A/N: So, this is my Sybil/Tom Secret Santa fic for the wonderful Ducky82. Hopefully Ducky82 likes what I've done with the prompt. It was great fun to write, but I'm not used to writing angst, so it was a bit of an experiment really. Anyway, Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, and id you don't, then I hope you have a wonderful couple of weeks to end 2013 and start 2014.

Complicated Decisions

Sybil was sat at the head of her bed, leaning her slouched back on the headboard. She held one hot water bottle on her feet and another was held in place on her stomach by her bent legs. She was staring down at a half-open book. It had been her favourite book since she was about fourteen years old and she'd read it countless times, almost to the point of knowing it inside out. It had been resting in the gap between her knees for a long time, but in two hours she'd read just half a page. Her mind was preoccupied with what had happened earlier in the day. She stared straight through the pages, not caring for what was printed on them. She remembered back to that morning. She remembered how awful she felt. How the inside of her body had felt as if it had folded in on itself. How she had not been told until the last minute the thing that might change her life forever. How she would not be able to think straight for days or weeks.

"Hey guys," Sybil said as she walked up to her best friends. She and her friends had decided to meet up in the town centre in the beautiful public gardens. She was the last of the group of five to turn up. First, there was Gwen who had been her best friend since they were eight years old. A fiery red-headed girl, she and Sybil had hit it off immediately, and as they grew older they came to have the same beliefs about how to live one's life properly. Then there was Alfred, who was similar to the two of them. He, too, knew exactly what he wanted from life and was doing everything he could to go after his dreams of becoming a chef. He'd known Sybil for about five years. Recently, she'd exploited his kindness to get him to teach her to cook. With her living away from home in a few months' time when she left for University, she felt that she had to prove to her father that she could, in fact, live independently. Next, there was Thomas – tall, dark-haired and a little stand-off-ish, but Sybil had got to know him very well when they had both been doing work experience at the same time in the same hospital. He'd taken some time to come out of his shell in Sybil's friendship group as they were all rather loud and rather opinionated, but once he got used to the people, he actually fit in quite well. Finally there was Tom, the newest member of the group. He was Irish, but had moved to England because his parents had thought it best for his education and well-being. He and Sybil often found comfort in one another and often had the same thoughts, both of them being interested in politics and both being extremely out-spoken, even if it wasn't always in their favour to be so.

All except Gwen looked over in Sybil's direction and replied to Sybil's greeting. Sybil smiled at Gwen, who was looking through her handbag, obviously trying to find something she'd lost. "What's she looking for?" Sybil asked Alfred on one side.

"She thinks she's left her phone at home and she's been looking for it for the past five minutes," Alfred replied, knowing that this was common with the young red-head.

"Gwen," Sybil said to her best friend, walking closer to her. "Hey, Gwen, you left your phone at my place on Thursday." Gwen's gaze shot up and she saw Sybil standing in front of her with her phone being offered back to her. She sprung up and practically threw herself at Sybil, wrapping her arms around her neck and almost completely knocking her over.

"Oh, I love you, Sybil!" she exclaimed loudly. She took her phone from a grinning Sybil and instantly began to check her messages.

"You're so predictable, Gwen!" Tom expressed.

"I am not!" she protested.

"Yes you are!" Alfred squawked.

"Come on, Sybil, back me up here. You know that I'm not always like this," Gwen pleaded.

"Well, if I'm honest, I agree with the guys in this case, Gwen," Sybil said.

"Well, that's wonderfully comforting. It's really nice to know that all four of my best friends are on my side, isn't it?" she replied, far too dramatically. The five of them fell about in fits of giggles and none of them could speak for a while. Once they'd all recovered they went to find a table in a café that they could claim as their own, looking out at the beautiful gardens so that they could have a good old chat with each other.

After a bit of time talking and relaxing in the cold, Alfred, Thomas and Gwen decided that they needed to have another coffee before they could go, so they took Sybil and Tom's orders and left them alone to go and get their drinks to warm up. "You've been quieter than normal, Tom. Is everything alright?" Sybil asked, genuinely concerned – the last time he was this quiet was when he was doing exams and was stressed and tired.

"Actually, Syb, I've wanted to tell you something for a while now. Um, firstly, don't kill me for this – I know I'm telling you this really late, but I wanted to be able to spend as much, um, you know, normal time with you." Sybil's emotion was written all over her face. She was confused, was he going to finally ask her out or was he going to tell her something that she didn't want to hear? "Um, right, err," Tom said, obviously not sure how to phrase what he was about to say. "I think, um, I think I'm going to go to uni in America, rather than stay here." He looked from his lap to her. She was staring back at him, her lips parted in shock and her eyes entirely unseeing. Tom could see that her breathing was speeding up and that tears were threatening to fall down her cheeks.

"Wh-, bu-," Sybil started. Tom could tell that she was going to have trouble finishing her sentences, so he explained what he knew she would want to know.

"It's been a really recent decision, but I wanted to be able to make it on my own so that it was my decision and no one else's and so that I would know that I wouldn't have made a rushed decision based on what my friends wanted me to do. You know I want to do English, and one of my cousins went to study law in America and said that it was the best thing she ever did. I think it would be good for me to do something different for a few years. I'm not going to stay there for years and years without coming back. I want to go to uni there and then come back to England, or maybe go back to Ireland. I think I'm going next week." A tear fell down Sybil's cheek and dropped onto her coat. She quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand when she saw Gwen, Thomas and Alfred coming back with their hands full of drinks. As soon as Sybil was handed hers, she made her excuses and walked off. She was going straight home to think about what was going to happen when Tom was gone.

Her phone buzzed on her bedside table. It was a text from Tom.

Are you alright? I'm worried about you. Can I ring you? Tom xx

Sybil decided to save Tom the trouble and just plucked up the courage to ring him herself. He answered the phone with a hoarse voice.

"Hello."

"Hey Tom. Sorry about earlier. I was just being over dramatic. It doesn't matter. It's your life, you should do what you want – I shouldn't be the one stopping you," Sybil said, not quite agreeing with everything she said. Along with Gwen, Tom was one of the most important and most supportive people in Sybil's life and now he was about to go half way across the world and stay there for a considerable length of time.

"No, don't apologise. I should have told you a lot earlier. I mean, a week in advance isn't exactly a long time to think about it and talk to anybody about how you feel about it. This situation is way more my fault than yours, Syb."

"Yeah, well…" Sybil continued, willing to agree with him. "You know what; do you want to come over? I could do with being able to talk to someone who kind of understands why I'm bawling my eyes out."

"Really, you don't sound very tearful to me," Tom said truthfully.

"Well, I was extremely tearful about ten minutes ago!" Sybil said, rather cheerfully, considering how she felt.

"Alright, give me ten minutes and I'll be at your place," Tom said firmly into his phone. Sybil hung up and continued to stare at her book. Her house was a mess, but she didn't care if Tom saw it as it was. He'd been to her house enough times to know that she wasn't the tidiest person in the world.

Ten minutes later there was a knock at the door. She put her book down on her bedside table, next to her phone and plodded down the stairs to answer the door. "Hey, Syb," Tom said, stepping inside the door and reaching out to touch Sybil's arm.

"Hey," Sybil replied. "Do you want a cup of tea?" she offered.

"Yeah, but I can make it," Tom answered, setting off down the hall towards the kitchen. Sybil shut the front door and followed Tom into the kitchen. As Tom waited for the kettle to boil, he turned to Sybil and leant back on the work surface. "I'm an idiot, Sybil."

"No you're not; it's your life. I couldn't and shouldn't try to stop you from doing what you want to do with it."

"But, Syb, do you realise how much I've debated with myself about moving half way across the world? I wasn't even sure that it was the best idea to go, but it's all sorted now."

"Of course you have to go, Tom. If you choose not to go now, you're wasting all that time, effort and money that you've put into this," Sybil said, supportively. She walked over next to where Tom was standing and made the two mugs of tea. She handed one to Tom and went to sit down at the island in the centre of her kitchen.

"But you were crying – you said you were bawling your eyes out. How the hell can I leave you for a few years knowing that you could be crying at any moment? In the time that I've known you, I've been your shoulder to cry on Sybil – how the hell can I give up that?"

"Tom, you've got to put yourself before everyone else. You're too nice, that's the problem with you. It's not possible not to like you," Sybil said, beginning to get tearful. She took a deep and shaky breath in before looking back up at Tom.

"Syb," Tom said, fighting between the two things he wanted most. He wanted to be able to better himself in America, but he was having similar thoughts to Sybil. Maybe there was something between them. Maybe there really was a roaring fire somewhere between them, and the only thing they needed was a tiny spark to start it off. "I don't know what to do."

"What are your options? You can pick up everything and fly across the Atlantic Ocean and only see your old life a couple of times a year. Or you can stay here and spend your whole life wondering whether America would have been the best thing for you. It's a tough decision, Tom," Sybil said, a few tears falling down the pre-made furrows over her cheeks. "Either way you're going to feel like you've done yourself an injustice." Sybil finished her tea, but continued to clamp the mug between her hands for the warmth and the comfort.

"I've got to think about this. I mean, I thought I had thought about it and I thought I'd sorted everything out and done everything for the best, but…" Tom stopped in his tracks, the words catching in the back of his throat.

"But then I overreacted and made you doubt everything that you'd spent months thinking about and deciding on," Sybil said, finishing the sentence for him. She looked into her mug as she said it. She found it impossible to look at Tom because she thought that his confusion about his life was caused by her.

Just then the doorbell rang and Sybil placed her mug next to Tom's empty one. She slid off her seat and walked to the front door. When she opened it she instantly felt the freezing cold winter air wipe roughly over her face. "Alright love?" the postman asked as he handed her a package and gave her a sheet of paper to sign.

"Not too shabby, thanks," Sybil lied, but she'd always been good at lying when she had to. Her eldest sister had been fantastic at asking personal questions when they were children that Sybil didn't want to answer, so she'd had a lot of practice of lying convincingly to other people's faces. She took the parcel and closed the door as a way to keep in as much heat as possible. As she made her way back to the kitchen she saw that Tom had stood up and placed both his and Sybil's mugs next to the sink.

"I really ought to go. I've got to think about this," Tom said quietly, his voice hoarse and his words shaky.

"Alright," Sybil said, desperately trying to fight back the tears before Tom could tell that she was tearing up again.

"Sybil, I'll not leave you. Not forever. Not completely. I couldn't do that to you and I don't think I'd be able to do that to myself either." Tom walked down the hall and Sybil dragged herself after him. She held the door open and stared after Tom as he walked down her road. He didn't look back, but perhaps that was best. Even so, Sybil allowed the tears she'd been refraining from releasing finally dampen her cheeks.

One week later

Sybil was at the airport with Gwen, Thomas, Alfred and most importantly, Tom. It was the final farewell before Tom picked up sticks and hauled his entire life to America; his entire life except his best friends. Gwen was in tears, as was Sybil; even Alfred and Thomas were a little more teary-eyed than they had anticipated. He was going. He was really going for good. Not coming back for a few years apart from maybe Christmases and perhaps birthdays if his work load allowed him and possibly for a few weeks in summer. Sybil would have to try and remember her life before she knew him – before she realised that perhaps love wasn't such a far-fetched and fantasised about idea. Maybe it existed. And maybe hers was to be found with Tom. But of course now that wouldn't happen. He was bound to find some spirited, confident and rebellious young American girl, whom he was going to fall head over heels for. At that moment Tom would leave everything he had with Sybil behind and completely forget about her. Sybil knew that it was going to happen, but it didn't soften the fact that she felt sick to her stomach thinking that another girl would get Tom to themselves when Sybil's the one that desperately wanted him. Sybil was hanging back as the other three were saying goodbye to him, in Gwen's case wiping away tears so as not to get his shirt damp when she wrapped her arms around him for a hug. She let Tom finish hugging Gwen and finish back-slapping Thomas and Alfred before she went up to hug him herself. Tom walked up to Sybil before she got the chance to walk up to him. Before she could say anything, Tom wrapped his arms around Sybil's shoulders and pulled her tight into his body. This prompted sobs from Sybil and meant Tom's shirt was dampened and darkened from the brandished and damaged feelings within her heart. Sybil fastened her arms around Tom's torso firmly to support both her body and her feelings. She knew that nothing could be changed from now onwards, but she wished that she had done something more to persuade Tom to stay. She hated to admit that she was being selfish, but she wanted Tom to stay in England because without him, she'd be lost in a crowd of everything that she didn't want to be in a crowd of. She wanted desperately to be somewhere where she could feel Tom's arms around her when she was falling asleep, somewhere where she could feel his breath against her own skin as they inched closer and closer together, preparing for a kiss, somewhere where she could cry or laugh or get angry or get excited and know that he would always be there to support and comfort her no matter how stupid she was being. But that couldn't happen. Not anymore. Now was her final chance to hold him and speak to him face to face. And she was grabbing her chance by the horns and getting everything she possibly could out of it. "It's not the end of the world, Sybil," Tom whispered above Sybil's head.

"Yes it is!" Sybil wailed, trying not to bring too much attention to herself.

"I'm not leaving for good. After I finish studying over there I'll be back for good. You can't get rid of me forever!" Tom said, trying to lighten the situation a little bit.

"I don't want to get rid of you at all!" Sybil replied, her words muffled in Tom's chest. Tom rubbed Sybil's back and kissed the top of her head to try and calm her down.

"Syb, if you don't let me go I'll miss my flight," Tom said, trying to encourage her to step back. Instead she just tightened her grip on him even more and said with a sniff,

"Good." A few more moments passed before Sybil finally loosened her grip and slid her arms away from him. She wiped the tears away from her cheeks and Tom brushed a finger under her chin to bring her eyes up to his.

"Sybil, I'm doing this for the best. Give it a week or two and you'll be alright. I promise. Plus, if you do need to talk to me for anything at all, I'm only a phone call away," Tom said, but Sybil said nothing. "Okay?" he asked, prompting her to answer him.

"Okay," Sybil nodded. Tom then gave everybody a group squeeze and made his way through the airport to leave the country. Sybil didn't cry again until she was at home, but she couldn't take her mind off Tom. She got straight into bed when she got home. She couldn't go to sleep, though. It was too early to sleep, even in the state she was in. But she lay there and thought. She thought of what she had, and what she didn't have now that he was gone. And she thought of how she'd miss him and wondered if he'd miss her too. She thought about how much she wouldn't be able to concentrate at work and about how her focus was going to go down the drain. She thought about him.

Time passed. One day. Two days. Five days. More than a week. Where was all the time going? Sybil felt as if she'd done nothing at all since Tom had left. But, just as Tom had said, she was recovering. Not much – only a little. But she was. Tom was still constantly on her mind, but she was now able to cook and work at a half-decent rate. Yes, she was lost, and she wasn't sure she'd ever know where she truly was, but she was beginning to think that perhaps this new and unknown land could be made home for a while. That she could perhaps begin to explore a little further into the wilderness and find out a little bit more about where she was and about what surrounded her, about how she could manipulate it to survive.

She was out with Gwen about two weeks before Christmas – about a week and a half after Tom had left. They were doing some Christmas shopping as they did every year together. Gwen had thought it would be a good idea to get Sybil's mind off recent events, but Sybil wasn't so sure anything could take her mind off said events. Sybil had been right. They didn't talk about Tom at all, but Gwen could tell that she wasn't being as fun as usual, so when they were sat in a café having hot chocolate and gingerbread men, Gwen brought up the tender subject. "Sybil, you can't spend your whole life wondering what would have happened if he were to stay here," she stated bluntly, trying to shake Sybil back into the real world.

"Why not?" Sybil protested.

"Because you've got a life to live."

"But you've said so yourself in the past that we'd make a good couple."

"Yes, but only if either of you were ever to actually make the first move," Gwen clarified.

"Well, I would have done a year ago if he hadn't been going around shagging every woman in sight!"

"Sybil that was a New Year's party. He was drunk and you had too much alcohol in you to act normally. He wasn't going out with anyone and neither were you, so it didn't matter. He was just enjoying himself. You know what men are like!" Gwen said, trying to get Sybil to realise that she still wasn't thinking clearly.

"Gwen, you know I only have sisters. The only reason I know what any men are like is through Thomas, Alfred and Tom. And besides, Thomas is gay, so that's a bit of an odd situation and Alfred's far too sensible to ever do anything stupid other than go after the wrong girl when he's being chased by a different one."

"Anyway, don't you think it would be weird going out with Tom. If you two were to break up, you wouldn't be able to stay friends. Surely it would be awkward if you two had been together for a long enough time to get each other naked in bed. Surely there'd be some things left unresolved and a little bit sensitive?"

"Well, I don't have to worry about it now, do I?" Sybil said, being more stroppy than was characteristic for her. "He's on the other side of the world. The only contact I've had from him was a text to say that he's landed and safe and so far everything's going well, but that was a week and a half ago. I don't know what to think anymore."

"Don't," Gwen said firmly. Sybil looked confused. "I mean it. You're overthinking this way too much. If you overthink things, they become worse than they ever had the right to be. If you leave them be and get on with your life then everything will sort itself out and time will fly by and in no time at all he'll be back in England, having spent a good few years at uni in America getting surrounded by weird American girls because he's a foreigner with a funny accent a weird sense of sarcasm that they don't understand." Sybil smiled at her best friend. She knew that Gwen was right and she knew that she should follow her advice, but she also knew that it would be challenging to get on with her life and put Tom to one side when he wasn't around.

Sybil was more cheerful that night. She began singing Christmas songs as she placed her empty bowl in the dishwasher. She'd just finished eating dinner and was planning now on watching some good old cheesy Christmas love stories that make you cringe at the bad pick-up lines and far too overused clichés when the doorbell rang. She hummed to herself as she walked through the kitchen and down the hall to the front door. Standing in front of her in the freezing cold night air with his bags at his feet and a grin on his face was Tom. Sybil covered her mouth with a hand and stared at him. He stood in the silence for a minute, but then said, "I missed you. I was there for a week and I realised that I loved it so much over here because you were here, so I made arrangements to come back."

"But… what about all that money you spent?" Sybil asked, genuinely concerned that he may have thrown away his life just because he might stand a chance with her. (But nevertheless, she was still thrilled that he was back in England.)

"Who cares about the money?" Tom said. "Mam'll kill me, but I don't care. It really doesn't matter, Sybil. I'm back here and I'm pretty sure that I'm in love with you." Sybil flung her arms around his neck, launching off her front step and wrapping her legs around his torso. He span her round once and then pulled his head back so that he could look at her eyes. She let him do so for a moment, but in no time at all their lips were locked together, tongues wrapped around one another for the first time and most certainly not the last. She gently slid down Tom's body until her own feet were on the ground.

"I love you too Tom," Sybil said quietly, once she'd pulled her lips away from Tom's. "But, umm, it is a little chilly out here. I suggest we go inside and get the fire going."

"I agree," Tom said. Tom picked up his carry bag and Sybil took the handle of his suitcase so that they wouldn't have to stop holding hands as they walked inside. Once they were safely inside and the fire was going steadily, Sybil asked Tom why he came back so soon and why he hadn't waited to see if his feelings would die down in a week or so. "Because I've had this feeling building up ever since I met you," he answered. "When I first saw you, I thought you were beautiful, but then I became friends with you and I thought asking you out would be weird. And then I was in America and I kept thinking what if… And I couldn't stop thinking about you and then I realised that I couldn't be happy without you, so I basically told my University that I wasn't going to be studying there and that I was never going to be studying there. I booked a flight back the way I came and here I am. Everything led to me being here with you right now." Sybil grinned and Tom grinned back at her. Her life was finally going the way she wanted it to go and she now had conformation that Tom loved her. It was going to be a marvellous Christmas. She was certain of it.