3. Can You Hear Me Calling? (Tom Kaulitz/Tokio Hotel Fanfiction)

Chapter Twenty. Stone Cold.

I don't remember when was I supposed to upload this one, but please don't hate me terribly after you read this!

Also, no spell check, so... my bad if there are any mistakes!

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"Are you sure they are fine?" I asked the babysitter through the phone.

"Yes, they are all watching cartoons."

Angie and I were in the car on our way to see the first pieces of clothing, just what the designers had in mind, we would be choosing the things that would be sold and the ones that wouldn't see the light of another day.

I had done everything in my power to stop the nonsense with Tom, I got a babysitter; which I hated, and worked from home as much as possible while Tom kept going to his friend's shows and worked on the studio either with them or with the guys.

Allison, Linda and I were losing our patience with the new songs that the four of them talked so much about, but still didn't allow us to hear.

"Okay, I will be back in a few hours, don't think twice: if anything happens, just call me." I was a worrying machine.

Angie was calling the shots on the designs, shape and structure; but I was looking at the fabrics, inspecting the quality. We made a great team and our designers didn't disappoint us, it took us all morning choosing the pieces, we ended up deciding that we should pick only twelve looks for a start and put apart the things we liked but could be too much for the opening of the store.

I had fun and I forgot everything about anything else while I was discussing about the clothes with Angie, we had very different styles and views on everything but that seemed to work for us.

By the time we were done, we decided on getting lunch and then heading back to our places.

"I think it's gonna be a hit." Angie was very optimistic, she smiled and clapped her hands together with excitement.

The waiter handed us the menus and we thanked him before looking down at it.

"I hope it is, it's been so much work already!" I told her.

"Yes!" Angie was theatrical. "Ugh! My parents were starting to think that I would never use my degree for anything!" I laughed at that.

"I have used my degree for everything!" I told her and she rolled her eyes.

"Show off!" She joked with a side smile on her face.

We ordered when the waiter came back to our table and Angie ventured on a sensitive topic.

"Where are the little ones?" She asked casually.

I fiddled with the napkin and looked down at the table shaking my head and shrugging.

"Well..." I sighed, "they are home again." I said.

In the last couple of weeks Angie had been a little quiet, I guessed she was worried about her problems with Bill but it sure had a little bit to do with the fact that she was a Günther fan and I wasn't bringing him with us anymore.

"Oh, I thought they liked going to work with mommy!" She said in a high-pitched childish voice, shaking her fist in the air as she did so.

"No, they like it." The words slipped out of my mouth. She raised a brow and I looked up at the ceiling. "Tom asked me not to bring them anymore."

"Of course, I guess he is a protective guy." She blurted out. "I mean when he's not working; Bill is so sick of calling him-" she stopped talking all of a sudden.

"What?" I dropped the napkin on my lap and leaned forward over the table. "What do you mean?"

Angie sighed and looked worried.

"Please don't tell Bill I told you!" She put her hands together and begged, I nodded my head quickly and she bit her lip. "Tom is being weird according to Bill, they usually talk to each other a lot but now Bill is always sent to voicemail."

I knew what it was like, I was always sent to voice mail too... I pouted and stared at her. She shrugged and started playing with a bracelet on her left wrist.

"He is being weird." I told her. "I think it's my fault." I sighed.

Tom was probably very stressed out from all the work he had been doing and I added unnecessary drama into the mix... I would have a heart to heart with him and hopefully that would be it. There was something about Bill getting the cold shoulder from Tom because of me that made me feel horrible.

Arriving home, a pair of small arms hugged me; Günther was always thrilled to see me or Tom and it was without doubt the best greeting anyone could get.

"Hey, how was your day, love?" I kissed his cheek as I stood on my knees looking at his handsome young face.

"It was awesome! I drew a penguin and then we ate popcorn and we watched the Lion King!"

I opened my mouth in surprise, straightening up and going to say hi to Lily and Lena before letting the babysitter go.

I spent the rest of the afternoon with the kids and although I wanted to have a break after an hour, Günther was having a great time drawing with his left hand while I played with Lena and her favorite toy. Lily was upstairs in the studio, playing her keyboard again.

Tom was home for dinner and when he arrived I watched the dogs run to the door and then my boy. Lena perked up at the sound of Tom's "I'm home!", I stared at her with raised brows and she stared back with her beautiful brown eyes wide open.

"Who's that, Lena?" I pulled her up and went to the door to see Tom patting Günther's head.

"Hey, girl." Tom smiled at Lena on my arms and it didn't go unnoticed to me that he was looking at her, not at me.

He pulled her out of my arms and held her carefully, kissing her cheek and getting her to giggle and grab his beard. I went to kiss him but he put his hand on my cheek and managed to softly turn my head and land a peck on my cheek, if that could be considered any sort of kiss.

I stared at Tom while he walked into the living room. What the hell was going on! Had I done something? Why was he so distant? So... different.

We ate dinner in the kitchen but every conversation including Tom excluded me and vice versa. Lily was the only one who noticed, she was the oldest out of the three kids in our house so she realized something was off but said nothing about it.

When we put the kids in their bed Tom ran off to the studio and left me confused and worried in our bedroom, watching House of Cards on my own; which was not fun at all. It took me about thirty minutes to gain enough courage to walk down the hallway to the studio and try to get Tom to go to bed with me and stop giving me that awful treatment.

"Tom?" I whispered when I opened the door, he had the headphones on so he didn't realize I had walked in.

I tried to make more noise when I closed the door so he would hear me, it worked and he turned around, once he was facing me, he turned back to the large screen of his computer.

Maybe I was being a little too optimistic but I went up to him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders, resting my hands in his chest. Tom didn't flinch and it bothered me to think that he could have grown bored with me.

"Tom?" I ventured to pull the headphones and he sighed in annoyance. "It's late, why don't we... go to bed?"

"You go; I'll be right there." He muttered.

"Tom, you know I can't sleep well without you..." I whispered with my chin on his shoulder.

He breathed in and turned his head to the side.

"Have you always been this needy?"

What?

His low serious tone left me cold to the core.

I stood up straight, taking my hands off of him and choked out a "goodnight" before slowly leaving the room and going into our bedroom.

Closing the door behind me, I took a couple of deep breaths and sat on the bed, I reached out to one of the pillows, the one Tom couldn't sleep without. I had been hugging that pillow a lot lately, because I was missing Tom; tonight I only looked down at it on my lap and then put it back on the other side of the bed.

Sleeping after that was difficult, for the first hour or so I couldn't find a comfortable position for sleeping. I tried one foot, both feet, one arm, and both arms out but nothing worked... by the time Tom stepped into the bedroom it was almost 4:00 am and I had only slept a little bit between my turning and tossing around; at least the side of the bed in which I was trying to sleep was a mess while the other half was pretty much untouched, I expected an apology from Tom, maybe a whispered "hey, I didn't mean that", but it was never pronounced.

He closed the door and walked past me into the walk in closet before getting under the covers next to me. Tom fell asleep without speaking a word to me or even touching me, I couldn't remember the last time he put his usual protective arm around me to hold me during the night.

When I woke up the next morning Tom was still sleeping, facing away from me. I sat up and got ready to go out before waking the kids up and making breakfast.

Gün was drinking orange juice for a change while Lily and I watched Lena eating scrambled eggs, and the phone started ringing. I reached out to pick it up.

"Hello?" I heard my mom's voice on the other end. "Hey, mom, how are you?"

"We're very well, just got back home." She said, Fernando had been on treatment the past weeks after having surgery. "Doctor said things are looking up!" She explained.

"That's so great, mom!" I told her in relief, for a moment I forgot I wanted to talk to her about Tom's weird cold behavior.

"Yes, how are the kids?" She asked me.

I looked at the three kids and pulled Lena out of my lap and let Lily sit her on hers, I pointed at the phone and then at the hallway on my way out of the kitchen.

"They are all great, mom, thanks."

I had a feeling that I knew where she was going.

"How do you think Lily's coping?" She wondered in a casual manner.

"She misses you." I said. "All she does is practice with her keyboard and... I don't know," I looked around just in case to make sure nobody was listening, "she plays a little with Lena and Gün but... why are you asking?"

"Nando and I were talking..." I nodded, as usual forgetting that she couldn't see me through the phone. "We really miss her too... especially him." We both giggled.

Lily was a big daddy's girl and although she understood that Fernando and my mother were not her parents, she also understood that she loved them as such; I realized she was a little distant from everyone because she probably missed them.

"Oh, well... why don't we ask her if she's up for the trip?" I told her.

"Do you think she'll want to stay?" She asked me with worry.

"Oh, mom..." I covered my face with a hand and sighed. "Let's face it, she is more Spanish than me at this point."

"Finny..." Mom used my old nickname and I smiled at it. "Could you ask her? She would still have to see Nando going bald, it suits him, but..."

"I think she's a tough cookie, mom." I told her, "and I will call you back when I talk to her."

"It's been so hard; you know?" I hummed. "How has it been over there?"

"Uh... well..." I bit my lip, "I expected things to be a little harder, but it's alright." I lied.

"I'm happy to hear that, Jo. I have to go; I'll talk to you soon!"

"It was nice talking to you, mom, tell Fernando I said hi!" I smiled to myself.

"I will, you say hi to Tom for me, okay?" She said cheerfully.

"Of course, talk to you later, bye!"

"Adios!"

I hung up the phone and went back to the kitchen, I found Günther talking to Tom as he held Lena and ate breakfast with Lily lost reading something on her iPad.

"Good morning." I said to Tom and sat next to Gün.

"...and, and, and then I ran! I ran behind Rize but he kept running and, and and..."

Günther's story telling was for the patient people and today, Tom was not patient at all. He had a last sip of his coffee and put the cup down loudly, Lily raised her eyes away from the iPad screen to see what was happening.

"Günther, shut up! You-oh, my god... You just talk so much!" He said looking straight at the little boy.

Günni looked down in shame and grabbed his orange juice from the kitchen island before jumping off the chair and going upstairs in more of that rare silence.

"Tom..." I started but Lily cut me off.

"That was mean." She complained.

"Yeah? You know what else is mean? You having no par-"

"Tom!" I yelled at him in surprise.

Lily grabbed her iPad and ran away upstairs, Lena started crying in Tom's arms and he started making her bounce on his knee.

"What do you think you are doing?! They are just kids!" I complained. "I can't believe you wanted to say that to Lily!"

"And now they are crying?" He looked up from Lena. "What? He talks too much and she should have kept quiet too!"

I went around the kitchen island and pulled Lena out of his grasp.

"No, that boy cares for what you say and Lily was pointing out how much of a dick you have been to everyone lately! Do you think it's funny what happened to us? That was my dad too!" I told him angrily when I pulled Lena's head on my chest, where she nested and started to calm down. "We are your family!"

"You are all too sensitive..." He rolled his eyes.

"Who are you?" I walked away and took Lena upstairs.

I didn't speak to Tom in all day, I spent half of my morning talking to Lily and getting her to stop crying, I decided I should bring the topic out as soon as possible so I asked her if she wanted to go back to Spain to live with mom.

"It would be permanent, it means maybe you could spend the summers with us here or in California, anytime you want-you know?" I explained to her.

"But I don't get it, Jo..." She frowned. "Are they like... my parents or...?" I nodded.

"They are. And I think you should go live with them." I told her honestly. "You are my little sister, Lils, I just want you to be happy and I know mom is the only person in the world who you want to learn from." I brushed her hair with my fingers as I spoke to her.

Lily nodded and shrugged.

"Maura says that you are a lot like Dad." She muttered, "I would still be their daughter, right?" I nodded. "Then...I want to go with mom."

"That's fine, Lils." I smiled at her and she smiled back. "I was waiting for your birthday but... come with me."

I made Lily follow me to my bedroom and then I opened a drawer and looked for a small sketchbook, in it was a picture of Dad and Ulrike when they got married. I had hated the picture for years but after they passed away I had made my peace with Ulrike, I had been keeping the photograph in that drawer for a few months as I tried to figure out what I wanted to do with it and when Lily arrived in Germany I decided I would give it to her on her birthday.

"It's your mom and Dad." I explained to her as we sat on the edge of the bed.

"They look..." She took the picture from my hand and looked at it with shinny eyes. "Mom was so..." She smiled with a hint of sadness on her expression, "pretty."

I nodded, we all thought our mother was the most beautiful woman alive, I guessed...

"You keep this picture, alright?" I instructed her and then turned and saw a picture of Dad on top of the dresser.

I picked the picture up and took the picture out of the frame, I had planned on framing the other picture for Lily but now I would just have to find a new frame for my picture. I had enough pictures of Dad though.

"Well, let's get it in here..." I told Lily absentmindedly as I put her picture on the frame and handed it back to her.


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Bill called me and I couldn't say no to him, he wanted to know if I would like to go over to his place for lunch; I left the kids with the babysitter since it felt like Bill needed more than just hanging out.

I was right, as soon as he saw me on his entryway he let his shoulders fall and smiled as if he had been waiting for me all year.

"Hey, how's it going?" I kissed his cheek and he let me in.

"Oh, God, everything is a mess, Jo!" He looked behind me. "And the gang?"

I smiled.

"Home."

I sighed and dropped my handbag on one of his couches in the living room.

"What happened?" I asked him already pinching the bridge of my nose.

"I fucked up!" He said and leaned on the back of the same sofa I was leaning on. "I slept with Angie. A few times."

My mouth made an O shape when I heard him. I stood up straight and looked at his worried face.

"Why?" I questioned.

"I don't know... it just kept happening!" Bill said. "I really like her but... now she wants stuff and I haven't exactly broken up with Mark!"

"Bill!" I had already yelled at both twins in the same day. "Why did you do that?! You cheated on Mark?!"

"I did and I know and I am so, so, so..." He looked up at the ceiling and then looked defeated. "Confused!" He should have said sorry.

I grabbed Bill's hand and pulled him around the couch to sit down and talk about this.

"Bill, do you like Angie?" I wondered and Bill nodded with his head thrown back over the couch. "Do you like Mark?"

"I do!" I sighed and threw my head back on the couch too. "I fucked things up with Angie, she asked me to leave her place this morning and it wasn't very nice."

"Did you spend the night at her place?" He nodded in response.

"I can't remember how many times I've done that." He explained with a desperate smile spread across his face.

"Bill!" I rolled my eyes and sighed loudly. "Goddamn it, Bill!" I pushed his shoulder lightly. "I thought you were gay..."

"What can I say?" Bill shrugged, "she is different, I didn't think I liked girls either and then bam! She said her name was Angelika but there's nothing angelic about her!"

"At least not between her legs..." I commented as I looked away.

"Jo!" I jumped up, I had said out loud what I was thinking.

"Sorry! I've been hanging out a lot with your brother!" I apologized.

"Don't get me started on the topic, he's acting so weird lately..." He said.

I nodded.

"Yeah, I don't know him at times." I muttered. Bill put his hand on my knee.

"But you're the same, only with a dirtier mind." He smiled at me and I looked at him smiling a little too. "What should I do, Jo? I feel so lost..." I grabbed his hand and gave it a light squeeze.

"Why did she kick you out today?" I needed to know what had happened if I was going to give him a good advice.

"We've had this... thing going on between us but I swear to you I just forget about everything else when I am with her it's... it's so weird." He took a deep breath. "Anyway, we haven't talked about Mark for ages and he called me last night because he's been telling me that he misses me so he asked me to go back and I told Angie that I was going to LA in a couple of days and she automatically brought up the topic and asked me why was I going and ugh..." He ended up grunting and bringing his hands up to his face. "I wish I could forget about one of them but I am... torn."

I took a deep breath and rubbed my hands together looking away from Bill.

"I think that you need to go back to Mark and talk to him. You told me before that he didn't want to come here and you didn't like that and Angie is kind of wild... Bill, she brings us all out of our comfort zone! If you like that then... consider it."

"Oh, she's kind of... I don't know!" Bill looked miserable, Pumba jumped up and he picked him up. "I love Mark. I shouldn't have cheated on him."

I rolled my eyes and pouted.

"Then just tell him what you did and see how he reacts, you can't just...hide it from him, it's wrong." I said.

"Why did you forgive Tom? ...when he... you know..." He wondered, we had never talked about that.

I had not thought about it in years and it was horrible timing to do it. His question made me think again.

When he cheated on me and then said he hadn't, I had a hard time believing him, everything I thought I knew about him seemed false but I was pregnant back then and I couldn't rush into anything even if I wanted to; I needed Tom, and our baby needed him too, for a few months I ignored his mistakes so the baby could be born healthy and then Tom showed me I meant more to him than anything else; I loved him and we were just starting a new chapter in our lives, I couldn't shove the book closed because of one mistake. I couldn't say goodbye to Tom, he was everything I knew and I had, and there was no way I would end up like my parents... he convinced me that we could work it out, and we did; but how could I explain all of that to Bill?

I summed everything up as best as I could in a few words.

"Because he meant more to me than a stupid mistake." I said. "It's not like "oh my god, I am so in love! I will fight for them!" Bill, it is not a Disney movie, it's an effort and working through stuff, and team work, a lot of "if you can't I will try and if that doesn't work then we'll do it together!" most of the time..."

Bill was looking at me but his hand kept petting Pumbi.

"So you are saying that if Mark doesn't want to work it out then..." I nodded as we looked into each other's eyes.

We went out for lunch and it cheered us up, our conversation made me think of what was happening with Tom and I was feeling a little less worried now that I remembered that we had already gone through rough times on our relationship.

I grabbed Bill's arm as we made our way to the car after leaving the restaurant; my phone had started ringing and I spend a little too much time frantically looking for my phone inside my bag.

"Why did you need such a big hand bag, Jo?" Bill laughed at me.

I raised my head as I still touched everything inside my bag to find the iPhone. I smiled at him with humor.

"So it matched my self-confidence!" I explained cheerfully, Bill touched his head as if to say it was obvious.

"Of course..." He muttered and then I found the phone.

I saw that it was Una's number.

"Hello? What's up, Una?"

I fixed my hair a little and changed the weight from one foot to the other, I had decided on wearing a pair of pointed toe stilettos and it wasn't a great idea now that I knew we were going to the mall.

"Hey, I have great news!" She said excitedly.

"What is it, Una?" I turned to Bill, he was aware that it was something involving Angelika's and I's business. "Wait," I had an idea of what she was going to tell me, "did you find a photographer for next week?"

"I did!" She sounded almost more excited than me. "But not just a photographer, he's one of the best and he is willing to make the trip to Germany!"

"Oh, God..." I rubbed my forehead with my fingers. "Is he still on our budget?" I worried and we arrived at Bill's car, he opened the door for me and I stepped in.

"Don't worry, he's not gonna cost that much." She sounded happy and proud of herself. "You are not gonna believe it when I tell you his name!"

I smiled and saw Bill get in the car too. He put the keys in the ignition.

"Who is it, Una?" Bill and I looked at each other, he didn't start the car to listen.

"Are you ready?" I rolled my eyes.

"Yes, just tell me!" I giggled and Bill rolled his eyes too.

"Okay... but he was super hard to find!" She warned me.

"The name, Una, just give me the name!" I was running out of patience.

"...and he opened up a little space for us..."

"UNA!" Bill and I yelled.

I heard my assistant laugh on the other side of that call and took a deep breath.

"I got us THE Matt Jones!" I almost drop the phone.

"Ma-Matt Jones?"



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What?!

You have to remember that name!

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