Sorry for the delay in posting this up, but this is a bit of a mammoth update and the emotive nature of the subject matter took me a long time to get right. I was not prepared to post this up half heartedly, it had to feel right and I'm sure you will understand that as you read. This update will finally give you some of the answers you have been asking for, in fact it is the focus I have been heading to the entire fic and therefore I am hoping it does not disappoint.
Thank you to everyone for reading, reviewing and tweeting about the last update and to all of those who have shared writing with me in the last few weeks (new writers and ones I have been reading myself for months), I've really enjoyed all the discussions about the process and love of fanfic writing. Extra special mentions go to my girlie Megan for being brave enough to post up her fic, for the tweeting fangirls I've been obsessing with on Twitter over Casualty clips (you know who you are), to Meggi for being a star, for Ficmouse for being my sounding board and for Anny, for just being you and for sharing 4am with me on too many occasions this week, especially my traumatised mood over this update. Plus lastly this update is dedicated to a lady called Alison who left me the most amazing review which almost made me cry - if you read this, please find a way to get in touch with me. I'd love to talk to you.
Right, so here we go with the next update. Please note: This chapter is about pain, it references rape, self harm and all the unpleasant things I've spoken about before in this fic, only in more detail. Just be aware of that. Please. Love you all. Callie x
To look out for you
The definition of pain
Pain: noun; highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury, mental suffering or distress
Sam Nicholls
Sam wondered back into the living room fresh from the shower she had desperately needed to feel clean following thoughts of the past dominating her mind and allowed herself to consider the unnerving strangeness of the situation she now faced. She could hear the man that primarily was her boss, but was also someone that she both cared deeply for yet had just ranted at before breaking down in his arms, banging about in her kitchen and she felt a sense of guilt at the mess and destruction she had left him to clear up. She stood in the centre of her living space, dressed simply in her checked pyjama bottoms and an oversized hooded top, with her still damp hair hanging limply down her back and surveyed the scene in front of her before clambering into the midst of her duvet that inexplicably had come to find itself on the floor by her sofa and drew it around her for warmth and comfort.
"How are you feeling?" Nick's voice came from behind her and she turned to see him entering the room with two steaming mugs and a plate balanced carefully in his hands. "Sorry daft question," he added with a slight shake of the head as if he wanted to take back what he had just said and Sam instinctively found herself thinking that even doctors could struggle to find the words when their patient was someone they knew well. She shot him back a small smile in an act of reassurance before she took the mug and plate she was being offered. "It's hot chocolate," Nick interjected on seeing her bemused expression. "It was in the cupboard so I assumed you liked it and I thought it might be more, um, soothing than just coffee," he continued with apparent uncertainty.
"Thank you," Sam responded simply, appreciative of his efforts to take care of her despite her usual dismissal of such acts of kindness before she gratefully took a sip of the sweet liquid and then a mouthful of the crispy toast that adorned the plate, remembering that it had been quite a while since she had allowed sustenance of any sort to pass her lips with the exception of highly caffeinated drinks. She looked back up at the man standing awkwardly in front of her before shuffling sideways in her cocoon so that he could start to sit down and as she nibbled on the food she couldn't help but note how stressed out and tired Nick Jordan appeared to be, with his shirt sleeves rolled up in work mode but with the unusual sight of water stains evident from her complete disintegration in his arms just earlier on.
"Let me take a look at that," Nick stated, reaching over to place her mug down on the floor the other side of her and taking hold of the badly gashed hand that she had roughly strapped up before entering the shower. "Your first aid kit is rather interesting by the way," he elaborated with a slightly pointed tone, causing Sam to look away from his gaze as she realised he appeared to have sourced several items from her army medical supply stash at some point since she had sliced herself on the broken crockery a short time before.
She watched with interest as the man she had definitely come to think of as the only father she had that counted, regardless of her earlier words to the contrary, begun re-dressing the deep wound across her palm and felt an odd sense of calm settle across her for the first time in ten days, which she realised with a tinge of sadness was because she finally felt safe for the first time since Mr Ellis, and her belief of Dylan's relationship with Zoe, had knocked her sideways.
"I owe you an explanation about Ash," she started, realising that for the first time since the awful events of four years ago had occurred she was willing to speak aloud about them to someone other than the husband who had stood by her throughout it all.
"You don't owe me anything Sam," Nick replied with such a sympathetic tone that she felt the tears prickle the back of eyes once more before she furiously blinked them away. If there was only one thing that she was certain of it was that if she was going to speak about Ash's part in her life back then she would not give him the satisfaction of crying over his role in her downfall as she did so. "But if you want to tell me, I'm right here and ready to listen, and I would consider it an honour that you trusted me enough to confide in me," Nick stated without any force and she looked down at him gently squeezing her arm to indicate he was very much present by her side.
"Dylan always felt it was his fault you know?" she started, gaining the full attention of her companion as she did so. "But it wasn't, it was never his fault. Not even a little bit," she continued with sadness as she remembered. "He was our mentor though so had been charged with our care and I think he just couldn't get past feeling like he failed me when actually he was the one thing that saved my life," she concluded with despair.
"Ashley worked with you both then?" Nick questioned, still busying himself dressing her hand and Sam found herself grateful that she would be spared the indignity of seeing the empathy in his eyes as she spoke.
"Yeah," she began slowly, carefully allowing the memories to come flooding back as she took deep breaths to steady her nerves. "We started our placements at the same time and we were both allocated to work under Dylan for reasons I never quite understood," she explained. "I'd been to med school with Ash you see and over the years we had become really good friends," she continued, remembering all the term breaks when their fellow students had returned home to their families and the two of them had been left alone in halls without another person in the world to turn to except each other having no real family of their own to speak of. "We both liked a good night out, drinking everyone else under the table and living it up. You know what med students are like I'm sure?" she queried and met Nick's brief gaze with a wry smile as they somehow managed in spite of the seriousness of the conversation to share a brief moment of amusement at the drunken antics young doctors were renowned for.
"So Ash was a friend of yours before all this then?" Nick asked and Sam was sure that she could hear a horrified reluctance in his tone on this fact becoming apparent to him for the first time.
"The only one I had ever really had," Sam answered quietly. "I did have people around me at university, don't get me wrong, but there was no one who understood quite like he seemed to and we just clicked," she justified, despite feeling nauseous at her own defence of her previous friendship with the man that had caused her so much harm. "But everything changed the day I met Dylan, it really did," she continued, reminiscing immediately about that first meeting with the man she had loved in a heartbeat. "He walked straight through the department as if the two of us weren't there and I don't think I could decide if he was a mad scientific genius or the Sherlock Holmes of medicine, but I knew that being around him was addictive and I was hooked from day one," she described, closing her eyes to picture in her mind how those first few weeks together had played out as she had fallen more and more deeply for her mentor regardless of knowing how wrong those feelings were. "He only ever called me 'you' or 'thingy' for ages and it almost felt like a challenge he was setting down, like I had to prove I was good enough for him to remember my name."
"How long did it take him to notice you then?" Nick interrupted, prompting Sam's memories to skip forward a month or so from that first meeting.
"Ash and I made different calls in resus and Dylan gave me the go ahead to proceed with mine even though it sounded riskier," she found herself explaining. "When it came good against all the odds he just nodded at me and called me 'Samantha', and even though it sounds so insignificant now you know what he is like and hearing him just say my name like that nearly caused me to fall over," she added softly, recalling without hesitation how carefully he had defined her name that very first time he had uttered it as if the syllables were alien to his tongue. "I'd already fallen for him long before that, but after I couldn't get him out of my head," she admitted sheepishly. "He was gruff and grumpy and he demanded excellence in every single diagnosis even if it meant him standing there staring at me until I eventually came up with the right answer but all that meant was I spent every spare moment of time I had pouring over text books he had mentioned or staying up all night researching techniques most E.D. docs would never have even heard of," she clarified, before wincing slightly as Mr Jordan tightened the newly wrapped bandage around her hand and shot her a small apologetic look as he did so.
"You were obviously very close," he stated without any pointed slant on his words she noted, unlike the tone others had used in the past when talking about her relationship with her husband. "Was Ash jealous of all this time you were spending together?" he asked, causing Sam to take a deep breath and chew down hard on her lip as she recollected the turn of events.
"Ash didn't understand my fascination with Dylan," she stated in reply. "And he was always so angry with him for being hard on me, even though I never asked him to keep jumping to my defence," she continued before pausing slightly. "I don't know if he was jealous," she acknowledged. "All I do know is that Dylan was in a bad way back then, he was erratic and all over the place because of his drinking but I was too close to see any of that. I covered for him once or twice when he seemed completely out of it, but I just assumed it was the pressure of work getting to him not that he actually had a problem with alcohol," she recalled with a sense of regret. Sam still could not believe how she had not spotted the alcohol fuelled chaos that had blighted Dr Keogh's life back then, but a lifetime of watching drunken squaddies falling about on the various army bases her father had dragged her to live on as a child had definitely coloured her view of what constituted an alcohol problem before she had actually been confronted with one. "Ash was far more detached from it all than I was so maybe he could see that more clearly, but he used to get really annoyed when I protected Dylan and because I was working night and day to make an impression Ash and I started drifting apart even though we worked together all the time."
"So, what happened next?" Nick enquired, prompting Sam to realise that she had trailed off deep into thought and she snapped her head round to look at him in surprise at the interruption to the words swirling inside her head. "If you're still alright to keep telling me that is?" he asked with an air of insecurity.
"There was an awful accident and Dylan and I got dragged out to the scene to help," she remembered aloud, thinking back to the horror of the crash site she had seen that day, a memory that had never left her despite her fondness for being in the thick of things on call outside the E.D. in recent years. "It was the first time I had been out on site and when my patient died in my arms it was all I could do not to go to pieces," she confessed, more to herself than the other person in the room who was now staring at her intently. "As soon as we got back to the hospital I clocked off shift and headed straight for the pub and that's where Dylan found me a few hours later trying to drink away the pain inside my head," she disclosed frankly. "He walked me home back to where loads of us lived in student digs at the back of the hospital and he came in to sober me up a bit so we could have a debrief," she continued, scrunching up her eyes as she buried herself back in the memory of that particularly awful day. She thought back to the moment he had ordered her into the shower to wake her up and how she had exited wrapped in no more than a towel to find him sitting uncomfortably perched on the edge of her bed, as she had no real seating area to speak of, coffee mugs in both hands before they sat in silence for a while drinking their mutually favoured drink. She recalled how embarrassed she had been as she watched him spy all the medical text books and research papers that littered her room, each one selected purely because of his penchant for mentioning it to her in the preceding few weeks.
"I made an awkward pass at him," she added, recollecting the moment she had stood up quickly to remove herself from the awkwardness of the situation only to have him join her just as fast, with the two of them coming to pause only centimetres apart facing each other before she instinctively tipped her head upwards and clumsily kissed his cheek. "I wasn't drunk, no matter what he thought," she chipped in, as a defence of the man who she knew had always believed against her protestations had taken advantage despite the fact that they both were well aware she had been the one to instigate that first passionate encounter. She drifted back to thoughts of how strong his hands had felt around the back of her head as his fingers intertwined with her wet hair and his mouth met hers in a deep caress until he had dropped them down to remove her towel and how she had gasped at how exposed she felt under his gaze with her battery of old scars evident across her body. "He told me I was beautiful," she remembered fondly but with heartbreak at the same time, as she recalled the moment he had lain her back on the bed and made her feel invincible under his tender touch.
"But the next day it was as if it hadn't even happened," she said, pushing down the wave of emotion that threatened to engulf her. "He just laughed it off like nothing had happened and whilst I know now that it was because he was scared of opening up to me when he was in such a mess, back then I just thought he'd used me to get what he wanted," she continued to explain, still refusing to meet her companion's eye as she heard the cruel laugh Dylan had elicited that morning play out in her head as if it were mocking her once again. "He'd told me I was beautiful," she echoed her earlier words, remembering the anger she had felt at feeling betrayed by him lying just to get her into bed, especially as she had always believed that sex should mean more than a drunken fumble. "And I was so embarrassed at how easily I'd let him get what he wanted," she concluded. "But I couldn't go back and change what happened, so I just went to work as if nothing was wrong even though it stung so badly. Ash stuck by my side that shift and I remember thinking how lovely he was, what a good friend he was, how much I should never have pushed him away," she added. "That night there was due to be a charity event at the hospital for the new cancer wing and we'd all had our arms twisted into going, but I really wasn't in the mood after what had happened. Ash persuaded me to go; he even borrowed me a killer black dress from one of the nurses so I looked the part," she continued. "We walked in together arm in arm and I spent the night getting drunk by his side," she ended, remembering how she had spent most of the evening focused on Dylan's stoic form across the room in spite of her best efforts as she had watched him being as socially inept as she now knew him to be and stand away from everyone else as he suffered his forced imprisonment in the party atmosphere.
"Was it that night that Ash, um, that he, you know?" Nick prompted, but obviously struggled to find the appropriate words.
"That he raped me?" Sam responded bluntly, before nodding. "Yes, yes it was. We walked back to the flats together, Ash lived just down the corridor to me you see," she clarified. "I'd had a bit to drink so he said he'd see me indoors and the next thing I know he had followed me into the room," she continued, hearing her heart pound in her chest at the weight of the memory that was bearing down on her. "He kissed me, but I laughed him off. He was more like a brother to me than anything else you know?" she stated expectantly and felt relief to see Nick nod in an acknowledgment of understanding. "I had never once thought about him like that, but he suddenly got all serious and started telling me about all the times I led him on," she recalled, thinking back to him citing his witnessing her one night stand on her 21st birthday as an example of how she was quite prepared to sleep around with other people. "He had seen Dylan come home with me the night before and he said after all the times he stood by me, it was only right I finally gave him what he wanted," she explained, pushing from her mind the best she could the awful words Ash had whispered in her ear about her reckless fling with their mentor as he had shoved her back towards the bed she had shared with the man she loved only twenty four hours before. "I always thought I was strong, physically I mean, but that night I'd been drinking and I was so confused," she added, trying to make the point that she had never expected not to be safe in Ash's company and therefore her defences had already been down when he made his aggressive move. "I fought him off the best I could, but he kept kissing me and pulling at my clothes, and he was pushing me backwards until he fell on top of me," she recollected with horror, instinctively squeezing her fingers into her palms as she did so and grimacing in pain as she pushed straight into the bandaged laceration across her palm as she remembered how she had tried to fight him off her and had struggled in his grasp as she turned her head away from his tirade of violent kisses. "I kept saying no and I told him to stop, but he had hold of my wrists, he wouldn't let go and there was nothing I could do, there was nothing I could do," she finished sadly, gulping down the bile that had risen in her throat and forcing her fingers further into the wound until she found Nick's hand grasped around her own and his touch stroking her skin in comfort and preventing her from causing herself further harm.
"You did everything you could Sam," Mr Jordan stated from beside her, his tone reassuring but it sounded as if he was close to tears on hearing her words. "This wasn't your fault."
"I didn't fight him off though, not really," Sam admitted desolately as she reflected back on the moment she had frozen underneath his weight in spite of her fear as he had released her wrists and had turned his attention to pushing the tight material of her uncomfortable borrowed black dress up around her thighs, tearing both it and her tights as he did so, before turning his attention to removing his own clothing. "I should have been strong enough to push him away, but I didn't do anything," she added. "I just lay there and let him rape me," she concluded, choking on the words.
"You were scared, you had every right to be," Nick replied with compassion, squeezing her hand tightly with his own. "You trusted him and he totally betrayed the friendship the two of you had. He violated you," he furthered, pausing before continuing. "He had no right to do what he did to you, none at all."
"I was so frightened," she found herself replying with an honesty she wasn't used to giving herself let alone another human being, even Dylan. "It was as if everything I thought I knew just got turned upside down and there was nothing I could do. I just wanted to run but I had nowhere to go."
"Can I be frank with you?" Nick asked her earnestly and as she met his eyes to give him a silent permission to continue she recognised a sadness that she had once seen in her husband every time he had held her as she cried herself to sleep locked in the nightmares of that fateful night. "As I've got to know you I couldn't help but wonder what it was that stopped you from trusting us. I thought perhaps you were just guarded after what happened with Dylan, but somehow I knew there was more to it than that," he continued. "I didn't realise he was your husband at first but let's just say I wasn't as surprised as some of the others to find out that this was indeed the case. There was something about the way you instinctively trusted him and his judgement, which given what Dr Keogh is like with most people I didn't understand," he elaborated, clearly trying to explain his point to her. "I guess what I'm saying is that whilst I knew things were difficult between the two of you it wasn't him you were running from and all I've been able to hope ever since, was that one day you would realise I wasn't going anywhere and you could trust me too," he concluded, closing his eyes briefly and causing Sam to bite down a sob that threatened to escape her on her recognition of quite how much this man cared for her.
"I'm sorry for not trusting you until now," she responded hoarsely, emotion coursing through her veins and filling her heart more rapidly than she felt able to deal with but finding herself coming once again under the compassionate gaze of her father figure.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," he answered with a simplicity that made her want to cry as he allowed his hand to release its tight grip on her and she found herself watching as their fingers flicked together until they were securely intertwined. "I understand," he added, "I just wish there was something I could do to take it all away."
"You're here aren't you?" Sam interjected. "I've never had enough faith in anyone else except Dylan to even start telling them any of this, believe me," she explained. "I guess I never needed anyone else until I realised I was losing him too, but by then I thought I was better off dealing with it on my own," she concluded, knowing that she had thought she had long since dealt with the trauma by wrapping it up tightly and burying it deeply inside, but recognised now that by failing to face it she had only caused the pain to engulf her and Ash's actions had been allowed to control her thoughts and colour her view of the world around her far more than she would ever before have accepted they had done. "I thought if I distanced myself from it then it would go away, that it would be easier that way," she admitted for the first time. "I hated that I had allowed him to make me feel so fragile."
"Did you ever get any help?" Nick questioned, looking to her for an answer but one she felt unable to give him without offering further explanation. "Did you report it to the police?"
"I didn't go to work the next day," she started, remembering how she had sat motionless on her bed with her duvet wrapped around her after she had bolted the door as soon as he left. "I never even called in; I just couldn't face dealing with anyone or anything. The next thing I knew it was lunchtime and Dylan was kicking my door down," she explained, as the memory of him walking in on her hysterical with fright at the sudden disturbance and still in a state of undress from where Ash had forcibly removed her clothes threatened to overwhelm her. "I don't know how he knew something was wrong, but somehow he didn't need me to tell him," she continued, thinking back to how Dylan had drawn her into his arms and held her close in his warm embrace for hours as she cried. She knew that it had been fear rather than love that had allowed her to let him be so close, remembering how she had tried to push the thoughts of how damaged she was out of her mind as he had rocked her gently and whispered into her hair as Nick Jordan had done when she broke down not long ago. "He took me to the police station and they took a statement, but it was pretty obvious that they weren't going to pursue it," she added, before acknowledging her companions surprise. "What? Within the space of a day I had 'slept' with two men," she described, adding emphasis on the word slept as she knew that this was not how she would want Ash's actions towards her explained away. "I'd been under the influence of alcohol on both occasions and they had both been colleagues, yet one was consensual and one was rape. If you were the one charged with looking into that case what chances of conviction do you think you would have?" she queried pointedly, knowing that Nick would have no satisfactory answer for her. Sam allowed herself to bring to mind the moment she had realised that the police would not be going after Ash for his assault and how she knew she had lost any chance she had of mentally gaining the upper hand with him instantaneously. However she recalled that it had been Dylan's reaction that had shocked her the most, as she had watched the man argue viciously with the allocated detective about his lack of professionalism and had tried to dispute the difference between his own liaison with her and Ash's subsequent attack. His defence that their own night together had been 'an intensely personal experience that he did not wish to discuss but meant far more too him than a one night stand' had only confused her further though, as if anything at that point in time she had been clearer on where she stood with her rapist, in recognising their intimacy for the assault that it was, than she had been about her connection with the man she actually loved who had brushed her aside the morning before.
"So if the police didn't pursue the case, did you have to continue working with him?" Nick asked with revulsion, stroking the back of her hand with his fingers almost absentmindedly and causing her to nod.
"Don't get me wrong, I really didn't want to but what choice did I have?" Sam responded. "I had to pass my initial placement and Dylan was adamant that I shouldn't let Ash take that away from me too," she continued, remembering the argument that had occurred when she had been resolute to just walking away even though they had both known she had nowhere else to go. "I couldn't bear to stay back at my digs with him just down the corridor so Dylan made the decision that I was better off in his spare room where he could supervise me," she explained. "I hated that I needed him so much but I think he knew that I was lying when I said I was coping to be fair," she added, recalling the nights when inexplicably the dog she had come to love as her own had appeared on her bed despite her bedroom door apparently having remained closed in her absence and she had known Dylan realised how much comfort she drew from having Dervla sleeping by her side as she cried herself to sleep. "But me being there just gave him something else to worry about and every day when we got home he used to get steadily more drunk even though he knew it was freaking me out," she described, remembering with regret the nights she had been forced to leave him to sleep off yet another drinking binge after covering his sleeping form on the couch with a blanket. "I kept telling him he couldn't go on like this, but I wasn't strong enough to keep my own head above the water let alone his as well."
"Was that when the complaint was made against him?" Nick questioned, causing Sam to look at him in alarm. "It was in his file," he explained simply and she found herself acknowledging that point with a dip of the head.
"Everyone found out I was living with him which just made the situation worse, because of course they all assumed that he had taken advantage and suddenly I wasn't allowed to be his student anymore," she stated dismissively. "Dylan tried to argue with them but I was determined they wouldn't find out what had happened so we just had to accept the decision. He hated that suddenly we were on different shifts and I knew he was finding it difficult to work with Ash, but he had always seemed so strong that I just thought he could cope," she admitted reluctantly, not wanting to recollect her own failure to spot how quickly the situation had deteriorated when she wasn't looking in his direction. "He got drunk before a night shift and when Ash made a mistake he was quick to drop him in it so the next thing I knew Dylan was threatened with suspension," she recalled, breathing deeply as she remembered the awful row that had occurred between them when she had tried to apologise for her part in what had happened against Dr Keogh's insistence that none of it had been her fault.
"The GMC found in his favour in the end though," Nick interjected, pulling her from her thoughts.
"Not before his reputation was completely destroyed though," Sam snapped back, instantly feeling awful for her harsh tone. "He would never tell you that it mattered to him, but in those last few weeks whilst they investigated I watched him get pushed so close to the edge under everyone's gaze," she continued. "It made me sick that Ash was getting a kick out of punishing Dylan because of me but then he made a point of telling everyone me and him had had a one night stand and they all just believed him. Everyone was talking about me and I couldn't take the pressure anymore," she explained. "I knew things were disintegrating around me, but I just couldn't bring myself to care. I just wanted the pain to stop."
"Dylan said you crashed your car," Nick stated without a pause and Sam wondered quite how much of their past her husband had thought to disclose to this man without her consent, but found it oddly comforting he had been able to finally open up to someone after all of these years of silence.
"I'd only had the car a few months," she recalled, thinking back to the beautiful light blue mini that had briefly been her pride and joy. "It was the first thing I had ever saved up for and bought myself, so it meant the world to me," she clarified, knowing that she had deliberately made the decision not to own another vehicle since the accident to prevent any chance of a recurrence of the events of that night. "I don't remember much about what happened after that but I do know they had to put me in restraints when I got to the hospital," she said with embarrassment, as she brought to mind how she had lashed out at those around her who had tried to help as the memories of the rape had threatened to overwhelm her semi-conscious mind.
"You were scared, which is perfectly understandable given the circumstances," Nick responded cautiously.
"I guess," Sam admitted after considering the possibility of such a suggestion. "The first thing I really remember is Dylan holding me down on the hospital bed and asking me to trust him," she recalled. "It was the first time anyone had grabbed hold of me since that night, but somehow I wasn't frightened," she explained and thought back to how gentle Dylan's touch had felt against her wrists despite his actions directly echoing the violence perpetrated against her by Ash a mere matter of weeks beforehand. "He knew it wasn't an accident without me saying anything," she disclosed. "I don't know whether I was actually trying to harm myself or whether I just decided not to take any action to save myself," she confessed, remembering the initial disappointment she had felt on coming to in the E.D. and recalled letting go of the steering wheel as her car headed into the trees. "I just wanted to be someone else, someone stronger."
"I'm sure you gave Dylan quite a fright," Nick responded. "You've already given me a scare with those pills Sam, you can't keep doing this to yourself," he added, reminding her of how just hours ago she had been determined to take an overdose to end the torment inside her mind before the indescribably awful taste of the painkillers as she had struggled to get them down had forced her to reconsider what she was doing. Her gag reflex had luckily been instantaneous but she knew that the tears that had streamed down her cheeks had been more from fear at the act she had just tried to commit than they had been about the nausea that had overtaken her as she vomited into the kitchen sink.
"Dylan told me I was beautiful again that day in the hospital," Sam replied, ignoring the words the man by her side had just spoken because she could not admit to him yet how true they were. "I got so annoyed with him for lying to me just like he'd done before after everything we'd been through, but he said he wasn't," she added and remembered how sad her closest confidante at the time had looked when she admitted that despite it all she had not been able to trust his honesty and how he looked wounded on hearing her cite that declaration as something that had led to her being vulnerable to Ash's actions. "He said he would make me three promises and no matter what else happened, he would always stick to them even if everything changed," she added. "He promised he would never lie to me. He promised he would never drink again. He promised that he would never leave my side until I was ready to walk away," she listed, recalling the moment Dylan had made it clear to her despite her assertions to the contrary that he knew one day she would want her freedom back and he would never prevent her from going, just that he would always hope she would one day return to his side. "He told me I was beautiful again," she added, remembering how somehow it had made sense for her to accept that compliment from him given the intensity of the look he had given her. "And he told me he loved me," she concluded, knowing that this had been when he had drawn her into the softest of kisses and had held her tightly in his embrace for what had felt like forever whilst carefully avoiding aggravating the injuries from the accident that covered her from head to toe.
"So much had happened that we couldn't stay where we were," Sam mused, breaking the silence that had settled across the room. "He had missed his exams whilst I was in hospital and there was no way we could stay working with Ash," she remembered aloud. "Dylan decided that he needed to get away from the pressure of the E.D. to sort himself out and the next thing I knew he was whisking us off to his new GP position not far from here," she stated. "He pulled a few strings and got me a new placement without even running it past me first," she continued, as she thought back to how she had tried so hard to be annoyed at him for not even consulting her on the massive upheaval he was putting them both through but failing because she had been ever so slightly stunned that he was taking her with him without question and for the fact that he had continually looked out for her ever since that date she was eternally grateful. That they had subsequently ended up married had been an unexpected development on her part at least she was sure, but whilst she had never been anything other than happy in his arms she had always had the niggling doubt at the back of her mind that her husband had only taken on the role of her protector because of a misguided sense of responsibility and guilt induced duty to guard her from further harm.
"That reminds me, I managed to rescue this by the way," she heard Nick speak from beside her and she found herself staring at the photograph that she had earlier crumpled in her hand which now appeared to be flattened out as best as her boss could manage. Sam found herself reaching out to take the picture that had massive sentimental value to her, having been taken on the day Dylan had proposed after she had successfully passed her army medic interview and he had declared himself the proudest man alive despite having previously derided her career choice as utter insanity. She had never been quite sure whether this was due to his lack of respect for the armed forces or because her other half had certainly not anticipated that his time investment in her career development would be apparently wasted in a recklessly dangerous environment with limited options for progression.
"Thank you," she finally responded. "It's one of the only photos I kept from back then," she added, remembering how neither her and Dylan had been big on sentiment and the necessity to take photographs had only occurred to them on momentous days such as that one for the reason Sam was sure they both intended to purely capture precious memories of a life together they both had known would be short lived.
"I couldn't save the crockery though," Nick stated with what she felt may have been a hint of regret. "I binned the broken mugs and a few other things, but I salvaged as much of the sugar cup as I could," he continued, forcing Sam to look at him with intrigue at why he would have made such an effort to pick those delicate pieces out of the terrible mess she had strewn across the floor in her rage. "It just looked like it might have mattered, that's all. I thought it might mean something to you."
"It was my mum's," she responded feeling her voice crackle with sadness as she did so in memory of the woman she had loved more than any other who had been cruelly snatched away long before she would have been ready to lose her if she had ever been given the choice. "It was part of a set my parents were given for their wedding, it was the only bit that was left unbroken after he walked out," she added to clarify the situation as her mind forced her to relive the awful row that occurred when her mum had finally confessed far too late that she was dying from cancer and had mere weeks to live. That she had kept it secret from the world to give her only child the best chance of passing her exams and getting into medical school and in doing so had also failed to call her own husband back from war to support her had been the final nail in Sam's parents' marriage, of that she was fully aware, but it had been the vicious anger her dad had demonstrated in trashing every symbol of their unhappy union as he had left them both behind that had broken her heart for the very first time. She recalled how that night after she had held her mum as she cried herself to sleep she had snuck back downstairs to clear up the damage left behind and cut her palm so badly on broken crockery she had almost needed to call for an ambulance but had instead decided the physical pain had been a reasonable replacement for the devastation inside her head. She recollected that she had just about coped with managing her emotions until she went to dump some of the smashed dinner set into a cardboard box and had found the undamaged sugar pot hidden underneath some other items. She thought back to how small and vulnerable it was and how it had felt somehow familiar in her hands before its very survival against the odds had finally caused her to break and she had allowed herself to dissolve into uncontrollable, silent sobs over the mum she had been about to lose. The little piece of crockery had been one of the only things she had kept safe from her past in storage with the bare essentials she required to restart life wherever it chose to take her and that it was now as destroyed as everything else she had ever come to touch broke her heart once again, just as it had been that very day.
"He never believed me you know," Sam said, startling herself as much as Nick that she had allowed her trail of thought to drop long enough for her to speak. "My dad I mean," she added to ensure her statement made sense. "Dylan called his base from the police station and he just said he couldn't deal with my issues at that moment. The next time we called back he'd been sent to Baghdad to negotiate with the American's about handover schedules," she justified, feeling sick as she remembered the look on Dylan's face as he had tried to break that piece of news to her without it hitting her too hard.
"What about since then?" Nick asked, apparently interested in her troubled relationship with the man she barely considered more than a biological parent rather than her dad. "Have you talked it through with him?"
"No," she replied truthfully, recalling the many times she had attempted to call him or even write him a letter to inform him of her situation but had changed her mind before pursuing it further. "He sends me a Christmas card, struggles to remember my birthday and somehow forgot to mention how proud he was that I finally achieved my ambition of following him to war," she continued, failing to supress the bitterness in her tone as she did so. "He was never any good at emotions or feelings, we just didn't do that type of thing much in my house I guess," she stated. "I used to joke that in falling for Dylan I had gone for someone just like my dad, but Dylan was never cruel and he never just abandoned me when I needed him, no matter how many times I gave him reason to. Even now."
"I think Dylan still wants to be there and look out for you Sam, but I genuinely think that he doesn't know what to do for the best," Nick pointed out, with his words making sense to her despite the confusion running through her mind. "Your eyes light up when you see him, you know?" he stated, nudging her slightly and causing her to giggle at that thought. "I think he feels he has to fix it all and we both know it isn't that simple, but he really seems to be struggling to see you like this," he added more seriously.
"He always thought he had to save me," she explained, suddenly unsure as to how she felt about the circumstances she was in. "I clung onto him so tightly and I don't think I ever really thought about how unfair it was of me to put him under so much pressure, but I was just so grateful to him for giving me back my life when I honestly didn't think I had one that was worth living," she elaborated, realising how incredibly angry she was at herself. "All I've done ever since is take away his life and his independence, and you know what, he never complained and he stuck to his word when I had no right to ask him to," she concluded sadly. "Why would he do that?"
"Because he loves you," Nick responded simply as if it was the most obvious explanation in the world to give her at that moment and Sam found herself reassured by the immediacy with which he had offered it as a reason, feeling that this may somehow make it more likely to be based in reality.
"I think I know that," she answered uncertainly. "I think I always did. I know I never stopped loving him," she added determinedly.
"Perhaps you should tell him that then?" her companion queried, squeezing her fingers and causing her to realise that their hands had remained locked together for the duration of the conversation despite her usual wish to remain physically isolated from people around her.
"I know," she replied before loosening her fingers from his grasp and instead settling herself down against Nick's side, allowing him to bring his arm around her shoulders and draw her close in a tight embrace. "I wish you were my dad," she continued sleepily, finding herself yawning as the events of the long day overtook her. "I'm sorry for what I said before; it's just when I get scared I find it easier to push people away but there is no excuse for some of the things I said to you," she added without pausing to think about how much she was opening up to him. "I just wanted to be like my dad, but he never really stopped for long enough to see I was standing right behind him. You've been more of a father to me in the last few months than he has managed in twenty six years," she justified slowly, finding herself thinking back to the day she had felt the disappointment in her Clinical Lead's eyes when he had learnt of her imminent departure for the first time. "I never thought I deserved his love, that I was never good enough for him no matter what I did and after Ash hurt me so much all I wanted was for him to put his arms round me and tell me it was all going to be okay, but he never came," she finished, feeling the tears streaming down her face silently. "If my own father didn't want to know, then why would I ever believe that Dylan would stick around long term?" she continued, finding the anger buried inside her once again and trying not to lose her temper, knowing the two men she was angry at weren't worth her rage. "I sabotaged my own marriage, I cheated on Dylan and I destroyed everything I had left and all because my dad and Ash made me feel like I wasn't worthy of love. How is that right? I trusted them," she shouted, feeling her chest tighten as the sobs started to wrack through her body and her muscles start to spasm. "I just wanted to feel pain, anything other than how numb I felt when I was so lonely but all I've done is let them control me and I've let them just take it all away," she yelled, finally breaking into hysterical tears and dissolving into Nick's arms.
"No you haven't, it's all still here and it's going to be okay," he said gingerly, pulling her tighter into his side. "I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere. Dylan and I are going to look out for you; you have my promise on that. You just need to trust us, you've just got to believe," he continued, drawing her in further with the soothing nature of his tone.
"I know," Sam replied through the blur of sobs and tears. "I do," she answered, burying her face into the chest of the man she had come to love as her dad a long time before. "Thank you."
Thank you for reading and as ever reviews are very welcome. I am seriously interested to hear what you think, especially on this part. I will try and get the next part up as quickly as I am able, but thank you again for your support.
Love Callie x