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Here is chapter 9.

To look out for you

The definition of passionate

Passionate: adjective; having, showing, or caused by strong feelings or beliefs

Zoe Hanna

Zoe sat down on the sofa, placing the wine glass and half empty bottle on the table to her side and curling her legs up underneath her. She had never been the type of person to feel uncomfortable easily, but sitting in silence wasn't a speciality of hers either yet Dylan appeared so lost in thought that she felt it would be inappropriate to disturb him. She stifled a yawn, reluctantly conceding to herself that it had been an incredibly long day, actually an incredibly long week. From the moment Sam had been injured Zoe had known they were all in for a difficult time, as it was never easy to watch one of your own being hurt however looking back on the week she realised that it was Dylan and not his wife who had actually been causing her the most stress.

She picked up the glass of wine and downed the remaining mouthful before refilling it once again from the bottle. She had been planning this evening ever since the day of Sam's attack, having already booked the table at her favourite restaurant before her younger colleague had been injured with a view to finally sorting out where she stood with Dr Keogh. The fact that now the night was drawing to a close and she was still no closer to establishing how she felt about the whole situation was seriously beginning to get under her skin, never mind the fact that her dinner companion had barely acknowledged her existence in the last few hours. Zoe knew she had been involved in messy and complicated relationships in the past, but despite what she appreciated other people thought about her right now all that concerned her was that even she didn't know what she wanted anymore.

She went to take a further swig from her newly topped up glass, but as she bought the drink to her lips and the sweet, fruity smell of the wine wafted up to her nose she suddenly realised that this was one problem a bottle of vino couldn't solve for her, a thought which brought a slight disparaging smile to her face. She sighed as she put the glass back down on the table, pondering over what the best course of action to take would now be. Zoe admitted she wasn't keen on having another one-sided conversation with her silent counterpart, nor did she fancy provoking an argument with him over his behaviour that evening, because she had had enough rowing to last a lifetime on that particular day. In truth all she actually wanted to do was to get some sleep and shut thoughts of Dylan, Sam and Nick out of her head for a few hours, but given that she knew two of those individuals were out getting drunk together and the other had taken up residence on her sofa, she couldn't see how that would be happening anytime soon.

Zoe felt her stomach rumble and recalled without fondness the earlier meal she had not managed to eat with Dylan. "Carlotta's" had been her favourite restaurant for as long as she had been in Holby, the Italian restaurant and wine bar being a haunt she frequented regularly both as a single lady and as part of a couple. She recalled that Nick had previously taken her there when they had been together and although she wouldn't have described him as the most romantic of souls, those dinners had been vastly preferable to the difficult evening she had just spent there with Dylan.

She knew it was unfair that she was unfavourably comparing Dr Keogh to Nick Jordan, given that they were such different specimens of men yet somehow they had come to share a great deal of commonality in recent times, an entanglement with both herself and Sam being the two similarities that instantaneously sprang to her mind. If she didn't like Dr Nicholls quite so much herself, Zoe knew that she would be beginning to get a complex at the amount of time the men in her life seemed to spend either running round after the younger girl or actively avoiding her, yet she couldn't bring herself to lay the blame for that squarely at Sam's door.

She recalled the concerned looks of the faces of the restaurant staff as Dylan had rapidly, and somewhat rudely, left her sitting alone at the table, storming out on her in much the same way she had walked out on Nick half a day before. Thinking back she remembered that she had briefly considered relocating her meal with Dylan to her flat when she realised quite how much they would have to talk about, but she had concluded, wrongly as it transpired, that he would be more likely to communicate with her in more civilised manner if they were eating together in a public place. She was unsure quite why she had ever come to that particular conclusion, given that she already knew exactly how belligerent and dismissive he could be when dealing with people having watched his interactions with colleagues and patients at work.

Zoe guessed she had assumed that when they were in a one-to-one setting he would actually want to talk to her and that if pushed he was capable of having a conversation about he felt, but the fact he had fled the restaurant the moment things had become difficult indicated otherwise. She couldn't begin to comprehend how he had managed to sustain any sort of relationship with his wife, let alone had actually married Sam in the first place, given that he seemed totally unable to express any sort of emotion or face up to any problem, but then she considered the younger girl didn't seem to be much better at dealing with her own issues either.

As it was Zoe recalled they had stayed on the relatively safe discussion topics of patient care and an upcoming E.D. inspection whilst they waited for the starters and she had been sure to have a glass or two of wine to take the edge of her nerves at the conversation she was about to start with her grumpy dinner date. She did not need reminding of the look of horror that had overtaken his face as she had confronted him over what she now believed to be the truth, in that he was still in love with his ex-wife and questioned where that left the two of them and their own relationship.

Dylan's abject dismissal of her statement had not been a surprise, but when she had cited his treatment of Dr Nicholls since her attack and the extremely jealous behaviour he had been directing towards Tom, the atmosphere at their table had swiftly deteriorated. Zoe had been keen to make it clear to him that she had not wanted to get involved, but she was no longer prepared to stand back and wait for him to decide what, or more accurately who, it was he wanted. They had just been finishing the starters when Dylan had shut down the conversation completely and through a barely controlled rage had informed her that there was nothing for them to discuss. The stress of the day had gotten to her by that point and she had all but shouted at him that if he couldn't tell her where they stood she was going to leave, because she was beginning to fall for him and she wasn't prepared to pursue someone who still loved someone else.

She still hadn't shaken the image of his dark, unreadable expression on hearing her finally admit something she had thought would have been obvious to him for months now and whilst she had never been sure how he was going to react when she laid her heart on the line she hadn't considered that he wouldn't have reacted at all. He had been the one that had been trying to speak to her all day and when she had given him the opportunity to talk he had refused to even acknowledge the very valid points she had raised.

It had only been when she muttered "No wonder she left you if this is how you treated her," that she finally got any sort of response from him, in that he noisily pushed his chair back and walked out of the restaurant leaving her alone at their table for two just as their main meals arrived from the kitchen. By the time she had apologised for the disruption, paid for the meals and finally made it outside she had been hungry, angry and mortified in equal measures, but had not been in the least surprised by Dylan's complete disappearance from the street. She guessed that it had never even crossed his mind to make sure she got home okay.

Zoe recalled that she had walked the short distance home hurriedly, still smarting from his obvious rejection of her in the restaurant. She had wanted to know where she stood but whilst Dylan had failed to answer that question, or any other for that matter, it was quite apparent to her that whilst she had been falling for him he had never considered that the two of them could have a romantic relationship. She knew that she had handled the whole situation incredibly badly but she had known this was one conversation that she had needed to have with Dylan before things had gotten any more serious.

However until earlier that day Zoe had not anticipated Nick would all but force her hand to get it all out in the open in one go, the simple fact that he had irreparably damaged their own friendship to help Sam still weighing heavily on her mind. She reflected on their earlier argument with a significant degree of sadness, because whilst she had never intended to become sandwiched in the middle of the Keogh marriage, Nick's assured belief that she was chasing a married man without a thought for the consequences for any of them had hurt her greatly. Zoe had considered he would have known her better than that, given all they themselves had been through in recent years, but he had cited her previous messy relationship with Sean as a prime example of how she had a history of this behaviour and angered her greatly by suggesting that she was responsible, albeit only partly, for the distressed state Dr Nicholls was in.

Their subsequent argument had been as cruel as it was passionate and she recalled with despair some of the awful things they had said to each other. To be honest, as she looked back she couldn't help but wonder whether the reason for this was actually that rather than dealing with their own deceit surrounding the baby and Nick's illness they had buried it with their separation and now with an excuse to have the most almighty argument they both had had the perfect reason to bring all their unresolved past issues back to the fore. However even with that excuse Zoe was sure that this was one fight that would take some time to move past, given the incredibly harsh and spiteful tone in which they had both spoken to the other. She knew she had landed some verbal blows as well as receiving them, most notably her pointed remark about Nick's unhealthy and somewhat obsessive possession of Sam, which she saw had wounded him deeply. However it had been the way he had managed to look so desperately disappointed in her for having feelings for Dylan that had touched a raw nerve and whilst she had argued with him that far from looking out for her and Sam he was actually jealous, she sadly knew that this was far from the case and it had been the apparent distance that now lay bare between them that had hurt her the most.

She recalled that she had stormed out, partly because she had no longer been able to stand the feeling that she had somehow let him down and partially because she was so angry at his words she was no longer able to think straight enough to come up with a suitable retort. She had smoked nearly an entire box of cigarettes as she strode off down the road to calm herself down enough to return to the E.D. and if it hadn't been for Dylan's stalking of Sam and Tom down the corridors of the department as they left for the pub that night, she knew she might have remained stable enough not to provoke a row with Dr Keogh at dinner. Instead Nick's references of her past fresh in her mind she had demanded answers from a man she knew found it difficult to communicate emotionally and had set off a chain of events that left her more confused than ever.

She turned to watch Dylan sitting beside her on the sofa and wondered why he had turned up at her place at all, given how badly things had ended up between them at the restaurant. Zoe had returned home full of intentions to satisfy her appetite with beans on toast and a bottle of wine, but had barely removed the cork and grabbed a glass when the doorbell had gone and she had opened the door in surprise to see her dinner date standing there, not looking any less grumpy than he had last time she had seen him.

They had been sitting in a hushed silence almost ever since his arrival and whilst she was grateful for his presence it had not helped resolve any of the outstanding issues from their meal. Zoe had to admit that she believed Dylan should still be with his wife, just from the little ways they interacted and how their behaviour towards each other proved that they both obviously still cared. Nonetheless she knew that everyone else, Sam included, seemed to think that she was already seeing Dylan and despite how much she did wish that was indeed the case, she had actually done very little to move that situation forward herself. She knew that this was a decision Dylan himself needed to make and she felt she owed it to Sam, as well as her own sanity, to step back and give him time to think through what should happened next. It just pained Zoe that because of Dr Keogh's unwillingness to talk through the situation, she still didn't really know whether there was even anything more than a spark between the two of them, something that would indicate to her that she should consider sticking around to wait for him to make up his mind or whether she would be better off walking away and sparing herself the agony of watching him making the inevitable decision that he wanted to be with Sam.

Upon realising she had been sitting staring at her companion for some time, Zoe grabbed the wine glass and half-drunk bottle from the table and made her way to the kitchen, tipping the contents of both down the sink. As she braced herself against the sink, wine clouding her mind slightly and making the room spin, her mind drifted and she wondered what Dylan would ever have done if she had kissed him, her mind buzzing with regret that it was now unlikely she would ever know what it would be like to be with this man.

A noise from behind her caused her to spin round and she saw Dylan had joined her in the kitchen, a determined expression written all over his face. Within a matter of moments he had moved to be directly in front of her and reached his hand up to her face, tipping her chin upwards slightly so they made direct eye contact. Zoe felt a shiver ripple down her spine at the intensity of the look but barely moved as Dylan leaned in and kissed her, their lips fleetingly meeting. She reached up and pushed him back slightly, eyeing him with a degree of confusion, but as their gaze met again physical instinct took over and she pulled him back towards her, deepening the kiss. Her head span at the long-awaited contact with Dylan, but despite knowing how wrong this was given his still unresolved feelings for Sam, she reflected the kiss had been at his initiation and as he was sober, he didn't even have the excuse of alcohol to fall back on.

Zoe's mind went blank as she pushed all her doubts aside and allowed him to lean her back against the kitchen sideboard, where the two of them stood locked together in a passionate embrace, before she reached down and took his hand, leading him out of the kitchen and along the hall towards her bedroom.

Sam Nicholls

Sam dropped don on the sofa at her flat and rubbed her tired eyes, trying not to give in to the exhaustion she had been feeling for days. The long alcohol fuelled evening had been somewhat of an eye opener to her and she smiled to herself at the reality of the fact she now had people in her life she could actually consider to be friends. For that reason alone she was incredibly grateful that Tom had persuaded her to join them in the first place and she hoped that her coming last few weeks in Holby would be all the better for having people in her life she could have a laugh with.

The number of people around their table had dwindled as the evening had gone on, with the various pairs and groupings each eventually calling it a night. Noel and Big Mac had been the first to depart if she recalled correctly, with them both wishing her a speedy recovery from her injuries and Big Mac informing her that they would need to catch up over a drink at some point in the future to talk through their shared experiences further, something she found she was looking forward to in spite of herself.

Dixie and Jeff had left not long after the two of them, both privately checking with her that she was okay to stay and equally able to get herself home safely before they made tracks. Sam had recognised their surprise at her being the one to initiate farewell hugs to them before they went left the pub, but she had assured them that she was genuinely grateful to them both for their support that night. She could only assume that it was her own tipsy state that had caused her to relax her personal rules on lack of physical contact enough to draw them both into a tight embrace, but she had been left smiling at Jeff's insistence that he would see his "Princess" in the morning. There was just something about the two paramedics that always brought her a sense of happiness that they were in her life and in truth she would knew she would really miss them and their hilarious banter when she got her posting back to Helmand.

However Sam recalled with amusement that it hadn't just been the two of them that had caused her to laugh that evening. Linda had eventually given up trying to elicit any gossip from her and had instead turned her flirtatious attention to Tom, an act which had obviously massively annoyed Lenny as he had caused a huge scene when he thought his colleague was going to be departing with Nurse Andrews. His declaration of interest in Linda had caused the girl Dr Lyons had been kissing all evening to slap him, throw a drink over his head and flee the pub loudly cursing both him and Linda, but the fact he appeared to have suffered to get her back seemed to have warmed the nurse to Lenny's charms and the last time Sam had seen them both they were stumbling into a taxi together outside the pub, locked so closely together it was difficult to tell they were still two people. The whole event had given her the giggles, which had obviously been quite unexpected to Tom and Mr Jordan, who had ended up laughing alongside her as she barely held back tears triggered for once by pleasure and not fear or devastation.

Before any of that had occurred Sam had found herself having an incredibly intense discussion with her Clinical Lead, who had insisted on her calling him Nick outside of work despite the fact that she found that incredibly strange. He had confided in her a great deal about the ex-wife he walked away from to spare her the pain of being tied to him for any longer, giving Sam the perspective she needed to know that she was making the right decision to resolve her marriage with Dylan before her impending departure. Nick had offered her advice on the best way to proceed, talked her through her options and had appeared genuinely surprised that she was citing her own unreasonable behaviour as the justification of the divorce.

Sam couldn't help but wonder whether everyone who had met her and Dylan had incorrectly perceived that due to his gruff and grumpy exterior it was he who had caused the breakdown of their marriage and she wondered if that would bother him if he knew. She was well aware that any blame that required apportioning for what happened definitely lay at her feet, as not only had she been the one to stray but she had also been the catalyst that had sent both of their lives spiralling out of control in the first place. She was sure that Dylan wouldn't want the world to know the full truth about the reasons behind their separation any more than she did, as he would see it as a gross invasion of his privacy, but she would definitely have to correct the assumption that the responsibility for the mess they were sat with him. Sam knew that she would be escaping the intense gaze of their colleagues soon enough anyway and therefore it would matter little to her what story she chose to give, only that it spared Dylan's feelings and kept the real reasons behind what had occurred behind closed doors where they belonged.

She had felt quite sad at listing the very minimal number of assets that had been accrued through the length of her marriage, but when Nick had pointed out to her she would be entitled to half the houseboat, car and even Dervla, she had almost choked on her mouthful of beer. Sam had known that legally speaking they should share everything, but it wasn't as if she had anything of her own to divide and there was nothing in her that would ever be convinced separating Dylan from his dog, or forcing him to buy her out of his car and houseboat would be a good idea. The army would provide her with accommodation whilst she was in Afghanistan regardless, so it wasn't as if she was about to be made homeless and in truth, if she was going to start over in a different part of the UK without Dylan on her return she would rather do this without his hard earned money burning a hole in her pocket.

Mr Jordan had also passed comment about her previous attempts to remove her own stitches, querying whether her state of mind was such that she was likely to repeat the apparent act of self-harm and causing her to feel incredibly self-conscious under his view. She remembered assuring him that she was rational enough not to replicate the injury again, but was not entirely sure she had been particularly convincing. Sam had never considered her actions deliberate, but she was certain that if Nick ever had cause to speak to Dylan about the self-inflicted damage to her wound, her husband would be guaranteed to fill him in on some of her more erratic previous behaviour and she knew that there were a few misdemeanours in her past that weren't exactly easy to explain away as accidental incidents.

Nick had eventually decided to leave, but not before he engaged Tom in an intense debate out of her earshot. Upon his return Dr Kent had informed her that he was under strict instructions to ensure she got home safely in one piece and whilst she had initially considered protesting about her ability to take care of herself, she knew that her current battered state completely belied that fact and in any case, she had quite been enjoying the company of her colleague.

The two of them had stayed in the bar for a little while longer after the others had departed, before they had exited together and made the short walk out of town towards her flat. The cold air had hit her face and sobered her up considerably in moments, which she was incredibly grateful for as she knew the early start the next morning for work would be a killer if she went to bed still drunk.

Tom had kept the conversation from the pub going along their walk, with snippets of stories about previous patients and consultants he had worked under filtering through her hazy mind, but the main thought still circling her head was that Dylan and Zoe would probably have had an excellent night together by that point and be curled up asleep by that time of night. She decided it was the irrational, semi-drunken part of her mind that hoped they were at Zoe's flat rather than her husband's boat, somehow supposing that it hurt just that little bit less if she didn't have to consider Dr Hanna sleeping in the bed that she herself used to share with Dylan or the idea of her colleague bonding with Dervla over breakfast the next morning. Sam knew she had no reason to be annoyed at her husband's behaviour, because he had every right to have moved on with Dr Hanna given everything that had gone before, yet the fact that it was occurring right underneath her nose with apparently little thought for her feelings felt like an incredibly large slap in the face.

However now that she was back in her poky little flat, with its still packed up possessions and very few home comforts, she accepted that she was doing the right thing in setting Dylan free to make his own choices once again. She recognised the determination inside herself to put the state of her marriage right before she received her posting, but it did concern her how she would be able to communicate any of this to her husband without breaking down in front of him. She very much doubted that Dylan would offer her any comfort upon announcing her intention to seek a divorce, but a small part of her still held out hope that he would support her decision to return to Helmand and that he would accompany her to the base on her departure date to wave her off, just as he had done every time before in spite of the tattered state of their relationship on the last of those occasions. She could only begin to wonder what Zoe would make of that turn of events.

The hand that extended in front of her with a steaming hot mug of coffee in its grasp pulled her gently out of her thoughts and she gingerly took the warm cup, turning round it her hands so that she had hold of the handle. Tom settled down on the sofa beside her and she watched as he inquisitively studied her living room with interest. Sam recalled that she hadn't anticipated inviting her drinking partner in for coffee until they had arrived at her front door, but he had willingly accepted citing that he had promised to ensure she was safe and well before he left as his reason. She would usually have been too embarrassed by the state of her sparse flat to allow anyone in, having not received a single visitor since she had arrived in Holby over six months previously, bar Dylan on one occasion, yet in the last week she had now hosted Dixie, Jeff and Tom whilst in various degrees of pain or alcohol induced numbness and therefore the lack of possessions seemed fairly irrelevant to proceedings.

"You know," Tom mused unexpectedly, causing her to face him with a start, "This is the first time a girl has invited me in for coffee and I've actually ended up having coffee." They both descended into a fit of giggles once again at that statement and Sam took preventative action, placing her coffee mug on the floor beside the chair, trying not to spill it down her as she laughed.

"Well I'm not most girls," Sam spoke quietly when she finally got herself under control and met his gaze, her head suddenly buzzing with a feeling she could not quash despite knowing how insane it would be to act on it.

"Indeed you're not," Tom responded, cocking his head slightly to one side and looking at her questioningly. "Are you alright Sam? You look a bit pale."

She couldn't bring herself to do anything but nod in response to his remark, but slid herself across the sofa slightly towards him and felt herself impulsively remove the mug from his hands and place it on the carpet next to hers. She nuzzled her face into his neck and on feeling no negative reaction from him in response to her touch, she tilted her head up and brought her lips to rest on his in the briefest of kisses.

She pulled back, feeling momentarily vulnerable and exposed, but regardless of the nagging doubt in the back of her mind, Sam initiated another kiss, much deeper and zealous in nature. Her hands instinctively came to rest around the back of his head, pulling him closer and she felt his strong arms wrap around her, holding her tightly against him. As their tongues wrestled with each other, Sam manoeuvred them both so that Tom's weight began to push her back into the seat of her sofa and as his body began to lie down atop hers, she grabbed at the hemline of his shirt pulling it upwards. Their lips separated for a matter of seconds as she removed Tom's shirt from over his head and as their mouths crashed back together, her fingers began to undo her own shirt buttons in between their chests and all thoughts of everything that had gone before were pushed from her mind as she gave herself up totally to the passionate connection she was sharing with this man.

Please forgive me!

I hope you enjoyed reading, I did warn you things would actually get a lot more complicated!

Reviews as always are welcome and the next part should be up on Tuesday. Callie x