Sorry this took a bit longer than anticipated to put up, but that is mainly because work has been like a manic yo-yo of highs and lows this week, oh and then I damaged my arm in an accident so yeah, the update nearly didn't get finished for a lot longer than this.
Thank you to everyone for your reviews of the last chapters, because you really do say some lovely things and it makes me smile each and every time I get a notification someone else has commented. This chapter is specifically for Anny, Meggi and Ficmouse - with a little extra note of thanks to Anny for titling the chapter for me when my thesaurus did not want to choose a suitable word. Oh and also a little mention to Rachel, who is sick this week (hope you feel better soon) for sending me a message and really convincing me to finish writing.
So here we go, the next update. I warn you its nearly 8000 words so brace yourselves! Callie xx
To look out for you
The definition of helpless
Helpless: adjective; unable to defend oneself or to act without help
Sam Nicholls
Sam placed her hand on the handle of the staffroom door and took a deep breath before daring to venture inside. Despite the fact her shift had yet to officially start she was already exhausted both from the last few hours she had spent at work and the manner of her unexpectedly traumatic early morning wake-up call. In truth the last thing she wanted was to face the crowds of people that she knew would be the other side of this particular door, especially her ex-husband if he hadn't already scurried off to conceal himself for the day in CDU, but she knew that her complete disappearance from the E.D. for the last seven days would have done nothing to dampen the gossips' interest in her circumstances and for that turn of events alone she had to take sole responsibility.
She took a further deep breath to steady her nerves before purposefully opening the door and striding into the room without making eye contact and instead made directly for the kitchen to commence coffee making duties as she had promised her grateful colleague she would. Sam was not surprised at how full the staffroom was of fellow medics, but she found herself disappointed nonetheless that she had to face quite so many of them all at once. She caught Dylan's gaze momentarily before averting her stare from him instantly, knowing full well that he was one person she was not yet ready to deal with following what had occurred after their emotionally intense conversation the previous week.
Sam reached the kettle without incident and realised from the mixture of confusion and concern she had seen written across her colleagues' features that her presence that day had been every bit as unexpected to them as it had been to her. In her time away she had calculated that she actually had more than enough leave left to ensure she did not have to return to the department prior to her deployment but on this particular day it seemed as if fate had conspired against her on that score. She couldn't help but wonder though that given how stressful her morning had been thus far what that would mean for the likelihood of her getting through the remainder of the shift unscathed and had decided that unfortunately she would not have put bets on that being the case.
Sam found herself instinctively turning her back on the room as she put the kettle on and reached into the cupboards around the kitchen area for the various accoutrements she required to make the two hot drinks, but despite this she could still feel the eyes of the team upon her and could just make out the hushed chit-chat of a Scottish and Liverpudlian accent by the stools, realising immediately from the few snatched words she could hear that she was very much the focus of their quiet conversation.
"Are you alright?" a recognisable voice spoke from beside her and she looked around to see Tom standing next to her leaning back on the sideboard and studying her with earnest concentration. "I was worried about you," he added, his eyes filled with concern.
"I'm fine," Sam responded without hesitation or thought, reeling off her usual curt answer to such a question and turning her attention away from Dr Kent and back to her coffee making duties.
"I came round you know," Tom started, reaching out to touch her arm to bring her back into the conversation. She found herself turning back to look at him before staring at where his fingers lay on the bare skin above the scar on her arm, but before she could respond to his statement she caught sight of her husband glowering at her from the corner of the room and therefore again looked away, wondering whether her absence had caused Dylan to reconsider how truthful her indication of lack of interest in the other man had been when they last spoke. "I knocked a few times actually," Tom continued on receiving no response, but moving his hand away regardless. "I wasn't sure if you'd gone away or something," he added shyly.
"No," Sam answered brusquely. "I was in. I just chose not to answer the door," she elaborated and deliberately refused to meet the gaze of the man who was expressing such interest in her life. The week off had been as unanticipated to her as it had been to the entire department, but once she had been free of their unwelcome intrusion into her life she had found it easiest to turn off her phone, keep the door firmly locked and to determinedly ignore the efforts to contact her that a frightening amount of her colleagues had actually attempted. In the intervening week she had only made one daily departure from her flat, notably to go for a run to regain her pre-assault fitness levels before she flew out to Helmand in a matter of a fortnight's time, but it had not actually come as a surprise to her that on returning home on each occasion she found that a familiar person had gained entry to her place of residence and provided her with much required essential supplies, him knowing full well that she would not have bothered to shop herself when she was feeling quite this bad.
In spite of the palpable anger she felt towards him, it had made her smile regardless when she had seen the instantly recognisable form of him and his dog as they walked away from her flat on one specific day, but it had been the knowledge that he had possibly been the one person who realised she had not actually gone on holiday rather stayed at home alone that saddened her, as she knew any chance they had once had at even sustaining such a closeness and developing a friendship had now been irreparably destroyed. Much to her disappointment in spite of everything that had occurred Dylan had not stuck around on any of the occasions he had popped in whilst she was out and she wondered whether perhaps he had understood quite why she had fled from him the previous week, despite her having left without offering him such an explanation. Sam recalled that with the exception of phoning Mr Jordan to advise him of her intention to take leave and dealing with the army and her solicitor, she had barely spoken aloud all week until opening her door that morning. Even in bringing that memory to mind however she promptly pushed away thoughts of her solicitor, desperate not to remember the horrendous meeting when she had been forced to relive the numerous misdemeanours that had led to the conception and subsequent breakdown of her marriage.
Sam was pulled from her thoughts by the sound of a commotion behind her and she heard the distinctive tones of her Clinical Lead as he entered the room and berated Dr Lyons for his sloppy attire and dishevelled look, a comment which had caused her to cock her head instantly in his direction to check out the state of her much maligned colleague who it transpired was sitting on a stool with Linda almost implanted onto his lap in spite of the indication from their boss moments before that the situation looked highly unprofessional.
"Ah, Dr Nicholls," Mr Jordan stated from the doorway. "How nice of you to join us today. I was beginning to wonder if you'd left us already," he continued and Sam winced at the sarcasm evident in his tone but proffered no blame in his direction for that given her recent unannounced absence.
"Actually some of us have been at work for hours," she responded, matching his acerbic attitude with her own and turning round to glare at him defiantly. "I didn't exactly get much choice in the matter," she added more sulkily, remembering her own earlier argument with those who had arrived on her doorstep that morning. "Paul Ellis was released from custody last night," she added by way of elaboration, seeing the look of confusion that crossed her colleagues' faces on hearing her words.
"Paul Ellis?" Nick queried from where he had stood motionless since gaining her attention. "The man who attacked you and his wife?" he asked, immediately causing the entire staff group to stare at her in concern.
"The very same," she replied simply. "He went to the Crown Court yesterday and got released on bail pending the outcome of his court case," she clarified for the benefit of those who were not as familiar with what was occurring in relation to her assault. "Before promptly going round and attacking his wife again," she continued and received a gasp from some of those present in response. "Apparently he beat her around the head with a saucepan and then gave her a good kicking. Paramedics brought her in at about 3am, she's still through in resus at the moment, but it isn't looking that good for her right now. She's in a pretty bad way," she finished, her voice trailing off.
"What about the boy?" Tom questioned, breaking the silence that had descended across the room as Sam tried to bury herself back in her thoughts to avoid thinking about the horror the woman would have endured at the hands of the man who had similarly assaulted her and their colleagues undoubtedly started to process the implications of her words.
"He's alright," Sam stated with little emotion. "He's in paed's resus waiting for a social worker to pick him up. He's not got anyone else apparently, poor little bugger," she explained and cast a sympathetic look in the direction of Dr Kent, remembering the time immediately before her own attack when Tom had been the doctor in charge of monitoring the small child. The look of devastation in his eyes at the thought of the little boy being left all alone in the world got to her, in spite of her determination to push this case out of her mind, and she felt the need to offer him an apologetic look for her earlier harsh words.
"And are you okay?" Nick probed from across the room, piercing through the mumblings she could hear about the lack of justice people could see in the situation. "It must have come as quite a shock to you after what happened," he elaborated, but making a point that she instinctively refused to acknowledge.
"What came as a shock was being woken up at 4:30 this morning by the police practically battering down my door to check that I was alright," Sam responded pointedly, eliciting a horrified reaction from her colleagues in reply. "Apparently the delightful Mr Ellis decided to tell the world he was out to get everyone involved in the case, which given he then half killed his wife the police think might be a viable threat," she added as a statement of fact and tried to ignore the hellish throbbing pain that filled her side from the still healing rib fractures the violent man had already inflicted on her once before.
"Well that means we are on high alert then," Nick Jordan stated confidently, as if trying to assert some authority back over the situation. "What with you and Mrs Ellis both in the department I would assume that makes this place a likely target for him," he expanded, looking to her to offer him confirmation she did not feel able to give. "And obviously given the circumstances you can't have anything to do with the woman or her treatment," he continued and she rolled her eyes without thinking in reply.
"She," Sam snapped back at him, gesturing towards the female who was hovering behind the Clinical Lead in the doorway. "She has been making that quite clear to me for the last few hours."
"I couldn't sleep again," Dr Hanna said softly in Nick's direction as she fully entered the room in a statement Sam could only assume related to Zoe's own early presence in the department that morning. She wondered if the cause of the woman's insomnia had anything to do with Dylan and contemplated whether Dr Hanna had stayed true to her word to offer Dr Keogh some comfort after she had delivered the news about her impending departure and the divorce. That thought had been one that had remained swirling through her mind in the past seven days, but in truth she had decided that it would be easier not to allow herself to care, especially as she still could not comprehend quite how dramatically the ground had shifted from underneath her right at the point when she had thought she had started to make headway in resolving her outstanding issues with her husband.
"The police have advised they will remain present in the department today," Zoe explained and Sam realised that she had not listened to any of the spiel the older woman had been spouting to bring their colleagues up to speed with the situation as she saw it.
"Does this affect anyone else except Sam?" Lenny questioned from his position behind Linda, causing the entire room's attention to swing towards the two of them and the nurse to finally remove herself from her seated position on his lap. "I was just thinking, wasn't it Tom who chased after him and treated his kid last time?" he added as an additional point and from the corner of her eye Sam saw the realisation of this dawn across Dr Kent's face.
"And Scarlett," Lloyd butted in, startling Sam with his slightly panicked tone. "She said she was listed as a witness in the case," he added hastily to demonstrate the importance of the fact that Nurse Conway was not yet present in the room. Sam opened her mouth to respond to him, but could not find the appropriate words and on seeing that Zoe was about to speak she decided to allow her the opportunity to clarify things and instead busied herself finishing the two mugs of coffee that had remained half prepared.
"She's in cubicles and she's fine," Dr Hanna answered him certainly. "Sam brought her in with her this morning and I assure you she is just a little shaken," she confirmed.
"And you were at the gym," Sam chipped in quietly; barely audible to anyone bar Tom she was sure. "The police said they would keep an eye on you there because it was so close to the hospital." She glanced in his direction briefly and he met her gaze with a slight smile of thanks before she refocused on stirring the steaming liquid she had poured into the mugs in front of her.
Sam recalled the moment she had knocked on Scarlett's door accompanied by the four police officers who had almost broken into her own home a matter of half an hour earlier. Scarlett had looked nearly scared to death on seeing them all standing there when she had opened the door in very sweet baby pink pyjamas, but it had only been the thought of using the police to establish the young nurse's address that had caused Sam to agree to stay under their protection in the first place. She still couldn't quite comprehend why Scarlett's safety had been the only coherent thought she had been able to consider until the girl was securely with them, but it had been at that moment she recalled her attention had turned to Tom and the police convoy had taken them to his address where a neighbour had informed them he had left for an early morning gym session shortly before. She remembered the sense of relief she had felt on seeing her male colleague working up a sweat on the running machine and how she had stood there watching him flirt with the woman working out beside him, amusement etched across her face at his attempts at physical humour as he fooled around, before pointing him out to the police officer and then leaving them to it as she and Scarlett were driven into work still two hours ahead of their scheduled arrival time.
Sam took a sip from the steaming liquid in her cup before she was distracted by the appearance in the room of the young woman from her thoughts.
"Coffee as promised," she said kindly to the anxious looking girl who smiled reassuringly in response as she gratefully took the second drink from her hands. "I'm warning you it's quite sugary though," she added. "Very good for shock apparently," she elaborated with a slight smile of her own, as she caught sight of Mr Jordan preparing to recommence the daily staff briefing from the other side of the room.
"I'm frightened," Scarlett whispered, so quietly that Sam could barely make out the words, but she found herself instinctively propelling the vulnerable woman towards where Lloyd was seated, catching his eye and gesturing that he should move up so his fellow nurse could sit beside him.
"I'm not going to let anything happen to you," Sam found herself whispering back. "And neither is he," she added, directing her eyes at the man who she had long since realised had a bit of a crush on the worried female. "I'm not telling you to let him take over," she justified, leaning in to be sure that only Nurse Conway would be able to hear her. "But let him be there for you, he was really worried about you when he thought you might have been in danger," she finished and as she leant back she was pleased to see Scarlett nod in acknowledgement before leaning in slightly to Lloyd's arm and allowing him to offer her a degree of comfort.
Sensing that her work there was done, Sam headed towards the exit of the room and went to squeeze between where the two senior doctors stood talking in the doorway.
"Dr Nicholls, where exactly do you think you're going?" Nick questioned disapprovingly.
"I have patients," she replied dismissively and continued to attempt to leave the room, ignoring his attempts to prevent her departure.
"I know you and Dr Keogh seem to have an aversion to attending these briefings," Mr Jordan almost hissed in her direction, causing Zoe to all but jump at his tone from beside them. "But given this one is most likely to be taken up by discussing your safety I would appreciate it if you at least tried to pretend you were interested," he added with irritation.
"I'm fine," she found herself snapping back in response, feeling a sudden need to be defensive and put herself back in control of the situation.
"To be fair Sam, you've already been assaulted by him once and I know what a state you were in after that," Zoe chimed in and despite not wanting to lose her cool, Sam found the anger rising inside of her at the implication that she couldn't take care of herself despite the realisation deep within her that actually that appeared closer to the truth than she had ever allowed it be since that fateful day many years before.
"You know what," she started with a shout; almost scaring herself with the volume of her own voice and knowing that the entire staff group would now be staring in her direction. "If you think I'm going to stand here being scared of him then you obviously don't know me at all," she argued, desperately trying to cover how defenceless she felt in that very moment. "And just so you know, I never let anyone get the better of me twice, ask him if you don't believe me," she stated pointedly, gesturing in the direction of Dylan on the other side of the room. "So if Mr Ellis does decide to come back and haunt me this time I'll be ready for him" she added defiantly, almost willing her words to be a provocation for Nick.
There was a loud noise from the other side of the room as Dylan pushed his chair back and it scraped along the floor as he stood up. At the moment he had the attention of the entire team whether he wanted it or not he simply stared her straight in the eye before turning and exiting without a word or expression. The anger she had felt towards him until that moment was immediately replaced with disappointment on seeing him walk away when all she wanted was for him to hold her and tell her this nightmare situation would soon be over, given that she was certain he must have known from her words quite what memories she had been unable to quell since her assault some ten days before.
She was distracted from her thoughts once again, but this time by the touch of Nick Jordan placing his hand on her arm similarly to how Tom had done just minutes before and she looked up at him, trying to push her emotions down inside her and remain composed, outwardly at least.
"I don't know what is going on with you right now," Nick murmured in her direction. "You've been gone all week without so much as a reason and I've tried to be understanding and give you space to sort out whatever it is that is going on, but I can't have you shooting your mouth off like that in this hospital," he explained. "It's not professional and I can't just stand here and let you kick off like this," he added, berating her for her attitude.
"Do you know what," Sam started but was cut off before she could get any further.
"My office now Dr Nicholls," Mr Jordan ordered, finally appearing tired of her insolence.
"And if I don't comply?" Sam queried, the merest hint of sarcasm in her tone and knowing full well that she was pushing the boundaries as far as she was able. "What are you going to do? Suspend me? Sack me?" she asked emphatically. "I mean, I'm guessing they all know I'm leaving anyway," she added, gesticulating wildly into the room and catching sight of the worried looks across her colleagues' faces once again. "Five more shifts," she stated simply. "Five more shifts in this poxy E.D. and then I am out of here, so you know what? You can do what you like because it won't make the damn little bit of difference."
"Five more shifts?" Tom questioned from his position back over by the kitchen area, confusion apparent as to where her newfound deadline had come from.
"Yeah," Sam replied confidently, staring out her colleagues in the room with defiance. "The Trust have agreed to let me go a week early for pre-deployment training so soon enough I'll be out of here," she explained.
"My office now Dr Nicholls and I'm not taking no for an answer," her boss shouted from beside her and she rolled her eyes at him again in response, pretending not to be the slightest bit bothered by the worsening slanging match she had initiated but wishing like hell she could just run away. She really had not had any intention of returning to work before the newly brought forward leaving date until the police had knocked on her door and she had known that if she had failed to follow their instructions not only was it likely that Scarlett and Tom would have remained unprotected, but she also would have had either Nick, Tom or worse still Dylan on her doorstep refusing to leave within a matter of hours.
She stormed out of the room without looking back and found herself walking straight towards the Clinical Lead's office in spite of what she had just said and wondered quite what her colleagues had made of her incredibly erratic behaviour. She knew that she had gone from the depressive withdrawal of a week ago to the angry irrational and confrontational person she had just become almost without warning and to say she was counting down the days until her departure with increasing welcome was an understatement. Coming back to work had felt alien to her, the suffocating pressure of the police presence was overwhelming and the memories of her past the whole mess was invoking was stirring up feelings she had thought were long since buried, but despite all of that it was seeing her husband and watching him walk out of the door that had been just that bit too hard for her to bear.
Sam had always prided herself on being the strong one, the one who could take care of herself and others in a crisis situation, but despite that she remembered exactly what it felt like to be completely helpless, vulnerable to both physical pain and emotional stress simultaneously and reliant on someone else to protect you from further harm. In all of her last few years with Dylan she had promised she would never allow herself to feel quite that helpless ever again and for that reason she was scared beyond words by quite how frightened she felt even at the thought of him no longer being by her side.
Nick Jordan
Nick sat staring at the vulnerable young woman in front of him feeling incredibly grateful that she had finally calmed down enough to remain seated following their earlier confrontation in the staffroom, but worried about her regardless. Even before she had come close to losing it in front of everyone he had realised that there was something very wrong with the girl, her messy, unkempt hair and ridiculously pale complexion would have given that away even if her demeanour had not later done the same. He could not help but think that it was beyond belief quite how many times the two of them had sat in silence in the same position over recent weeks and in truth he became more and more anxious about her every single time.
There had been that one moment in the staffroom which had given him hope, when he had grabbed hold of her arm to try and anchor her back into the room but instead had his attention taken by the sight of the nearly healed scar on her lower arm, which appeared to have been well cared for and despite the sutures being removed it was clear that this had been done in a managed fashion rather than Sam's erratic previous attempts to cause herself intentional harm.
Nonetheless he recalled the confusion he had felt the previous week on being informed that the young woman he had seen emerge happily from his office fresh from a conversation with her husband had run out of his department in tears less than an hour later, but that initial bewilderment had quickly spread to concern when she had phoned in the following day and advised him that she intended to take leave until further notice. Her dismissive tone on hearing his questions had only increased his levels of anxiety, especially as he had been far from sure that it had just been his treatment of Tom that had caused her to withdraw from him so visibly.
If he allowed himself to reflect on the situation he found himself feeling fairly certain that Sam had not intended to cause himself or her worried colleague's such stress in her absence from work, because he was sure that she actually would never have considered she would cause such an impact on those around her. Nick deliberated that the girl seemed to have a complete inability to understand how to relate to people around her for any period of time, but he could not be sure whether her lack of comprehension of the consternation she had caused was due to the strange innocence she had about her or that due to her lack of ability to trust anyone enough to let them in, she perceived people's thoughts about her through similarly jaded eyes.
He himself had attended her flat on more than one occasion in the past seven days after obtaining her home address from her emergency file and whilst he had been certain that she was in on most of those times, short of breaking down her door there had been very little he thought he could do to ensure her safety. He recalled that on one of his visits he had seen Dr Keogh and his ever faithful canine companion entering the building that housed Sam's flat with a number of shopping bags and he remembered how he had awkwardly remained in his vehicle across the road to witness Dylan's hasty departure some minutes later minus the items he had arrived with bar the dog. Nick had thought back to that moment several times since and due to the lack of time the visit had taken he had come to the conclusion that Dr Nicholls had not been present in her apartment when her husband had visited, so therefore Dylan had purely been providing a grocery delivery service. The complexities of the Keogh marriage were lost on him though, as even despite Sam's disclosures in recent weeks Nick was no further forward to establishing exactly where the two of them stood and nor would he have wanted to be that involved. Yet he found there to be something as hopeful as it was intriguing in Sam's ex-husband even having a key to a place he had never resided in and how he was continuing to look out for her even though it appeared she had already turned her back on the man.
At work Nick had found it increasingly difficult to deal with Dylan as his mood's deteriorated and his cantankerous demeanour had worsened on an almost hourly basis. If it had been anything other than worry for Sam that had caused his behaviour Nick would have been unsympathetic to the man who had caused Zoe so much heartache, but he had found himself wanting to empathise with the one person he knew missed Sam's presence in the department even more acutely than he did himself.
Nick allowed his thoughts to turn to Dr Hanna and how he had started to build bridges with her despite their recent earthshattering argument. He had taken her for a drink almost every day after work and they had drowned their sorrows over the mess that was Sam and Dylan's marriage, whilst he had also enjoyed just spending some one on one time with her, just as they had always done so frequently in the past. He was still far from certain that their relationship was anywhere near being in a state of repair, but he guessed that for her he provided the reassurance of a non-judgemental friendly shoulder to cry on in the face of the blatant disregard Dylan had chosen to show her in the past week. Nick remembered listening to her talk about how she felt about the sorry state of affairs and had grown more certain by the day that Zoe would be able to shake herself out of her own withdrawn mood once she had gotten her recent foray into romantic liaisons with her colleague out of her system.
It was a measure of how much things had changed in Sam's absence that he had allowed himself to be momentarily distracted from thoughts of his wounded daughter-figure by the consideration that one day he and Zoe may well be able to rebuild a future of their own, but even on allowing that thought to cross his mind he had dismissed it as being something they could not even begin to consider at that moment, not least because Zoe had been so incredibly worried about her missing colleague in spite of their recent poor relationship.
Nick recalled that it had in fact been Dr Hanna who had followed him out of the staffroom as soon as he had finished briefing his staff on the upcoming shift and she had tried to calm him down before he had made it to his office to confront Dr Nicholls. There had been one point she had made, in that it seemed to her as if Sam did not care what happened to herself and that the girl was not particularly bothered by the risk of being viciously attacked for the second time in two weeks, but it had been enough to cause him to pause and think. He had felt genuinely frightened at Sam's behaviour in the staffroom, not because she posed a physical threat to him but due to her being so incredibly withdrawn and shut down. He accepted without question that the girl he knew would be quite likely to lash out verbally when faced with a situation that provoked an emotion in her, but it had been the lack of coherence and abject rudeness she had demonstrated in her arguments that had caused him to realise something drastic had changed within her.
The girl's announcement that she was leaving his team for good in a matter of five shifts had been greeted with astonishment by the remainder of the team, although if Nick was honest with himself he had been more surprised by her presence in the first place. However given her state that morning he doubted the army was the best place for her to be in the near future, as although he could see her physical fitness appeared to be returning and she was now walking without the obvious restraints of someone who had been recently assaulted, her mental health had deteriorated and the erratic rollercoaster of behaviour he himself had witnessed was all the proof he needed that something was still very wrong. The fact that she had totally shut him out had just added to the general sense of helplessness he felt about the entire situation, but that had not prevented him trying to establish quite how best he could go about helping her.
Nick recalled that when he had made it up to his office some minutes after she had stormed out of the staffroom it had pleased him to see that despite her annoyance she had done as asked and was waiting for him. Nonetheless Sam had been far from settled and had been pacing back and forth across the carpet in front of her usual seat as if her life depended on it and had glowered at him darkly when he had stepped over the threshold of his own office doorway.
Her initial lack of speech had worried him given the anger she had directed towards him only a short time before, but he remembered that when he tried to reason with her she had seemed entirely untouched by his words, almost as if his communication with her had gone straight over her head. He knew that he had resorted to shouting at her harshly purely to get her to listen to him and had grabbed her arm quite loosely in an attempt to shake her back into listening, but the regret he had felt for his actions on seeing her visibly flinch away from him in fright had almost broken his heart as it would never have been his intention to cause her pain or distress.
Despite that however, it had been this piercing of her consciousness that had finally woken her up to his presence at her side and caused her to acknowledge him, even if that had then led to her turning a tirade of abuse to him in response. He recalled that it had not actually been her anger that had thrown him, more the words that had tumbled from her mouth at such speed he had barely been able to keep up. He knew that she had come close to lashing out at him as she screamed at him that she would never be able to forgive him for what he had done, a concept which had seemed to inexplicably perplexing that he had barely had the chance to process it before the seething resentment the girl herself had been emitting disintegrated into a distressing silence as he watched her tip over into an all-consuming sadness. The tears that he had watched silently stream down her face would haunt him for the longest time, of that he was certain, but he remembered how deeply uncomfortable he had felt in watching her collapse into her usual chair looking every inch the vulnerable daughter and much less the army medic that he knew she needed to be within the matter of a fortnight.
The incomprehensible behaviour he had witnessed over the short time he had been with Dr Nicholls that morning had finally started to make sense to him though when through the tears Sam had stated with a level of devastation Nick could barely recognise that she knew about Zoe and Dylan's night together, despite his own adamant stance that no-one bar himself and the two parties concerned were aware of the circumstances of that particular liaison. His heart had broken on hearing her directly inform him that she could not forgive him for trying to cover it up and that she would never be able to trust his word again. The absolute certainty in her tone had upset him at the thought he might really have lost her confidence for good and therefore isolated her even further than she had been before and he had found himself instinctively squatting down in front of her, taking her hand in his own as he tried to offer her even the most minimal degree of comfort.
He remembered the feeling of relief that had flooded through him when she had not immediately shaken him off and had instead felt her fingers flicker ever so slightly to grasp at his own, as he witnessed her shut her eyes to close out the room around her and nervously bite at her bottom lip with a saddened frown spreading across her face. The two of them had stayed motionless for quite some time with him gently squeezing her hand and considering all his available options for trying to get the girl to open up.
"Lean on me Sam," he whispered to her as his thoughts finally dissipated and he attempted to pull her back into the room. Her eyes snapped open and it hurt him to see quite how empty they appeared to be, never having seen her look quite so disconnected from the world around her until that moment. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you what was going on, but I was trying to protect you," he explained as softly as he could, hoping desperately not to alarm her further. "I thought it was for the best," he added sadly.
"I leaned on Dylan once," Sam responded reluctantly, staring over his head to the opposite wall with her eyes appearing unseeing. "I let him rescue me," she added much to Nick's surprise as he pondered what could possibly have occurred in the young doctor's past that had required her husband to save her. "But everything has been a mess ever since and I can't do that again, not even with you," she elaborated despondently, finally returning her gaze to him. "I have to do it on my own this time. I don't need you to look out for me," she insisted.
"You are allowed to need people you know," Nick interjected with more force than he had originally intended, causing the tears that had stemmed to reappear in Sam's eyes. "You have a lot of people here who want to help you if you'd just let them in."
"No," she responded confidently, her tone belying the expression she was displaying.
"Is this about Mr Ellis?" Nick questioned, changing his technique slightly, but receiving no more than a glare in response. "Are you frightened? Because I won't let him hurt you, you know."
"I'm not scared," Sam snapped back at him, finally loosening her grasp on his fingers and shaking his hand away. "You really don't get it do you?" she asked pointedly, wiping her eyes and fixing her earlier defiant look back across her face. "Dylan lied to me," she added as if that should explain everything, before shrugging her shoulders at him in exasperation. "I hate that he lied to me," she continued, the level of her voice rising dramatically. "I don't trust people, hell I don't even like people most of the time," she shouted, "but he promised me that he would always tell me the truth and he lied to me." There was a momentary pause as Nick watched Sam steady her nerves with a deep breath and concern rapidly grew in him as he sensed she was near to disclosing something important.
"I trusted someone once," she started, taking him almost off guard with the quietness of her tone. "As well as Dylan I mean," she continued in clarification and Nick could tell from the look in her eyes that she was remembering a time from her past with fearful distress. "And Ash, well this person, well things didn't go so well and Dylan promised me that he would always be honest with me so I knew where I stood," she explained, obviously struggling with the weight of the memory. "He was always the only person I ever trusted and he's blown it completely," she finished without really saying anything at all.
"Maybe he was trying to protect you, did you think of that?" Nick questioned, trying to push from his mind the thought of this Ash, whoever he or she was, from Sam's past betraying her trust and hurting her so deeply that she was struggling with it and close to the edge of tears in front of him right now.
"We spent our whole marriage avoiding having a proper conversation because neither one of us wanted to tell the truth and admit that we were far from fine, but he never lied to me," Sam stated simply. "I confessed to him that I had an affair because I couldn't bear to look him in the eye even though I knew I would destroy everything I love, but he just lied to me like it was the easiest thing in the world. I know I have no right to expect anything from him but I never thought he'd go back on his word, especially when he knows how much it meant to me."
"Sam," Nick said breaking the hushed silence that had descended on the room following her words moments before. "I really don't think he meant to hurt you," he attempted to justify the other man's apparent lack of insight into the situation.
"I never said he hurt me," she responded, shutting down in front of his eyes once again. It had begun to concern him more and more throughout their conversation that her attitude and emotional state yo-yoed up and down seemingly at will. "You know what?" Sam asked aloud, standing up suddenly and almost knocking him over in the process. "I don't care anymore, I don't care about any of it. You can all go to hell," she argued sharply.
"I know that isn't true Sam," Nick responded instantly, forcing himself to stand up as well despite the pain shooting through his knees from being in a squatting position for so long. "No, listen to me," he continued, preventing her from speaking before he could explain. "If you really didn't care you wouldn't have shot round to Scarlett's this morning because you were worried about her, would you?" he asked, eliciting a shrug from her in response. "You really looked out for her this morning, why won't you let me do the same for you?"
"Because I can't," Sam replied with sadness evident in both her tone and features and Nick felt tears prickling at the back of his own eyes at just how useless he felt in front of the vulnerable woman's despair.
"What happened to you eh?" Nick queried, reaching out and touching the underside of her chin with his fingers, drawing her gaze back onto him. "Why won't you let me help you?"
Sam brought her own hand up to his, grasping it tightly before removing it from where it had laid on her skin. The two of them stood locked together by their fingers for a matter of seconds, before Sam dropped him from her touch and backed away.
"I'm sorry," she stated as a statement of fact rather than with any real emotion. "Five more shifts and then I'm out of here," she continued with increasing defiance. "I don't need you anymore," she ended with a shout before moving to walk past him, bumping into his side slightly as she headed out and exited the room.
Nick continued to stand motionless in the middle of his office staring at the space where the young woman had just stood and realised he had never felt quite so helpless in the face of such despondency. There had been the briefest of moments where he had been convinced she would let him in and tell him something of what this Ash had done to her in the past that had caused her to shut down her emotions so tightly, but as quick as that expectation had arisen Sam had closed it off just as suddenly. The fact that he had gotten so close to her confiding in him but then had somehow blown his chance weighed down so heavily on him he thought he might actually crumble under the pressure.
It was only at that moment when he felt a drop of water land on his finger tip that he recognised that he was crying, tears silently falling from his eyes just as they had done Sam's a short time before. Nick knew his affection for the broken girl went far beyond that of a normal working relationship, but quite when he had begun to love her as a father would his daughter he would never know. All he did know for definite was that there was one other person who would be able to help him understand, but despite that person's outward demeanour Nick was certain that they felt just as helpless as he himself did right now.
Okay, so there you go. Another update done and dusted, I hope you enjoyed it. Reviews would be very welcome, because they make me smile alot. I should have the next update of both this and my other fic with you in a few days, but yeah, thanks for reading. It does mean so much.
Callie x