A Thousand Oceans Wide

"Sorry, I'm late," Tom said when he arrived at the supermarket entrance where he saw Heidi. It was around six at night, the night before the highly-anticipated surprise party for Bill.

"Hello," Heidi smiled when she turned and saw Tom approaching. "Where's Bill?"

"At home, with Georg and Gustav. They're reading fan-mail and Bill's writing a letter to the fan forum," Tom smiled.

Heidi looked a bit awkward. Then, Tom heard the sound of a young boy and his eyes gazed upon a child in the kiddy seat on the pushcart.

"Hello, TomTom," the boy grinned. "TomTom," he repeated.

"Oh, hi." And he smiled big at Markus who was sort of ignoring Tom as his interest was caught by the toy car he was holding. "Usually, it's Tomi or Tommy, but that's accepted, too." The Kaulitz twin looked at Heidi. "Babysitting?"

Heidi shrugged and nodded. "Yeah," she said. "My mom's at the hospital with my dad for some check up. He's coming home today so she's asked me to take him with me." It was the real reason, but Heidi had initially wanted to leave Markus with her mom but it was going to be problematic seeing the situation. She had no choice but to take Markus with her. It seemed more normal, anyway. She was always with the child if he wasn't in school.

"Cool," Tom said, not minding. "Some grownup boy bonding time, eh?" And he offered to push the cart, but Heidi declined. And she started going in, towards the fruits and vegetables.

"It's fine," she said, shaking her head. When Tom said 'grownup boy bonding time', she inevitably thought of father-son bonding time. It was stuck in her head and she almost didn't hear Markus calling her.

"Heid, Heidi!" Markus exclaimed. "I want gummy bears."

Tom smiled. He didn't really know how to act with kids, but he knew gummy bears were amazing and so he answered the kid. "I see that's one thing we have in common," he told the child. "Your brother's cool."

"Everyone likes gummy bears," Heidi laughed, awkward. "We're German."

"Right," Tom said, narrowing his gaze with a soft smirk. He looked around and asked. "So, what did we agree on again?"

Heidi bit her lip, looking around as well. "Did we say sandwiches? Then we'll get lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers. You'll get them," she said. "I'll get tuna."

"Gustav can't eat fish," Tom laughed. "But it's okay. And hey, no hurry. There are a lot of fan-mail. Besides, it's nice to go shopping. I haven't done so personally in months." And he took some tomatoes and cucumber.

"Oh," Heidi said. "We'll get chicken, then. Is chicken alright?" She took lettuce and put them in the trolley.

"I want chicken," Markus smiled, waving the car at Tom's face.

"Chicken's good," Tom nodded in agreement. "The kid has spoken." He winked at Markus, who in turn, gave a toothy grin.

"I like chicken," Markus said. And Heidi gave a creeping smile as she went to look at the vegetables.

"Me, too," Tom said, amused by this little version of a being. "Another thing we have in common. We're like, tiny best friends!"

Heidi found Tom's choice of words funny, and she gave a short laugh. "Yeah," she said, rubbing the younger boy's cheeks.

If there was anything that was unavoidable, it was the connection the boys had. It was nice to know Tom didn't hate kids that much. Maybe he was being biased, knowing this was Heidi's brother. Markus wasn't annoying, anyway. Tom, on the other hand, was actually being biased. He did enjoy Markus' presence because he was related to Heidi. He had seen children who were fans of the band, but none were as tiny as Markus. Tom was nice to all in general. And Markus wasn't a bawling kid, so it didn't matter. Of course, the crying days were long over, and Heidi could never forget how tough it was for her. The only thing she didn't want Tom to know was that this kid was his. Things were fine this way already. Tiny best friends.

"Nice brown eyes," he said, observing Markus as he pushed the trolley, arms resting on the handlebar. "I thought he'd have blue ones like you."

"Well, uh." When Heidi heard that, she immediately knew this had gone far enough and she quickly offered to push again. "Tom, can you reach that for me? I can't reach it," she pointed to a box of pancake mix in the upper shelf.

Tom knew she could have reached for it herself, but she asked him to get it instead. He found it amusing.

"Sure," he said, offering a slight smirk with a raised eyebrow. The boy reached out a hand and grabbed it, throwing it into the cart. He thought maybe Heidi was trying to get him to show his gentlemanly side for some reason. He didn't mind at all. "Anything else?"

Heidi looked around before shaking her head. "We move on," she said, and she pushed Markus on.

Tom followed in silence, deep in thought. He loved thinking.

"Gummy," Markus said suddenly. "I want chocolate, too!" He pointed to some at the aisle they passed.

"Only one," Heidi said, giving the kid a small angry pout.

"Gummy, for sure," Tom said, smiling. "Gummy, right?"

"Yes," Markus nodded with big round eyes, nodding prominently and hard as he stared up at Tom in an endearing way. Tom felt a sudden adoration spur in him. Cute kid, he thought. He felt like he was watching fluffy puppies cuddle each other by a fireplace in winter.

"Aw," Tom laughed, disbelieving his thoughts. "Heidi, I haven't spent more than five minutes communicating with toddlers in years, and so maybe I'm biased when I say that is a very cute face your brother is showing me. But hey, is that what you call a puppy dog look?" he asked the boy, leaning down to look closer into his eyes.

Heidi was in the middle of choosing a chocolate cake mix when she heard Tom's words. She almost dropped her box. "What?" she says, and then she looked at Markus. "Oh, he does that a lot to get things from you," she laughed, awkward. She put the box in and pushed on, taking some spaghetti and sauce as well. The girl pushed forward, leaving Tom a few steps behind much to his surprise. "What else did you say you were making?"

"We need bread, too," Tom said. And he got distracted when his mind roamed again. He always did this, and sometimes he had headaches from it and couldn't sleep at night.

Tom had a sudden deduction; he suspected Heidi liked him. He hadn't liked someone in a while, for no longer than a night, at least, but he felt something awkward in between them still. It wasn't lust, for sure. Just simple liking. They were fine since the day before, when things were cleared up, but something still stood in between them and Tom attributed that to Heidi's uneasiness. She kept changing subjects, distracting him about something else and then she was normal again. Playing coy?, he thought. Maybe. And she sure brought Markus here to ease the tension. Using her brother as a distraction and then getting my attention again. Tom shook his head, smirking.

Heidi went to get bread, and most of the other things on her mental list. She turned and looked at Tom. "Um, anything else?" she asked.

Tom shook his head. His gaze randomly landed on her curls and then, he suddenly remembered. "Oh, toilet paper-"

"Paper towels-" Heidi said at the same time. She was surprised, and so was he. "What did you say?"

"You said paper towels?" Tom asked. "My mom wanted me to get toilet paper. She's afraid we'll run out because of tomorrow."

"Okay," Heidi nodded. She pushed Markus with her, a little more effort required because there were a lot of things inside; cans of beer, Coke, and stuff like that.

"Let me," Tom offered, half-smiling. "You can still see Markus, don't worry." He was teasing her, but she didn't get it. She thought he knew something, and panicked for a while.

"Why do you think I want to see him?" she asked, questioning. "Not that I don't want to, he's my brother but-"

"I know he's that important to you, so," the Kaulitz twin smirked, giving a single nod. He looked down at the toilet paper selection on display, his cap shielding his smirkful gaze from her.

The blonde-haired eighteen-year-old was shocked. What did he know? Did he know? What was he talking about? Her mind was exploding with questions.

"How long have we known each other?" Tom asked suddenly as he pulled out two packs of toilet paper.

Heidi swallowed. "Ten years?"

"Wow, that's long," Tom nodded, amazed. "And we haven't seen each other in?"

"..four?" Heidi answered.

"Do you think things happened?" he asked, playing with his words. "Well, do you think things could happen, that lead to things happening?"

Heidi was confused. "What? Wait," she thought it was funny, but sadly she couldn't find the spirit to laugh. It was confusing for her. "Tom, stop it." She decided to not go further. "I don't want to talk about it."

She glanced at her unacknowledged son that was young Markus and she stroked his hair. Tom looked at Heidi. There she was again, he thought, turning my attention to Markus. Tom found Heidi amusing, and all the more interesting. He hadn't met girls like that much, just 'easy' ones who were more coy than he was. Never had anyone been so wishy-washy like that. Maybe it was because he and Heidi were togther before, that's why it was that awkward if she were to tell him she liked him again.

"Okay," Tom said, and he laughed slightly. His contemplation was amusing himself. "Sorry." Then he pushed the cart to get the disposable cutlery and went to the cashier.

"How much do you know?" she asked, curious. She was seriously going to grill Brigette and Johanna on this.

"I just realized, and over the past week," he said, thinking they were on the same subject. "I can read things well, you know. And I'm fine with it."

"What?" Heidi frowned. How could he just realize it? It wasn't that obvious that Markus was his son, was it? "What are you talking about, exactly, Tom?"

"What you're hiding from me, obviously," Tom grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. He couldn't help it. He always appeared more coy when it came to feelings like that. Heidi was cute, anyway. He didn't mind. "All these years... Hmm." He put the things on the conveyor belt as Markus started to count the number of things they were buying.

"I don't think we're on the same page here," Heidi frowned, pretty sure this was about something else. At least, she hoped so. Because Tom didn't seem shocked. She expected him to be shocked, maybe angry. Funnily, he was in a joking mood. He teased. Without another word, she helped with the stuff a bit.

"We'll talk when we're not in front of the child," he said, shaking his head and chuckling to himself.

Heidi was stunned by the words 'the child'. Way to put it, she thought. She couldn't believe Tom knows. Or at least, that was how it appeared to her. Tom, on the other hand, didn't mind if she liked him again. She was nice, and very homely. There was nothing bad about her.