Love Letter

Detective Work....

"Tom! What are you doing here? I thought you would be.... oh. Shit. I forgot. Yes, come away in." Luke stepped back and ushered a very distracted Tom into his hallway.

They walked along the little hall into his living room. Tom flopped onto the sofa and rubbed his face with his hands. Where normally, Luke's comfortable little flat was a haven, today it felt like a prison. He just wanted to be out there, finding his Ali.

"Luke? Please tell me how I can possibly EVER find her? She could be in ANY hospital in the country. This could be a needle in a haystack and then some." His eyes were pools of despair that matched his mood.  "If only we'd talked. I could have asked her. I could have... we could be running out of..." he trailed off and covered his face, pulling himself back from the brink.

Luke walked over with a couple of  small, heavy bottomed glass tumblers. In each of them, a large measure of whisky. He nudged Tom's shoulder.

"Here, you could do with this, I think?"

Tom looked up and shook his head. "It's a bit early, isn't it?" Luke sat down next to him, placing both glasses on the coffee table.

"No. It's not. It's never too early to celebrate." He looked at him smugly.
Tom frowned.

"Celebrate? You ARE joking?"

"Nope. I am nothing if not worth every penny you pay me, my son. While you were having a paddy across the Atlantic, I was not as you assumed, sitting with my thumb up my arse and my brain in neutral." He smirked.

"Now hang on, I never said...."

"You didn't have to mate.  Look, it's ok. I assumed that you had no clue, so I did a little digging. Now, you know they wouldn't tell me anything if they thought I was just the random stalker that you've turned me into, right?"

He looked at Tom, and it was apparent it still wasn't sinking in. He was going to have to spell it out.

"I know where she is. What hospital, what ward, when she's coming out of surgery." He tried not to look too pleased with himself. After all, it wasn't the circumstances, was it?

"You do?" Tom looked at him, his mind beginning to race. Luke nodded.

"It was simply a matter of logic.  We know where she lived, so it made sense that it would be a fairly large hospital in her area, yes? I think we can discount any private hospitals. They're pretty much all in London and she mentioned coming TO London to see you."

Luke handed him the glass from the table, "You'll be glad to hear that after a few calls pretending to be her boyfriend, I managed to track her down. I told them I - you - would be in to see her today. I told them I was out of the country on work, so that's why she was alone. I did NOT, however, tell them my full name, just said I was Thomas", and now Luke did look a little sheepish. "Thomas Quince." 

He clinked his glass to Tom's and picked up his phone. As Tom sat, opening and closing his mouth like a stranded fish, Luke tapped away and then put his phone down with a smile.

"Drink up, bud, the taxi will be here shortly to take you. Fortunately, it's not far to the station. Then half an hour on the train.  You'll be there by six." He winked at Tom.  "Now, about that payrise...."

Tom swallowed his whisky in one gulp, placed his glass on the table, and grabbed a VERY surprised Luke by the shoulders.  Kissing him soundly on the lips as Luke's eyes fell out his head, Tom stood up.

"YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE LEGEND!!" He scrambled to the door, then paused, looking back. "Yes, an absolute LEGEND!"

There was the toot of a horn, and he was gone.  Luke laughed loudly and sank the rest of his whisky. Tom really was something else. 

As he sat on the train, Tom rehearsed what he would say, what he would do. For someone so eloquent, so together, he was a wreck.  He decided just for once to wing it.

"Alison? Alison.... there's someone to see you... your boyfriend's here!" Jenny walked into the side room and spoke gently to the sleeping woman. At her back, as she could barely believe, stood Loki himself.  He'd arrived not five minutes previously, in a taxi from the station, with flowers and an anxious smile....

"Hello? I'm so very sorry to disturb you, but I wonder if you can help me? I'm looking for Alison, Alison Martin?"  He waited patiently at the nurse's station as she finished her notes.  The nurse , her name badge revealing her to be Jenny Green, looked up.

And up again, her mouth dropping open in shock. Tom smiled, his usual charm kicking in, despite his personal  agonies.

"Hi... yeah.. erm, I know I seem a very bad boyfriend, and I guess you'll realise now why I gave the name I did,  but I've been away in the States...." he smiled, and Jenny shook her head very slowly, still trying to get her head around the fact that Loki really WAS Alison's boyfriend.

"Come this way, please Mr Hiddleston?"  She stood up and gently guided him to the room door, her professionalism finally winning through." Alison's come through the surgery well, but it was major, and she's still very sleepy.  She might not make a lot of sense.  She erm..." Jenny paused." She told us Loki was her boyfriend!"

Tom smiled, "Well, I won't tell him  I came if you dont!" He winked, a sudden rush of joy at the notion she'd actually referred to the fact she had any kind of boyfriend at all.

Alison continued to sleep, unaware of all the commotion. Unaware of the man now sitting next to her bed, gently holding her hand.  Unaware of the gaggle of nurses currently swooning at their station and most definitely unaware of the kiss.

The kiss that Tom would remember for the rest of his life. Just once, in the middle of her forehead, as he bent over her. Their first kiss.

"Sleep well, darling. I'm here, and I'm going to be here when you wake up.  I promise I will always be here when you wake up."

As he watched her sleep, he stroked her hand and raised it to his cheek, pressing gently. It was so small and delicate, just like her. The monitor beside him blinked silently, reassuringly.  In that moment of peace and silence, he had no idea just how that promise would be tested to its limit.

Fate has a habit of pulling the rug from under you just as you think you've nailed it down.