Unexpected Correspondence

Chapter 10

The sight before her stunned Kitty into silence. There, sitting by the desk, brow furrowed in concentration was her beautiful six year old daughter, busy drawing. The sound of the door opening made Sylvie raise her head and look over at Kitty, a giant grin immediately broke over her face and she ran over to her. Kitty scooped her up with little effort, quickly laying a kiss on an offered cheek.

"Hello sweetheart," Kitty said, holding Sylvie tight, "I've missed you so much."

"I've missed you too, Mummy." Kitty carefully lowered Sylvie back down to the ground and crouched so that they were at eye level. Kitty gently pushed Sylvie to arm's length so that she could look at her properly for the first time in what felt like years. Her hair was longer and she was a little taller, but her smile was as bright as ever. Sylvie reached a hand out to touch Kitty's face, just under her eyes where a few tears had leaked out.

"Why are you crying?" Sylvie asked, looking very confused at what she assumed to be her mother's sadness.

"Happy tears, my little monkey. Sometimes people cry when they are really happy." They hugged again, Kitty relishing in the feel of small hands wrapped around her neck, too happy to care that her neck still hurt from a vastly different embrace. After a moment, Sylvie detached herself and looked behind Kitty.

"Where's father? He told me you both had something to tell me."

"He's not coming right now, we had a disagreement about what he wanted me to tell you." A few strands of Sylvie's hair had fallen out of their braid, Kitty lightly brushed the strands away from her eyes. "Did you get a chance to read my letter?" Sylvie nodded enthusiastically.

"Father was really angry though, he told me it was all a lie and that I shouldn't trust you because you were a bad person." Sylvie looked up at Kitty with her big brown eyes, as though apologising for what Elliott had said. "I didn't believe him though."

"You were right not to," Kitty replied, trying to hide her anger at what Elliott said so as not to scare Sylvie, "what I said in the letter was all true. Your father is very angry at me so he is going to say some very nasty thing about me, but you shouldn't believe any of them. It is better to pretend to believe him but to remember that it isn't true and that I love you very much."

"I love you too." Sylvie said sincerely. "Are you going to come home soon?"

"I'm sorry honey that's not possible. I have to stay here until the war is over and help the soldiers to get better." Kitty told her sadly. "When the war is over, I'll come back to London and I will do my best to try to see you."

"I wish you could come home now, Father is getting married to Vera and I don't like her as much as you."

"I'm sure Vera is very nice when you get to know her." Sylvie shrugged, a little petulantly. "Another issue you are going to have to get used to is that while I may be able to come back to London, I am never going to be living in your Father's house again."

"Why not? Father hasn't remarried yet, there's still time for you to make up." Kitty's heart broke a little at how unhappy Sylvie looked at the thought of not having both her parents around at the same time.

"Sylvie, for two people to get married and stay married they have to like each other." Kitty paused, aware that what she was saying was not entirely the truth, she had never liked Elliott nor ever wanted to marry him but she didn't think that trying to turn Sylvie against her father would be a good move since in all likelihood Sylvie would be stuck with Elliott until she turned eighteen. "Your father and I no longer like each other, he now likes Vera and I also like someone else. It is just like the situation between your grandfather and grandmother that I told you about a long time ago."

"Being married sounds complicated." Kitty laughed at how annoyed Sylvie sounded about the weird world of being an adult.

"It is." Kitty glanced at the clock, she had been gone for a while she should probably get back soon and make sure Thomas and Elliott hadn't managed to kill each other. Sylvie followed her gaze.

"Father said we were not staying for long, he just wanted you to talk to me and then we would leave."

"I wish we had more time together." Kitty said sadly. "But I'm glad we have at least had a chance to see each other, which is more than I thought I would get."

"I'm glad too." Kitty embraced her warmly one last time.

"I will try to see you when the war is over." Sylvie hugged her tighter, Kitty gave her one last squeeze before regretfully letting go and getting back up. She walked over to the door and looked back at Sylvie, a sad smile on both their faces.

"Goodbye sweetheart."

"Bye Mummy."

When Kitty opened the door to the meeting room the first thing she saw was Thomas, looking rather pleased with himself, the second thing she saw was Elliott sitting back in his chair nursing what appeared to be a broken nose and glaring at Thomas as though he were some bug he wanted to crush underneath a shoe. Kitty had faced that stare before and was a little surprised to see how completely unperturbed Thomas was by it.

The movement of the door caught both of their attention and they turned towards her.

"Ready to go?" Thomas asked cheerily. Kitty nodded, she went over to where Elliott was sitting. He shot her a venomous look, she met his gaze blankly and set down the key to Room 22. Without another word she and Thomas both left the hotel, Thomas stopping to pick up his typewriter and hand in his key on the way.

Instead of heading to the car, Thomas led her in another direction.

"Where are we going?" Kitty asked, Thomas gave her a quick, heart-melting smile.

"I promised you dinner, didn't I?"

About 10 minutes later they found themselves seated in a small café, enjoying a perfectly respectable meal. Although in fairness, with the food they were served at the hospital Kitty would have welcomed cardboard as a respectable meal.

"So what happened after I left?" Kitty asked, she noticed Thomas shifting a little uncomfortably.

"Not much." Kitty's raised eyebrow indicated completely how she felt about the honesty of that statement. "He may have said some unflattering things about you."

"So you punched him?" Thomas nodded sheepishly although she felt he was still holding something back.

"And what happened after that?"

"He may have then said some rather unflattering things about me and you." Thomas paused, scowling a little. Kitty could guess what Elliott might have said about her and Thomas. "So I punched him again. He didn't try to speak after that."

"A wise decision." It was at that point that Kitty noticed why Thomas had specifically requested their particular table, they both had a clear view of the entrance to the hotel. She and Thomas both watched silently as two figures, one much shorter than the other, exited the hotel and got into a nearby car that soon drove off.

"I've been meaning to ask." Thomas said after a while. "You mentioned a situation with Francis earlier." Kitty nodded before telling him the story.

"A few months before I came here, I ran away from Elliott and I took Sylvie with me. We went to stay with a friend of mine, Francis, he was very kind to us. Elliott found out, and while I was away for a few hours he told Francis to give up Sylvie or he would ruin his life. Francis complied." Kitty looked up at Thomas with a sad smile. "Thank you for not doing the same."

"It's not a problem, besides his threats weren't very good." Thomas said, looking a little mischievous.

"What do you mean?"

"Well I'm sure he would have a lot of influence trying to convince English hospitals not to hire me, but if an English politician tried to convince a Scottish hospital I think I would be hired on the spot. We have a tendency not to respect English politicians, particularly those with a vendetta against a fellow Scot." Kitty shook her head in amusement.

"I anticipate that he will probably try to get some type of retribution, especially since you punched him, twice."

"Then we will deal with that when it happens." Kitty smiled at his use of 'we', the word seemed like an unspoken promise of their future together, they didn't know each other well enough for an acknowledgement of an 'I love you' but this was good enough for now. She kissed him warmly, not caring about anyone that may have been watching.

THE END

AN: And that's the end! I hope you have all enjoyed this fan-fiction, it has been really great to write and I'm surprised I've actually managed to finish it without any major bumps (except for a month long hiatus…). I am planning a few other things including a sequel, if you are interested I have put more details beneath my thank yous.

Thanks to Lauretta92, TheCurlymop and Margje for reviewing last chapter! The support for this fic has been really great, a lot better than I thought it would be. Particular thanks to Lauretta92 and through-the-eye-of-a-needle for reviewing the majority of chapters, and TheCurlymop and Margje for being particularly consistent towards the end. The support was really appreciated and definitely helped me to actually get this fic finished.

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION

If you've enjoyed this then you might be interested to know that I am writing a kind of sequel which is set after the war has ended and will be focussed on Kitty and Thomas trying to get married. You will notice in this fic I've mentioned Kitty's father a fair amount, he will actually be in the sequel (because Kitty has a relative that doesn't hate her! Yay!) as well as other members of Kitty's family and Thomas's family.

There will be two main conflicts in the sequel, one will be Elliott who wants a bit of revenge for getting punched…twice, the other will mostly deal with Kitty and Thomas realising exactly how different their upbringings were and having to learn how to compromise and deal with that. During the fic I'm planning on explaining a lot more of Kitty's background like the reason why Elliott wanted to marry her and other fun things like that!

Because the sequel is set a few years after this I'm also writing a one-shot to connect the two multi-chapter fan-fictions a little better which is just going to be shameless KittyxThomas fluff. It won't be completely necessary to read but it will smooth the transition a bit as from the end of this you can see that Kitty and Thomas really really like each other but by the first chapter of the sequel a few years have passed and they are in love so it might feel a bit sudden.