Sunday 29th January 2012 has finally arrived, both in reality and in the world of Snowdrops. In order to bring this story to the conclusion I felt it needed I have split todays update into both Chapter 7 and an Epilogue, so you get two updates for the price of one today.

I hope this part brings the majority of the outstanding questions you have had about Sam, Dylan and Olivia to a conclusion, but there are still a few twists to go before this chapter concludes.

Here is chapter 7 of 7, just an epilogue still to go after this.

Snowdrops

Chapter 7

Sam sat down on the sofa, coffee mug in hand and pulled the blanket back around her shoulders to keep away the cold. She looked at her watch and realised it wouldn't be long until dawn broke and the boat was filled with wintery day light. Dervla bounded round from the kitchen area to join her and jumped up to sprawl across Sam's lap with her head on the arm of the couch. Today was very much Olivia's day and after the events of the preceding two days Sam knew there was nowhere else she would rather spend her daughter's fourth birthday than right here surrounded by treasured memories.

It was whilst she sat there with that thought in her mind that she was joined on the sofa by her husband, who met her gaze with a half-smile as he sat down, also with coffee mug in hand. The two of them, along with Dervla, stayed there in contented silence just contemplating all that had bought them to this point.

Sam remembered how disorientated she felt when she had first opened her tired eyes two hours previously to an almost consuming darkness, except for one small flicker of light. Her first thought on waking, having cried herself to sleep, had been that it was Olivia's special day, with the second being how safe and warm she felt despite the absence of Dervla's weight from her side.

The moment she had gathered her bearings Sam had sat up sharply, realising that midnight had long since passed and she had yet to phone her other half as planned. She had felt a deep pang of regret that she had been waiting for that one moment for days, yet at some point just before the awaited hour she had given in to emotional exhaustion and slept right through. She had pulled the blanket that had inexplicably appeared over her around her shoulders and had stood up intent on locating her mobile phone. However as she had turned towards the kitchen she had let out an audible gasp of shock at the sight that greeted her and had blinked furiously a few times as if disbelieving her own eyes.

Her husband had been seated at the kitchen counter, Olivia's small pink teddy bear in his hands and Dervla by his side, with a white candle burning brightly on the work surface in front of him. His eyes had been staring and unfocused, yet she had instantly been able to tell from the red puffiness that surrounded them that he had been crying for some time. They had stood there unmoving for what had felt like forever, with Sam unsure if Dylan was even aware of her presence.

"You didn't answer the phone," he had stated, eventually breaking the silence. "I called you and you didn't answer the phone. I couldn't not speak to you tonight."

Sam had listened to him explain that he had been worried about her lack of response and she'd picked up the vague tinge of panic in his tone as he had recalled tracking Zoe down to the hotel bar at half-past midnight and insisting they drove home immediately, much to her annoyance as he had been avoiding her company since they had arrived in London. Dylan described arriving back at the boat after driving his colleague home to find Sam and Dervla fast asleep and as he spoke, the relief on his face had been evident for her to see.

She remembered admitting to him that she thought he had overlooked the importance of the date, which had caused him to look at her with a mixture of horror and disappointment as he questioned how she could even have considered that as a possibility. She had felt awful for even thinking that he could have forgotten their daughter, but he had listened to her reasons; the message he had left for Dervla, the conference, his apparent connection to Zoe and the distance between them since her own arrival from Afghanistan. Sam hated that they were so disconnected from each other that she had thought he had abandoned her, especially given that he had just driven over a hundred miles through the night to be by her side.

Dylan had remarked on their usual ability to be in sync with each other over Olivia, despite the rest of their lives often being out of kilter and she had apologised for ever doubting how much he loved their little girl too.

She had moved from where she stood by the sofa to join him in the kitchen and he had commented, with the brutal honesty she had always loved, that she looked a complete state. Her clothing, removed from the holdall the previous morning, had dried from the soaking she had received at the roadside but had been crumpled from spending hours sifting through possessions on the floor before sleeping alongside Dervla on the couch. She had run her fingers absentmindedly through her hair to smooth it down, but that had been like fighting a losing battle against the mess that had dried atop her head after the earlier rain, so instead she had felt her cheeks redden with embarrassment at how awful she must look in front of the only person she had ever wished to look beautiful for.

Her husband had pre-empted a question she had yet to ask and informed her that the outfit she was wearing had been in the corner of his bedroom in every place he had lived since she left for war. They had talked about how the last time she had worn those clothes felt like the last day she had been his wife, despite the fact that neither one of them could remember exactly who left who or when. She had felt the tears prickling at the back of her eyes at the sound of her husband telling her that he had felt incapable of removing the clothing whilst she had been stationed abroad and that as they had never talked about what would happen next, the bag had been waiting in the corner of his room where she had always left her things ever since.

She recollected that she had reached out and placed her hand on his arm at that point, unnerved by the sight of her usually unemotional husband opening up to her. He had noticed the white ribbon that was still tied around her wrist and had placed one hand over hers, touching the ribbon with his fingertips, just as she had done hours before.

They had sat like that for some time, with Dylan telling her he had argued to be able to take Mr Jordan's place on the conference as he had been sure she wouldn't want to see him today, especially as they had better coped the previous year when kept apart by her army posting. He had explained that once he knew being absent for the date was an option he decided to give her the opportunity to spend time with Dervla, something he knew he should have done on her return but had failed to do for fear it would have reminded him too much of their shared memories. He had told her that both Mr Jordan and Zoe had established there was a reason for him wanting to disappear from Sam's life for that particular weekend, but that he had refused to elaborate despite much pressure and questioning from Zoe and that he had tried, unsuccessfully, to stop them fussing over her too much ever since, knowing that she would hate to be the centre of their concern.

Sam had been unable to hide her disbelief at the fact that far from her being forgotten, it had always been her husband's intention to leave her alone for this weekend to give her the space he thought she needed to deal with their past. She had reluctantly pointed out the irony in the fact that she had instead wanted the opposite of his assumption and they had accepted that communication had never been their strongest quality as a couple. She had asked him whether he had left the two memory boxes for her to find, but he had just shrugged and told her that he had always known she would take the opportunity to look back through the memories of their previous life together, before stating he could only hope that the items had helped her come to terms with her loss.

She recalled telling him that she wished he could have been there to look through all their memories together, to which he had removed his hand from her wrist and turned back to the candle.

"I don't have any right to grieve," he had stated sadly and whilst the simplicity of that statement broke her heart she knew exactly where his mind had travelled to.

Her own thoughts had immediately taken her back to the on-call room at their first hospital after he had borrowed a portable ultrasound machine and had done her 8 week scan on that very first day she had known she was pregnant. It had been just the two of them and Olivia in that room, exactly as it had been eighteen weeks later when Dylan had been the one to tell her that their little baby girl had died before she had even been able to enter the world. For Sam it had been those two key moments, plus the simple act of him registering their baby as Olivia Keogh, that had defined the man in front of her as her baby's father but she knew that in reality it had never been that simple.

As she had watched him staring at the flame she knew that his mind had instead gone back to the day of Olivia's conception, when Sam had gotten tongue-tied trying to explain to him how she felt after drunkenly making a pass at him the previous night. She had been using alcohol to give herself the courage to tell him that she had long since fallen for him, yet he had been the perfect gentleman and just walked her home. In the cold light of day she had tried again to move their connection forwards, but he had dismissed her out of hand stating their relationship was strictly professional. They had subsequently been called out to the scene of an accident and still smarting from the knockback Sam had spent the day flirting with firemen and putting herself in harm's way to get his attention. However when he had left without so much as the courtesy to say goodbye she had ended up drunk once again, only this time in a bar full of fire-fighters, where she had, not for the last time, been unable to resist a man in uniform, a fact which Dylan had thrown back at her many times in later arguments.

Her embarrassed apology for childish behaviour the following day had been enough to get Sam back on her mentor's good side and over the next few weeks they had begun to make a connection that was as personal as it was professional, with him even introducing her to his beloved dog. She had felt so blessed back then to have him in her life, as close to dating the man she loved as she could be given that he never showed any emotional attachment to anyone except to Dervla.

His discovery that she was pregnant therefore had been very difficult for them both to bear, given the crushing disappointment she knew he must have been feeling and she hadn't been surprised when his initial reaction had been to shut down and vent his anger on her for disrupting his mentorship rather than deal with the real issue of where they stood. Yet from the moment he first pointed out her baby on the screen as he scanned her abdomen they had become a family. She remembered it being like they had flicked a switch from her being his student one day to them being a couple the following day, with no real discussion in between. To this day she was still unsure quite why he chose to make that commitment to her, but she had already known that she loved this man from the first moment they had locked horns in debate many months before.

Sitting in the kitchen over four years on from that night she had questioned why he felt he had no right to grieve for their lost little girl and he had responded, so quietly that she had barely heard him, that he was not Olivia's dad.

"Don't ever say that," she had almost snapped at him in shock. "You might not be her biological father, but you will always be her daddy." She had listed for him all the ways that he was their little girl's dad; how he had loved her, he'd been there for her birth, he'd taken care of her funeral, he'd cried for her and by the time Sam had finished tears had been streaming down her cheeks.

They had never talked about him not being Olivia's actual father, because it had never seemed relevant to either of them, yet Sam had now known how unsure her husband was of the role he should be playing in keeping the memory of their daughter alive.

"I'm sorry," she had started, not really knowing how to say the words that had been left unsaid. "I'm sorry I never told you how much I wanted you to be her daddy forever. Olivia was always your baby girl, right back from the moment we first saw her on the screen. I know I needed you to be there to support me, but that was never the only reason I wanted you to be part of our lives. She will always be your daughter; you have every right to grieve for her just the same as me."

Sam reflected back that it had been this statement, almost giving her husband permission to grieve, which had finally allowed him to cry in front of her. She had pulled him into her arms and held him close for quite some time, hoping that he could take comfort from being in her arms just as she had all the times he had held her tight. She knew Dylan had been every inch the perfect dad to Olivia, despite having no reason to step up to that mark other than that he had loved her. So as she stood beside him, with her arms wrapped around him, she told him that their baby had been the luckiest little girl in the world to have him in her life.

"Your coffee will go cold," Dylan spoke, breaking the silence and snapping Sam back to reality of being seated on the sofa with her husband. They had stayed in the kitchen for ages, just holding onto each other before eventually breaking apart with Dylan maintaining that they needed coffee to break them out of their teary state.

She brought the cup to her mouth and winced as she drank some of the liquid, both because the drink was indeed cold but also because the milk appeared to have gone off. Sam recalled that it was likely to be the same milk that she had left out since the previous morning, almost 24 hours ago now, when she had been distracted from making her own coffee by the weirdness of the boat.

"This isn't your boat is it?" Sam questioned, finally grabbing onto a trail of thought that actually made sense to her.

Dylan shook his head before responding. "No, the cold snap a few weeks back damaged the roof of mine so she is in dry dock to be repaired at the moment. I've hired this from a fellow house-boater whilst he is away."

"Makes sense," Sam answered, before continuing in response to his querying look. "The kitchen."

"Tea spoons in the wrong drawer?" he asked, smiling that daft half-smile of his once again.

"Coffee pot in the wrong cupboard," she replied and they both laughed in spite of themselves.

"I should only be here a few weeks," her husband explained. "And it isn't my boat, so I didn't feel I could just move everything around, as much as I hate leaving things in the wrong place." He paused for a moment, "I used to see you run past here every day, 7am almost like clockwork when we were on day shift. I kept meaning to ask you in for coffee and show you around, but then you stopped coming."

"It got too icy," Sam answered, embarrassed that she had not been as discrete in her activities as she thought.

"I thought as much," Dylan stated. "I missed you running by," he added and they again met each other's smile.

Sam looked away, knowing that she did still have a question that she needed to ask him but not sure if she would be pushing him too far to ask it.

"Penny for your thoughts," Dylan queried, piercing her trail of thought. He had always known when she had something to say even before she knew there was a statement to be voiced. It had been an on-going joke between them that his deduction skills when it came to reading other people lay almost at zero, yet with her his abilities were akin to Sherlock Holmes.

"Why wouldn't you try for another baby with me?" she asked, her voice quiet and almost hoarse due to the emotion cursing through it. She remembered how much she had wanted to try for another child with him, not as some knee-jerk reaction to losing Olivia but some two years on because she loved her husband and wanted to bring his baby into the world. He had told her they weren't ready and the weight of that rejection had driven a wedge between them, causing Sam to cease being satisfied with the life that they shared. It had been this dissatisfaction that had led to her agreeing to a second tour of duty despite her husband's concerns and that in turn had led to the breakdown of their marriage.

"It wasn't that I didn't want to," he replied, his expression thoughtful. "But I was scared that I would love a new baby more than Olivia and I couldn't bear the thought of making her second best. I can't do this touchy-feely stuff at the best of times, you know that and I just wasn't ready to do all this talking then."

Sam averted her gaze from him as she started to speak, "It meant the world to me that you chose to let me stay even after Olivia died, but I thought that maybe it was only ever because of her. When you said you didn't want us to try for a baby, I guess I thought it was because you didn't actually want to be with me. I've spent the past few weeks watching you with Zoe and it's so hard to see you move on with someone else knowing that you never looked at me like that."

"You think I've moved on with Zoe?" Dylan questioned, the surprise evident in his tone. "She's only ever been just a friend. You're the one who said we both needed one of those." He placed his coffee cup on the floor before reaching over and doing the same with hers. He brought one of his hands up under Sam's chin and turned her face towards him, before wiping away her tears.

"I never really ever told you that I loved you, but I did," he started, before correcting himself. "I do. There wasn't anyone else before or since and I would never have walked away, that never even entered my head when Olivia died. It was never about her though, I mean yes I did love her too. I still do. But I loved you first back from before I even knew she existed. I introduced you to Dervla for God's sake." Dylan frowned and Sam could tell he knew that his declaration of feeling had come out in a semi-incoherent ramble.

Dervla, having been alerted to the conversation by the sound of her own name, climbed off the sofa and retreated to the floor leaving Sam and Dylan staring each other having reached an impasse in their conversation.

"I thought you were miserable though?" Sam asked solemnly.

"Not with you." Dylan answered. "Never with you."

"All I wanted was to have your baby and to make us a family again," Sam replied.

"Maybe one day we would have done," Dylan responded. "Maybe one day. But you never stopped being my family, you or Olivia."

Sam studied the face of her sweet, brilliant and infuriating husband and wished that they could have had this conversation eighteen months previously when they had started to fall apart. She knew that they had been the anchor in reality each other had desperately needed for the entirety of their relationship but she just wished they had been able to communicate enough to make their marriage work.

A feeling of despondency lay heavy on her heart in that moment at all the time they had wasted in miscommunication and misunderstandings over the years. Caught up in that tidal wave of emotion, Sam moved forwards and leant her head in towards Dylan's own. The moment their lips touched was soft and fleeting, but almost instantly their mouths met again as they pulled each other back into the most intense and desperate kiss either of them had ever experienced. The release they felt was as sensitive as it was passionate and as they parted and their eyes met in a seemingly eternal gaze, Sam knew they would need to talk a lot more come Monday.

However in that instant she allowed her husband to lead her off to his bedroom, closing the door behind them and shutting out the rest of the world.

Thank you so much for reading and the Epilogue will be up online in just a few moments.

Reviews, as always, are very welcome.