The Waitress

Full circle

Tom Hiddleston didn't expect to be boarding a plane at Heathrow two days before Christmas but then no one expects the Spanish Inquisition or in this case a  heart-attack. He knew he wasn't about to let Melody Taylor fly out on her own, potentially fly out of his life again, he wasn't letting her out of his sight.

Part of him, the place where the anxiety and depression dwelt, was terrified that she would get to Australia and never come back but the larger part of him wanted to be with her through this. She faced too much in her life alone and he wanted to prove she didn't have to plus honestly he needed to be there. This was his emergency too. Of course, they wouldn't be alone – Morag and Johnny were on a later flight headed out too to help, to be there, to support.

It had been an expensive ordeal trying to get flights so close to Christmas, strings had been pulled by anyone and everyone they could. Once again the thing that had been a millstone around his neck also proved to be a bit of a saviour – fame took so much but occasionally he had to take back – not for himself but others, charities, those without voices in the world and his family.

And now less than seven hours after the phone call here they were rushing through Heathrow on their way to Australia, Brisbane, the Gold Coast – University Hospital.

It hadn't been Mels mother – no that was too predictable and if Tom and Melody had learned anything from decades of living, it was that life didn't follow the script. Life sent you curveballs. And in the curveballs of life, this was a doozey.

Phillipe had been working long and hard for too long and too hard. He'd collapsed in the café – a heart attack – mid-forties and he was fighting for life in the Gold Coast University Hospital – James by his side as much as he could be, their mother's waiting outside. The prognosis wasn't brilliant – surgery was needed, it was more than a blockage, more than a quick balloon to the artery and out before Christmas. Doctors were coming down from Brisbane, this was a big deal.

Tom and Mels had been knocked for a loop and there was no way they wouldn't be going home. No way they couldn't be there to support James. To help where they could.

Tom had briefly thought of letting Morag or Johnny fly with Melody but it was only briefly, the truth was he needed her as much as she needed him. The call from a distraught Jaz had knocked them both for six, had sent them both sailing in a torrent of "why him", "he's too young". Even now, hours later, as they walked briskly through Heathrow, hand-in-hand, they were still numb, still worried and not thinking straight. Maybe if they hadn't been so shocked, so stunned, then they would have more discreet, not come in together. Tried to get seats apart, not gone together to his house to pick up suitable clothes and passports. But none of that was a concern. The only concern was getting to the Gold Coast, to Phillipe and James – the only concern was in helping in any way they could.

Neither could concentrate, sleep was hard to come by but they tried. They tried sleep, tried to read but mostly they held hands, mostly they talked quietly, telling each other that Phillipe would be okay, that he would be sitting up chatting and reading crime novels when they got there. The idea of anything else being the truth was not worth thinking about. So they tried not to. But it isn't easy and flights from the UK to Brisbane aren't short. Tom wondered if he should ask about Mels' mother, but then what was there to say? In his head, he was giving her the benefit of the doubt. In his head, she was away, had her phone turned off and hadn't got the message.

Maybe that's why he did it.

That's why he text the number said it was Tom Hiddleston, a friend of Mel's and she'd just had a major shock – a friend's heart attack, she needed support.