CHAPTER VII

The following morning, Thomas reluctantly left Alexander's side, leaving him in the hands of William, the grumpiest nurse in the whole hospital – the good thing was that, in order not to have Hamilton complain about everyone and everything, he would probably knock him down with a good dose of morphine.

"Will you come visit?" Alex asked, still visibly anxious.

"I'll be back before you know I'm gone," Thomas winked and left, planning to go back in the late afternoon, after a shower and a long nap.

Sleep, however, didn't come easy; Thomas couldn't stop thinking about Hamilton's vulnerable and sweet side he'd seen the night before – was he acting like that only because he was nervous or did he really want Thomas to stay by his side? Thomas couldn't know; the only sure thing was that now he had to return a huge favour to Alice, who'd spent the whole night running back and forth from her patients to Thomas's.

After half an hour, Thomas gave up sleeping and got up again, earning a dirty look from Independence, who was napping at his side. She followed him in the kitchen, leading him to an empty bowl with her tail up in the air and a half-begging half-scowling look on.

"Yes, I know I've been neglecting you," Thomas groaned, opening a can of cat food and adding it to the bowl, "I'll spend more time home soon, it's just a week, he'll be out in six days."

Independence ignored his apologies and threw herself on the food; some minutes later, however, she meowed happily at him and let him pet her for a while – perhaps he'd been forgiven after all.

That said, Thomas found himself walking into the hospital hall long before than he'd planned to – only three hours had passed since the end of his shift, Alexander was probably still in the surgery room.

"Hey Will," Thomas greeted his colleague and headed towards Room Eighteen.

"Thomas, didn't I bid you goodnight a couple of hours ago?"

"Yeah, but I made the mistake of drinking too much coffee last night," Thomas lied quickly, "I didn't really feel like sleeping."

"Huh-huh," Will didn't buy it at all, "Hamilton hasn't come back to his room yet," he informed, and went back to work.

Thomas sat heavily on the hospital chair once more and, despite having just declared his lack of tiredness, almost instantly fell into a cosy drowsiness. The springy sunrays were seeping through the windows behind him and warmed his neck and shoulders, the room was strangely silent and the distant beeps of the monitors and machines made him feel safe – almost at home. He suddenly woke up because of a high-pitched noise in the room; William and a new doctor were carting Hamilton back to his room, and the squeaking of the gurney made Thomas start. While the room slowly came on focus again, he heard the doctor give some prescriptions to William and leave.

"He'll wake up in a minute," William reassured him, "the doctor said that the surgery went well and he'll recover completely – if he'd been an athlete, his career would have been over because of his knee, but he'll manage just fine."

"Thanks, Will."

As soon as William left, Thomas took advantage of that precious moment of unconsciousness to give a better look at Alexander's face. It was almost impossible to find him asleep, even in the middle of the night, and his sleep was always so light that every little noise made him wake up with a start. Hamilton looked as if he was constantly ready to get up and fight, or run – generally, to survive; Thomas was not surprised that Alex would recover perfectly – it seemed as if Alex's body was as quick as his mind, but also equally restless.

Now that he was asleep, his face was completely relaxed and he seemed younger – nay, not younger, but he didn't seem older at least. The frown lines between his eyebrows had disappeared and his lips were slightly parted and curved into a faint smile – he was beautiful.

"Seeing somethin' you like?" his feeble voice took Thomas by surprise and he felt his heart stop for a moment, while losing himself in Hamilton's hazel eyes, "am I dead?"

"Let me guess, this is hell and I'm Satan."

"If this is hell, then you're my punishment," Alexander said slowly, his eyes still unfocused – Thomas suddenly remembered that Hamilton, however extraordinary, wasn't immune to morphine and that he was probably just talking nonsense – "teasing me with your sexy smile for the rest of my days."

"Oh really? And why is that a punishment?" Thomas giggled, playing along.

"Cause I can't have you, no matter how hard I try."

"Oh."

Thomas wasn't really expecting such an answer, he didn't know what to do: was Hamilton really under morphine – saying the truth – or was he just joking?

"You're not even gay, you look like a married guy," Alexander continued, waving his hand drunkenly at Thomas, as if to demonstrate his point, "Je meurs de faim, Gilbert, pouvez-vous demander à Thomas d'apporter de la nourriture?" [I'm starving, Gilbert, can you ask Thomas to bring some food?]

Who the hell was Gilb – oh, right, his French friend.

"Oui bien sûr" [Yes, of course], Thomas answered but he didn't move; he simply kept looking at him as Alexander blinked ferociously at his own hands, as if he'd just noticed them.

"Wait, Laf, help me stand up," Alexander tried (and failed) to sit straight, in front of Thomas's amused gaze, "shit, man, what are you doing?"

"You can't stand up now," Thomas said gently, pushing him back on the mattress, "why do you want to go anyway?"

"To ask John out, what else for?"

"I see," Thomas suddenly remembered of Alexander's crush and stood up, without knowing why, "I'll be right back."

He walked out of the room and leaned against the wall for a moment, wondering why the hell he'd felt the need to take some air as soon as Alexander had uttered that guy's name. He felt jealousy gripping his stomach and breathed deeply a couple of times, trying to think clearly; Hamilton was just a patient – yes, a very attractive one – who was acting flirty with him. It'd happened millions of times before, so why was he suddenly all weird about it?

Thomas sighed and headed to the nurses' room to make himself some coffee – he would need it.

Alexander was having the nicest dream. He was lying in his bed, his childhood's room in Nevis looked exactly as he remembered it and the Caribbean sun was shining gently on his skin, when suddenly a man walked to his bed and looked down at him with deep dark eyes; Alex didn't recognise the man at first, but then, as the sun rays made his thick curly hair shine with lighter shades, Alexander found himself looking at Thomas Jefferson's absorbed face. He was close – way closer than usual – and was looking at Alex's lips as if he wanted to kiss them.

"Seeing somethin' you like?" Alex didn't actually want to talk but, as always, dreams don't really let you choose, and so he smiled shyly as Thomas's attention quickly shifted from his lips to his eyes, a surprised countenance on his face. In his dream, Thomas's gaze was very different from what Alex remembered – the man's eyes usually expressed pride and scepticism, they were always so difficult to read; but now they were betraying something more, usually hidden beyond. His gaze was definitely too open, honest, sweet and somehow hurt to really be Thomas's. "Am I dead?" he asked tentatively.

Maybe it wasn't a dream at all – shit, what if it was heaven? Hell, perhaps? Thomas's stunning face so close to him and the very thought that he would never love someone like Alex... it had to be hell.

"Let me guess, this is hell and I'm Satan."

Ha-ha. It seemed like Alex couldn't have Thomas stop being sarcastic even in his dreams.

"If this is hell, then you're my punishment," he explained, "teasing me with your sexy smile for the rest of my days."

"Oh really? And why is that a punishment?"

"Cause I can't have you, no matter how hard I try." God, was he really confessing his feelings to dream-Thomas?

"Oh."

"You're not even gay, you look like a married guy," he added, almost annoyed at the turn the conversation had taken.

Suddenly, as he gestured towards Thomas, the image before his eyes changed and the dream transformed into a memory. He was in France with Gilbert, his friend was nonchalantly smoking a joint and Alex felt his belly grumble, "Je meurs de faim, Gilbert, pouvez-vous demander à Thomas d'apporter de la nourriture?"

"Oui bien sûr."

"Wait, Laf, help me stand up," Alex tried to sit but his body was numb and he suddenly felt a pang in his leg, "shit, man, what are you doing?"

"You can't stand up now. Why do you want to go anyway?"

Why did he want to go back to the US? He couldn't remember... John! Yes, he had to said John that he was sorry he hadn't call before.

"To ask John out, what else for?"

"I see. I'll be right back."

In the end, as Gilbert walked away and the French dormitory turned into a gloomy hospital room again, Alexander surrendered to the numbness and closed his heavy eyelids again, sinking into the nothingness.

"G'morning Beauty," Thomas entered the room on his tiptoes, hiding something behind his back.

A sleepy groan was his only answer.

"I said good morning."

"Fuck off and let me sleep."

"All right then, so I suppose I'll go offer this wonderful Starbucks cup of coffee to Mr Elliot," Thomas waited a couple of seconds for Alexander to assimilate his words.

"Good morning," he almost jumped from a laying position to a sitting one and frowned at Thomas, scanning his figure in search for his beloved coffee, "how's my favourite nurse in the world? Also – Mr Elliot asked me to inform you that he prefers fresh blood to coffee."

"That was I thought," Thomas laughed and produced a paper cup holder, with four big cups inside, "I didn't know what you like, so I brought one black coffee, one cappuccino, one latte and one caramel coffee."

Silence.

"Did you really do all this for me?"

Thomas blushed slightly in front of Alexander's incredulous gaze. He'd set his alarm clock one hour earlier today only to follow the morning's crazy traffic to Starbucks and then back to the hospital.

"It's no big deal, there's a Starbucks on the other side of the street, two minutes from home" he lied, running a hand through his messy hair, "so, what can I give you today?"

"Black coffee, please," Alexander smiled back, giving his order instead of answering 'you' as he really wanted to, "thank you anyway, I didn't think you were telling the truth when you promised to bring me coffee after the surgery."

"Well, I would have offered it yesterday," Thomas's smile became a grin, "but you were too busy flirting with everyone within your range."

In fact, Alex had flirted only with him, but Thomas decided to omit that detail. However, Hamilton's face blushed into a darker shade as he drank his coffee.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Thomas raised an eyebrow but didn't answer, leaving Alexander to his coffee and grabbing a cappuccino for himself.

"Hey, hands off my coffee!"

"That's mine actually," Thomas pointed at the cup holder, "those are all mine, darlin', you can't have more than one for today."

"You twisted soul."

Thomas laughed at Hamilton's even deeper frown and sipped his cappuccino before going back to work, carrying the cup holder away with him and into the nurses' room, where it was more than welcomed by Eleonor.

The following days all passed in a similar way – Thomas would go out for work an hour earlier than usual to stop by Starbucks and grab a black coffee, no sugar, and a cappuccino, two sugars; he would arrive at the hospital a couple of minutes earlier to drink it with Hamilton, who didn't really care if it was 9 p.m. and completely dark outside, he would happily accept his big-sized cup anyway and drink it with an ecstatic face.

"I told you of my childhood in Nevis," he said once, "now you know more about me than I know about you. You have to tell me something back so that we're even."

"What do you want to know?"

Everything – but Alex couldn't say that, so he simply shrugged and answered "something about your childhood" instead.

"Well, there's nothing interesting to say, I grew up in Virginia with my family in a huge ancient house with way too many rooms; I had nine siblings, so it was impossible to have any privacy despite the house's size."

"What happened to your siblings?"

"Two of them died when they were really young," Thomas's bitter smile gave away his sadness, "now I still have two older sisters, four younger ones and only one little brother."

"I only have one brother, he's older than me."

Thomas was taken aback by this new piece of information – if Alexander had a brother, why hadn't he ever come visit?

"Is he…?"

"I don't know if he's alive or not, he ran away when he was sixteen and never came back home," Alexander shrugged, trying to hide his resentment, "my mother was heartbroken."

"I'm sorry," Thomas sighed, feeling again the instinct to hug him.

"No need – you were telling about your childhood though, why is a Virginian working here in New York?"

"I came here to study and never went back," Thomas explained calmly, "I really miss Virginia though."

"Do you ever think of moving back there?"

"Every day," he laughed, "but I know I won't do it, I love my job here too much."

"Aren't there hospitals in Virginia?"

"Are you trying to send me back?" Thomas teased and got up, looking at his watch, "I have other reasons to stay."

"Like a family?"

"You know, while you were morphine-drugged you told me that I look like a married man," Thomas walked to the door and turned to look at Hamilton with a flirting smile still on his face, "were you trying to label me as dilf?"

"Fuck you Jefferson," Alexander threw a pillow at him, but smiled, "I don't know what I meant, you pervert, I was drugged and I don't even remember saying it."

"Sure," he winked and turned to go.

"Are you?"

"What?"

"Are you married?" Please, Hamilton thought, tell me you're not a dad.

"I'm not," Thomas's smile cracked a bit and he walked away without looking back.

Author's notes:

First of all, thank you so much for reading my fanfic and for your comments, I hope you liked it so far. In particular, thank you to AndPeggy for their support, I really appreciate all your comments - I can't answer to them cause you're not a registered user, but well, just know that I'm grateful for each of them! :)

Also, next chapter Alex will finally be free and far away from that hospital... what about Thomas? What do you think will happen to them? Let me know!