Tom and Desai are brought together by circumstance, friendship, and understanding of what each other really need from the other. A monster threatens their happiness, but they rise above to reach the pinnacle they both want and need. True love always...
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Desai awoke to hear two male voices arguing loudly. She knew who it was and the subject was herself as she had heard her name mentioned more than once during the yelling match.
It sounded as if Luke was giving Tom a reaming and not in a good way.
"If I have to I will have a doctor pronounce you unfit for work! You need to get over this head injury before you do anything else!" Luke boomed. "This anger that is coming from you has to be dealt with before another incident happens! Have you not seen – do you not care about the damage you've done?!" He pointed up to the bedroom where Desai was still, hopefully, sleeping. "I know all about your little escapades with needing to not be a goody-two-shoes, I understand that. But what you did—" he was cut off as Tom turned.
"Do you – don't you dare think that for one moment I don't realize what I did to her! Every time I look at her I see what was done! And that I did it! So I don't need a goddamn lecture from you or anyone else! I could have killed her! And it kills me to look at her knowing that I could have lost it all!" He waved his hands frantically. "So don't stand there in your righteousness Saint Luke and preach to me about what I need to do!" He waved his hands around as if trying to scramble his thoughts back into a pile. "Filming doesn't start for another couple of weeks. If, and I do mean if I am not back to who I was before ... then we'll go from there and you have my blessing to call in whoever you deem necessary to help me deal with whatever this is going on in my head. I know I'm not this kind of person. I never have been. Playing Loki can make me need certain things ... it's more of a need for complete control, but what I did to Desai, who has been hurt enough for ten lifetimes ... was inexcusable." He shook his head as tears flowed down his face. "Understand this, Luke, and hear me well, I will never forgive myself for what I did to her. When I said those wedding vows I meant them and I broke several of them and though I remember what I did to her," he shook his head, "I could no more stop it than I could have stopped a runaway train. And I can tell you I would rather be dead than to feel like that again."
Luke stood silent then moved to pull Tom into a hug. "I'm sorry, Tom, but damnit, if I can see the difference in you, then others can too and they will focus on that. Possibly to make things worse."
Tom nodded into Luke's shoulder looking up as he heard one of the children. They both headed up to the bedroom and opened the door to see Desai sitting calmly giving James a bottle. "Hello, are you two still friends?"
Thomas smiled, "Always. Luke always has my best interest at heart."
"There have been times when I've been wrong," Luke said as he smiled at Desai.
"Well, I love you both. And Thomas, I do believe that Luke is right about this. I did some reading about concussions just to refresh what I had learned as a nurse, and even in their mildest form, they can cause personality problems. With the one you sustained it is considered to be a TBI."
"What's a TBI?" Thomas asked confused.
"Traumatic Brain Injury. Traumatic brain injury can have wide-ranging physical and psychological effects. Some signs or symptoms may appear immediately after the traumatic event, while others may appear days or weeks later. These types of injuries can cause people to have hallucinations both with vision and auditory, but they can also cause so much more. Violent and combative actions, not sleeping, headache, nausea or vomiting, fatigue, drowsiness, difficulty talking, dizziness, or loss of balance. Not to mention sensory problems, blurred vision, ringing of the ears, odd or bad taste in the mouth, changes in ability to smell. Sensitivity to light or sound." She took a breath and continued, "Then there's the cognitive, behavioral, and mental symptoms. We know you lost consciousness but for how long? You've not said if you've had any problems with your memory or concentration. We know you've had changes in your mood. We also know you have been feeling anxious and possibly depressed about what happened. You've also had trouble sleeping. How many have I gotten right, earendel?"
