Day 19

He hadn't paid any attention to time as he had lost all account of minutes, hours and even days let alone weeks. And so he had forgotten that Sam had ran out of the contraceptive pill the previous day which would only mean one thing.

As he woke, he felt the warming sun beam down on him through the trees and he had a big stretch before he opened his eyes and looked besides him, only to see that Sam wasn't there. He laid comfortably for a few minutes as he had assumed rear she had gone to the toilet, but when she hadn't returned, he got a little worried so he got up to look for her. He called out her name as he checked where she usually went to the toilet, where their sources of food were and the lagoon before he went back to the beach. And that was where he saw a small silhouette in the distance on the furthest bit of the beach away from him at the horizon where the beach met the sky.

He jogged over, only to find that Sam was bent double, pressing both hands down on her abdomen, and as he got closer to her, he realised that her camouflage shorts were blotched with blood, and because they were so short, Sam had a smear of blood on her upper thigh too.
"Hey, you okay?" Tom asked softly as he placed a hand on Sam's back.
"Okay? Do I look okay to you?" Sam snapped as she groaned due to the pain she was in. She had planned on buying sanitary products at a base when she needed them to save room because when they had left the UK, she wasn't due on for three weeks as she had only just finished her period of that cycle. But of course, on the island there were no pharmacies filled with feminine products, and she also had no painkillers.

"Sam calm down." Tom sighed.
"Calm down? Tom I'm in agony and I've got nothing to help me deal with this!" Sam shouted as she finally managed to straighten up and stand up properly but she was still in agony.
"Alright alright, just forget about the shorts, I can wash them for you." Tom said softly.
"What? Every few hours for the next four or five days?" Sam protested.
"If that's what it takes to help you 'deal with this', as you put it, then yes I am more than happy to do that." Tom offered. "There is one thing though, you've never had pains this bad normally do you?" He asked curiously - he knew she was shy about her menstrual cycle and that she kept herself to herself, but he was sure that he'd know if she suffered that badly on a monthly basis.
"Yeah but I normally have ibuprofen, paracetamol, a hot water bottle and a warm bed." Sam replied.
"And you haven't got any pads or tampons whatsoever?"
"Do you think I'd be standing with blood dripping down my leg if I had?" Sam snapped.
"Okay, okay." Tom said softly but Sam went to run away from him so he grabbed her arm to stop her from moving, without hurting her. "No, Sam don't hide from me." Tom said sternly. "Here, give me your shorts and I'll go and clean them in the sea for you."
"No."

"Sam c'mon, I'll just wash your shorts for you every few hours and then dry them in the sun. Yeah? And you can jump in the lagoon to clean up a bit and I'll bring you back your towel, some clean shorts and underwear each time." He suggested. Reluctantly, Sam pulled her stained shorts down and thankfully, her underwear was black otherwise he would've seen the true extent of her problem. She wasn't going to hand them to him so he had to take them from her hand before he looked into her timid eyes. "Right, I'll be back soon okay, why don't you take a dip in the lagoon, do some gentle swimming and see if that helps with the cramps?" He suggested. "And I'm not looking, so give me your underwear too." He ordered as he turned around and held out his hand behind him. Reluctantly, she did as she was told, and as she shyly placed them in Tom's hand, he realised that they were damp but he decided against making any comments. Right, I'll be back at the lagoon in about ten minutes." He stated before he walked away without looking at her.

Tom arrived at the lagoon to find Sam in the water, laying with her arms on the edge of a flat rock surface and she was gently kicking her legs behind her. She couldn't believe what she was going through with her husband being present - it was far, far worse than her illness a few days ago.
"Right, clean set of clothes." Tom announced as he put a pile of things down on a dry rock and then sat on the edge of the lagoon so that he didn't get wet but he was right in front of Sam to keep her company. "On a scale of one to ten, how's the pain?" He asked curiously.
"11." Sam sulked as she rested her chin on her arms.

Sam was lying on the palm leaves, writhing in pain as she fought to get comfortable but she couldn't stop fidgeting as the discomfort was just unbearable. What made it even worse was that her shorts were damp with the blood she was losing but she didn't want to ask Tom to clean them for her, she didn't want to wash them in the lagoon because that would make the water dirty, and she didn't want to go into the sea in case there were sharks because of the blood. He had been gone for a while, doing what, she wasn't sure but he finally returned and knelt down besides her.
"Right, just close your eyes and trust me." Tom ordered.
"What?" Sam said confusedly.
"Please, just trust me." Tom pleaded and reluctantly, Sam closed her eyes, wondering what on he was going to do.

Sam had been lying in a sports bra and her stained shorts to keep her cool, as she always did, so Tom pulled out the smooth pebbles from his pocket and gently laid them on Sam's lower abdomen, just above her shorts. Sam's eyes flinched open as she immediately felt heat on her skin, and she looked down to see that Tom was putting the rocks onto her skin.
"You said that hot water bottles usually helped, so I found these hot rocks in a rockpool that've been under the sun all morning, and I thought that maybe they might help." Tom explained softly as he finished placing the five rounded pebbles on her lower stomach and then placed his hand over them as he applied a gentle pressure.
"Thank you." Sam gave a small smile. She was fighting her temptation to begin fidgeting again, but she wanted to remain still to at least give the pebbles a chance to work.
"You sure you're not hungry? You haven't eaten anything all day."
"I think I'll just throw it back up." Sam admitted.
"Well do you want to give me your shorts? I'll go and wash them again." Tom said as he grabbed a pair of Sam's clean underwear and another pair of shorts from her bag.
"Um, just give it ten minutes to see if these work, I want to have a wash before I put something clean on." Sam stated as gestured the rocks.
"Yeah sure, it's completely up to you." Tom stated as he sat down and then laid down besides Sam as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

"Thank you for washing my shorts by the way, you don't have to." Sam said gratefully yet timidly.
"No but I want to. I want you to be as comfortable as you can be during your period. I know it's not ideal but we can only make do with what we've got." The couple laid in a comfortable silence as they looked up at the palm trees swaying in the gentle breeze - the sounds of that, and the waves lapping up on the beach had almost become a small comfort to them.
"They're working." Sam said quietly as she twisted her neck to face Tom. "Thank you." She whispered into his ear before she pecked him on the cheek. Sure, she still had abdominal pains, but they weren't as bad as they had been and she wouldn't have thought of the idea herself.
"You're welcome. And I'll come in the lagoon with you, and give you a tummy rub, see if that helps." He stated. "It's completely up to you, but I think I've heard before that having sex can help to ease menstrual cramps so if you want, we can make love but I don't mind." Tom added kindly.
"I'll think about it." Sam mumbled. "By the way it's usually only painful for the first day or two so I should be okay by tomorrow afternoon or evening." She informed.
"Good to hear." Tom smiled as he had hoped that she wouldn't be in pain for the full four or five days that he would have to wash her shorts for her.

The sun was beginning to set do Tom was just about to light the fire when he noticed that Sam had carried over a few palm leaves.
"Hey what're you doing? I changed the leaves for our bed this morning." Tom stated.
"I want to sleep by myself tonight." Sam admitted as she raised her hand to her tender abdomen. Her shorts were stained - now, all of them were because even after scrubbing them in the sea, the light desert camouflage patterned shorts were still marked. But Tom had trained himself not to look because he had been caught looking once or twice at the bloody mess and Sam had only gone and run away from him or hidden until he had convinced her that he had seen it all before.
"Well you sit down and light the fire then, I'll make a bed up for you." Tom said as he jumped up and handed her the box of matches because he didn't want her to moving more than she had to because that only made her pain worse. Slowly, Sam went down onto her knees in front of the pile of dead leaves, and dry branches and twigs so Tom went into the jungle to forest for things to make Sam's night more comfortable.

Usually, they both slept cuddled together on several palm leaves laid on the sand to stop them from getting covered in sand, but he knew that once the palm leaves had dried, they weren't particularly comfortable so he had collected a bunch of banana leaves for her because they were far softer. And once he had made a bed for her out of those, he folded up on of his camouflage shirts as a pillow.
"Wallah." Tom announced proudly and Sam turned around from looking out onto the ocean to see the comfy bed that he had made for her. "Is this suited to madam's needs?" He queried poshly.
"Thank you." Sam said as she got up and gave Tom tight hug.
"All you've said all day, is thank you." Tom smiled as he gently rocked his wife from side to side as he held her against his torso.
"That's because all you've done all day is look after me." Sam mumbled into his chest.
"Well it's been my pleasure." Tom smirked. "And I'm going to say this now okay, I don't care what I'm going to see in the morning because if it's really that bad, we can through the leaves into the sea and never see them again. I want you to get some sleep, because a lack of sleep will only make you feel worse." Tom said as he helped Sam down onto the 'bed' and then he laid one of his camouflage jackets over her to keep her warm.
"I know, and thank you." Sam smiled coyly.
"And she said it again." Tom moaned sarcastically and Sam giggled a little bit. "Right there is just one thing I wanted to ask you, I'm worried about anaemia because you're certainly not getting a lot of iron from your diet. So, have you had anaemia before?" Tom asked curiously.
"No." Sam replied bluntly.
"Okay. Right, night night sweetheart. I love you." Tom gave Sam a loving kiss on her forehead, and then her lips before he went and got into the usual bed.

"Tom..." Sam began.
"Yes."
"You have worked out that we can't have sex anymore because I haven't got any pills, haven't you?" Sam asked because she didn't want him getting his hopes up.
"Don't worry about that, it doesn't matter." Tom said softly. "Now go to bed, it's lights out!" Tom joked and Sam smiled to herself as she closed her eyes.

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