Thank you to those of you who reviewed my previous update - your words never fail to make me smile. Extra special thanks to Anny, Meggi, Dee and ficmouse for your support with my writing - where would I be without you? :)

So here it is, update 4 - I hope you enjoy.

To look out for you

The definition of lonely

Lonely: adjective; sad because one has no friends or company, without companions, solitary

Dylan Keogh

Dylan knew he should have been back on his boat in bed, but sleep had been brief and fleeting that night. He had been beyond exhausted upon arriving home the previous day and had retreated straight to his room, attempting to steady his thoughts by reading the latest medical journal. It was at times like this that cold, hard facts and complex research pieces usually provided him with a degree of comfort yet even his most pleasurable past time had not moved his thoughts away from earlier events in the E.D.

The shift had already been a long one prior to the incident, with Samantha's erratic and mysterious behaviour causing him no end of consternation and confusion. In facing up to the fact that she appeared to have moved on and he had once again lost her, just like he had always known he would, Dylan had been forced to consider exactly where his relationship with his wife now stood. He remembered thinking how unfortunate it was that it stood in exactly the one place he had never wanted it to end up, with the two of them barely on speaking terms and him feeling like he had yet again failed in some unexplainable way.

Dylan couldn't help but blame himself for what had occurred after Samantha had departed resus, because he had seen the way that man had been behaving and had known there was a likelihood of him being difficult with her and that nurse. When Zoe had left resus upon hearing of a new incoming patient he had expected her to return with Dr Nicholls, yet it had been the nurse who had entered the room with her. Dylan knew that he had not particularly wished the young woman harm, she seemed relatively nice for a start, if a little too happy for his liking, yet he had immediately been concerned about his wife's lone treatment of the angry relative.

He recalled leaving resus immediately, determined to locate and check on his ex-wife, but this instinct wavered upon his arrival in the reception area as he had known she would not take kindly to his interference. In his hesitation his attention had faltered as Dr Kent had appeared in the department with a small child and several police officers in tow and as that piece of information had percolated his brain, Zoe had appeared behind him and questioned Dr Nicholls' behaviour that day.

Dylan's memories of the remainder of the day were almost a blur, which he knew was unusual as his memory had been crystal clear and sharp ever since he had been sober, yet there was one moment he was sure would remain burned onto his brain forevermore. The horror he had felt when the young female nurse had screamed out into the department that Samantha was hurt had hit him like a steam train and that sense of physical pain had remained with him to the present time.

He knew he had acted more as her husband than a doctor when he had scooped up her barely conscious form into his arms and carried her through to resus, but the act had been without thought and had done more to satisfy his need to keep her safe than it had aide her medical treatment. However once he had done his duty and taken Samantha to a safe place he remembered that his medical instincts had failed to kick in and he had remained motionless by her side. He could not recall a previous occasion where he had actually frozen and failed to commence treatment on a patient, yet Dr Nicholls was not just a patient and it was the unexpected intrusion of pure emotion into his clinical setting that had thrown him completely off balance.

That unwelcome feeling of helplessness was one that Dylan only remembered feeling at a few points in his lifetime, but he couldn't help but wonder whether this was how the majority of relatives who stood in resus watching their loved ones in great degrees of pain or discomfort would feel and for the first time in some considerable period he reflected on whether he had ever stopped to take into account their feelings in those first key moments where confusion reigned on resus post a new admission. If the part of him that was Dr Keogh, rather than plain old Dylan, could take anything positive from the experience of watching Samantha suffer it was his newfound respect for those who stood in his shoes without the medical knowledge to understand the chaotic scene unfolding around them.

The moment he had seen his wife flinch under Zoe's touch he knew she was in a much better physical condition that he had originally anticipated, yet it was in that brief second of relief that she started to use her extensive strength to rebel against her treatment and began fighting against any restraint or reason that was levelled against her. His mind had been instantaneously transported back to a time when he had watched the woman in front of him scare him witless by using her fear as a catalyst to break the constraints that had then bound her down. It was a harsh reality that he had been partially responsible for triggering her terror on both of those occasions and seeing her wrestle against the line that had been inserted in her arm, before finally wrenching it free was more than he had been able bear.

He hadn't noticed Nick Jordan appear behind him until the man spoke his name aloud and it had been that which jerked him back into the reality of the situation, a place that found him surrounded by worried faces of colleagues expecting him to manage his wife's reckless and unforeseen behaviour, but that pressure to act coupled with Samantha's obvious fright had led to him rapidly retreating to the relative safety of CDU.

He recalled the slightly nauseating feeling that had fallen across him upon sitting back behind the desk in CDU, the very same desk he had sat behind just a short while earlier as he had thought up reasons to visit resus to check on the same woman who was now being treated for injuries just down the corridor from his seat. Given the unexpectedly lengthened departure he had taken from his role in CDU his remaining patients had been restless at best and his continuing treatment of them had been delayed further due to the unexplained disappearance of that male nurse, who he had seen roaming the corridors earlier apparently looking for his distressed young female counterpart. It had entered his mind at that point whether they had an issue being separated, as he usually only saw one of them in close proximity to the other rather than as today working in different areas of the E.D.

He knew he had deliberately buried himself in the various illnesses and ailments that had afflicted his CDU occupants mainly to distract himself from the situation with Samantha, but as a diversion it had failed to work mainly due to Zoe's insistence on interrupting him at regular intervals with updates on her condition and test results. He had felt the need to instruct her to leave his area and not return, notwithstanding his knowledge that he was directing his anger and frustration at the wrong individual. If Dr Hanna had taken offence by his harsh words she had not shown it, because she had continued to provide him with information for the remainder of their shift even though he had single-mindedly decided to ignore her on principal every occasion she returned.

It wasn't as if he was not grateful to her, because he would rather her treat Dr Nicholls and her injuries than almost every other doctor in the department. Dr Lyons was not to be trusted with such an important task in his opinion, Dr Kent would have been wholly inappropriate to examine Samantha on any occasion and he felt a deep sense of unease at the thought of Mr Jordan laying hands on his wife, in spite of having no reasonable explanation for those same thoughts. Even looking back on the day with the benefit of hindsight he knew that Dr Hanna was the best doctor for that particular role, in fact she was the only person he would have authorised to treat her had anyone sought his opinion on that throughout the process.

Zoe had implied to him that she felt it would be a positive for him to actually see his wife following the resolution of any immediate danger, yet whilst he had considered the option appealing he felt unable to leave his position to stand by her side. Their role in each other's lives had slipped from spouses to mere colleagues over the past twelve months and despite their recent periods of good humour in their relationship, Dr Nicholls had been icily cool with him in recent weeks and he therefore doubted she would see any reason to allow him access to her bedside. He felt incredibly useless being unable to offer her any real comfort, but as he was now adamant that there was someone else in her life able to fulfil that role he felt it was only best he stayed away. Her earlier traumatised behaviour in resus had shocked him to the core and the thought of her being forced to recall the attack and own past experiences was too distressing for him to allow it more than a passing thought. If his history had taught him anything it was that people had a tendency to bury difficult emotions for a reason and both he and Samantha were masters at that type of behaviour.

It was as he now stood in the freezing cold rain and near pitch blackness outside of her flat, a tired and bedraggled looking Dervla snuggled into his leg for warmth he reflected that it may not be a few days until he got any sort of resolution to the outstanding questions that lay open in his mind, because given the nature of her injuries Dr Nicholls would not be back at work for a week at least. Zoe had arranged Samantha's discharge and a lift home for her at lightning speed and it had been clear to him, from Dr Hanna's obvious annoyance at him, that he was not welcome to ask for more details. In fact she had told him in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to know something about his wife's condition he should try asking her himself, which he knew she was aware would not be a conversation that he would be willing to start that night.

He watched as the light came on in the room he assumed was Samantha's bedroom, given that she had always been partial to a street facing room, and it was that reassurance that she was awake and therefore in a reasonable physical state, that finally allowed him to move from the spot he had worn in the pavement and begin the slow walk home with his canine companion close at heel.

Sam Nicholls

Sam stood motionless in the shower allowing the warm water to cascade down over her and sooth her aching muscles. The cuts and lacerations that enveloped her upper body stung at every single drop of water, yet that pain provided a strange sense of comfort to her in that the prolonged torment gave her an anchor in the reality of her situation rather than her completely losing herself deep in thought.

Her sleep that night had been disturbed, which she accepted was far from unexpected given the searing discomfort of her injuries, pain that had failed to be repressed even despite her finally accepting stronger painkillers from Zoe prior to leaving the hospital. However it had not only been the physical pain sustained in the assault that had triggered her disrupted night, as she knew that she had been slightly on edge ever since she had fully retained consciousness. Sam recognised that this again wasn't exactly unanticipated due to the loss of control she felt during the attack, but she couldn't help feeling an unnerving sense of disappointment in herself for letting the incident get to her this badly. Her army training had taught her how to minimise her emotions at times of crisis, to survive even the most difficult of circumstances and despite all of this she had allowed herself to be weak at the point where she most needed to show her strength, a trait she saw as unforgiveable in herself.

She did however recall that she had managed to stick to her insistence and get herself discharged from the hospital the previous day, rather than stay in and be admitted which she knew had been Zoe's preferred option. Doctors always did make the worse patients in Sam's opinion, but more than that she had never been that comfortable in being forced to lay herself open to other people, preferring instead to mull over her thoughts in solitude. It had appeared Dr Hanna had decided not to argue with her, but in their compromise over her release her colleague had imposed two conditions; firstly that Sam allowed her to prescribe stronger painkillers to aide her in managing her own treatment and secondly that she willingly accepted a lift home from Dixie and Jeff, Zoe having decided that even the short walk to Sam's home was beyond her capabilities at that point. Upon her trying to debate this one point alone, Mr Jordan had appeared by her side and silenced her with just a simple hand on her shoulder, as if removing her argument with just his presence alone.

She wasn't sure whether the paramedics had either offered or been coerced into providing her transport, but she was grateful to them at any rate. The two of them had been her co-conspirators on a number of occasions since her arrival and she knew that when she reflected back on her time at Holby from the army base at Bastian, some of her fondest memories of the department would be days spent out with the them on shouts. Those were the occasions when she ceased to be confined by the restrictions of the E.D. and could practice emergency medicine the way she had always anticipated being free to do, and where the action girl reputation she had cultivated over numerous years had been on show for all to see.

The ride home with Jeff and Dixie had been fleeting, but upon their arrival at her flat it had been they who had insisted on accompanying her in to ensure her safe arrival. She hadn't been entirely keen on even them seeing the insides of her somewhat spartan accommodation, especially the boxes she had as yet failed to unpack, handily as it transpired given her imminent departure from the country. However it had brought her a limited degree of comfort to listen to the couple noisily making them all a coffee in her kitchen, their gentle bickering providing an alternative soundtrack to the usual all-encompassing silence that she usually returned home to.

It had been when they eventually departed, leaving her alone with clear instructions to call if she needed any support, that Jeff called her "Princess", which made her smile in spite of herself. She knew that his much repeated nickname was not reserved just for her, but at that time it had made her feel special nonetheless and she had dragged herself to bed with both the warmth of that comment and the steaming mug of coffee lodged deep inside her.

Sam recalled the first moment she had opened her eyes that morning, her room still bathed in darkness with barely a hint of streetlight streaming through her curtains. A wave of abject despair had washed over her before she had even fully adjusted to being awake, causing her to grab out for the lamp switch by her bedside, which in turn sent a searing pain down her side and triggered a wave of nausea that had nearly threatened to push her into unconsciousness. Her first coherent thought on calming herself down had been the ache that occurred inside her every morning, the ache she had felt ever since Dylan's departure from their marriage over a year previously. She felt it unfortunate that her physical injuries and her self-doubt over her ability to cope had only seemed to make this dull ache more intense.

Standing in the shower Sam threw her head back and allowed the water to wash away the salty tears that had been streaming down her face. Every single act that she had completed since dragging herself from her bed had caused her to wince at the movement of muscles and the graunch of bone in places even her medical training hadn't indicated to her should hurt at that moment. She remembered that her coffee making exercise had been on the edge of bearable, but she had fallen at the first hurdle in washing her hair, with the simple act of moving her hand above her head seeming beyond possible given her bruised and cracked ribs.

As Sam exited the shower she wrapped a large fluffy white towel around her, taking some vague relief from the light feel of the material against her skin. The room outside her glass cubicle had long since steamed up, so she wiped her hand across the mirror and studied the blurry reflection of her battered body with a sigh. She considered that even on her worse day in Afghanistan she had never looked quite this awful, and the irony of the fact that returning to a warzone may in fact be a safer location for her than Holby City E.D. was almost laughable.

With that thought in mind Sam struggled back into her bedroom and dried herself off, leaving her still wet hair trailing down her back. She sourced the clothes and underwear from the pile that remained permanently atop her chest of drawers, as she had yet to find a reason to neatly locate it in the drawers below. It sapped the small amount of energy she had yet to use in dressing herself, with Sam learning how difficult it was to navigate buckles, zips and buttons whilst keeping the majority of her muscles still to minimise the impact on her sore body.

The clothes, especially the tightness of underwear, felt alien against her bare, damaged skin and no matter how much she adjusted her outfit there always seemed to be something rubbing uncomfortably against one of her numerous lacerations. She had chosen to sleep in only an old oversized t-shirt for that very reason, as the cool loose cotton laid gently on her skin, but barely registered against her bruises. The t-shirt itself had been a favourite of hers, as it had been one that she herself had purchased for Dylan prior to their honeymoon given that she had assumed, rightly it had transpired, that her husband would fail to buy any appropriate holiday clothing. She recalled that his idea of casual wear was akin to walking boots rather than beachwear for a romantic vacation.

Upon thinking of Dylan, Sam again had to blink back the tears from her eyes as she cursed herself for becoming such an emotional person in recent weeks. She still felt the crushing weight of defeat that had been pushing down on her since his disappearance from resus the day before and whilst his continued absence had been a disappointment, it was his lack of contact since that had hurt her the deepest. They had never been a couple to have involved conversations over the phone, but if it had been him she knew she would have called or at least tried to get confirmation from the man himself that he was actually okay.

Sam winced hard as she ripped herself from her thoughts by distractedly pulling out the stitches that had been carefully sewn into lower arm. She grabbed hard at the now bloodied wound, clutching her hand around it to stem the bleeding, but in spite of the warm liquid now seeping slowly between her fingers she couldn't actually bring herself to care. It just seemed to her that everything about the situation she now found herself in purveyed a sense of emptiness that Sam knew she would not just be able to shake off, even when her injuries had started to heal.

The independent streak that she had always prided herself on felt like it was better suited to the old Sam, a girl she felt she barely knew these days. Despite her near constant assurances to the contrary she recognised that she had always taken great comfort from the attention her husband had showered her with when she had been either sick or injured in the past. The days when she had been trapped at home with a broken ankle had inexplicably sprung to her mind, days she spent curled up on the sofa in her hoody and slouchy trousers, snuggling up to Dylan and Dervla in front of an open fire, whilst her husband attended to her every whim without so much as a grumble. Sam missed having him by her side at times like this; his sweet, caring side was well hidden from the rest of the world but had always been open to her when she had needed to call on it. She couldn't help but consider whether Dylan had allowed Zoe to be party to this aspect of himself and the hurt she felt even at the thought of that was enough to send her head into a spin.

Sam sank back into her bed, wrapping herself up into a ball as the tears started to stream down her face once again. She recalled those happy times with Dylan, back when they had had no need for conversation, having grown used to being able to talk without any words. These days it had become apparent that they barely even spoke, never mind know each other well enough anymore to read the other's thoughts. The immense loneliness she felt in that one moment was all but overwhelming and Sam felt herself sinking into her heartbreak all over again. The tears stung against her cuts, as Sam cried out for comfort that she knew was never going to be received and as her weeping turned to desperate sobs, the wracking pain from her chest caused her to pull herself into a tighter bundle.

Thank you as ever for reading and I would welcome reviews & feedback.

The next update is likely to be up on Wednesday. Callie x