Thank you to my three reviewers from yesterday - I'm glad emotional Sam and Dervla seemed to go down well. Today's installment is especially for you.
Also not sure what happened, but same as last week despite my update this fic did not move up the list of fics to indicate a new chapter, so some of you may have missed yesterday's part. Chapter 3 is there for you to read if you've yet to see it.
Here is chapter 4 of 7.
Snowdrops
Chapter 4
Sam reflected back on the shift that she had somehow managed to struggle through and caught herself thinking about how long the past 24 hours had seemed. It had been a similar time the day before that Dylan had handed over responsibility for Dervla to her for the weekend, yet it felt more like a week that a single day.
Despite her early start that morning she had actually nearly been late for work, having spent well over half an hour in a bundled heap on the floor with a scruffy looking dog and her favourite pair of boots. She had hurriedly had to ready herself to depart for Holby City E.D. so she had pulled on the clothes from the holdall, her only alternative being the same outfit she had been wearing the previous day which given her drunken antics hadn't seemed like an appealing option. She had forgone make up for fear of making herself even later and had scraped her still damp hair into a messy looking ponytail, before grabbing the keys to Dylan's car and heading into town.
She had dived into the toilets as soon as she had arrived at work, but hadn't been able to make herself look any more presentable. Her face had been pale and blotchy, so even after she had finished she still managed to look vaguely unwell and the dark circles under her eyes would have given away how tired she was. Her only saving grace she discovered was that a number of her colleagues, Lenny and Linda especially, seemed to be in a similar position and she could therefore cite a hangover as the single cause of her drab outward appearance.
To her astonishment Mr Jordan had given her the same choice two days in a row and allowed her to select which area of the department she wanted to work in. She had inwardly accepted that she was feeling too rough and exhausted to be competent enough to deal with anything too complicated that morning. Therefore, to the surprise of her colleagues, she had selected to share cubicles and CDU with Tom, whilst Lenny and Jordan managed resus. Much to her annoyance Lenny had made a quip about her wanting to be away from the action due to her hangover, but she had known he would be paid back for that by having to spend the day under Jordan's supervision whilst he himself was suffering the after effects of both alcohol and a night with Linda.
When their colleagues had all set about their allocated tasks, Jordan had asked her if she was okay and there had been something about his tone that made her wonder if he had noted her disdain at the thought of Zoe and Dylan being at the conference and this was his offer of moral support. She loosely remembered being informed of his own former relationship with one of their absent colleagues the previous night and wondered if he too was struggling at the thought of them together in a hotel.
She had spent the shift being grateful for Tom's ever enthusiastic presence alongside her, because she knew she had not been firing on all cylinders and he had been able to give her the focus she needed. She normally hated deferring to anyone she did not consider her senior, regardless of rank or qualification, which was one of her issues in working under Zoe. Yet she had been able to work successfully with Tom and had willingly allowed him to lead, which she knew had been noticed by Jordan in one of his irritatingly frequent appearances to check on her throughout the day.
She collected her belongings from her locker and headed out to the car park. She had never had a need for a car of her own given that work was in easy walking distance of her flat and even prior to her departure for Afghanistan she had barely driven in years. However that morning the need to get to work in record time had overtaken any desire she had felt to walk from Dylan's boat.
As she threw her possessions into the passenger seat of Dylan's car and jumped inside herself, it crossed her mind that the vehicle itself was very much her husband's style. It had always amused her that despite their relative means and income they had never bought a new car and Dylan had instead preferred to drive an old jeep or land rover, one which had usually seen better days several years previously.
Sam had forgotten how much she hated driving in the dark and the wet until she turned out of the car park. Her job required such long hours that in winter months she usually arrived at work in darkness and left when night had already fallen. She had sometimes gone for a whole week without seeing daylight and her only knowledge of the weather was from the state her patients tended to be in on their arrival.
As she drove away from the hospital her thoughts returned to the impending change of day. Midnight was now only six hours away and Dylan's absence was beginning to weigh heavier on her mind. It wasn't the first time she had been away from him on 29th January, because last year she had been posted to the other side of the world, yet back then they had made arrangements in advance to speak at midnight in both their time zones. That had been despite the fact they had split up only weeks beforehand and Dylan had still been incredibly raw about her idiotic fling.
Sam yawned as she turned off the main road and onto the unlit lane that led down to moorings. She knew it had been a very long day and her lack of sleep from the previous night was really beginning to hit her hard. As she drove through a large puddle on the road she felt the car's wheels spin slightly underneath her, which jolted her back to reality and caused her to grip the steering wheel even tighter than before.
Lights from a car coming in the opposite direction blinded her for a second, but it was as the vehicle passed her and she entered a sharp bend that she felt the wheels spin for a second time and the car start to skid across the road towards the woods.
Sam felt the world cease moving for a second despite the car no longer being under her control and in that instant she did nothing. It felt like the longest moment, but she knew it could only have been a second, and she completely failed to take any evasive action to get the car back on course.
She came to her senses in time to prevent herself crashing straight into a tree and managed to bring the car to a grinding stop on the side of the road. She could feel her heart pounding against the inside of her chest and it felt as if she couldn't catch her breath. Her hands were gripped so tightly onto the steering wheel that her knuckles had gone white and her foot was still forcing down the brake pedal despite the fact that the car was no longer moving.
Sam felt a sudden need to escape from the confined space of the vehicle and staggered out of the door into the rain, breathing heavily and her head spinning. She felt this overwhelming need to cry but the tears just wouldn't fall. The shock of her near-death style experience was all-consuming and the image of how close she came to hitting that tree was on replay through her mind.
She couldn't believe that she would have let herself crash into the tree, at least not consciously. Yet a small part of her considered that there was an outside possibility that this may have been exactly what she had wanted after all. She tried to comprehend how she had ended up here, standing by the side of the road in the pouring rain having nearly driven her ex-husband's car up a tree, but she came up short of answers.
She knew that her angst over the thought of Dylan and Zoe being away together had contributed to her mood, as had the unexpected discoveries in her husband's boat that morning. However none of these came close to the dread she was feeling about the clock striking midnight on the anniversary of that awful day, especially given that her only company was likely to be a dog. But, Sam considered, even taking all of that into account she had to believe that in that split second she had not wanted to crash, merely that she briefly saw the opportunity for an escape.
Even in those darkest times four years before she had never wanted to die, although both her and Dylan had been fairly self-destructive for a while. She may have been feeling very low and lonely for a while now, but she knew that her husband would be devastated if she was actually gone and whilst they may have lost their connection in recent weeks, their shared history could never be erased.
Sam took one final deep breath before clambering back into the car and starting to drive the remainder of the way back to the boat. Her nerves were shot to pieces to the point where she barely put her foot on the accelerator for the entire journey, but her perseverance eventually came through as she arrived back near the tow path and abandoned the vehicle.
As she entered Dylan's home a few minutes later the first thing she noted was that the milk carton was still on the side in the kitchen, exactly where she had left it when coffee jars being in the wrong place had caused her to have a breakdown of sorts. There was an irony of sorts in that she had cried over milk that hadn't even been spilt, but she couldn't bring herself to smile.
The second thing she noted was that the light on the answer machine was flashing to indicate that Dylan had received a message. She silently debated whether or not to pick it up, given that it was after all a message left on Dylan's personal answerphone, but decided that as it may be important it was her duty as his house-sitter to listen. She pressed play and then stood there open-mouthed as her husband's booming voice filled the small space. Her husband's booming voice that was leaving a voicemail message for Dervla.
"You left a message for the dog and not me?" Sam questioned aloud to herself as the very dog that was the intended recipient appeared by her side, drawn to the phone by the sound of her master's voice. To be demoted from wife to dog sitter had hurt her badly, but to now be completely dismissed without a mention felt almost cruel.
She didn't want to consider that Dylan had actually forgotten the significance of tomorrow's date, yet for him to leave a message for her to play to his dog, the dog she was sitting in his absence, and for him to not even acknowledge her caused the little that was left of her heart to shatter.
She caught sight of sad doggy eyes looking up at her and wondered if Dervla was questioning why the sound of Dylan's voice hadn't made her happy. She couldn't bring herself to raise her voice to the animal for the second time in a day but she just wished Dervla would stop meeting her gaze. Looking into the eyes of her husband's beloved dog was like looking straight at him, but she knew that Dervla couldn't provide her with the reassurance or answers that she desperately wanted.
Sam stood and surveyed the contents of the small room once again and it hit her that no one would even know the owner of this boat had a past, let alone a wife and all the history that came with their lives together.
It was at that point she realised that she could not live like this any longer. Everything she had, or more accurately everything she didn't have, revolved around the man who lived in this very room and whilst she couldn't bear the thought of losing him for good, she also knew she could not stay tied to him forever. As much as she believed Zoe was totally the wrong person for Dylan to take up with, she had to accept that if he had chosen to move on then she would have to learn to be happy for him.
Sam knew exactly what she needed to do. Come midnight she would light a candle, just the same as always and then spend the day walking somewhere nice with Dervla. Then on Monday she would arrange to see Dylan and she would inform him that they needed to start divorce proceedings. It was time she set them both free.
It was a decision felt both liberating and terrifying at the same time and she knew she must have seemed tense as Dervla appeared by her side again and sat with her head leaning on Sam's leg. Sam bent down so she was at the same level as her companion and ruffled the tangled mess on the dog's head.
"What would I do without you eh?" she asked. "I've really missed you, you know that right?" She laughed at her own question, knowing full well Dervla wasn't capable of supplying an answer. However now that she was at this lower level Sam's eyes spied something under the coffee table that she had missed the day before due to the books strewn over the table top itself.
"I can't believe you kept it," Sam whispered aloud to no one in particular. "I'm sorry for doubting you."
Thank you again for reading and reviews, as always, are welcome.
You've had four installments of angsty/distressed Sam and just snippets of what is going on, but I promise the story behind the emotions will begin to become apparent very soon. Three more parts to go!
Part 5 will be up tomorrow morning. Callie x
