Thank you once again to all of you who are reading, reviewing and tweeting me about this fic. The fact that some of you are actively telling me you are waiting for each update is really making me want to write this for you! Extra special thanks to Elly & Tilda, Jessie and Rachel for your reviews of the last update, for all my lovely tweeters (you know who you are - especially Megan and Melissa this week) and the lovely Meggi and Ficmouse for their support. However this chapter is definitely dedicated to Anny for all the 3am ramblings of the last few weeks and for asking questions that I had even forgotten to answer, plus for writing me a review that was almost fanfic length in itself! It makes me happy to get reviews, it really does :)

Just a health warning for this update - there are some bits that may feel a bit close to the mark for some of you, mainly implied history as to what has happened in Sam's past. Please bear that in mind, and don't say I didn't warn you. Same will apply for the next update but for different reasons entirely.

Anyway, here we go with this update - "courage"

To look out for you

The definition of courage

Courage: noun; the ability to do something that frightens one, bravery, strength in the face of pain or grief

Dylan Keogh

Dylan recalled with horror how abruptly his shift had concluded in the wake of Samantha's sudden withdrawal from the department. He had turned around to watch his wife storm from the room after her gut-wrenchingly honest admission that the past was still as real to her today as it had been to her in that awful moment and had come face to face with Nick Jordan, standing still as a statue and with a devastation written across his face that Dylan had realised he would recognise in himself in an instant.

He looked around the unfamiliar and alien setting of the room he was now sitting in with interest, as although he was certain he had only spent minimal time in the Clinical Lead's office since his arrival at Holby City Hospital, in fact the only time he could recall was with Samantha the previous week, he had become aware over the past month that Dr Nicholls had been spending an increasing amount of time here with the man sitting across from him. Dylan was certain that Mr Jordan had never really managed him, not in a traditional sense anyway, more that the man had tolerated his moods and dealt with any issues that had arisen because of them and his brusque attitude towards his patients and colleagues.

Dylan brought to mind the seconds after Samantha had fled the staffroom when he had stood there in a near stony silence with the man who had flown to the apparent defence of his wife's honour a week before and had realised that the soft noise he could hear was the sound of his own cries. The awkwardness of the situation had been worsened by the lack of coherent response that had come from the other person in the room, but Dylan remembered that even that had been exacerbated by Zoe bursting in mere moments later demanding to know what on earth was going on. She had taken one look at them standing there and immediately ordered both of them to the Clinical Lead's office and out of the main department. He knew that he had initially tried to protest, but when she had approached him and he had felt the gentle touch of her warm fingers brushing away the tear marks from his cheeks before she dragged him from the room even he had had to accept that he may not have been in a fit and proper state to treat patients, regardless of his ability to stay emotionally detached from them on any normal day.

It was because of Dr Hanna that he found himself uncomfortably seated in a vaguely unnerving hush with Samantha's apparent confidante, as she had made sure the two of them were safely ensconced in the room with coffee and orders to discuss what the required steps would be to deal with what had just occurred before she had abandoned them to their thoughts under the guise of her returning to the E.D. to attempt to regain control of the department and the bewildered staff group.

Dylan studied the face of the man across the desk from him and found himself drawn in slightly by the saddened expression fixed across his unblinking eyes. He had never understood why people had a need to confide their deepest feelings to another human being, especially where that other person was a work associate yet he was sure that his colleagues, most notably the female ones, spent the majority of their shifts doing just that. Samantha had always been the exception to that rule in his eyes as she had been as closed off emotionally as he had always been, publicly at least, but since her assault he was certain her expertise in hiding her true self from the world around her had diminished dramatically. He briefly allowed himself to contemplate whether she had always been as withdrawn from the world as she was in the time he had known her but he had forced himself not to think about the damage her connection to him and the trauma that had been caused because of it had done to the woman he had adored.

Samantha's words had stung him, but through their honesty rather that their harsh tone, as she had been right to state that he had managed to destroy the mutual understanding they had come to share with one simple lie. He had attempted to dress this up in his own mind as a way of protecting her from further distress given how close to the edge she had appeared in recent weeks, but he was well aware that in reality he had lied purely to spare himself from having to see the disappointment in her eyes when she realised that he had not in fact changed despite all that they had been through. He also finally acknowledged the wave of nausea that had come over him ever since she had tearfully informed him of the truth that there was nothing he could do to get inside her head and take away the pain of the last four years, piercing through his usually strong anti-emotion barricades and forcing him to remember the day he had found her so alone.

If Dylan thought through his current circumstances he was adamant that the last thing he wanted to do was to open up to his boss over such an emotive topic, but if nothing else Samantha's outburst half an hour before had proved to him that he was no longer the right person to comfort her, as much as it pained him to admit it. It was time for him to acknowledge that no matter how much it was killing him to see her so scared, there was nothing he could do to take away what had happened and try as he might, he had so far failed to protect her from harm.

"She was never really mine," he surprisingly found himself saying aloud and watching with interest as Mr Jordan's eyes flickered in his direction with a sense of confusion evident across his features. "She was my student and I knew that my feelings for her were, well shall we say inappropriate," he continued, remembering the vicious comments that had been made about his relationship with the young girl when their liaison had finally been made known. "She needed someone by her side to fight her corner, so we were thrown together by circumstances and then she felt indebted enough to me that she thought she had to stay," he elaborated sadly. "She always believed I was only there because I felt sorry for her; she never understood that I had wanted to be there all along."

Dylan watched as Nick opened his mouth to speak before closing it again wordlessly, appearing momentarily like a goldfish in a bowl. He realised that he was fairly relieved that the man had nothing to add to his own words, as he did not know how he could possibly respond to any questions Mr Jordan had without betraying Samantha's trust even further than he already had. He had never enjoyed communicating and the truth was that his marriage had only survived for as long as it had because his wife seemed to appreciate the simple pleasures of a comfortable silence as much as he had. He could barely remember another occasion on which he had considered opening up to someone emotionally in such a fashion as he was now, but if there was ever going to be a reason it was always going to be about his ex-wife.

"She loves you," Mr Jordan stated simply, appearing finally able to conjure up the power of speech from across the room.

"I know," Dylan responded emphatically, finally having come to accept that this fact may well be correct. "She isn't good with people or dealing with emotions, she never has been," he started to explain. "I've only seen her like this once before though, back when I first knew her and her behaviour was every bit as erratic and incomprehensible then as it is now," he justified. "I was her mentor, but that was never going to be enough to manage her out of the circumstances she was in," he continued. "She needed to have someone close that she could talk to and for some reason she chose me, but I can't be that person for her any longer because there is too much water under that particular bridge," he added with regret. "She needs someone though," he said slowly. "And I am hoping that someone will be you."

There was a moment of silence that descended across the room as Nick Jordan stared at him with a mixture of dismay and expectation, caused mainly Dylan decided due to the weight of the pressure he had just placed upon the man's shoulders from the indication the desperation in his tone had demonstrated how he felt about the situation.

"Of course," Mr Jordan replied more confidently than Dylan anticipated it was likely he was feeling. "If Sam will let me that is, because she can be stubborn as hell. Although I guess you probably know that better than I do," he added reflectively. "What worries me the most is how little she seems to care about what happens to her," he continued. "And how quickly she swings from being emotionally withdrawn to lashing out in anger without anyone being able to keep up."

"Samantha was hurt badly in the past," Dylan answered curtly, knowing that he could not elaborate further without breaking the unspoken bond of trust that he had so prized between them for the duration of their connection. He knew that he needed the man in front of him to be aware of some of their shared past in order for him to offer help and guidance, but it was the probable outcome of today's events that were most pertinent to that cause not what had happened to his wife before.

"Is this something to do with Ash?" Nick queried and instantly Dylan was dragged from his thoughts in sheer horror at the thought of her having mentioned his name aloud. He knew from personal experience that she only discussed that aspect of their past life together when her head was in a really bad place and that she was in that space now frightened him.

"She told you about Ashley?" he questioned in response, gulping slightly and feeling beads of sweat appear on his palms as he even spoke that name.

"She just mentioned something had happened," Nick replied and Dylan picked up the intrigue in his tone at the reaction the comment had received. "She didn't tell me anything else," he added, shrugging his shoulders non-committedly.

"My wife isn't afraid of getting hurt," Dylan explained, recognising his need to place possession over her in using that term of description in the face of Ashley's name. "She already knows what it is like to feel pain and she isn't scared of that," he clarified. "She just lashes out when she doesn't know what else to do or if something gets inside the barriers she has put up to protect herself." Dylan recalled that it was those very same emotional defences that Ashley had all but destroyed when he had hurt her so badly, but his behaviour had just caused the woman to build them up twice as strong this time around. That they were now cracking again was a worrying development in his eyes, because whilst she may not be afraid of getting hurt, Dylan most definitely was on her behalf and he was now terrified for her safety. Nonetheless he allowed that statement to go left unsaid, as from the expression on the other man's face he was sure he already felt similarly.

"If I know Samantha at all, and believe me I no longer consider that a certainty," Dylan stated earnestly and with a weight of feeling that until today would have felt unfamiliar to him. "Then right now her head is in a very dark place and when she gets like that leaving her on her own can be quite a dangerous thing." The moment after the words left his mouth it dawned on him from the realisation that crossed Mr Jordan's face that Dr Nicholls' past history of posing a risk to herself was as real to her now as it had been then.

"She has a cut on her arm," Nick said quietly, his voice barely audible over the ticking of the clock and Dylan's own heart beating heavily in his chest. "She sustained it in the assault but on at least one occasion she has pulled the stitches out herself," he added. "Does she have a history of self-injuring behaviour? Is that what you are trying to tell me? Is that why you're worried about her?" The intense look the two of them shared gave Dylan the encouragement he needed to confirm the truth to someone outside of his marriage after four years of keeping it hidden behind the closed doors of their home.

"There were some bad times before and Samantha got herself in a bit of a state, a bit like today actually," he started, allowing his mind to wonder back to their past. "She had this new car that she had been saving up for and she'd only had it a few weeks," he continued sadly. "The next thing I knew she was being brought back into the E.D. from the back of an ambulance strapped to a bed and only semi-conscious. She was in an altered state and as she roused, she was screaming and shouting and kicking out as people tried to help her," he described, remembering the terror that had taken over him that day as he had stood motionless and unable to prevent her fear.

"Just like she did when she was assaulted," Nick interjected, appearing to finally understand. "That's why you left resus, you were thinking about what had happened before?" he questioned and Dylan found himself nodding instinctively.

"We hadn't cleared her spine and there was a query over a head injury so I had to pin her down to the bed and attempt to reason with her," he recalled, barely able to say the words out loud. "She just looked at me like I was the most evil person in the world but eventually she stopped struggling. I was so relieved at first, but then I realised it looked as if she had given up," he elaborated. "Everyone else, they all knew her as the fiery, determined Dr Nicholls and they had never seen her like I had, not really. They all just accepted it was an accident and never once questioned it, but I had to ask her, because I needed to know."

"And what did she tell you?" Nick asked, staring at him intently.

"That she couldn't tell me what happened, because she didn't want to lie to me," Dylan responded with a shrug. "It was clear to me that she had driven into the tree on purpose," he said without any real consideration for the power those words may have on the other man present, but then felt a twinge of guilt at seeing the devastation fill his face. "I made her several promises that day and I successfully kept all of them until last week, but she found out I had lied to her about what occurred between Dr Hanna and I," he clarified. "I had never intended that this be the consequence of that, but seemingly that is irrelevant given the severity of the impact on her."

He paused momentarily after finally finding the nerve to put into a coherent sentence exactly why he felt so guilty about how events had transpired and felt grateful immediately for the lack of judgement that came from across the desk.

"Dylan I think that Mr Ellis turning up like that and the fact Sam was assaulted in the first place may also have had something to do with her meltdown," Nick interposed. "And it can't have helped to have me stumble in with only half the facts and make everything worse by giving her reason to feel guilty about being friends with Tom," he finished dejectedly. "I did think I was trying to protect her, but I think I was trying to protect her from the wrong thing."

"Samantha is the bravest woman I have ever met," Dylan interrupted, finding his voice once again. "She has shown her courage every single day by just getting up and facing the world after everything that has gone on, but in reality she is not that tough," he continued. "I know she is in the army but when she is out there she can put on her soldier mask and face the nightmare as someone else, someone stronger. When she is here she can only use that skill so far," he explained with conviction. "We both know she can hit the self-destruct button when that mask slips and she is forced to feel something she doesn't like."

"You are worried she is going to do something stupid, aren't you?" Nick asked with hesitation in his tone and Dylan was certain that he did not want to hear the answer any more than he wanted to give it.

"She always used to want her father to be there to comfort her back then," Dylan justified. "But he didn't really want to know and in the end he shut her out completely. I was the one that used to be there to hold her hand, but she needs someone who isn't her husband to break her fall first," he elaborated. "The fact that she only ever had me by her side left her isolated, when what she really needs is someone to be her parent and to tell her that things are going to be alright," he explained. "That means she needs you."

Dylan watched as Nick Jordan took in the enormity of the words he had just put out into the room and hoped that the man would realise what an honour it would be to be considered as Samantha's surrogate father in absence of the biologically related equivalent. With every passing second he felt his fright over the fate of his wife potentially home alone after an incredibly traumatic day increase tenfold, but he felt certain now that the man his wife had come to trust when he had been unable to fill that role himself would be able to reach her in time to prevent her falling. Dylan focused instead on hoping against hope that the courage he had seen Samantha demonstrate in the simple act of facing the world with the smallest of smiles and staying strong in the face of continuing pain would keep her sustained until she would allow herself to be rescued once again, only hopefully more successfully this time around.

Sam Nicholls

Sam splashed her face with cold water from the bathroom sink and rubbed her eyes to wash away the now dried tears that had mottled her usually unblemished skin. She glanced up at her reflection in the mirror of the cabinet on the wall in front of her and sighed at how utterly exhausted she both looked and felt after the incredibly long and emotionally draining day. It seemed like longer ago than just that morning that she had been woken up by the police banging down her door to tell her that Mr Ellis may pose a risk to her and all that had happened since the last occasion she had stood in the same position at her bathroom sink almost felt as if it had happened to someone else given how detached she was feeling from the world around her.

She ran her hand through the messy mane of hair that had long since fallen out of the loose tie she had bound it with in her hurry to leave the house and reflected back on how completely disastrous her one shift back in the E.D. had turned out to be. Sam recalled how adamant she had been on being faced with the police at her door that she was not going to return to work before her posting date and wondered quite why she had allowed herself to be coerced into going in against her wishes, even if it had been under the premise of helping to protect Scarlett and Tom from harm as well. However she now realised that even thinking about work was somewhat irrelevant as she was pretty certain that her parting shot to Dylan and Nick Jordan was that she resigned with immediate effect, not that she wouldn't have been sacked, or at minimum suspended, regardless for her violent conduct towards the same Mr Ellis who had put her through hell ten days before.

She remembered sadly how she had totally fallen apart into Jeff's arms as she stormed out of the department in an attempt to escape, but instead had found herself caught in the comforting embrace of the two paramedics who had always shown her nothing but care and affectionate banter. Sam knew that they had tried to establish what exactly was going on with her, but once they had offered her a tissue to dry her crying eyes she had withdrawn further into herself and found herself shutting back down again. She recalled that the police had made themselves known and had tried to convince her into making a statement, but that had been when Tom had appeared from inside the department and told them in no uncertain terms that if they weren't arresting her for assault then they needed to just leave her alone before berating them for putting her, Scarlett and himself at risk in the first place. She could not imagine that his forceful tone would ever have been the man's usual demeanour, so had shot him a grateful glance of thanks for his unexpected but welcome intervention.

If she remembered correctly they had been quickly joined by Scarlett outside the department doors and she had listened with a sense of dread as the nurse informed her that Mr Jordan, Dr Keogh and Dr Hanna were hauled up in the Clinical Lead's office having what appeared to be crisis talk. Resultantly the five of them had sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes in the back of the awaiting ambulance as Sam had tried to allow her disengaged brain to catch up on processing all the events that had occurred.

She brought to mind how shocked they all had been when she had quietly admitted that she had just resigned and when she watched them start to leap to her defence, apparently believing without question that she had been pushed rather than had jumped, she had argued back to make her point, railing at them all for their interference in her life despite their attempts to reason with her. She knew that her attitude towards them had been more than a little irrational, but if she was honest she had not been able to shut out the memory of Dylan wrapping his arms around her as he tried to take her pain away just minutes before. She remembered how she had insisted that she was going home and had roughly shaken off the strong grip of Jeff's hand on her wrist as he had attempted to prevent her departure. They had argued momentarily before she had managed to get her own way and the paramedics had relented on the proviso that she allowed them to drive her home and accompany her in. She had gone through the motions in allowing both Scarlett and Tom to pull her into an embrace, although she was sure that she had stood motionless and failed to respond to their touch, but eventually she had freed herself to clamber into the back of the ambulance where she seated herself with her arms tightly wrapped around her chest and her bag stuffed onto her lap in an act that was as much for protection and self-comfort as it was fear.

She recollected the moment the vehicle had come to a halt outside her flat and she had sprung out of her seat before Dixie could react ignoring the dull aching pain that had flown through her since she had tackled Mr Ellis to the ground. She had managed to race to her front door, rummaging for her keys as she had done so and somehow had gained entry to her flat before either of the two who had accompanied her got close enough to prevent her from slamming the door in their faces. She had stood leaning against the wall of her hallway breathing deeply for a few moments before the hammering had started as Jeff and Dixie made their displeasure at her escape from their supervision known to the entire street. Sam remembered how she had stood her ground and ordered the two of them to leave her alone, but it had only been when they had finally given up and left that she had allowed herself to slide down the wall into a sobbing mess on the floor as the tears yet again started to fall, but this time through self-imposed loneliness rather than fear.

Sam looked down beside her to the shelf next to the bathroom sink and spied the open bag of medical items that had been left there from her earlier attempts at treating her own wounds. She had managed to bring back a significant haul of emergency medical kit when she had left base after her last tour of duty, items that had come in more than useful on her first day out with the paramedics if her memory served her right. However since her assault it had been her own injuries that she had yet again come used to treating. Her fingers flicked to the scar on her arm that had strained slightly as she fell to the ground with her assailant earlier on, but she was pleased to see that it had remained closed and did not require redressing.

She looked down to study the now healed laceration with interest, reminding herself of all the times that she had treated her own injuries in the past much to the consternation of herself, and Dylan too when he had been present. Sam knew that she was supressing the urge she had to add to her collection of scars, but that was mainly out of fear of failing to pass her final fitness check on arrival at the army base. Her overwhelming desire to escape from the confines of Holby and back to the relative normality of her army routine was overriding any compulsion she had to do herself physical harm, even in the face of new bruises and aching ribs from the thud with which she had landed atop Mr Ellis.

She thought back to how she had come to sustain the various other injuries that littered her body, some of which were easily visible she noted as she stood in a strappy top studying her own reflection in the bathroom mirror. Sam reflected that she was fortunate that the ones that had not been caused by her own fair hand were usually just as hidden from the outside world by the oversized green scrubs she wore for the majority of her waking hours and therefore it had always been reasonably easy for her to hide the extent of her past traumas from those around her that had come close enough to be considered friends.

As she assessed the extent of the damage her new altercation had caused her battered skin, she could easily pick out the red raw and darkly bruised patches that were indicative of recently sustained injuries and despite her best efforts not to do so she found herself instantly recalling the paralysing fear that had overtaken her when Mr Ellis had begun assaulting her the previous week. The other marks that spread across her body were like a thousand little memories written out on her skin, each with its own individual story as to how it was received, but so barely visible that no one except those who knew to look would have ever even have known they existed.

The old abrasions and cuts that doused her upper body brought back vivid recollections of the field of war with each a reminder of time spent pinned to the ground in the midst of a fire fight en route to rescue casualties fresh from the battle with one particular scrape to her shoulder being instantly recognisable as where an insurgent bullet had grazed across her as she had dived for cover. She remembered how horrified Dylan had been to spy how close she had come to death out in Afghanistan, as he held her close when they basked in the glory of their reunion in a hotel room after her first tour of duty and how disbelieving he had been when she had insisted that being shot at had not actually pained her more.

Further marks she could see as she pulled up her top and examined the skin of her stomach reminded her of the fateful car crash and the after effects of broken glass tearing at her skin and piercing through, with her hand instinctively rising to the right side of her head were a slight raised bump remained hidden by her hairline from where she had slammed against the interior of the vehicle she had crashed without thought for the consequences for either herself or the man she had grown to love.

It was with hesitation that she allowed herself to run her fingers across some of the more self-inflicted injuries, scars that had appeared on her upper arms and abdomen overnight following momentously overwhelming days in her life. She recalled the night after her mum's funeral when her father had packed his bags to return to base, leaving her totally alone in the family home and failing to even phone her to confirm his safe arrival. Those few weeks as she packed up all of their possessions into crates before heading off to university as if nothing untoward had occurred had been some of the loneliest of her life and she had only grown to cope by finding increasingly secretive methods to punish herself for the mess she had allowed her life to spiral into. She knew that it had been Ash's presence at her side that had saved her from falling further into a pit of despair, but she hated even having to admit that to herself given all that had happened subsequently.

The aftermath of that fateful day years later when she had finally drunk Dylan into bed with her and set off a chain reaction she had been unable to prevent had definitely been the darkest days of her life thus far but it had been her inability to manage her emotions without the crutch of Dylan's strength by her side that had led her to take risks with her own safety. That this had culminated in a near fatal road accident left her with an unnerving sense of guilt over her actions that had kept her behaviour under control even throughout her split with her husband a year before, her remembering Dylan's insistence that he would have to report her erratic behaviour for her own safety if he had the merest hint of recurrence, an act which left her burying herself in the army once again.

It had left her scared that since her assault she had allowed herself in fleeting moments to reiterate some of her past history and take out her deafening fear on her own physical self, but in truth she was well aware that it was not what had happened recently but the memories it had dragged up that was causing her to act in such a manner. Seeing Mr Ellis walking through the E.D. as if it was perfectly rational for him to be gate-crashing her world once more had caused something in her to snap and she had relished taking the opportunity to inflict pain on a man who had forced her to face the horrors of her past and who represented everything that had gone wrong in her life. The fact that she hurt herself in the process, tearing at the injuries deep inside from his own assault on her, had given her a present day focus and enabled her to channel everything she was feeling into a strangely disconcerting physical manifestation rather than an emotional one. That she would have kept pummelling the man until she killed him if she had not been dragged off only showed her quite how far removed from the realities of her life in England she had allowed herself to become.

She thought back to her childhood spent on army bases around the UK, moving frequently at the behest of her high ranking father. Sam knew that the lack of consistency in schooling had led her to keep isolated from her peers but this had been mitigated by how outgoing her mum had always been. She remembered how her mum had always been the life and soul of every party and how this had allowed her to grow in confidence at her side, leaving her able to enjoy a good night out with friends and the student life when she had finally settled in to university. It had been when her mum had died that summer after her A-Level exams that she had realised how lonely her life had truly become, having never really taken into consideration as she turned from child to adolescent to young adult that her father had never really taken to the role of husband or parent to either of them in any useful way. His cold dismissal of her tears and his ease in walking away to return to work within days of his wife's death had taught Sam all she had ever needed to know about love and relationships amongst adults, something she had always held onto deep inside to protect herself from coming to harm in the face of people leaving her in the future.

Sam rubbed at her wrist with irritation at how obvious the healing deep laceration would outwardly remain for the foreseeable future, despite knowing that she had a valid explanation for its appearance on her skin. She tried to divert her mind's attention elsewhere but her head was awash with the tormented memories of her screwed up and confusing history of connections with people she had allowed herself to love over the passing of years. She knew that she had been right to tell Dylan he could not get inside her head and make it stop, but she was certain that it had been unfair of her to expect him to be able to do so in the first place. She recalled that he had once promised her so much, even when she had no right to ask and was nowhere near worthy of his presence at her side, and that he had stood by her throughout it all right up until one moment of weakness when he had lied, most likely to protect her from further heartache and spare her the pain of his own fallibility.

Sam remembered how she had no right to be angry at him for his night with Zoe, given how she had lashed out at him by having the fling that had ended her marriage, but she knew deep down that that night had been an act of self-punishment on her part by forcing him to be the one that walked away. Her real issue over his entanglement with Dr Hanna had not actually been that it occurred, more that he had behaved towards Zoe the same way he had with her their very first time and the results of that on Sam had been so devastating that she knew she would never recover from them. That Dylan knew that and still treated the other woman so similarly left her feeling a deep sense of unease at how badly things could have turned out, but also gave her a reason to stop and consider how differently her life could have been if she had not acted so provocatively as she had done when Dylan had hurt her back then.

She was certain that she would never forgive him for lying to her, but she had never anticipated that four years on the promises he had made to her when she had been critically injured in a hospital bed would still be valid anyway. He had given up alcohol for her, he had allowed her to leave when she had needed to go and for the duration of their marriage he had avoided lying to her by giving her no reason to ask him for the truth, but regardless of how he had kept the promises she knew that he had managed to stay faithful to them in a way she had never managed to do with her own to him, especially her marital vows.

Sam found herself staring at her reflection in the mirror once again and whilst all she wanted was to see the tough army medic, brave as hell and determined, staring back, instead she saw the watery mess of a crying young woman who had allowed herself to silently sob as she buried herself deep in thoughts of the past. She recalled how Dylan had once held her close and told her he admired her courage, before she had laughed him off and told him that the army made it her job to be brave. She knew that the moment he had profoundly told her that he meant she was courageous every single day was one of those that would live with her forever as she remembered the stunned silence that had followed in the wake of that remark, with Sam still struggling to this day to comprehend just how much that had meant to her.

She rubbed her head slightly as she realised how bad a headache had now developed deep within her mind and as she shook herself to throw off her depressing mood, she had to acknowledge quite how tensed up her muscles were, seemingly from the effort of earlier tackling Mr Ellis to the ground and the subsequent thud of bones as they landed. Sam grabbed for the door of the cabinet in front of her and stared at the unopened box of painkillers Zoe had provided her with ten days before. She had never wanted them and she would never have taken them, preferring to cope with the physical pain rather than consider any emotional impact the events would have had on her. Nevertheless her head was now thumping so hard she could barely think straight and she knew that these would be strong enough to take that hurt away.

She removed the packet from the small cupboard before closing the door and exiting the bathroom, heading into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water from the taps. Absentmindedly she removed the plastic packaging from the box and stared straight out of her kitchen window, as she allowed herself to consider that she did not feel brave anymore. Sam looked down at the sideboard and realised that rather than just removing one pill, she had popped out at least eight from the sealed pods and as she stared at them intently she wondered quite why her unconscious mind had this habit of placing temptation directly in her path.

Sam picked up the first pill from the line she had placed in front of her and put it in her mouth, bringing the glass of water to her lips and allowing the cool liquid to swirl around in her mouth as she swallowed the painkiller whole. She poured a second glass of water from the taps and found herself studying the remaining selection of pills on the side as she hesitated momentarily. Sam let her thoughts travel fleetingly to her husband, imagining the strength of his warm arms wrapped around her to give her hope, and considered that Dylan would be so disappointed in her from this point on because she was not his courageous girl right now and she no longer could be.

Sorry for leaving it there, but it had to be done. I promise you that next update will give you the answers you have been waiting for and I will be interested to know if any of you have got a handle on where this fic is about to go.

The next chapter will be up in a few days and I hope it is worth the wait. Thank you for reading as ever and I would be so grateful for reviews - a few more and I hit 100, which will make me smile more than you will ever know!

Love to you all. Callie x