiments aside, Tom sighed and sank back into the chair. "Look at us, a couple of heartbroken fools," he laughed.

"At least we aren't alone in our self-pity," she responded wittily. Both stared at the fire now; Scarlett dawdling with the strings of her shorts, Tom's hands folded in his lap. They both slipped back into their own thought, content with their company.

"Maybe that should be our mission until the ice thaws." The actor thought aloud, casting a glance towards the blonde beauty beside him.

"What do you mean?"

He thought over his proposition carefully, wording it just right before he offered it to her. He was aware of how weird it sounded, but in the moment it seemed a brilliant idea. "We could be each other's designated distraction. Any time you feel sad, you are obligated to seek me out and I am obligated to remedy it. And vise versa."

Scarlett smiled a little at the thought. Faraday would have a cow, but maybe that's why it appealed to her even more. "But we barely know each other." She warned him playfully.

Tom just shrugged. "That could be the charm of it all; nothing from our past is here to haunt us - just two heartbroken fools trying to fix each other."

"I like the thought, Thomas."

"I thought you would."

"So, when do we begin?"

"Immediately, I presume."