Thank you so much to my five reviewers, especially Anny and Meggi as always. Sorry if I scared any of you with the near crash in the last chapter! I just feel with someone like Sam, sometimes it is only the fear of physical harm that can make them face emotional pain.

You will start to get some answers in this part about what is going on, but there is still a lot more to go!

Here is part 5 of 7. (Sorry for slightly later updated that normal, illness has taken over!)

Snowdrops

Chapter 5

Sam had been adamant that Dylan would not have kept any of the possessions from their marriage. His emotional detachment was clear for the whole world to see on a daily basis and she knew he had never been one for keepsakes. Yet here she was sitting on the floor of his living space preparing to open the white box that she had spied a short while before.

Sam remembered carrying the same box into Dylan's house on the day she first moved in with him. She herself had never been one for sentimentality but she had kept a small number of belongings from her family and childhood in this container as a reminder of the life she had long since left behind. Her husband had initially been very dismissive of such an item but in the turbulent years of their cohabitation they had both contributed items to the collection. She guessed it suited both of their personalities to place such emotive objects into a box and close the lid tightly shut, rather than actually having to display feelings for the world to see.

She hadn't been sure what to expect when she removed the lid, but what confronted her was definitely different to her imaginings. The last time she had seen this box, which according to her calculations must have been two years previously prior to her first tour of duty, it had been sparsely populated by a small number of key items. However as she placed the lid on the floor beside her she wasn't sure whether to be excited or disappointed by the contents.

The box itself was almost full, but a great deal of the contents appeared to be made up of paperwork. The thought that Dylan may have used her treasured box for storing documents caused her heart to sink and for a moment she considered not going any further. The past twenty four hours had already been more of an emotional rollercoaster than Sam was used to and she wasn't sure how she would feel if her memories had been destroyed.

She took a deep breath and removed the first batch of paperwork, before turning it over in her hands to get a better look at the documentation. It took her a moment to realise what she was looking at, but on scanning the words she realised that these were copies of emails from herself to Dylan sent from when she was out in Helmand. From the dates and wording they appeared to be emails from her first tour, back when the two of them had been together and she had been trying to disguise quite how hard it was out there every time they spoke.

It warmed her slightly that Dylan had actually gone to the trouble of printing these out, never mind that he had put them into this special box. She reached back into the box and took out the second similar batch of papers. Again she recognised them as her emails, but it wasn't until she went to put them down that she realised these were dated from her second tour. It raised her intrigue that her ex-husband would have even bothered to read half of her communications from that time given both the animosity of their split and that she knew he had not replied to the majority of them at the time.

She reached into the box again and pulled out a plastic wallet full of blue envelopes which to her were immediately recognisable as her letters home from war. These blueys had been her lifeline to England and in writing them she had been able to put into words some of the thoughts she had over missing him back then, words that never seemed appropriate in an email. On her first tour it had been receiving his in response that had kept her going through the darkest of days and it had been the absence of them on her second which had pushed her to the limits of despair. She remembered watching the eighteen year olds soldiers, those who looked far too young for action, receiving blueys like clockwork from their parents, siblings, grandparents and teenage sweethearts back home and saw the impact these letters had on the lads. In those last eight months she had spent in hell, all she had wanted was to feel that lift of emotion the others had when the blueys were delivered. To know she had not had anyone back home who had cared enough anymore to send her one had been unbearable.

There was a final set of paperwork in the box and as Sam pulled it out she felt her stomach do a somersault at the sight of Dylan's handwriting. The blue paper was again familiar, but these were letters to her than never appeared to have been sent. There were eight in all, dated at monthly intervals from the departure date of her second tour and they were all filled with her husband's neat scrawl.

The letters were filled with news of Dervla, which made her smile despite herself, and details of interesting cases that Dylan had treated in the preceding weeks. In any event they were almost identical to the ones he had sent her on her first tour, yet these had been from when they were separated. She assumed that this was the reason he hadn't posted them at the time but she wasn't sure she understood him enough anymore to know why he actually wrote them, so instead she just studied every single word. She knew he would never have understood how much it would have meant to her to receive these out there, but the fact was that he had still cared enough to write them at all.

By the time she finished the letters Sam felt both drained and comforted in equal measure. She placed all of the paperwork to one side, making a mental note to read them again before Dylan returned and life went back to how it was just the day before. For tonight, well until midnight at least, she wanted to forget about everything that had been buzzing through her mind and just concentrate on all of the good times they had shared. She knew that come Monday she would have to tackle her husband over the state of their marriage and a timescale for divorce, but that could wait for now.

Sam pulled the box closer together and due to the clutch of papers being removed she could now see the remainder of the contents a lot more clearly. There were definitely more photographs than she remembered from her last viewing of the box. As a couple her and Dylan had never taken many photographs, but there were some occasions that they had accepted needed recording for posterity.

Sam took out the handful of photographs and in turn looked at each one intently. Every picture had captured a special moment in time of the Keogh household, Mr and Mrs plus one very dopey dog. There was their first Christmas together, back when they had been so expectant and hopeful for the future. She had moved in in a whirlwind that very same week, despite the fact that their fledgling relationship was only a few months old. Dylan's flat had been in a state of disorganised chaos for as long as she had known him, but everything within it had been allocated its own spot. Sam remembered being so worried about not wanting to impose on his space, having felt so incredibly grateful to him for allowing her into his life in the first place. Yet part of his Christmas present to her had been to clear out half of his storage so she could have her own wardrobe and he had given up enough of his shed space so that she could safely store her bike. Her lack of obsessive organisation had jarred with his behaviours at first, but he had eventually stopped nagging her about leaving her gym bag and boots in the corner of their bedroom every night. Later on and much to her surprise he had even moved his belongings from one bedside cabinet to the other so that Sam then had the side of the bed under the window, which was the spot they would both have preferred. She smiled remembering how it was the little things he did that had always made her happy.

Learning to live with Dylan had been an experience in itself. Sam had never been particularly fond of sharing her space with other people so had lived alone since she was old enough to do so. Her husband had not been an easy person to cohabit with either, but they had quickly gotten into a routine of working, studying and spending time together. Their idea of a nice evening had become a walk through the park with Dervla followed by Dylan reading them both articles from various medical journals. Their peers at the hospital back then had thought them very strange, but neither of them had felt any need to socialise away from the other. Unfortunately it had been this complete reliance on each other that meant their separation now was harder to bear.

There was a collection of photographs taken when they had been on various holidays over the years. She had taken him and Dervla camping in Cornwall just before the wedding and they had spent hours walking along the windswept beaches and cliff tops, enjoying both the isolation of their location and the company they gave each other. Then there was the skiing trip to Austria that had suited her action girl tendencies down to the ground. Dylan had been less than impressed by the activities on offer, preferring to remain in the hotel with a book in front of the fire. She remembered that he had managed to listen with interest as she told him all about the various moves and skills she had demonstrated on the mountainside before he had treated her to a meal out at a posh restaurant every night.

Their honeymoon had been her favourite holiday though, as despite being arranged at short notice their trip to South Africa had been breath taking. They had taken in a safari before spending some time on the coast and it was obvious from the photographs in her hands how relaxed the pair of them had been. The memory of that shared experience was something she would treasure forever, as the Dylan she had known on that trip had been a special chilled out version of him that only she had ever seen.

The photograph taken on their wedding day was one picture she had seen fairly recently, as by some feat of ingenuity their colleagues in the E.D. had managed to get hold of a copy and displayed it within the department only weeks earlier. She had never understood why they had arranged a church wedding when neither of them was traditionally religious nor were they particularly interested in entertaining their guests, but the day itself had been stunning in its simplicity.

The photograph of them both with Dervla and a snowman made her laugh aloud despite the emotive nature of the task she was undertaking. That had been taken only two weeks after she had moved in with Dylan and his dog when Dylan had told Sam, much to her horror, that he had never built a snowman and she had convinced him to join her in the snowy garden to help her create a masterpiece. The outcome of their endeavours was a slightly lopsided but adorable snowman that had been worthy of a picture and Sam had somehow managed to capture her and Dylan's faces pressed up to the snowman via her phone. It had only been when they printed the picture off later on that they had noticed Dervla's little doggy face had made it into the shot by appearing over the head of their creation.

There was also the picture of her in full army uniform at an event back at base. It had been the first time she had introduced Dylan to her comrades and she had loved showing him off to her fellow medics. His encyclopaedic knowledge of emergency medical treatment had kept them enthralled in conversation for the longest period of time and that day she had been so incredibly proud to call him her husband. For a long time afterwards he had teased her about how obedient she was with her superiors in the armed forces, as she deferred to them in a way she never had with him. He had joked that he loved her independent spirit and he hoped that the army would not drum that out of her.

The last photograph in the pile she had in her hand was a formal picture that had been taken of the two of them at a medical ball at their previous hospital. Sam had never been a fan of the photograph personally but she knew Dylan had loved seeing her all dressed up that night. He had reluctantly spent several hours shopping with her to choose an appropriate outfit for her to wear but on the night in question he had bought her flowers for the first time and told her she was beautiful.

Looking at the photograph again Sam remembered why she wasn't a fan of it the first time around. Dylan's tuxedo made him look very dapper, but the blue dress she herself was wearing drew attention all her own insecurities. Despite Dylan's words, she had never felt she had been a particularly pretty girl and she had been more at home with no make-up, scraped back hair and running about with the dog than she had been at a formal event. She thought back to the time they had become a couple and wondered if the circumstances had been different whether they would ever have lasted. She may have been the only student who had been able to hold her own with him in a debate, but she knew that if he hadn't been so abrasive with them he could have had his pick of her classmates. For the longest time she had thought Dylan wasn't particularly interested in well dressed, pretty women, but having seen him with Zoe she was no longer sure. She couldn't bring herself to ask the question as to whether that meant she or Zoe was actually his type, because she wasn't sure she would be able to bear the answer.

One of the last items in the box was a set of ID cards from the hospital where they had met and Sam smiled at how young they both looked in the photographs. She had heard about the infamous Dr Keogh before they had been introduced formally and despite his obvious disinterest in mentoring, she had worked harder than anyone else in her cohort to impress him. His abrupt and overly honest way of speaking meant that no one else even considered requesting to work under him, but she was determined to move past the gruff exterior of this man. She had spent hours listening to him and watching him perform complex medical procedures and eventually the investment of her time paid off. She had become like his shadow and her ability to read him, despite him never outwardly referencing what he was thinking, meant they worked like a perfect team when treating patients.

She thought that he had liked her when he introduced her to Dervla after he unexpectedly turned up at her flat with a journal she would need to complete an element of her portfolio, but she knew he had been oblivious to the fact that she had long since fallen for him. Despite the age difference between them she had known how well they suited each other for quite some time. Dylan's lifestyle was chaotic and student like, whereas Sam had always felt her attitude was older than that of her peers. To her that had meant they approached life at the same point in time, despite their differing histories and experiences.

The ID cards reminded her of a time before their lives got complicated, back before she defined her life by her relationship status with Dr Dylan Keogh. She had been his mentee, his partner, his fiancé, his wife, his ex and now she was his dog-sitter. They had never really been actual friends, not away from the deep rooted connection they had shared the whole time, but the thought of that gave her cause for consideration. If she was able to stay true to her vow to confront Dylan over ending their marriage, she wondered if they would ever able to be friends. She knew she would rather be part of his life than to never see him again, but being friends with Dylan would never be an easy relationship to have.

However the person who said it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all definitely had it right Sam thought to herself. Dealing with the fall out of her separation from Dylan had driven her to despair, but having looked back through all of these memories she wouldn't have changed loving him for a single moment.

Sam took a deep breath and put her hand back into the box to retrieve the last item, which she held with more care than she had done the previous possessions. It felt familiar in her hands despite the length of time it had been since she last held it, but the simple act of removing it from the box caused tears to prick at the back of her eyes.

The smaller pink box was tied up with a white ribbon and it felt heavy in her hands, despite it weighing very little. There was so much of her life and her connection to Dylan enclosed in the contents of her hands that she couldn't begin to comprehend how she would feel to untie the bow and lift of the lid once again.

There were three hours until midnight came on that fateful day once again and all she wanted in that moment was to be in Dylan's arms. She ran her fingers over the inscription on the side of the box, "Olivia Samantha Keogh. 29th January 2008" and felt her herself break inside.

"I love you sweetheart," were the only words she could manage before the tears that had thus far stayed in her eyes started to fall down her cheeks. "Mummy and Daddy both love you very much."

So there you go... A lot of you were on the right track in your review comments about where this fic was heading, but I've not finished telling this story yet. Reviews, as always, are welcome.

The next part will be up tomorrow (but maybe not quite as early, given it is a Saturday!). Callie x