Authors Notes: I apologize for the delay in posting this chapter! This chapter turned into a difficult one to write. I've rewritten it and revised it so many times that I'm leery that it's any good. It's shorter than my other chapters but I decided to stop before I messed it up with more mediocre writing. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 4

A sharp impertinent knock interrupted Tom's dark ruminations. Sighing at the intrusion into his private misery, he turned his head to view the door, too spent to hazard a guess at his visitor's identity. Without his permission, the door swung open and his guest sauntered into the room.

"No need to wait for an invitation, Gray," Sawyer disdainfully sallied, watching Dorian approach like a predator cornering its prey. Cursing his weakened state that ruled out sitting up to face his uninvited and unwelcome guest, Tom became acutely aware of one fact: he had expended the last of his strength fighting the wrong battle. Allan Quatermain was no threat to him but his gut instinct told him that the same could not be said of Dorian Gray.

Relaxing back into the mattress as if he stayed there at his own leisurely desire, Sawyer lanced his green eyes into Gray's. "So what brings you to my side, Gray? Were you hoping to gloat over my corpse?" his tone light in contrast to the sharp dislike reflected in his features.

Dorian gave a gentlemanly snort, "On the contrary. I was hoping to find you awake and lucid. We have some things to discuss American," his disdain for Sawyer's country unmasked.

Staring up undauntedly at the man who stood over him, Tom clasped his hands upon his stomach. "I thought we said all we ever needed to say to one another, Englishman, back at your house," he drawled.

An unkind smile turned up Dorian's lips as he condescendingly looked down at the prone younger man. "Yes, well, I talked but you didn't listen. Truly I wonder what good you think you can do our mission, injured and ill as you are. Do you understand all that is at stake in this little "adventure" you are tagging along on? A world war looms in our future if we fail…if Quatermain fails."

The only tell tale sign that Dorian had struck his mark was the hardness that permeated Sawyer's voice. "I know what's at stake, Gray. We will bring down the Fantom."

"We?" Dorian repeated with a raised eyebrow as he swept his hand over Sawyer's weak body. "You can't even sit up. How do you propose you can save the world from villains like the Fantom, boy?"

Clenching his jaw, Tom struggled to let the insult roll off of him. It was strange, he didn't rail against Quatermain calling him boy but when Dorian said it…it's connotation was altogether different. "Well I saved your tailored butt from the Fantom's clutches back at your house while I was sporting this gunshot wound and I don't even have your immortality to hide behind."

Gray's eyes flickered with anger before they darkened again with restraint. "Your heroics were unnecessary, Sawyer. We could have put an end to the Fantom then and there had you not interfered."

Sawyer chuckled and gave a boyish grin, "Really. You had everything under control did you?" his disbelief and challenge gleaming in his eyes.

Without uttering a rebuttal, Dorian began to stroll around the room, running his fingers over the furniture and Sawyer's belongings. He stopped at the table where Sawyer's travel bag sat open. With his back to Sawyer he said, "Your presence here baffles me, Special Agent Sawyer of the Secret Service. I thought your agency only hunted down counterfeiters." Mockingly, Dorian gave a look over his shoulder and snidely taunted, "Don't tell me the Fantom was passing around bogus currency in your pathetic country," before turning his look back to the bag on the table.

"Your information is a little outdated, Gray," Tom replied coldly, hiding his surprise that the Englishman knew so much about the agency that few Americans even knew existed. "The Secret Service has broadened its objectives to national security."

"Espionage," Dorian purred, promptly upturning Sawyer's bag to dump its content onto the table.

Sighing with fabricated frustration, Sawyer quipped, "It took me forever to pack things just right in that bag." Gray's antics were laughable in comparison to the interrogations, torture and threats Sawyer had garnered by some of the meanest individuals the United States had the misfortune to call citizens.

Deftly Dorian sorted through Sawyer's belongings in moments. The only thing that captured his attention was a badge that was a five point silver star with the words "U.S. Secret Service" engraved on each point. Picking up the badge, he ran his fingers over the engraved words as if they represented something he could never achieve before he tossed the badge back upon the table with disdain. Turning around he leaned against the table sighting his dark look upon Sawyer. "It figures. Your belongings are as boring as you are."

"While we're playing show and tell, why don't you go get your belongings and I'll rummage through them," Sawyer replied with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

Crossing to the bed, Dorian looked down at Sawyer, "You Americans always think you are so funny." Resting his hand on Tom's bandaged shoulder, Dorian, watching the pain increase on the younger man's face, dropped his tone to a conspiratorial whisper. "But you are not funny. You are a nuisance, like a child underfoot, needing protection, distracting Quatermain from the task at hand." Leaning down close to Sawyer, Gray applied more pressure upon the shoulder under his hand and whispered in Tom's ear, "Sit this hunt out, boy…before something bad happens."

Then Dorian stalked across the room, shut the door as he exited and walked unsuspectingly right past a fully invisible Rodney Skinner.

Skinner had been wavering between two courses of action: coming to the injured young man's rescue or keeping his presence at the doorway a secret. Listening to his instincts, he had opted to remain undetected, though it bothered him to see Dorian mistreat Sawyer. With Gray's departure, Rodney found himself standing outside Sawyer's closed door wondering if he should go talk to the young American. Again it was his instincts that dictated his path. Turning on his heel, he began the trek back to his room. Sawyer wasn't the only one who needed time to think. 'This group I got myself involved with is more complicated than I first imagined…and I had them pegged as bein' pretty bloody complicated from the start.'

Long after Gray left, the other man's words echoed through Tom's head as he stared up at the ceiling, suffocated by the silence in the room. '"Sit this hunt out, boy…before something bad happens."' Bitterly Tom said aloud, "Something bad already happened." And then the doubt he had been battling fell upon him with crushing weight. 'Maybe Gray's right. Maybe I should let Quatermain and the league handle this. Maybe I'm the bad penny that the Fantom keeps cashing in on. Huck's death, the Fantom's escape at Gray's, my inability to catch Hyde, I've been pretty damn useless all in all.'

Letting defeat wash over him, Tom drew his left hand to his face, covering his eyes. 'How many more people have to die because of me, because of my mistakes, because of my pride? Isn't it enough that Huck is dead? Do Quatermain and the rest of the league have to die too!'

Swallowing hard at that thought, Tom swore that he would not let that happen, he would not lose more people he cared about…even if those same people thought of him as only a boy, a nuisance, a distraction. 'Huck was the only one who accepted me as I was, who didn't want to change me. No matter how foolishly I acted, he always stood by me.' In grief and rage, Tom viciously swept his left arm across the nightstand, sending the whiskey bottle through the air to shatter on the floor.

'I owe Huck, damn it! That's why I'm here, that's why I'll see this through, why I'll be standing over the Fantom when he takes his last breath.' Decisively he pushed down the blankets with his left hand and started to sit up. He never completed the task.

Crying out in pain, he collapsed back onto the bed, his left hand clutching his right shoulder, his eyes clamped shut, cursing the whims of cruel fate that left him so weak and consumed with agony. He didn't have the luxury of doubt or indecision or weakness, not when such an important task lay on his shoulders.

Rolling to his left, Tom swung his legs off the bed and determinedly used his left hand to levered himself to a seated position. Assaulted with a spinning room and lancing pain in his shoulder, he dropped his head to his chest and squeezed his eyes shut. Hoping to gain control over his body's reactions, he drew in deep breaths.

An undesirable distraction came in the form of a knock on his door. The last thing he wanted was more spectators to his weakness.

Without breaking from his stance, he retorted loud enough for his voice to penetrate through the door, "Visiting hours are over."

"It's Allan," came Quatermain's muffled voice.

Under his breath, Sawyer cursed. Anyone else he could have denied entry without an ounce of regret or shame but not Quatermain. He owed the man too much after last night. Still, Tom could not bring himself to voice his permission for Allan to enter. Having already butchered any chance of camaraderie with the renowned hunter, Sawyer feared that any future encounters between them would be awkward and indifferent. Now with his emotions so nearly exposed, he doubted he could maintain a pretext of aloofness to match Quatermain's.

At Sawyer's silence, Allan clenched his hands into fists and cursed his wicked temper. If only he hadn't stormed out of the boy's room half an hour ago! 'Did you expect the boy to welcome you back like a long lost friend! After you called him a fool and threatened to shoot him!'

To be honest, Allan admitted that he had not planned on returning to Sawyer's side. It had taken the sight of Matilda lying on his bed to change his mind. Reverently he had picked up the gun and stroked its barrel like it was a well loved friend. Always the gun brought to mind the hunts he had been on or the game he had taken down. Sometimes he recalled the evil men he had felled with the gun. Not this time. This time, to his shock, he thought of the mere moments he had spent on the conning tower of this boat with a certain brash young man.

Unbidden, a smile had come to Allan's lips and suddenly something in him eased. He was being given a second chance to right his wrongs. He had failed Harry, he couldn't undo that but he could do better by Tom. He would protect the young man from the fate of Harry and from Sawyer's own stubborn, reckless ways. Quatermain swore with every ounce of his heart that he would not let Sawyer make the mistakes he had, that the young man would not wake up one day to find his soul tainted by the choices he had made in his life. Had Harry lived, that was the one lesson Allan had promised himself that his son would learn from his father.

Pulling from his reverie, Quatermain felt the tension and self anger drain from him. Sawyer needed him, whether the young man knew it or not. 'Just as I need him,' shot through Allan with clarity. Resting his hand against the door, Quatermain gently implored, "Tom, please let me in."

Still battling dizzy spells as he sat on the edge of his bed clothed only in his pants, Tom wanted to delay the meeting until he could show some measure of strength. But Allan's gentle plea broke down his defenses. Straightening his posture, Tom relented, "Come in."

Without delay Allan entered the room, surprised to see Sawyer sitting up, though the young man looked ready to pass out. Tom's wary green eyes tracked his approach. Glass crunched under Quatermain's foot, causing his attention to swing to the floor where the shards of a bottle sparkled among a pooling liquid. Seeing the remnants of the label of the destroyed bottle, Allan looked up at Tom with a twinkle in his eye, "Wicked waste of good whiskey." This earned him a small embarrassed smirk from Sawyer.

"I know," Tom agreed with chagrin, knowing that Huck would agree with Quatermain's sentiments. When Allan crouched down to pick up the pieces of glass, protesting, Tom made to stand up, "No, I'll take care of that."

Immediately, Allan firmly laid his hand on Tom's leg, forestalling the other man's motion, "I got it. Just stay where you are." Pointedly he looked to Tom's stocking feet and teased, "Besides, you don't have any shoes on," before he again met Tom's gaze.

Finding Allan's good humor infectious, Tom replied with false accusation, "I guess I have you or Henry to thank for that." Struck with the implied ingratitude of his words and his accusatory tone, Tom solemnly offered, "Thank you." He pressed on, his eyes steadily meeting Quatermain's warm gaze, "For last night…and for this morning. For taking care of me when I was such a burden."

Allan nearly flinched at Tom's self chastising tone. "You weren't a burden," he refuted, his voice gruff with his dislike for even that thought to have entered the young agent's head. Seeing Tom's walls coming up again, Quatermain abandoned the task of cleaning up the floor and reclaimed the chair he had occupied throughout the night. Again wariness entered Sawyer's eyes and Allan knew he had to say the right things this time or risk losing Tom's trust forever. "I'm sorry for getting angry before, for calling you a fool and threatening to shoot you."

Stunned at the apology, Tom didn't quite know what to say. As it was, Allan continued without waiting for his response.

Allan met Sawyer's stunned look unflinchingly. "I've done a fair job of shutting out anyone who treads too closely." Here the hunter shied away from Tom's gaze, letting his eyes drop to his hands in his lap. Now that the time had come to open himself up, he faltered. Sternly he reminded himself 'You told Sawyer he has to trust someone, well trust works both ways. You know the rule: you have to risk something precious to get something priceless. And this young man's priceless, Quatermain. Don't you dare lose him like you did Harry!'
Like a reaction to a revelation, Allan's eyes shot up to Tom's pale face. "I care about you, Tom." Ignoring the shock registering in the younger man, Allan explained, "I know you're not my son and you're too old to need a father but…maybe because you fill a void Harry left in my heart, maybe because I'm turning into a softie in my old age…I can't help but feel protective of you." He raised a hand to forestall anything the stunned Sawyer would say, "I know, this isn't something you asked of me or wanted of me…but it wasn't something I planned. I was quite set on being cantankerous till the end of my days, not needing or wanting anyone's company. You changed all that."

Finally able to drew in enough breath to form words, Tom began "Allan.." Again Allan interjected.

"I'm not asking anything from you. I just wanted you to know that you can trust me and that I'm here for you if you want to talk." Before Tom could reject him and what he offered, Allan stood up and headed for the door, forgetting about the mess on the floor and abandoning the rest of the things he had swore he would tell the younger man.

"Allan, wait," Tom called, desperate to stop the older man's departure, fearing that loneliness would smother him if Quatermain walked out that door. To his relief, Allan stopped and turned around to face him. Vulnerability swamped Tom, showing visibly on his face and in his voice, "I've been a jerk from the start. I never should have pried into your relationship with your son. Then the way I treated you and Henry last night… I'm ashamed of myself and I can't for the life of me understand why you give a damn about me."

A chuckle escaped Allan as his twinkling eyes looked at Tom. "Because we are so bloody alike, boy. It's so obvious that I almost missed it myself. We have the same stubbornness, the same recklessness, the same quick tongue."

A matching sparkle entered Tom's eyes as he added, "We are made of the same coin, fighters both us," quoting Quatermain.

Smiling, Allan proclaimed, "I knew you'd see my point of view." Then he gave Tom's leg a pat, stood up and resumed his task of cleaning up the floor. "Best if I clean this up before Nemo sees it." Shooting Tom a smirk, he added, "The Captain runs a very tidy ship."

Smirking back, Tom felt his tension fade away. He wasn't alone in the world anymore.

TBC

I realize some would consider this to be the end of the story. My intentions are to write my take of Tom and Quatermain through the rest of the movie and a little beyond. Hope some of you decide to not "jump ship" now and will continue to follow this story as it progresses.

Replies to Reviews:

Claudette: Thank you for your wonderful support! And I believe that misunderstanding is a common life theme…I guess we should put into practice "say what you mean and mean what you say." Glad you thought the reactions of Tom and Allan were on the money last chapter! I'm hoping you'll stay with the story as it continues and let me know how I'm doing!

Ten Mara: I'm so sorry that I didn't reply to your encouraging email! I was just so disappointed in myself for being able to write the chapter that I didn't want to have to admit that I had not idea when I could post chapter 4. Well Tom and Allan had a talk this chapter but I'm hoping to delve deeper into their thoughts as the story progresses. Hope you continue to read this story because, remember, I'm very partial to Quatermain surviving this little adventure! Thanks again for your encouragement!

Sawyer Fan: Thanks for your wonderful compliments! I really appreciate that you are enjoying the father/son bonding because you are a great writer of that theme too! Hope you continue to read and review this story!

Julia: I LOVED your review! That kind of attachment and response to a story is the best compliment for a writer! And to call me now one of your favorite authors…I'm touched! When I write emotional/tense scenes I hope that I describe it well enough to let my readers see/feel what the characters do. You make me feel that I achieved that goal! Thank you!

Laura B: Thank you for your wonderful review!

Kingleby: I want to thank you for making me realize that I don't have to portray Tom as they did the in movie but could also use the personality as presented by Mark Twain. I'm always struggling to keep my characters true to "life". So very pleased that you enjoyed Allan's thoughts on Harry. What can I say, I'm a sap. Thanks again for your wonderful review!

LXGFanGirl: No need to apologize! Have you seen how many mistakes I made already in this story! We're focusing on emotions/creativity here and I'm not allowing points to be subtracting for form! Since you expressed an interest to see this story continue to the end of the movie, I'm hoping I continue to entice you to read the rest of the chapters in this story!

Tonianne: Thank you for your continued support! Hope you liked this chapter!

Alone Dreaming: First all, thank you so much for catching my error on infection! I've corrected in on the other chapters and have reposted them when I posted this one! I HATE when I see glaring errors after I post a story! Especially on 1 chapter stories where I can't go back and correct it without everyone thinking I added another chapter! I ate up your compliments about seeing the Tom/Allan interactions in your head! That is such an awesome thing for me to hear. I can't thank you enough for thinking I'm an "excellent writer"! You're one of a kind yourself!

Amanda Hope: You gave me a fantastic compliment when you said "you keep the relationships read and not something that would not happen in real life"! Thank you so very much for believing that to be true! I always hope to stay as realistic as possible but something that need for angst carries me out of bounds of reality. Thank you again for reviewing!

Again thank you to everyone who read this chapter! It's wonderful to be able to tell my stories to someone else besides myself.

Cheryl W.