Chapter 1: First Meeting

Sybil walked into the café and sat where she always sat every morning – or at least every morning that her work hours would let her. She always went to the same seat in the same café at about 9 a.m. every morning. She was an early bird and it let her think about things. But she was also a nurse with completely random hours; sometimes only three hours of work in the afternoon; sometimes a twelve hour night shift. And despite the fact that she didn't have a regular job, she loved it and wouldn't swap it for anything. Her practically endless years of training were the hardest years of her life, but also the best ones. She'd wanted to go into nursing since she was about ten. Of course before that she wanted to be a vet, astronaut, farmer and Olympian among other professions, but the one she always kept coming back to was nursing. She got a strange thrill out of saving peoples' lives on a daily basis.

So today she was sitting by the window, staring into the middle distance, focusing on nothing in particular. Her shift started at 8 o'clock that evening, so she could stay in that café for as long as she wanted to. She had nothing else planned for the day. She wasn't meeting up with friends and she didn't have a boyfriend to talk to or go out with, and she rarely used her mobile phone, as she was always happy in her own company. So, after drinking half of her coffee she got out a book and started to read. She'd managed to read three chapters (but they were all rather short chapters) before someone came up to her. She expected it to be a waiter asking if she wanted anything else, but when she looked up she found that it was somebody else. Somebody she'd never seen before. The man said, "Can I…?" and motioned to the soft sofa-like chair opposite Sybil across the table. Sybil nodded and smiled. The man started to talk. "I'm just going to say it… I see you in here almost every day and I think you're a stunning woman. I never see you with any other guy, so I'm assuming you're single and I just want to get to know you a little better." He took a breath. "I'm Tom by the way."

"Sybil," she replied, holding her hand out. She folded the corner of the page in her book, snapped it shut and placed it next to her. She deliberately didn't say, nice to meet you, because she didn't know if it was nice to meet him, so instead she stated, "You're Irish." Tom smiled and looked down, but said nothing. "I like the Irish accent." Tom looked up at her and noticed how her eyes lit up when she smiled. "Oh, and, before you go trying to ask me again, yes I'm single. And have been for five years."

"Really, that long?" Tom said, completely shocked. "How can a woman as gorgeous as you be single for so long?"

"It's because of my job I think, which I should probably warn you about because if I'm going to scare you off it's better for me to do it now rather than in a few weeks time." Tom just chuckled to himself and continued to stare into her eyes. "I'm a nurse, but I have super abnormal hours. If you're going to run away, I'd start moving now!" she said with a smile.

"I'm not going to run away. Two of my sisters are nurses and my mum was a doctor, so I know what the hours are like," Tom replied.

"Glad to hear it. How many sisters do you have then? Big family?"

"Three sisters – one older, two younger and four brothers – all younger. And seventeen cousins who are practically siblings anyway."

"Crickey!" Sybil replied, raising her eyebrows. Admittedly her family wasn't small, but it wasn't quite that big.

"So what about you?"

"Two sisters – both older. But I don't speak to them much. I try to, but my whole family's kind of disowned me since I decided to go into nursing. Apart from mum… I still see her sometimes."

"So, medicine's not the family business then?" Tom asked.

"Far from it. Edith does some useful stuff with her life. She's a journalist at the moment, but Mary does nothing and never really has. She's got a husband to get all her money for her. Well, at the moment she's a full time mother, so she can be forgiven, but even before that, she didn't do anything that would ever help her."

"So, who are Edith and Mary?"

"Sisters. Both a pain. Both completely unable to stay in the same room with each other for more than ten minutes without starting an argument." Sybil smiled to herself at the thought of her sisters.

"Why do they all think nursing is such a bad idea? Surely it's good to save peoples' lives?"

"Well, that's what I think, but my family's aristocratic and has been for centuries, so everybody seems to think that I'm ruining the family tradition by going off my own way and by not being a sheep." Sybil paused and took a sip of her coffee before saying, "So, is your family close?"

"While I was in Ireland we were. The rest of the family still are, but obviously I'm here now, so I don't see them all that often."

"How come you moved here? Did you want a change or did you need some space?"

"Neither. My job brought me here. I'm a journalist."

"Intriguing!" Sybil raised an eyebrow, "I like a man who can write well!" She finished her coffee and placed the cup back on the table.

"Want another one?" Tom asked in his gorgeous Irish accent.

"Sure, if you're offering," Sybil replied. The waiter walked past and Tom asked for two coffees.

"So," he said, "I still don't get it. How come men aren't following you everywhere? You're drop dead gorgeous!" Sybil felt her cheeks blush. But she didn't try to hide it. From what she could see so far she liked this man and wasn't going to hide her feelings. "And you seem easy enough to talk to…" Tom added.

"Thanks for the compliment!" she said, smiling at him. "I don't know what it is," she continued, honestly. "My mum says that I can be a bit intimidating, but I always think I'm quite shy around strangers."

"You haven't been shy around me," Tom said rather matter-of-factly, as the waiter brought the two coffees to the table. "But it's good. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining at all!"

I started writing this today. It started off as a one-shot, but I like it too much to keep it short. Sorry about That Was Then, This Is Now for those of you wondering where I stand on that. I am still going to be writing it, but it might not be for a while for various reasons, but I hope you enjoy this in the meantime. Let me know what you think.