A.N – Sorry bout the delay. Life took over this week, but here we go.
"It's not like Samantha to be late." Martin commented the following morning after checking the time, seeing Samantha was almost an hour late.
Little did he know it had taken Samantha almost thirty minutes to get up from the hardwood floor where she had spent the night. Her entire body ached. Aidan was still visibly shaken from the events of the night before and hadn't left his mothers side. A bruise had appeared on his cheek from where his father had lashed out at him.
Somehow Samantha had managed to get the children into the car and drove into the city and to work. She knew she shouldn't have driven but she needed help and she knew just the people to do it. She had been suffering for too long.
The team heard the swoosh of the elevator doors and turned to see who was arriving. They watched as Samantha limped towards them, with Abby in her stroller and Aidan clinging to her leg.
"Samantha?" Jack said with a questioning tone.
"I need help." She told them, her voice not strong at all. It was hard for the team to see her like this, vulnerable and scared. The closer Viv looked at her she knew what she meant. Samantha was in the same shirt she had left the building in the night before. She walked across to her friend and took the stroller from her hands. Samantha looked grateful. She turned to Aidan. "Baby, I need you to stay with Uncle Danny for me."
"No Mommy." The little boy cried out, clutching his mother's leg tighter than he had before.
They watched her face contort in pain as she pried him off her leg and crouched down in front of him. "Aidan baby, look at mommy." The little boy lifted his head. His bruise now visible to the team. "I promise you Uncle Danny isn't going to hurt you. You believe mommy don't you?" Tears welled in Samantha's eyes as the little boy clung to her, nodding his head. He slowly, cautiously walked across to his Uncle Danny.
Martin helped her stand, hearing her raspy breaths in the process. "Paul?" Was all Jack asked. Samantha nodded and Martin led her towards the elevator and to the M.E's office.
Down in the M.E's office Samantha finally let out the pain she had been holding in for weeks. The doctor asked her to remove her clothing so he could see the extent of the damage. "I can't." She replied.
"Samantha, yes you can. The doc only wants to help." Martin told her and it was then that Jack realised what she meant.
"Martin, she means that she can't get her clothes off without help." Jack offered. Samantha seemed shocked that Jack knew what she meant. "Aidan told me that he had to help you dress yesterday morning. Samantha how long has this been going on?" Jack asked as a nurse entered the room to help her.
She bit back the sob in her throat. "Not long." She lied.
"Samantha!" Jack said with a warning tone.
"Okay a while, but I couldn't say anything. I mean how would it be for an FBI agent to say she was being abused by her husband." Tears streamed from her eyes as the nurse helped her out of the clothes she wore. The nurse tried hard to keep in the gasp but it escaped as she saw the bruises covering most of Samantha's body.
Dressed in a gown, Samantha walked back around the screen and Martin and Jack could see the bruises on her legs and knew that wasn't even half of it. The gown gaped at the back and the mass of purple showing was hard to see. The guys felt so guilty that they hadn't spotted anything before now.
Jack and Martin both stepped out of the room while the doctor examined her. "Jack what do we do about Paul?" Martin asked.
"We wait and find out what Samantha wants to do. If she wants to press charges we contact the police and let them know the situation. Not only has he abused his wife and children, he has harmed a federal officer so that has to be something."
The doctor came out of the room an hour later. "Agent Malone, Agent Fitzgerald, we're finished our examination. And I have to say Agent Spade is lucky to be alive. She has two broken ribs, one very close to piercing her lung. Ninety percent of her body has been bruised. She has some internal bruising on a few organs but nothing that will cause her major concern. It's her ribs that I am most worried about. She needs to be hospitalized for a few days to keep her stationary."
Both Jack and Martin were shocked to hear what they were being told. "Okay doctor, anything else we can do for her?"
"She mentioned her son was hurt last night and her daughter also may have suffered some damage. If you could get them to me and I can examine them too."
"Certainly. I'll go and get them now." Martin offered.
"Will she be all right doc?"
"In time. Physically she'll heal in a couple of weeks, who knows how long she will take to get over this, emotionally and psychologically."
"We'll be there to help her every step of the way, don't you worry about that." Jack told the doctor vowing to himself he would stop at nothing till Samantha felt safe again. And he knew the rest of the team would be behind him as well.