AN: Thanks as always for the reviews, favorites and follows!


July 1993

The first week in July, a fresh crop of fifth-years rotates in on clinical attachments at the hospital. Sybil's raising the window shades in a patient room when some of the new students come in on their morning rounds. She notices one of them immediately: he stands in the back of the gaggle, a head taller than the others, as they surround one of the four beds. "Tall, dark and handsome" was written for this bloke, she thinks, but just in passing. She's accustomed to seeing attractive medical students come through. As a cohort, they tend to have white teeth, smooth skin and bouncy hair.

She finishes up and heads toward the door on her way to the next room. As she walks past, the student catches her eye and flashes her a smile: perfect teeth, check. She smiles back. It's only the civil thing to do.

Tom rings that evening while she's eating a bowl of cereal and sifting through a pile of nursing and graduate school literature. He's found a quieter place this time, Sybil's glad to hear, and she settles into an armchair for an actual conversation. "How are things?" She asks. He sent her yet another postcard (a photo of a Buckingham Palace guard) thanking her for the mix tape, so she knows he's gotten that. "Remind me where you are now?"

"Cambridge. And things are good, the shows have been brilliant." He sounds like he can't quite believe it. "And you?"

"Monstrously busy. As ever." She tells him about her and Gwen's talk with Ethel, and how Ethel rang Sybil a day later, sobbing and promising to do better. She's been remarkably temperate since. The Rough Riders have booked a couple of local gigs, including one at O'Brien's, and they're making plans to record a demo: Sybil declares herself "cautiously optimistic."

Tom laughs. "You always think the best of people, don't you? I love that about you."

"Well, I try to do." And what else do you love about me?

"Sybil..." Tom hesitates. "We may stay out a few days longer."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. We've been asked to go back and play a showcase in London in a couple of weeks, and it's a big chance for us, and we can't afford to drive all the way to Yorkshire and then come back down south..."

"Of course," she says brightly. "It sounds great. You must be pleased."

"Sure we are." Tom sighs. "This'd better pan out. I'll have a hard job to make rent next month as it is."

Sybil makes sympathetic noises. She could help with that, of course, but she has a feeling Tom wouldn't take an offer of financial assistance very well.

"And of course it means almost another week added on to the time 'til you get to see me again," he teases.

"Well, obviously that's the worst part."

"Obviously."

-ooo-

Of course, there was no question of them turning down the gig. Masses of industry types will be there; if Sack Thatcher does well, they'll probably get signed by one of the indies... which is what they want, right?

It's only a few more days. But Tom's already feeling worn down, and they've still got two weeks - almost three weeks, now - left. Three weeks of late nights, of sleeping on strangers' sofas, of drinking too much piss-poor beer to deal with the boredom of seeing bands he doesn't really want to see, talking to people he doesn't really want to talk to. Three more weeks away from Sybil. It might as well be forever.

-ooo-

The student, to whom Sybil had begun referring in her head as TDH (for Tall, Dark and Handsome), has a name. It's Alec Li. She knows this because he told it to her.

A couple of days after Sybil first notices him, they run into each other in the queue to buy coffees. Once they've exchanged nods of mutual recognition it's only courteous for her to introduce herself. And after that, it would seem standoffish in her to just run off and let him drink his alone. So they find a free bench in the courtyard off the canteen, and she discovers that as well as being handsome, he's quite nice.

She finds herself talking to him about the band, which impresses him, although he says he likes hip-hop and techno better than rock or punk. She mentions that she's thinking about going into public health nursing; he tells her he's always wanted to be a doctor, coming from a family of them. His father is an internist whose parents emigrated with him from China after the second world war, and his mother is Welsh, a gynecologist.

"Are you trilingual then?" Sybil asks, rather intrigued. It occurs to her that she's never thought to ask Tom if he speaks Irish.

"Not really. My mum left Wales when she was young and she's forgotten most of her Welsh. I speak a bit of Mandarin with my nai nai, but I understand more than I can speak."

"That's cool, though. I wish I spoke another language. I had a bit of French in secondary school but I've lost it all."

Alec looks at his wristwatch. "Well, I'd best get back to it," he says reluctantly. "It was really nice talking with you, Sybil." His smile is wide and warm and reaches his dark eyes, so she knows he means it.

-ooo-

Northampton. Coventry. Birmingham. Each place different, each the same. Most of the shows on the fag-end of Sack Thatcher's tour are well attended, with raucous and appreciative audiences. Tom's still able to disappear into playing each night, can still enjoy being onstage and watching his bandmates' obvious excitement about their success. He's fairly sure they haven't picked up on his decreased enthusiasm.

That is, until Will brings it up on the drive between Nottingham and Sheffield. Their latest host had to be at work early that morning, so they're awake on the wrong side of noon. Tom has been roped into driving, which gives him choice of music, and Sybil's tape is in the deck. "This shite again," Hinksy complains from the backseat, before falling immediately and noisily asleep. Doug just rolls his eyes and then closes them, his head pillowed on a wadded-up sweatshirt. Will stares out the windscreen as they get on the road.

They drive in silence a while, Tom struggling to keep his eyes open. He almost prefers it when Hinksy sits in the passenger seat. The guitarist's inability to stop talking while conscious is a boon on long, boring drives. Then, out of nowhere, Will throws a glance backward and says to Tom sotto voce, "You're not going to quit the band, are you?"

Tom snaps fully awake. Jesus, he's reading my mind. That very possibility was just drifting through it. He isn't considering quitting immediately, of course. But the thought of another tour, especially close on the heels of this one, is not attractive. He realizes that Will's probably taking his hesitation as an admission. "Of course not."

"Good."

Will's a person of few words, but Tom knows him better than to think that response means he's satisfied. He waits.

"Only you don't seem to be having as much of a laugh on tour as the rest of us." Now it's Will's turn to wait.

"Well, I'm not getting any younger," Tom finally replies, having mentally exhausted other options. "I suppose I'll have to get a real job at some point."

"What if we could make it, though?" Tom hears the naive optimism in Will's voice and wishes he could be as excited. "We're getting a good following. We might have a record deal soon."

Tom sighs. "Will. Even if we do, there will probably never be enough money in playing bloody punk rock to let us quit our day jobs. There just won't." He feels like a wet blanket saying it, but it's true.

"And you aren't keen enough on the band to be a poverty-stricken nomad for it," Will states flatly.

"Who would be?"

"The rest of us!" Will looks back again as Doug shifts in his seat, and lowers his voice. "Look, Tom, it's obvious that you just want to settle down with your nice little girlfriend and have a nice little life. It's all right, I'm happy for you. Just be honest about it." Tom shakes his head and opens his mouth, but Will talks over him. "Look, I'm not saying she's Yoko bloody Ono -"

"What the fuck, Will," Tom splutters angrily.

" - She seems great." Will shows his palms appeasingly. Tom shuts his mouth, but he's still glowering. "Just... don't give up everything for her, right? Don't give up the things that make you happy. No girl's worth that."

Tom has nothing to say to that, and his jaw stays clenched.

"I'm saying this to you as your friend."

Silence, except for the music.

Finally, Will blows out a noisy breath and turns back to the window. They don't speak the rest of the way to Sheffield.

They originally planned on making the push back to Leeds after this show. It frustrates Tom to be so close to home, knowing they'll just have to backtrack, but there's nothing to be done.

As if in response to the decreasing distance between them, Sybil has been making more and more frequent, and quite surreal, appearances in his dreams. That night she's on a horse, though he has no idea whether she's ever ridden. At some point he notices that she's naked, her long hair tumbling forward to blend with the animal's mane. She looks down at Tom with such lusty promise in her eyes that he snaps awake, panting and aroused. He has to laugh at himself. I can't even just dream about having sex like a normal person... I have to bring a bloody horse into it.

-ooo-

When they happen to cross paths in the canteen for the third time in as many days, it dawns on Sybil that the correspondence of their coffee-drinking schedules is probably not coincidental.

She's no stranger to attention from the opposite sex. Her first kiss was stolen from her in kindergarten, and she's been popular with boys since then, so she knows that the easiest thing she can do is wait and see. She doesn't have to wait long. They're having coffee - again - when Alec makes a quip about how this is becoming quite a habit with them.

Sybil raises an eyebrow. "I've noticed."

He laughs and drops his gaze. "Do you know," he says, "I'd like to take you out. You're very different. In a good way," he hastens to add.

Somehow, she's avoided thinking this far. But she respects directness, and Alec is apparently not afraid to go after what he wants in a straightforward way. It's a welcome change from the uncertainty that's defined her romantic yearnings lately.

So she accepts. After all, it's not as if she has a boyfriend. Who knows what Tom's been doing, out on tour with masses of cute girls watching him play every night? The birds do like a good-looking stranger, especially one wielding a guitar.

And she likes Alec. He's kind, and he's funny, though his humor is subtler than Tom's. She marvels a bit at how two such different men can both be attractive to her. I shouldn't be comparing them, she thinks. But why not? She'll have to choose sooner or later.

On Saturday Sybil makes a conscious decision not to dress up. He'll see the real me, and if he doesn't like it, he can lump it, she thinks as she laces up her Docs.

She meets Alec in the city centre near Eastgate. He seems to know exactly where he's going. "You like Chinese, right?" He asks.

"Love it."

He grins at her. "Just wait."

They thread through unfamiliar streets to a brightly lit, rather chintzy-looking storefront that makes Sybil glad she's dressed down. Inside, they perch at a counter that's inset with a gas ring, upon which a waiter sets a pot of boiling broth.

"So it's like fondue," she comments when the waiter places a serving plate arranged with small cuts of raw meat and vegetables before them, along with several ramekins of different sauces.

"Hotpot."

It's good: very good. Sybil stuffs herself. Cooking their own food piece by piece makes for a leisurely dinner, so they have plenty of time to talk, and the conversation flows easily. Finally the serving dish is empty. Sybil reaches for the bill, but Alec is too quick for her.

"Oh, no, you don't," he warns. "I said I would take you out."

"We can at least split it."

He pretends to consider. "How about I let you buy me a drink."

"Oho, so we're going for drinks now!"

"You've got somewhere else to be, then?" He smirks at her. And pays the check.

He takes her to a club, where Sybil regards the queue with skepticism. Most of the women are dressed - and scantily - to the nines. "They're not going to let me in here."

"Bollocks," Alec says. "You look gorgeous." Amazingly, he's right: they get in without a fuss. Sybil wonders if he's bribed the bouncer.

They buy drinks - Sybil, true to her word, pays for both - and manage to find a table in the increasingly crowded space. They drink. They try to talk, but it's getting later and the music is intensifying. It's bass-heavy, thumping, sensual.

More people are starting to dance, and after a couple of drinks Alec coaxes Sybil onto the floor. She's not used to dancing like this: pressed up against someone she barely knows, having to move her hips. It feels so awkward. At a punk rock show, if a bloke likes you he shows it by helping you up when you get pushed down in the pit.

She stands on tiptoe and stretches to yell into Alec's ear - she's not used to that either - "Could we sit down?" He can't hear her, but she makes herself understood with hand gestures and they make their way through the press.

They've just gotten to a place where the crowd thins a bit when he kisses her.

She wasn't expecting it, and her mouth is open. His lips are soft but firm. He tastes like rum.

Not afraid to go after what he wants.

She finds herself relaxing into it, reaching up to grasp his shoulder, to move her hand across his back. He embraces her, pulling her into him. She feels a drop in her stomach: that thrill that had become so familiar, but which she hasn't felt in weeks now. It's closely followed by a wave of guilt. She pulls away. It's too noisy in here for explanations, but she meets Alec's questioning look with a little shake of her head. "Sorry," he mouths, giving her a sheepish half-smile, and starts to lead the way toward a table that's opening up. Sybil follows him, glancing around to make sure no one runs into her.

And meets the eyes of Tom's flatmate.

Oh, fucking hell is her first thought. How much did he see? is her second. Quincy gives her a nod and a little wave: he's obviously recognized her. She nods back, trying to look as guiltless as possible. I've got to get out of here.

As soon as Quincy's disappeared into the throng, Sybil draws Alec off to the side. "I'm not feeling well," she yells into his ear, and feels a remorseful twinge at his look of concern. He insists on seeing her nearly home; he wants to walk her to her door, but she convinces him to stay on the bus when she gets off at her stop.

"I'll be fine," she tells him. "Just a bad headache. Nothing a night of sleep won't mend." If only, she thinks.

-ooo-

Back again in London, the show goes even better than they hoped. They play well; but more importantly, the crowd loves them. They sell more T-shirts and seven-inches in one night than they sold in a week on tour in the north - which is a lucky thing, as they'd otherwise be taking up a collection for petrol money to get back home. Thanks to Hinksy's expert schmoozing, their demo tape finds its way into the pockets of half a dozen A&R men, if such a term can be applied to tattooed, aging punks who also put in long hours each week packaging up mail orders. Needless to say, Island Records and its ilk are not represented here.

Along with the rest of Sack Thatcher and a herd of others, Tom fetches up after the show at the flat of someone's long-suffering girlfriend, somewhere in the East End. There's no question of sleeping, unless he cares to bunk in the van (which he thinks about doing, considering the shadiness of the neighborhood).

The rest of the band members have decamped to one of the bedrooms to smoke hash, or what someone says is hash. Tom stays in the front room. Alcohol's always been his drug of choice, and anyway someone has to keep a relatively clear head. He's doing rather a shit job of that, he has to admit. Liquor as well as lager flowed freely for the bands at the venue, and he imbibed his share of whiskey there. And now it's - what, 3:30? and he's not been without a can in his hand since he arrived at the flat.

Luckily, the kids at the party are congenial. In the past, Tom's accent has made him a target for race-baiting, and he's occasionally been arsed enough to rise to it. Tonight, though, the most angst he's had to deal with is the relatively tame fallout of disagreeing with someone's dearly held belief that all new wave is for poofters.

The scenery's not bad, either, he observes, eyeing a trio of women sitting across the room from him and reflecting that he must be very drunk indeed. One of them catches his eye and smiles, and he looks away quickly. A few minutes later he makes his way into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator - which is inexplicably still stocked with beer - to grab another.

"Could you reach me one of those?" Someone says behind him, and when he turns to hand over another can it's the same woman. Girl, really: she can't be older than nineteen or twenty, and she's tiny, which makes her look younger. She grins up at him from under blunt-cut fringe, dyed black. "You're from that band, aren't you?"

"Which band is that?" Tom replies. He doesn't mean it to sound flirtatious: it just comes out that way.

"You played earlier. I didn't get your name, sorry." She cocks her head and squints coquettishly. "I really liked you, though. I'm Wendy."

He shakes her hand. She's got a remarkably strong grip for someone so small. "Tom." He leans back against the counter and pulls the ringtab on his beer can, takes a long swallow. Wendy stands in front of him, a shade nearer than is quite polite, he thinks.

"So," she's asking him, "D'you have a girlfriend, wherever it is you're from?" Her question seems like rather a formality, since she appears to have put her arms round his neck and started plumbing his mouth with her tongue.

Tom's so behind the curve that it takes him a moment to disengage. "You make a habit of kissing strange men in people's kitchens?" He asks, once he's managed to disentangle his tongue from hers. He keeps his tone light, not wanting to be unkind.

She smiles, unfazed. "Just the fit ones." She makes another attempt at locking lips with him, which he's now canny enough to rebuff. Finally she steps away. "What's up with you then?" She demands, affronted. "Have you got a girlfriend?"

"Something like that." Tom wonders if he should suggest she go find Hinksy; they seem right up each other's alleys.

Wendy shrugs. "Well," she says to him, "she's a lucky bird."

-o-

Tom's got a splitting headache, but it can't spoil his good mood. He'll be home tonight; he'll see Sybil. He can hardly wait.

-To Be Continued-