Thomas's pov

*one year later*

I shifted in my seat uncomfortably, playing with the hem of my suit jacket. There were eyes all over the room following my every move and my hands were beginning to sweat. The woman sitting to my right gave me a sympathetic but reassuring smile, and I smiled politely back, despite the butterflies in my stomach.

"Calm down," Jack ordered from his seat next to me. I glanced over and there was no sympathy in his gaze, only vague annoyance. "You've done this a million times before. Just go up there and read the speech I gave you."

"It's been eight months since I've been to anything like this," I argued softly, albeit with less vigor.

"And whose fault is that?" Jack snapped back, as if leaving my acting career was even a choice I had to make; it was simply something that had to be done, something I could not avoid for my own well-being. I had explained that to him a dozen times at least already. He still wasn't happy with my choice, even two-thirds of a year later.

"Mine," I conceded, still in a calm, patient voice. "I never blamed anyone but myself."

Jack shook his head at me, a frustrated glint in his eye, then turned his old, bearded face away. At that exact moment, the music resonating softly throughout the large ballroom began to finally die down. The soft hum of chatter began to quiet simultaneously, and my eyes moved from the back of Jack's head to the older gentleman now stepping out onto the stage.

When the room had fallen silent, the man began to speak. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and peers. It is my great honor to welcome all of you to S&R's fifteenth annual charity event, in honor of those who are making the greatest impact on our planet. My name is Joyce Stevens, and I have the great honor in representing S&R in today's celebration..."

And on and on he went. As he spoke, my fingers fumbled for the paper in my coat pocket. Half listening to Mr. Stevens speak and half trying to remember how to breathe again, I only gave back my full attention about ten minutes later when Jack turned back to wink at me.

My eyes flew up to the stage, and I looked up just in time to catch Mr. Stevens glance at our table. "It is at this time every year that a select coordinating committee gathers together to nominate and select this year's most charitable and giving citizens," he announced. "Selection of this caliber is of the highest achievement, and I am honored to simply stand before and introduce each of our chosen candidates." A round of applause split through the room.

There was a pause, and then Mr. Stevens looked over at our table more definitively, looked over at me. "Our first category, and usually the most difficult decision, is deciding which person on this planet, among 7 billion people, put the most time, money, and heart into an array of charitable causes. At the beginning of this year, the choice may have been difficult. The obvious choice was not necessarily the choice we all thought it would be heading into this year."

The man looked over at me again. "Thomas Brodie-Sangster demonstrated the exact traits our coordinating committee was searching for. In the past eight months alone, Mr. Brodie-Sangster has raised over 15 million dollars to the development of his own charity, The Elijah Fund, to raise awareness for child abuse. He has made countless donations to cancer research, specifically for lung cancer, and has become a notable public figure for his response in defense to young men and women facing the after-effects of rape. This man has not rested in his fight against the injustices of public society, and has even pledged 3.7 million of his own money to Mental Health United, designed to help struggling people battling mental illnesses."

There was another round of applause and I was slightly embarrassed, felt slightly out of place. Jack looked back at me and smirked again.

"This year," Stevens continued when the clapping died down, "I am honored to present Thomas Brodie-Sangster as S&R's Rising Philanthropist of the Year."

When I stood from my seat, I was surprised to feel I wasn't shaking. A few members of my team stood to hug me, and as everyone in the room clapped for me--other celebrities, reporters, other honorees--I made my way up the stage. There was a smile on my face as I gave the president of S&R a hug in thanks, taking the plaque into my hand gratefully.

Okay. Now the speech. As I pulled it out of my pocket however, I paused. Tongue between my teeth, standing at a podium in front of everyone believing I was some sort of generous hero, a single piece of paper I didn't even write just didn't feel right.

"I had a speech," I started, once everyone had quieted down. "And my manager will probably kill me for this, but I think it might be better if I'm just honest with everyone instead."

Against my will, I glanced over at Jack. He looked ready to explode. My fumbling fingers managed to fold up the piece of paper, placing it back into my chest coat pocket.

I cleared my throat. "This past year was a--struggle for me," I said. "At the end of last year, I lost myself--or maybe I realized I really had no idea who I was to begin with. Either way, I found that the person I had become, the person I was--it wasn't someone I was proud of. It certainly wasn't someone that deserved to stand on stage today, before all of you.

"As time passed and I started my own journey to heal, I came to terms with a few personal events in my own life. For a long time, I hid from my past--but the reason I stand before all of you today is because I finally realized that I couldn't keep running. Everytime I ran, I ended up tripping up myself and hurting others in the process. So I turned and embraced the past instead.

"I created The Elijah Fund in honorable memory of my childhood best friend. As a non-profit organization, we work with the initiative to spread Elijah's story--to talk about how no one was able to save her, including myself. More so, however, we are working to create safer environments for children, where they can feel open and secure in talking about their lives. To date, we have opened seventeen youth clinics and have helped to institute and stabilize child social service programs internationally."

The crowd began to clap again, so I took a deep breath and waited. "I don't tell you this, however, to paint myself as a hero. I'm not. I am far from it. I tell you this because there are millions of children just like Elijah suffering in silence, and because I don't want Elijah's memory to die in vain. I promise you, if circumstances had worked out differently, she would have been the person on this stage today, not me."

I looked up, stared into the crowd. "Although I have to admit I'm still in shock, thank you to S&R for this award. It is an honor to stand among such an incredible group of people, and I am proud of the person I have become."

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When each honoree for every category had been given the opportunity to speak, the crowd was released from their hold on the stage into a dinner-like setting. Food was served and conversation was started back up, and ignoring Jack's contempt-filled glares beside me, I allowed myself to chat with the other people sitting at our table. After just a few short minutes I was smiling--and it was genuine, and it was relaxed, and it was happy.

Far too soon we finished eating, and Jack pulled me from my seat to go speak with the others at surrounding tables. As much as I expected to hate the interactions, I actually found that I enjoyed it. Of course, in the past I hated events like these, but something about them had changed in the past few months. Maybe the change was just me.

People came up to me to congratulate me throughout the night, and each time I took their hand and shook it with all gratefulness in the world, never feeling fake, never feeling like I quite deserved the appreciative glint in their smile. I spoke a lot about Elijah and brushed off the compliments to myself--because really, I still didn't feel like I had done enough, and I had a feeling that there was no such thing. My face hurt from smiling so much, but what surprised me most was that it didn't feel out of place, I didn't feel like a fraud.

Someone called my name, so I instinctively turned to look over my shoulder. My eyes must have been playing sick sort of tricks on me though, because they landed on a pile of brown hair and a matching pair of caramel brown eyes, glued to my own. I quickly went for a double take--it's not happening, it's not actually him--but as I searched for the image of his grinning face, the crowd shifted, morphed between us, swallowing the distance between us entirely.

I quickly excused myself, and it was probably rude and probably too sudden, but my heart was racing and my mind was flooded with questions. My steps were quick in the direction I had lost him, and my head was swiveling on a pivot as I looked around in a daze.

"Thomas!" I heard again, but this time it was definitely Jack, definitely not him. I was going to just ignore him until there was a sharp tug on my elbow, hauling me back.

I didn't turn when Jack spoke in my ear. "There's a news conference outside waiting for you--"

"No." I quickly shrugged him off and kept walking.

"No?" Jack asked, obviously caught off guard. His footsteps were hurried as he tried to catch up to me. "What do you mean, 'no'?"

I stopped, causing him to skid to an abrupt halt before he could collide into me. Rolling my eyes in frustration, I turned to him and said, "I mean, no. I'm not doing any press for this. I've told you that a hundred times."

"You have to do press for this, Thomas!" Jack argued. "This is great for your image."

For a second I just stared at him in disbelief. Then, when I could finally manage words, I said, "Jack! You're fired."

His eyes widened, but I turned on my heel and hurried off again before he could say anything else. Behind me, he called my name--but I was already too far gone to care.

I was pushing through the crowds of people, shouldering past countless faces, and it was most definitely rude this time. Yet there was no sign of him anywhere. He had vanished like the wisp of a dream I could hardly recall.

Another firm grip on my arm, and I turned to snap at Jack--but instead, there was Dylan.

"Hey," he said. Casual, as if he wasn't dressed up in a suit, standing at a benefit that he most likely wasn't even invited to. Calm, as if there wasn't an entire year separating us. Beautiful, as if no time had passed at all.

"Dylan," I breathed in disbelief. My thoughts were a whirlwind and there was nothing I could grasp onto, nothing that could pull me from the rain.

He smiled at me, and it was soft and it was sad and it was despondent. All I could do was gap.

His hand was still resting on my bicep. As if suddenly realizing we were just standing there, stuck in a world where time had frozen and our surroundings were blurred, he dropped his arm to his side. My skin tingled under the absence of his palm.

"I wasn't going to..." his voice faded away. He blinked, and despite everything, he looked startled by the words on his tongue. Licking cherry-pink lips, he tried again, "I was just--I wanted to say--hello."

I wasn't going to speak to you, his eyes seemed to say. But then I saw you, and I had to say something, if only for the sake of being near.

"Hello," I said dumbly. I couldn't stop staring at him, couldn't get enough of his sudden presence.

The side of his mouth quirked up, and some of the sadness in his eye seemed to fade. "Hello," he repeated back.

Maybe it should have been weird, the way we continued to stare at each other as if witnessing some exotic animal, but it wasn't. There was so much time behind us that it felt like we were looking into the past, looking back at everything that had changed.

"What are you doing here?" I managed, so much incredulity in my voice that it came out just above a whisper.

"One of my castmates from Teen Wolf is being honored," he explained, still looking at me. "She--I'm here to support her. I didn't realize you...wow."

"Yeah," I agreed, not really agreeing to anything at all.

Dylan's head tilted. I wanted to breach some of the time and distance between us, but I was too afraid to try.

"Do you want to maybe..." he trailed. Clearing his throat, he continued, "--you know, get out of here?"

"Yes," I answered, without hesitation.

Dylan smiled softly, nodded his head, and gestured for me to lead us out of the room. Some people looked over at us as we passed, but for once I was thankful that the jagged scars of our broken glass hearts kept anyone from approaching.

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"You've changed," was the first thing Dylan said to me when we sat down in a small, dirty little fast-food restaurant. We looked horrendously out of place all dressed up in top-of-the-line suits.

"I have," I agreed. I unfolded a napkin and placed it down on my lap. Across from me, Dylan copied the action.

"I see you in the news a lot," Dylan continued. "But you're not acting anymore. You're--with your charity. Or when you do good stuff. I see it all the time now." There was something so distinctively sad in his tone, something so confused and lost--but, I was relieved to find, there were no traces of hurt.

"Yeah," I said, then sighed. My eyes fell to the table.

"Why?"

I looked up, trying for a smile, but a wave of sadness suddenly seemed to creep up into my heart. "You know why."

Dylan bit his lip. "Yeah," he said. "Me too."

"How are you doing?" I asked then--because it was really the most important thing to me at that exact moment.

A silence for a few seconds. Why did this feel so sad? Not sad, actually--so nostalgically reminiscent?

"I'm good," Dylan said. When he met my eyes, it was clear he was telling the truth. "I'm--I'm happy, if that's what you're asking."

Relief flooded my system. I hadn't realized that that was exactly what I wanted to hear until it came out of his mouth.

We paused again--not in an awkward way, just in the--what can I say next?--kind of thing. Where to start? A year was an awfully long time, and we hadn't so much as acknowledged each other since then. It was good though. It gave us both the proper time to heal.

"Reggie," Dylan said suddenly, and my eyebrows shot up at the name. "I saw he--that he had to publish a public apology to us. Does that mean you won the court case?"

I shook my head. "No. We didn't have enough evidence and--" my voice, to my surprise, faltered. "And I let him take a plea bargain instead. He was facing jail time and was supposed to pay reparations but--I didn't really want that, you know? I just wanted to move on, and I really wanted some sort of apology for--for your sake." My voice faded out at the last concession.

Dylan nodded. The discussion--what we really wanted to talk about but were both too afraid to acknowledge--was now properly open, so where do we go from here? We were treading on the broken glass of our relationship, too afraid to boldly venture out in fear of cutting open the freshly healed soles of our feet again.

"Thomas--" Dylan said as I simultaneously began, "Dylan--"

We both stopped, looked at each other, managed a laugh.

"You go first," I said.

He licked his lips and looked out the window at the people passing by.

"There are seven stages of grief, Thomas," he finally said, not meeting my eyes. My chest automatically tightened. "Do you know what they are?"

I swallowed roughly. "Shock," I started, picturing his stunned face when he stumbled out of the room, leaving behind me and Reggie, "Pain," and I saw the tears falling down his face from his doorstep, "Anger," and he was yelling at me, telling me to go, "Depression and loneliness--"

My voice cut off, embarrassingly so, so Dylan jumped in. "The upward turn, then reconstruction. Do you know what the last stage is?"

"Forgiveness." I whispered. I hardly dared to hope.

Dylan nodded at me, and he obviously blinked back the tears of a watery smile.

"Yeah." He took a deep breath. "Forgiveness."

"But we can't be together," I said.

"No," he agreed, "we can't."

"Why?" I asked.

He sighed. "Relationships are based on trust, Thomas. I forgive you, I really do. But--trust is something that has to be earned."

"I understand," I said.

"Maybe one day," he conceded.

I couldn't reply. There was a lump stuck in my throat.

"I should go," he said.

He stood, knocking the napkins to the side and forgetting about the cold food between us. His movements were slow and reluctant, as if his every instinct screamed for him to stay. I slowly got to my feet as well, but my heart was somewhere far off in a place I couldn't quite find--because I wasn't heartbroken, I wasn't in pain. I was just sad, for now. Not forever though. Just for now.

Dylan stepped forward and there was a warmth in his eyes that I cherished. Soft, barely noticeable, but the light I had longed to see since the day we had parted.

"What would you do if I told you I still loved you?" I asked.

"I'd tell you I loved you too," he said softly. Not even a moment's hesitation.

I nodded, swallowed back some tears. "Then I better not tell you," I smiled gently. "For both our sake."

"You probably shouldn't," Dylan conceded, just as lowly. He stepped forward again, far too close.

His lips were soft when he placed them on my cheek. We stood there for a few moments too long, cheek pressed to lips, eyes closed, arms wrapped around each other. And for the first time in forever, hearts beating as one.

He pulled back. When he looked at me, there was light shining in his eyes and there was a happy crease in the small crevice of his smile. I gave a wan smile back, and his eyes fell to my lips for a few seconds before they met mine again.

"Until we meet again?" he asked, sad yet hopeful, as he stepped back and grabbed his coat.

"It won't be soon enough," I replied.

Our eyes met, and there was a moment, a pause, where everything finally fell still. All the harshness and the boldness of the world stopped, slowed down, vanished. It was just me and it was just Dylan; two souls idly drifting towards our next destination. Our paths had crossed but we weren't on the same journey--not anymore.

"No," he agreed. "I'll see you later."

With another small smile he turned away from me, and I watched him go. It wasn't as hard as it was all the other times I had watched him leave though. We weren't the same immature children anymore; we weren't the same people as when we met; we weren't so broken.

The bell rang as he stepped out onto the pavement outside. Despite it all, I grinned, and it wasn't the sad, bitter smile that adorned my face all night. I smiled a real, happy smile--because Dylan hadn't said goodbye. He just said see you later.

//

A/N

EPILOGUE WILL BE POSTED WITHIN THE NEXT TEN MINUTES. PLEASE STANDBY.

xoxo y'all probably hate me right now