November 2002

This last case was still in Samantha´s mind. It had been two weeks since that case had been solved and martin could see that this case was still bugging her. He knew that he had to talk to her. He did it when they were at her appartment in the evening. "Samantha how are you doing?" "Martin I am fine." "You know what I am talking about." "No." "Sam I am talking about the case with the little girl we had two weeks ago." "Martin I am fine!" She was starting to get agitated so he decided to drop it. "Alright." But he could still see that she was far from being alright. He could see that this case was haunting and hurting her.

While she was prepareing herself something to drink in the kitchen Martin watched her. He walked up tp her and wrapped his arms around her from behind. She tried to get out but he held her tight. She slowly stopped fighting against him. He slowly turned her around in his arm making her face him. She had tears in her eyes. She his her face in the crock of his neck. "Why would parents do something like that to their children." "I do not know Sam." He noticed that his shirt was getting wet and knew that he had torn her wallks down. She was starting to break. "They have to stop hurting their children Martin." He led her to the couch and sat both of them down. He pulled her into him again. "Sam there is not much we can do." "I know." "Sam we can only help as much as we are aloud to. And we have to hope that thewy have teachers who notice the signs and come forward." "I know. We are sort of powerless until someone talks." "Sam we do what we can." She was still crying her heart out. He soothed her as much as he could.

He knew thast she was to broken and weak to do amything else today so he led her to the bedroom. After she fell asleep he went back to the kitchen and drank his tea. He then sat down on the couch to watch the news. After that he joined her in bed and pulled her into him. But it unfortunately did not save her from a nightmare. A few hours later she started crying and shakeing. Martin noticed it and sat up immediately. "Sam!" he said holding her hand and strokeing her face. "Sam it is me Martin." She woke up with a jolt after he said that and just started up at him. It took her a while to realize that he was really there. She sat up a little. "Martin!" He pulled the shakeing Sam into him. "It is alright. You are safe. I got you Sam." She slowly steadied herself. She just let herself be held by Martin. He did not want to ask her what happened yet. She would need time.

An hour later she was totally calm again. "Are you alright Sam?" "Yeah. Just a nightmare." "Sam what happened?" "Nothing." "Sam you have to talk about it. Do you want to talk to Lisa rather then me?" She vehemently shook her head against his chest again. "It was about Howard and me." It hurt him to see her in so much pain. He would really like to kill this guy but Sam needed him. "It was about one of his usual assaults. One of many." "Sam look at me." He put a hand under her chin and made her look at him. "It is alright. I love you Sam." "I love you too Martin. Why did he do that to me?" "Sam I do not know why he did that to you. I know that you are a strong woman who got even stronger because of that. You are not alone Sam." She looked up at him and smiled weakly. "Thank you.l" He pulled her into him once again and lowered both of them back onto the bed. He hoped that she would not have another nightmare this night.

The next morning Sam woke up and found Martin prepareing breakfast. "Hey!" "Morning Sam." She walked up to him and walked into his embrace. "How are doing Sam?" "Better." He knew that she was not alright but he hoped that she would be some day.