Sorry for the delay in posting this up - it was never meant to take this long, but it really has been one of those weeks. This is especially dedicated to all of you who have PM'd me or tweeted me about my fics this week, as well as Ficmouse, Anny and Meggi for their neverending support as usual. Thank you all for reading and reviewing, your support means so much.

Here is chapter 13, I hope you enjoy.

For better, for worse

Chapter 13

Thursday 8th March 2012

Sam stood at the now familiar kitchen sink soaking both her hands and the last dish from their earlier lunch in the bowl of steaming soapy liquid with the comforting presence of their beloved dog sitting on her feet. She watched as the warm salty tears that were silently streaming down her face dripped down in front of her and instantly mixed with the washing up water and cursed herself for allowing the situation she was in to get to her. Living with Dylan was proving a far harder task than she had ever anticipated as the man himself appeared keen to treat her like a yo-yo, drawing her close in the moments of quiet stillness that were reminiscent of their marriage and then berating her harshly to push her away just when she was sure he was about to let her in.

As Sam pulled the remaining plate from the bowl and placed it to dry with the others on the draining board she pondered the position she was in, confined to being by his side for the next few weeks regardless of any deterioration that may occur in their relationship in the intervening period. She had never been able to deal with feeling trapped by circumstances, a fact she knew had been responsible for her following through on her promise to sign up for her role as an army medic when things had started to get difficult at home, but this had perhaps been the first time she had ever felt trapped but still could not bring herself to flee.

Sam grabbed the tea towel from the side and slowly dried her hands, before rubbing her fingers across her eyes to remove any moisture that may remain as she forced the stream of tears to cease. She may not have felt entirely steady on her feet with the current arrangements, but that was no reason in her books to allow the man currently snoring in bed just metres away to ever see her cry. She reached down to ruffle the head of the canine curled up below her and freed herself from the weight the equally sad looking animal placed upon her feet.

Sam looked at the clock and realised that she had taken far too much time with the simple task of washing dishes and that she was now in danger of letting the meal she was preparing fall behind her abnormally well prepared schedule. She picked up the casserole dish from its position atop the oven and slid it inside; closing the door and silently praying that the meal she had produced would be edible enough not to kill either of the parties who were going to eat it. She had hated every single second of preparing the food for Dylan and Zoe's romantic meal for two, but in spite of that she had set aside her own reservations for the good of her patient and she had seen how much improved his mood had been just before his afternoon nap, which she could only put down to him knowing his partner would be arriving later that day for their dinner date.

She headed into her husband's bedroom quietly, realising that she needed to get changed from her current scruffy jogging bottoms and hooded top before her own night out and therefore opened the wardrobe to select a suitable outfit. Sam chose a simple selection of skinny jeans, smart boots and a tight black top, before turning to check that Dylan was still actually asleep. On seeing his eyes firmly jammed shut she decided to risk getting changed where she stood and whipped off her sweatshirt and strappy t-shirt.

Dylan lay with his eyes closed wondering quite what she had come into the room for with the amount of clattering about she was doing. He had been awake for a matter of minutes, still irritated with himself for requiring the use of a late afternoon nap in the first place, but on hearing his wife heading towards the room he had pretended to still be asleep. In truth he had thought she was coming to discuss dinner arrangements with him and he really had not been able to face having such a conversation with her, every part of him feeling the situation was too awkward for words. However as it had now become apparent that she was in his room for other purposes he allowed his eyes to open slightly, wondering with interest as to the sight he would see when he did so.

He had not been expecting Samantha to be standing there removing her top as she started to get changed, but even as Dylan cursed the fact that she did indeed seem to have plans he couldn't help but admire the view of his wife's amazing figure, an image he would always hold onto even after everything that had gone on before. He could not help but allow his memory to transport him back to the days when it had been his right to lie there watching her and found himself strangely comforted by the fact that it felt like she had come home to see her standing by a wardrobe full of her own clothes in his room, exactly as if she had never been away from his side in the first place.

"Dylan," Sam shouted in embarrassment, seeing that his eyes were now definitely open and he was staring in her direction. "You're supposed to be asleep," she added sulkily. "Can't you just shut your eyes for a few more minutes?"

"You're the one who is getting undressed in my room and somehow I'm the one in the wrong?" Dylan questioned sarcastically, knowing full well he was winding her up.

"You're unbelievable you know that right?" Sam retorted, finding herself hurriedly pulling her black top over her bra and bare skin to cover herself up. "You're the one who insisted on keeping my clothes in a wardrobe in your room and that was before I even moved in," she continued pointedly. "I mean, you've got to admit that it's a little weird."

Dylan considered her words momentarily and accepted that there was some truth in that statement, but dismissed her concerns as irrelevant. "You never came back for them," he explained honestly, as if that was enough information for her to have. "I like everything to have its place so when I moved on to the boat I put all the clothes, yours included, back in the wardrobe in the same order they had been in the house. It's just like it was before you see?" he queried, his tone giving away how much he anticipated her understanding that point.

"Yeah, well," Sam started, slightly flustered at the thought of her husband unpacking her clothes into the cupboard as if nothing had changed despite all that actually had. "I guess you'll have to throw them out at some point," she continued. "I mean I won't be taking them with me and I doubt Zoe will want her clothes to start lining up alongside mine when she eventually moves in," she elaborated, before turning away from his gaze in fear that he might see how much even the thought of that was actually affecting her.

She stood there waiting for some sort of response from her ex-husband, a man who never usually refrained from telling things as they were, but she got nothing back. After a minute had silently passed she slowly spun round and the crestfallen look that had fallen upon Dylan's face almost caused her to break in a heartbeat.

"What it is?" she asked, half-expecting him to tell her to leave him alone, but instead being surprised to see his face reddening in an inference of embarrassment. "Dylan?" she queried. "Dylan, what's wrong?" Sam clambered onto the unoccupied side of the bed and started shuffling over towards him.

"No," Dylan shouted. "Don't come any closer," he snapped angrily at her, his face full of anguish.

"Whatever is the matter?" Sam probed, feeling scared to hear the answer given the state he appeared to have gotten himself into. However as she spoke she placed her hand down on the bed in front of her, right by his side and the moment the wetness touched her skin she realised what had occurred. "Oh Dylan," she started sympathetically. "It's fine, don't worry about it."

He couldn't bring himself to meet her eye, especially when she was acting so reasonably about the fact that he had just urinated over his entire bed and he was absolutely mortified that his wife had to deal with him in this childlike state. Dylan recalled that he had felt incredibly uncomfortable on waking up, but that this had quickly been replaced with the feeling of a warm numbness setting in down his back. The lack of sensation had dissipated at around the same point Samantha had referenced the strange concept of Zoe's clothes being stored in his wardrobe, which was an idea that felt as alien to him as it did to have her toiletries cluttering up his bathroom, regardless of how convenient she had convinced him this would be a few weeks before. Dylan had only recognised the consequences of his inability to get comfortable due to bladder spasms as he had fallen asleep when he felt the moisture creeping up the inside of the duvet to where his land lay and realised as the pain kicked in that at some point his catheter had become slightly dislodged and the attached bag had leaked.

"Come on, let's get you into the bathroom," Sam started, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had fallen across the room. "Get you cleaned up a bit," she added, desperate to spare her husband the guaranteed indignity he would feel of having the soon to arrive Zoe witnessing him in such a state. She stood up from where she had come to be seated on the bed and moved around to offer her arm to the unusually self-conscious man who failed to acknowledge her offer of help.

"There is really no need to be embarrassed in front of me," Sam stated simply. "I'm your wife remember? I signed up for this," she finished, reaching out to stroke his face for a fleeting moment before removing the duvet from his body.

Neither of them felt the need for further words as Dylan finally allowed Samantha to support his slow walk into the bathroom, aided by one of the crutches even he knew he would come to rely on in the coming weeks if he wished to remain mobile. He tried not to consider that his pyjama bottoms were soaked through but he could not push from his mind how humiliated he felt, despite being aware quite how sympathetic his wife was being to spare his blushes. There had never been a point before that moment, not even when he had coerced her into staying in Holby to satisfy the demands of the hospital, that he had ever contemplated requiring the woman he had once fallen in love with to be responsible for his personal care so intimately and as she helped him remove his clothes, meeting his gaze with a compassionate smile, he found himself silently thanking any higher power that would listen that he had once taken this amazing woman to be his wedded wife.

Sam slowly guided her husband into the shallow bath she had run, supporting him to get settled and keeping his pinned leg above the water line, before returning to his bedroom and stripping the bed. She couldn't help but feel sad at the state her husband was in, especially as she was well aware that he fiercely valued his independence and personal space as much as she always had. Nonetheless she was equipped with enough knowledge of Dylan to be sure that having her breakdown in front of him would only increase his sense of discomfort and therefore she forced herself to raise a smile as she returned to rescue him from the confines of the bath.

Dylan sat perched wrapped in a towel on the toilet seat as he allowed Samantha to remove the damp dressings that covered the various surgical wounds that covered his lower abdomen before he witnessed her cleaning them with a tenderness he had rarely seen her demonstrate with patients in the past. His wife had always preferred the hustle and bustle of a busy E.D. where she could run from emergency to emergency with little care for the niceties other doctors appeared to worry about, but that had meant she had been reprimanded in the past for poor bedside manner, an accusation he was well aware Nick Jordan and Zoe had levelled at him on more than one occasion in the past. Nonetheless Dylan was impressed with the incredibly high standard of care she was providing him with, despite the awkwardness he knew was palpable in the air since he had ended up without clothes to conceal himself from her view.

Sam continued to cleanse her husband's injured skin and felt herself being exceptionally careful to meet his exceedingly high expectations. She redressed the healing wounds on his stomach and pelvic area before methodically repeating her treatment around the scars on his lower leg. Once all of the other tasks were completed Sam turned her attention to the ordeal of checking over Dylan's catheter and the inevitable discomfort that this would cause him.

Dylan looked away and refused to make eye contact with Samantha as she removed the wet dressing and then fully reinserted the tube from its slightly dislodged position, causing a sharp pain to shoot up inside him and leaving him feeling increasingly vulnerable because of the necessity of her actions, a sensation which did not sit well with him. In his mind he was a highly skilled and competent medical professional and therefore the helplessness of his current situation and his reliance on the young woman kneeling in front of him was causing him no end of consternation. He felt her wash the localised area to bathe the exit site before securing the catheter with tape and then changing the damaged bag that was strapped to his upper thigh. It was with a slightly disquieting interest that he studied the bloodied liquid contained in the plastic carrier and he hurriedly looked away as an unexpected wave of nausea fell over him. He could not remember a time before that day that he had ever felt more empathy with those who ended up in front of him in the department, realising with a harsh sense of reality how difficult it must be to understand the upheaval and change that they had to deal with, especially given the lack of comfort he ever chose to demonstrate to them as he explained their likely fate.

"What if this is permanent?" Dylan stated with as little emotion as he could muster, trying not to allow his wife to see quite how frightened he of that potential scenario he actually was.

"You always knew that could be a risk," Sam responded simply as she removed the sterile gloves from her hands and threw the debris from her washing activities into the bathroom bin. "But there is no point in even thinking about that until you've had your surgery, because even you can't predict what will happen then," she continued and tried to brush her own concerns over this particular outcome from her brain, because she could not even begin to contemplate how she would walk away from him if that ever was the case. "I'll help you back to the bedroom and you can get changed," she added, passing him back his crutch and offering her arm once again.

They returned slowly back to the other room with Dylan resting one arm around her shoulders and struggling to balance himself on the crutch whilst also holding up his towel. Sam lowered her husband onto the bed where he quickly picked up that she had already changed the sheets and covers so threw her a thankful look before she turned back to the wardrobes to locate him some suitable clothes to wear.

"What if I can't have children?" Dylan asked, his entire heart breaking at the prospect of a bleak, lonely future despite realising he had never before seriously considered the prospect of becoming a parent and had certainly never discussed such a life-changing topic with his wife.

"I think it's a little too early to even be thinking about that," Sam answered, trying her hardest to sound reassuring even though the question he had posed had thrown her completely and decided that she had never before been more grateful to be facing away from him than when she had heard those few words. "The consultant didn't even suggest he thought that it might be an issue, did he?" she questioned, still stunned by the idea of Dylan wanting to become a father. She had been too young when they had first started out together to even think about the possibility of having a child of their own and after that it had seemed like her professional training, her work commitments, the army and just about everything else had prevented it from ever being the right time for her to start that particular conversation with him. Nevertheless she had been certain that when they had actually lived together parenthood had not been a subject on her husband's mind, so even the thought of him and Zoe envisaging having a child together felt foreign to her.

The couple returned back into a contemplative quietness as Dylan managed to dress himself in the clothes Sam had selected for him with only the most minimal of help, desperately trying to reassert some of his own authority back over his personal care. A tension had descended between the two of them since their earlier words about the possibility of a baby and Sam found herself heading off to the kitchen to check on dinner, devastation filling her head at the thought of her husband wanting the child she had much longed for with someone other than her.

An hour later Dervla's barking alerted the married pair to Zoe's arrival at the boat and Sam was grateful that her slightly late arrival had enabled her to ensure that everything was fully prepared for the evening meal. She was unsure how she had found the time to lay the table so formally, put away the dishes, tidy up the living space and place all the dampened sheets and clothes into the washing machine, but somehow she had satisfied her own need to present a domestic success to the rival woman and also finished getting ready for her own night away from the emotional restrictions of Dylan's home.

"Right, the casserole is in the oven," Sam spoke in Zoe's direction and the older woman found herself drifting towards the welcoming smell of the cooking meal in the kitchen, looking forward to the comforting food after a long, difficult shift despite her earlier reservations and grateful for a much required evening alone with Dylan. "It will be ready in about fifteen minutes and everything you need is over there," Sam continued and gestured to a small selection of plates and utensils on the sideboard as she moved in the direction of the fridge. "And there is a fruit salad, strawberry gateau and some profiteroles in here," she added, opening the door. "I wasn't sure what you'd like, so I thought I'd get a few choices," she ended and Zoe caught a glimpse of a shy smile from the young girl.

"Thanks," Zoe answered and met the smile with one of her own. "Can I get you a drink Dylan?" she called back towards where the man she had come to visit was sitting on the sofa.

"I'll have a coffee," he replied without elaboration and Sam watched as his partner instantly made herself at home in the kitchen, taking her jacket off and throwing it over the stool before switching the kettle on. Zoe bent down to the cupboard Sam had felt horrified to open the day before and took out both bottles of wine, before removing a single wine glass from behind the neat line of coffee mugs and pouring herself a drink and taking a long swig. Sam felt the concern flush through her instantaneously at the incredible temptation this placed in front of Dylan, but again reminded herself that this was no longer any of her business.

"Right, I'll be off then," Sam stated, causing her husband to turn round and meet her eyes momentarily before they both looked away. "I hope you have a lovely evening," she said with as much sincerity as she could manage as she grabbed her own jacket and bag from the chair and headed for the exit. "I've fed Dervla and I'll give her another walk when I get in later," she added for the benefit of her husband who had so far barely spoken since briefly greeting his partner a short time earlier.

"We hope you enjoy your night out, don't we Dylan?" Zoe chipped in as she handed the steaming mug of drink to the man and placed her own glass of wine on the table, as she settled down on the sofa beside him and curled her legs up on the seat next to her.

"Mmm," Dylan answered non-committedly as he studiously examined his wife's stunning appearance as she headed out for a night on the town with persons unknown. "Be good," he sternly added, eliciting a startled look from her in reply.

"And if I can't be good be careful, right?" she quipped back. "I know, I know, don't worry. I'll see you later," she finished and rapidly headed out into the darkness of the early evening without looking back, determined not to make any further eye contact with the man whose opinion mattered to her so much for fearing of breaking in two before she even reached her destination.

Thank you for reading as ever and reviews make me happy, but you knew that already :)

The next update will be up mid-week I hope. Love Callie x