Thank you so much everyone for all the reviews, favourites, and alerts. I love that people actually read this story.
I'm so sorry that this chapter isn't very long.
"That bad Dylan?" she remarked wryly, opening her eyes to watch his face.
"No," came his short answer - too soon, too fast - and his face tightened minutely once again.
Not wanting to argue, despite knowing he was lying through his teeth to her, Sam rested her head against the floor - concentrating on numbing the pain.
Who knew boulders could be so heavy?
Not wanting to risk Sam's life unnecessarily, especially whilst there was no way to lift her out of the cave, Dylan made the decision not to move the boulder - for there was no need for her to move just yet.
Settling for simply talking to Sam, he sat down beside her on the rocky floor. "From the way the rock is settling on your upper abdomen and lower chest, my best guess is that it is some sort of traumatic hepatic disruption." He looked down at the silent woman with closed eyes, who had not moved in almost five minutes, and his chest tightened involuntarily with worry - though he would never admit it to anyone, he still cared ... still loved his Samantha, even after everything that had happened. "This rock could be stopping a catastrophic internal bleeding."
Sam still made no response, nor did she move, "Do you agree Sam?"
The blonde woman opened her eyes, and with great effort through great pain, nodded her head.
"Morphine should be kicking in now." Dylan told her, his hands forced to stay by his side, despite everything. There was another pause, though not the comfortable, familiar silence of their marriage - this was an awkward silence, one that Dylan knew he had to break one way or another.
"You okay Sam?" he asked, mentally bashing his head against a rock over and over again at the sheer uselessness of his statement.
It did however, pry a response from her, even if that response was only to partially open one of her eyes and effectively glare at him. Dylan sighed, it was not fun having a one sided conversation - there should be two sides, or no sides at all.
Rocks continued to shower from above, hitting off of Dylan's back, frustrating him, though he attempted to hide it.
Talking to Sam, and himself, he spoke quietly. "I didn't learn to abseil just to get you into bed."
"Really?" Her voice was quiet, but the sarcasm was as clear and present as ever - a defence mechanism to block out the pain. "What was the charity again?"
For once Dylan did not deign Sam's retort with a reply, instead he picked up Sam's radio, and headed to the rock shelf - distracting himself from Sam by staying with David and Amanda
"No, Dylan. Tell me, what was the charity again?" Sam wasn't going to let him let this go though, he had gotten her worked up, and she wasn't going to stop until she had an answer, one way or another.
Dylan turned back to Sam and opened his mouth to begin a remark he would almost certainly later regret.
Sensing a major argument between the two doctors that claimed they were not in a relationship, something that would not be good for either him or Amanda, David made his way over to Dylan.
"Anything I can do Doctor?" he asked specifically referring to one of them, and both of them at the same time - all the while hoping not to get yelled at by either of the irate Doctors.
Turning away from Sam, Dylan picked up a handful of glow sticks that would turn green when broken, and effectively threw them at the unfortunate man who had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Dylan then grabbed the radio and pressed the button on the side angrily, taking his frustration out on the inanimate object.
"How long until Cave Rescue arrives," his voice almost unnoticeably thick with an unidentified emotion.
"It'll be another hour at least." Jeff's voice came back, tinny through the radio.
"It'll be dark by then Dylan" Sam inputted, not liking to be left out of anything - particularly when it came to decisions that should directly involve her.
Dylan refrained from rolling his eyes at Sam's predictable answer, and instead spoke to Jeff in a scarily calm manner. "We have three casualties down here, two of them seriously ill. I don't think we have an hour, over."
"We're doing the best we can Dylan," returned the much more sensible voice of Jeff, a voice which (in the last few seconds) Dylan had come to loathe with a passion.
Not quite sure what he was angry at, Dylan threw the radio at the opposite wall of the cave where it shattered into a thousand pieces.
"Because that's really mature Dylan. So sensible!" The sarcasm in Sam's voice wasn't masked, nor was her annoyance with him.
With no reply that would not simply make him sound like more of a child, Dylan stalked away from the woman he still secretly loved, and settled uncomfortably at the other side of the cave.
Thank you for reading, and please review,
Mia.