THE ONE WITH THE FEVER

HE looked like something out a movie – the handsome long-legged man who hurried into the small bush hospital in the Western Australian resort town late on Christmas Eve.

His shirt was completely unbuttoned, showing off a nicely toned chest, though not overly muscled it was still impressive. He had long powerful runners legs clad in rumpled board shorts and looked wildly disheveled like he'd just jumped out of bed. His light auburn hair was sticking up haphazardly, his face filled with at least two days of stubble.

But what was even more dramatic, what caught the eyes of the bored hospital staff working that relatively quite Christmas eve, was the frantic look on his face and the listless young woman he carried in his arms.

The woman, marginally younger than the man –though they both were probably both in their 30s and ridiculously good looking, was conscious but obviously fevered, with sweat glistening on her brow. She wore a long white robe which hung down over the man's arms, underneath the robe was a skimpy black bikini, so small that it probably cost serious coinage. Her head was lolling back and her long dark hair spilled in a messy cascade over his arm.

"Help please help me - I - she's not well – I found a tick I don't know how long she's had it, I didn't think tick bites were this bad," he said in a well-educated British accent, his voice high with panic but with enough resonance to offer promise of being deep and sexy at the right moments.

And from the look of both of them, the right moment may have only been a few minutes ago.

The nurse on duty at the front desk sent the hospital worker running for a bed – which he was soon crashing through the heavy plastic that separated the waiting room from the hospital proper – the doctor on duty following him through.

The man repeated his story as he lay the woman on the gurney and the doctor checked her over.

"We're on our honeymoon, well our Australian one we're getting married in the UK next week – she's Australian, please help us," the frantic man repeated not entirely making sense but in the circumstances who would.

The orderly put a reassuring hand on the man's shoulder. "It's okay mate she's in good hands."

The Doctor smiled reassuringly too – "we get a few tick patients here, particularly after it's just rained like this".

"Does she still have it – where was the site?" the Doctor asks and the man prepares to answer just as more people come running through the door – an older woman and man, a younger man and woman in their late 20s. The man colours.

"Is she okay, is my baby okay," the woman asks frantically coming to the side of the bed, peering over. The first man goes red and the doctor answers quickly sensing his discomfort.

"I'm just taking a look at her now – if you could give Maureen her details that would be very helpful - I'll take your daughter and............" he gestures to the tall man who smiles gratefully not really wanting to go into his story in detail in front of her parents and siblings.

"Tom, Tom Hiddleston," he says quickly, the doctor nods, recognition flashes through his mind but not across his face. He knew he knew that face from somewhere and now he knows who his patient is too - Australian actress Geneveive Jane, their romance had been in all the papers on all the bad websites, not that he got much time to read out here – too many patients and too much good surf for that shit.

"Brad – Doctor Brad Peterson and that's Jeff," he introduced himself as they crashed through the plastic and into the small hospital behind.

"This is Gen, she's 32, I, we went walking out to the bluff through the bush this morning – but we walked out to the point yesterday, I didn't remember seeing the tick last night though," Tom says quickly as they move her into one of the cubicles. The hospital is completely empty – no patients for the evening, none staying over. In fact other than a couple of cuts from shells and extracting two fish hooks from fingers this afternoon, it had been a pretty quiet day for the staff. The calm before the storm in a small hospital like this though, they expected a busy night tomorrow night after people had got a skinful and spent the day with the people they tolerated most – their families. There were three nurses and two doctors on tomorrow afternoon. Well one doctor in the hospital and one on standby – the same with the nurses two on standby.

There were two nurses on tonight – Maureen at the front and Jill, who had come over to the cubical to replace Jeff, who job done had gone to see about a cuppa or two for the sudden influx of people in the waiting room. Jill, mid 20s – often seen wearing Marvel T shirts when she wasn't in uniform, was doing a double-take without trying to look like she was doing a double-take.

"So I take it the tick is near her groin," Dr Brad asks earnestly.

Tom colours again – he seems good at blushing.

"Um yes I found it when we were, that is," he started looking embarrassed and staring down at his hands.

"During sex," Dr Brad says matter-of-factly.

Tom nods.

"We were, I was well I was down in the netherworld and I found it, she was pretty out of it by then," Tom ran his hand through his hair nervously side-eyeing towards Jill.

The doctor, around the same age as the patient and her husband, smiled.

"Jill can you go get me everything I need – and we'll need to set up a drip too," he says. The young nurse, still star struck, nodded bumping into the tray as she left them.

"I thought she was just coming down off an orgasm at first, I didn't realise it was something else. " Tom said looking from his wife to the doctor.

"Will she be okay – my mother-in-law was saying some pretty scary stuff about Lymes disease?"

The Doctor, now examining the site and taking note of the tick, sighed.

"We'll do some test and check things out but it is most likely to be an allergic reaction," he said.

"We'll get the tick out and start her on antibiotics and get some fluids in and we'll go from there mate. But we'll have to keep her overnight."

Tom sighed, this was supposed to be the perfect Australian Christmas. They'd been married in secret on a secluded beach four days ago and were now here with her whole family staying at the nearby resort. They had their own villa away from them but had gone swimming, hiking with the family every day and come back and made love on an endless loop making up for being away from each other in recent months. It had been idyllic until now, until she started to show signs of a fever, they'd at first taken for heatstroke and then affects of another kind of stroking,  and now it was a nightmare. They were due to head back to London on the 27th to prepare for the "real" wedding on New Years eve. He wondered if that would still happen. Not that any of that mattered. Gen was the only thing that mattered, she had been since they'd met on a set two and a half years ago.

Seeing her so sick, seeing the Doctor and nurse removing the tick and hooking up drips, he realised more than ever just how much she meant to him. How much she'd become his world. Silently the medical staff left them, getting Tom a chair and getting Gen comfortable. He held her hand, stroked the brand new shiny ring on her finger.

He stayed there talking to her, holding her hand on his own until his mother-in-law came in; Laura was a strong woman a teacher- fiercely protective of her brood. He expected a lecture, he'd had a few at her hands – taking her daughter away to live in the UK, working too hard. He didn't need one now and thankfully she didn't give him one. Instead she touched her hand to his shoulder and stood behind him watching her daughter.

She was sleeping, still feverish but sleep was the best thing – yes that was the best thing according to the Doctor.

The rest of the family came in and out but Laura stayed with Tom offering him silent strength until it was well after midnight and her husband Alan came back to take her back to the resort. But before she left she had helped Tom change his wife, her daughter, into her night clothes and had left him a change of clothes like mothers do. And then she was hugging him tight and telling him to try and get some sleep, she'd be back in the morning. Gen was resting a little easier now but she was still unwell, they both knew that. Tom hugged his mother-in-law back like she was a lifeline to his real life.

"Thank you, thank you for being here for us, for Gen and for myself, I love you mum," he said quietly holding on to her like it would make a difference, as his mother-inlaw tried to hold back her tears. She'd been reluctant to like this boy – well you are when you realise he's the one and that your child's life was in another country now. Not that it hadn't been already. But he was a nice boy and he loved her, if she hadn't known that before it was very evident now.

"Of course," she said.

"She's my daughter and you're my son now – part of our family!" They hugged again. "Call me if you need me – Merry Christmas son," she said kissing his cheek and leaning down to kiss her daughter.

"Merry Christmas."

Tom watched her go, feeling her loss keenly, he had the woman of his dreams but this wasn't his dream. This should be the best Christmas ever and yet here he was. Holding her hand and hoping that their dreams for the future weren't being shot down before they started.

There was no one in the hospital so the staff had set him up a bed next to her, they knew he wouldn't leave her. He kissed her lips gently and wished her Merry Christmas, still holding her hand as he drifted into a restless sleep.

Dr Mary Josephs (no I'm not kidding – Christmas morning with Mary Joseph) checked on her through the night – the cocktail of drugs and saline were working and by the time Dr Brad was back on at 7am she looked a lot better.

Tom had slid in next to her half an hour earlier and was holding her to him in the air-conditioning, her fever had started to break around 5.30am and she'd asked for him. He'd been there to wish her Merry Christmas to kiss her tentatively, to hold her. To try and make this all feel normal again.

Gen was so good by 7.30am that she wanted out but Brad wasn't taking any chances. He watched Tom yawn in the chair now next to her bed. He suggested that he should leave – have a sleep and a shower come back later. But Tom wasn't going anywhere.

It was a different story when Laura and the rest of the family arrived though to open presents – even a hastily wrapped one for the Doctor and nurse. Noise filled the quiet little hospital – laughter and a family determined to celebrate.

But then Tom yawned and his wife AND his mother-in-law pounced. Under orders from the women in their lives his father-in-law frog-marched him back to the unit for a break.

A shower was good, an hours nap was better but he knew that Christmas day couldn't be slept away and he couldn't go to lunch without her.

At 11am he arrived back at the hospital – but he wasn't alone.

Four resort staff members followed him carrying big platters of food – tables were set up in the break room – which now brimmed to overflowing and Gen, drip in tow, was allowed to out of bed and into a wheel chair with her brother Gil wheeling her towards the new Christmas venue.

And so the staff of the hospital and the newly united Hiddleston-Jane family sat and broke bread and dug into plates of fruit and seafood. Not in the sumptuous dining room of the local resort but in the small bush hospital tucked a street away from the beach.

And later – as the others went back to the villas to sleep things off. Tom curled around his wife in her hospital bed and gave her the locket he'd planned to give her on a beach walk this morning.

"Oh god it's beautiful." she gushed turning in his arms to face him once the locket was secure around her neck.

"You'll have to wait a little while to unwrap your gift," she said kissing him gently on the lips.

"It's okay darling – I don't mind the wait – I waited 36 years for you," he added kissing her harder and deeper until she as more than a touch breathless.

Gen smiled knowingly, shifting her mouth from his lips to his ear.

"Don't worry baby you won't have to wait that long, just eight months or so- it seems the tick isn't the only little passenger I picked up in Australian," she whispered as his eyes widened and a smile split his face.

"Holy fuck really?" he asked and she nodded as he put a protective hand on her flat as a tack stomach.

It might not have gone to plan but this really was a Christmas he'd remember forever.