This is a thing. A thing that was written on my phone between 3am and 6am. I'm not even sure what this is but I felt the need to write it anyway aha. I think my timeline is a little bit wrong but oh well, this is fiction. I think what I was going for is this is set a good while before the shooting incident, I'm not sure. I know some of you are very patiently waiting for the next chapter of AtBP but it's just not flowing at the moment. It's getting there I promise. I kind of stole the first person idea from Beth who writes it fabulously (go read Painful Reminder it's amazing) It's not my forte but I wanted to give it a go. I'd like to dedicate this thing, whatever it is, to Beth and Beth and Toni (who I love to talk Sam/Iain back story with)
Comfort. That's how it had started. A burning, aching need for comfort.
After the mandated recovery time both Iain and I, along with a couple of others had been reassigned from Nad-e Ali to Camp Bastion. Corporal Henry Davison had been so severely injured he'd been flown to Germany for treatment, but even the doctors there could not undo the damage inflicted on him by the Taliban insurgents.
I'd spent the majority of those four weeks waking up screaming, the sound echoing around the walls of the tiny houseboat. Waking with a start I would fight to still my racing heart only to reach over and find Dylan's side of the bed empty, the sheets cold indicating the speed of his departure after I had fallen asleep. I didn't know where Dylan went in the middle of the night, but the horrified look on his face when a nightmare had woken him my first night home told me that he would not be there to witness any more. He would always lay down with me though; lying awkwardly on his back and staring at the ceiling, until I eventually fell asleep. Sometimes he held my hand.
Dylan had never been good with talking and emotions but that had been fine with me because I didn't wear my heart on my sleeve either and for 2 and a half years it worked. But there had been no majorly traumatic event in my life that meant he'd needed to provide me with any sort of comfort during our short marriage, and it was glaringly obvious the day I had arrived back at the houseboat as a shadow of the feisty, energetic woman he had waved off nearly 8 months previously.
He had known of course that I had been hurt. As my husband and next of kin he had received a phone call informing him that that I had been injured in the line of duty, but what that phone call didn't tell him was that along with 5 other members of my med team, I'd had been kidnapped during an attempt to med-evac a group of soldiers who had been injured by a roadside bomb.
As I had attempted to talk to Dylan about what had happened I could seen him fighting with himself to not say out loud that I had brought this on myself. I recalled the argument we'd had shortly after our first anniversary when I'd announced my plans to join the army. "If you want to go into a war zone and get yourself maimed or killed instead of finding a perfectly suitable job here then that's your prerogative" he'd said indignantly, finally relenting when he'd seen how set on it I was. But then, just 8 months into my first deployment he had been proved right. To give credit to Dylan, he never ever said it, but I could see it in his eyes every time he looked at me. There was anger mixed in with the pity, and it was a horrible mix.
Looking back on it, I can see that Dylan's anger had stemmed from frustration. Yes, he had been angry at me for putting myself in that position in the first place, but he had also been frustrated at himself for being unable to give me what I needed. When I was in pain he had surveyed my injuries with a detached sense of calm, talking to me much like he would a patient, instead of just holding my hand and reassuring me that it would get better and every time I got upset when I talked about it, he would stop me, as if he was afraid that he would be unable to cope with the tears that would inevitably follow, scared that he would say the wrong thing. We spent a lot of time dancing around each other, worried that we would make the situation worse.
I know that Dylan didn't do these things out of spite, I know deep down he cared. He'd shown that by making sure he was with me until I fell asleep every night, even if he wasn't there when I woke up and he'd not griped once about the generator when I'd admitted I needed to sleep with the light on. He hadn't even questioned it. I knew that I had been the one that had changed the balance, the one who had tipped the scales and thrown Dylan straight out into the deep end. But that didn't mean I didn't crave his comfort. On the nights where the dreams had been the worst I had wanted nothing more than for Dylan to hold me and tell her me I was safe but he had already run away, like he always did when a situation threatened to become too deep or emotional or scary. In hindsight, that was the beginning of the end for our marriage, though I didn't see it at the time. Or maybe I just didn't want to see it.
Nothing really changed in those four weeks, apart from the healing of my injuries. Physically I had healed but I knew that I was far from okay. Mandatory sessions with a counsellor in Camp Bastion had been arranged for all of us but I had envisaged sharing the horrors of my ordeal with the one person I trusted the most. Instead I'd kept the worst to myself for fear of alienating Dylan even more. I'll finish this deployment, just four more months, I'd privately decided, and then apply for a job in a British hospital. I hadn't known then that that would not happen. And as Dylan once again waved as I set off to go back to place that had robbed so much from me, I was sure I had seen tears wetting his cheeks. I remember thinking maybe it was because he didn't want me to go, but now I wonder if he knew deep down that I wasn't going to come back.
One thing I know for certain, I definitely hadn't envisaged ending up with Iain in my bed before the end of my first week in Camp Bastion.
It had been strange, seeing Iain, Scott and Ben again. I hadn't spoken to them in weeks. It was so, so hard that Henry wasn't with them. None of them really seemed to have processed their grief. I hadn't even scratched the surface of mine. There was too much guilt. It didn't take us long to get back into the swing of army life. It's busy, you're constantly moving and it was perfect as a distraction. The days were fine. It was the nights that were hard. I found it hard to fall asleep alone and the permanent accommodation at the base meant I had been assigned a private room. That meant there wasn't even the noise of anyone else to listen to. The inconsistent sputter of gunfire only served to agitate me even more and as such I was functioning on very little sleep. It had been Iain who had first pulled me up on it. I was lagging behind in PT and he had hung back to run with me. I'm sure I must have looked awful because the way Iain had looked at me made me want to cry.
"You're not sleeping are you?" He'd asked tentatively in the mess hall that night. I distinctly remember looking up from the cold macaroni and cheese I'd been pushing around my plate and attempting to brush it off when Iain had interrupted me. "I know you're not sleeping. None of us are," he'd admitted, nodding over to Scott and Ben. I could see it then, in his eyes, he was suffering just the same as me.
So I'd managed to avoid Iain's attention for the next two days. I didn't want to burden him when he was obviously dealing with his own demons but when I got up to answer a knock at my door on the 5th night back I knew in my gut that it would be Iain standing there when I opened it. He stepped in and stood there awkwardly for a second before he opened his arms wide. I'd hesitated, knowing full well what would happen once I stepped into his embrace. My head was screaming at me not to. I knew I should keep things professional but my heart won out and I allowed myself to give in to the one thing I had needed for so long.
Comfort.
The tears were spilling down my cheeks before Iain had even fully wrapped his arms around me and I sobbed into his chest, my hot salty tears darkening a patch on his beige t shirt. I was vaguely aware of a wetness on the top of my head and I realised Iain was crying too.
It made so much sense that it was Iain that was there crying with me. We had shared a cell along with Henry while we were kept captive. It had been Iain beside them as their captors had beat them daily; the boys always came off worse and I'd nursed their wounds as best as I could. He and Henry had seethed every time one of them had made vile threats against me and Iain had earned himself a broken cheekbone when he had lashed out at one of the men who had dared to slash my top off with his knife. They'd put Iain in chains after that. And it was Iain who had watched helplessly, unable to move away from the wall the day their captors had beat Henry for attempting to protect me when they tried again. They left him lying on the floor of the dirty cell and he had been so badly beaten that to this day I don't know how he was even still breathing. Both of his pupils had blown and the side of his head was sticky with blood and brain matter. They had hit him so hard that his skull has cracked like an egg, the insides spilling out onto the dust.
Something snapped in me when I had realised that there was absolutely nothing I could for Henry. I'd screamed at them, banging the door so hard that blood ran down my arms from the shredded flesh of my palms. Iain's attempts to calm me had been futile, I was too angry, too upset; and it was only when I eventually collapsed with exhaustion that I stopped banging on the door. I don't know how, but Henry was still alive when we were finally rescued. He was flown to Germany but I knew that his injuries were not survivable. It wasn't a shock when we got the news that he'd died but that didn't abate any of the guilt.
I deliberately stayed away from Iain, Scott and Ben at the field hospital, not speaking a word to any of them. I know Iain had tried to see me but it was too painful. He'd been there, he had seen what had happened. How Henry got beaten to a pulp because of me. Scott and Ben didn't really know the full story at that point, a full debrief had been ordered for when we got back from leave but Iain obviously knew the reason why I had ignored them all, why I had ignored all of the phone calls while I was back home.
And on that 5th night back all of my guilt and pain had come pouring out in fat tears and sobs so violent my entire body was shaking. Iain didn't have any words, I think he was too upset himself but he pulled me tighter and rubbed my back, just a simple gesture but it meant so much.
"He died because of me Iain," I'd sobbed, the words finally slipping past my lips after a month of keeping them locked inside. "He should have just let them, then he would still be alive," I cried, cringing as the words hung in the air. Iain took a step back and held me by my shoulders and forced me to look at him.
"Don't you EVER say that again alright? We're a team, we look out for each other. You looked after us, we looked after you,"
"And look where it got H-Henry!" I'd choked out his name, as the thought of his limp body on the floor flooded my mind.
"Sam you can't blame yourself, when we sign up for this job we know the risks. What happened to Henry wasn't your fault," Iain had insisted through his own tears.
"I can still hear the crack that broke through his skull," I'd said quietly, shuddering "I hear it every night and it won't stop, it won't stop,"
"Sshh," he'd soothed, pulling me closer once again. He must have noticed how I fell against him, exhausted from the the outpouring of emotion.
"Come on, you need to sleep," He'd gently maneuvered me over to her bed. Reluctantly I'd let go of him and crawled into my bed, curling up on my side and pulling the covers up high. He'd switched off the main light but not before he had turned on the small lamp,he must have known I would need it. I saw him pause at the door as he was about to leave and he glanced back over me under the covers and then reached down to untie his boots. He'd walked over to the bed, I don't know if he knew that what he was about to do was breaking about 6 different rules, but he didn't seem to mind. He must have seen the shock on my face as he laid on top of the covers but he didn't say anything. Tentatively I moved closer to him and laid my head on his shoulder. He reached around and pulled me closer and that night I fell asleep listening to the beat of Iain's heart, and for the first time in four weeks I slept through the night without a nightmare.
Iain had left very early that next morning, I suppose, to get back to his own room without anyone seeing him. Apart from my initial shock it wasn't awkward at all, maybe if it had been awkward it wouldn't have gone so far but it wasn't. It became part of our routine and we were both sleeping better. We both still had nightmares but there was a huge difference between waking up alone and waking up next to someone who knew exactly how you were feeling. It had been so easy, to slip into that routine. The kidnapping had affected both of us far more than we liked to admit, but we could comfort each other without words, there was no need for words.
It was never about the sex. In the beginning I wasn't even attracted to Iain, it was his comfort I craved. Just the safety of his arms. But through this comfort an emotional connection had been forged, and it was just so different to anything I had had with Dylan. I loved Dylan, I loved him deeply, but Iain understood how I felt in a way I knew that Dylan never would. Dylan was my safe port in a storm, he was unchanging, predictable. But that was not what I needed anymore. That was the problem; I'd changed. But Dylan hadn't changed with me, he didn't know how to. But Iain did, he'd been right there in the nightmare with me.
It happened so naturally, the first time we actually they slept together. Iain had pulled me out of another horrible nightmare and he was holding me close, whispering soothing words into my ear. He leant forward to press a kiss to my forehead, but I had tilted my head up, catching his lips with my own. He'd hesitated for just a second before he committed to the kiss. In that moment we weren't Iain who was behaving inappropriately with a senior officer and Sam with the husband back home. we were just Iain and Sam, two desperate souls who had been clinging together for too long and fallen in love along the way.
I'd cried afterwards and Iain had been so worried that he had done the wrong thing, but I was quick to reassure him that my tears were tears of relief, not of sadness and I pushed away the guilt that threatened to gnaw at me. Most of the time it didn't feel like an affair, not really. It wasn't like I'd just falled in to bed with a stranger and the only time I really felt that guilt was when a letter from Dylan arrived, but they were getting shorter and less frequent. It was as if Dylan and I had both sort of given up. It wasn't dramatic. There were no arguments. It just happened. And when I was offered redeployment, it was easier to stay, my earlier promise to myself forgotten. Dylan made it easy, he didn't fight for me. But I guess I didn't fight for him either, we both gave that up a long time ago.
Erm, reviews are lovely :) Thanks for reading :)