"Sam, when you said you lived in London, this is nothing like what I had in mind!" Zoe said in total awe as she opened the car door and settled her shoes in the gravel with a satisfying crunch. Even on consultant money, she'd expected Sam and Georgie to live in a well-proportioned flat at best, not a Victorian redbrick affair with a proper garden. Cherry blossoms were beginning to burst from bud over the drive and the little front garden, where carefully-planted spring bulbs cautiously showed the first of their colour.
"Don't be getting any ideas – it isn't all mine!" Sam countered, covering her pride with mild embarrassment. "Upstairs is ours, downstairs is Betty's, although Miss Madam here essentially has the run of it, having wrapped Betty completely around her little finger!"
"You're so lucky," Zoe went on. "Living so close to central London, walking distance to work and school… How did you manage it?"
Sam faltered a little. "Um, it just happened, really. When I first came to London from Exeter, everything sort of… fell into place." There were things she hadn't yet shared with Zoe and Nick that she was not content to share while little ears were present.
"It is a beautiful house, Sam, no matter how much of it you live in," Nick said diplomatically. He sensed some discomfort in Sam's answer about how she'd come to live in half of Betty's home but wasn't about to pursue the matter. He watched Georgie skip to the front door and into the outstretched arms of a woman who could only be Betty herself. She carried an inextinguishable grandmotherly air despite being no blood relation of the little girl she enveloped in a warm embrace. It was impossible not to smile in their direction.
"I've made scones," Betty said to them all as they made it to the door. "You've been travelling for god knows how long, so I imagine you'd just like to sit down for a while. It's all laid out down in my kitchen, when you're ready."
"You're too good to us, you really are," Sam said, leaning in to give Betty a one-armed hug.
"Well, it hardly took a rocket scientist to see how much it meant to you to have your friends here," she replied quietly. "I wanted to make sure it would be special."
"You're an angel," Sam said with a smile. "We'll only be a few minutes and then I'll bring them down for you to meet properly."
Betty's kitchen was at the front of the house; it was her living room that opened out onto the garden. The room was bright and airy in the spring sunlight. Sam had taken plenty of tea and sympathy in this kitchen, once upon a time, but it had fortunately evolved into a place that simply felt like home.
"I wasn't sure if you'd want tea or coffee, so there's a teapot brewing on the table and there's coffee in the pot," Betty explained, pointing to the coffee pot and smiling slightly at the apparent joy of her guests.
It didn't surprise Sam in the slightest that Zoe gravitated towards the coffee while Nick reached for the floral-print teapot.
"I can't remember the last time I had a real cup of tea," he said wistfully.
That was all that needed to be said to endear him greatly to Betty. She insisted upon pouring his tea for him ("It always tastes best when someone else makes it") and beamed when the steaming cup brought him immense satisfaction.
"That tea alone, made the nine-hour flight worth it," he said happily.
"You are welcome in my kitchen any time you like," Betty commented with a smile.
It was gloriously restorative to sit around the table with these four people that Sam loved deeply, even if the circumstances bringing them together were a clamp around her heart. They stayed at the table for more than an hour, the only change coming when Georgie briefly escaped upstairs and returned with a well-loved plush bumblebee and a plastic wallet containing paper and felt pens. She was quite content to dip in and out of the conversation flowing around her, occasionally passing up her pictures to be commented on.
The trouble only arose when Nick asked if he could see the garden , having heard a description from Sam in the car and listened to Georgie's animated discussion about fish in the pond. Given that he'd already endeared himself as the model guest, his polite request wasn't a problem at all, but as he and Betty made their way out of from around the dining table, he passed behind Sam's chair.
"It is so, so good to see you again, Sam, and see how far you've come," he said, though his words went unheard in the end. As he spoke, he squeezed her shoulders affectionately and she almost jumped out of her skin.
Sam nearly dropped her cup in shock at Nick's touch, and put it down with a clatter. She froze, although her insides felt like the clash of a magnitude ten earthquake and a raging firestorm. Her mouth dried at once and she felt her eyes fill with tears. She'd hated herself for flinching away from Dylan, but from Nick? Gracious, gentle Nick who hadn't a clue what had made her this way… She couldn't choke out a word in the suffocating silence of the kitchen but she locked eyes with Betty.
"Do they know?" she murmured, as though she and Sam were the only two people in the room.
Sam shook her head tearfully, pressing her lips into a thin line.
"Do you want them to?"
"Mummy, are you alright?" Georgie's voice cut through everything and Sam felt the lump in her throat dislodge for a moment. The 'mum override' kicked in.
"I'm fine, darling, I promise," she said. "I'm going to go outside for a few minutes, but I am okay."
She left the room without another word and without looking at either Nick or Zoe.
No-one spoke for a moment. Then Georgie looked seriously at the two new adults she had been introduced to. They were kind. They seemed safe and up until now they made her mummy seem sparkly happy. She decided she would trust them.
"Mummy isn't being rude, walking away," she explained, pulling her bumblebee back onto her lap and stroking its wings absent-mindedly.
"I'm sure she's not, sweetheart." It was a strange accent that Georgie had never come across, that definitely wasn't from America like she had expected.
"Sometimes she feels sad," Georgie went on, deliberately avoiding looking at Betty. "Somebody wasn't very nice to her once, and it makes her head sad." She couldn't understand why the grown-ups looked so shocked, when all she had done was explain what was wrong with her mum.
Betty looked from Nick's horrified expression to Zoe's concerned one. She cleared her throat. "I think there are some things that Sam hasn't told you, but they are not mine to share. She'll be in the garden most likely – Georgie and I are going to go upstairs for a little while, give you all some space to talk."
Sam paced the garden a few times before sitting on one of the patio's elegant white garden chairs. She wasn't sure how she'd ever explain herself – their first question would doubtless be why she didn't reach out sooner, why she kept her secret for all these years and never breathed a word when either of them would have come running to save her. She couldn't forgive her overactive startle reflex, flinching away from Nick Jordan of all people! The same startle reflex that still held her heart rate up at cloud level and kept her whole body quivering. She curled down over her knees for a moment, making herself as small as possible.
"Sam?"
She didn't jump, thank goodness, at the sound of Zoe's voice. Sam sat herself up and opened her mouth to speak but quickly closed it again. A moment passed before she realised a notable absence. "Where's Nick?"
"Still inside," Zoe replied quietly. "He sent me out first because he's distraught and didn't want to make things worse." She observed Sam's fallen expression. "This isn't your fault. He's not annoyed with you – he's just… upset for you, same as I am."
Sam shook her head. "You don't have to be, I'm fine," she insisted. It was a pointless pleasantry: she knew that Zoe wouldn't accept it for a second.
"Sam, I don't think that's true." Zoe pulled a chair over so that she was opposite Sam. She reached out a hand and stopped a few inches from Sam's, waiting for her permission before clasping her hand. "Sweetheart," she murmured. "Who hurt you?"
Tears bursting forth from the corners of her eyes, Sam pulled her hand free of Zoe's and clenched both of hers together. "You didn't come… three thousand miles… for me… to fall apart over something so stupid," she choked out between sobs. Her vision was blurred by her tears but she still saw Zoe shake her head resolutely.
"Basic ED logic," she said calmly. "Fight the biggest fire first. Find your most urgent need. Dylan is in a dreadful situation but he's got a whole hospital at his disposal. Georgie is upstairs with possibly the sweetest lady I've ever met, and unfortunately you're stuck with us two."
Though she was deeply upset, Sam let out a small laugh. "I can think of worse people to be stuck with," she remarked. "I can't tell it all twice, Zoe. Let me go and get him and I'll try and explain."
Nick was still at the kitchen table, fingers interlocked behind his neck in a tell-tale sign of stress. He looked up at the sound of footsteps and stood up at once.
"Sam, I am so sorry. I didn't even think –"
She held up a hand at once. "Why would you have done?" she said, rubbing her eyes. "I've spent a long time keeping secrets; come and join us outside and I'll…" She took a deep breath. "I'll tell you what's happened since you came to my hearing."
"I'm sorry, Sam," Nick repeated. "I wish I'd known," he said helplessly.
Sam couldn't say anything, instead just shaking her head. She led him back outside.
"Take your time," Zoe said, observing that Sam's body language had tightened since returning to the garden. "We've got as long as you need."
Sam took a steadying breath. She grasped the swirled edges of the metal chair beneath her until her knuckles were almost the same shade of white. "I haven't always been so jumpy," she began. "When I first moved here, I was a wreck, but it did get easier. I coped just fine in the ED – all of it, like I always had – but I suppose things have been a bit… intense, lately."
"When did you move here, Sam? What made you leave Exeter?" Nick asked carefully. "I know you trained in London originally, but I'd never have thought you'd go back."
Sam looked between her two friends, knowing that what she was about to tell them would up-end their thoughts on someone they had once worked closely with. Her pulse sped up as adrenaline coursed back into her system. "I knew that London was somewhere we could disappear," she said quietly. "And it was a safe bet that it wouldn't be the first place he came looking for us."
"Who hurt you, Sam? Who is Georgie's father?" Zoe pressed urgently.
Nick shifted uncomfortably where he sat. He knew the answer to Zoe's second question and feared it was the same answer as her first. There had undoubtedly been tension between Sam and Tom when the hearing was over, but it was a turbulent time. Unpleasant truths had come to light, resulting in Tom being struck off. And they'd been weeks away from the arrival of their first child – of course it would be a tense time. But he'd never once suspected that heavily pregnant Sam was going back to a dangerous home.
"Georgie is Tom's daughter, isn't she?" His mouth was so dry that the words almost didn't come out at all.
"What?! Sam, what did he do to you?!" Zoe said hotly, nearly jumping out of her seat in shock and anger.
Sam's head dropped. It didn't surprise her that the pile-up of regret, humiliation and hurt forced tears immediately back into her eyes. A few droplets tumbled down onto her jeans, leaving dark spots that only increased in number as time went on. In fits and starts, between choked sobs and with hands held in support, Sam slowly poured out what had made her abandon her marriage. It was incredibly validating to hear gasps and exclamations of horror. When she recounted the miscarriage of Georgie's sibling, Zoe cried with her.
"But why didn't you call? Why did you never say anything? There must have been times we met, before I moved, when you still had the bruises he put on you!"
"Zoe, that's not helpful," Nick put in, though privately he felt the same. He'd have crossed the Atlantic twice over to protect Sam and her daughter from harm. He projected an air of calm but inside he was furious that he hadn't seen it and subsequently hadn't had chance to knock some kind of sense into Tom. Tom. Someone he had worked alongside and trusted, who had seemed to make Sam so happy. It turned his stomach. Nick rubbed a hand down his face. "Tell me he's in prison, Sam. Tell me there's not a chance in hell of him finding you again, and there's a happy ending for you and that beautiful little girl of yours upstairs," he said desperately.
Sam gave a hollow laugh. "Happy ending? You're looking at it." She was silent for a moment under their confused glances. Colour rose in her cheeks. "I didn't press charges," she whispered. "I couldn't even report him – the risk of not being believed, and him being free to..." She couldn't finish her sentence, trembling. "I just have to hope to God that he never looks me up on the GMC register under my maiden name." She lived in fear every day. Usually she could push it aside and mask her concerns, but the intensity of the situation with Dylan made it impossible to shelve the worries. She was a shaken coke bottle and the relative safety of being with Zoe and Nick had removed the lid. The whole conversation had been a rollercoaster of emotion but at its close, Sam was a broken woman.
Although Zoe had held her hands throughout, Nick had maintained a respectful distance and realising this made Sam's heart sink even further. She swept tears messily from her eyes and looked up at him.
"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you what you wanted to hear," she said emptily.
Nick was appalled. "You have nothing to apologise for, do you understand me?"
Sam's fingertips pressed firmer into her lips, a weak effort to stem her rising tide of emotion. "I don't want you to feel as though you have to treat me like I'm made of glass!"
He looked deep into her eyes as they filled with fresh tears. He wanted to be the strong, authoritative figure she needed him to be, but he wasn't sure how.
"It's all such a horrid mess," she went on. "I'm not stupid, I know I never really processed it all and just pushed it aside to be okay enough to be Georgie's mummy." Her lip began to tremble. "I can see how much you want to give me a hug, Nick – it's written all over your face that you want to ask but you don't want to set me off. Neither of you came all this way to fix me!" She was stopped in her tracks by a sob and sharp intake of breath. "You came to see Dylan, who, by the way, was exactly as sickened as you are that I can't tolerate the surprise touch of a man." It all tumbled out and her tears were set free once more. "Urgh!" she exclaimed. "How can I still have tears left to cry?"
Zoe reached out for her hand and squeezed it. "It's okay," she murmured. "You cry as much as you need to, sweetheart."
Cautiously, Nick made his way over and crouched in front of Sam, just as he had done at the airport for Georgie. This didn't go unnoticed by Sam, and nor did his almost inaudible sound of complaint as his knees reluctantly allowed the crouched position. She smiled weakly through her tears. He waited until he was sure she knew his intentions, then put his hands gently on her knees.
"You have been strong for such a long time, Sam," he said softly. "I wish things could have been different for you, I wish we could have been here to help – but I can't change what has already happened. We're here now, and we aren't going anywhere. Yes, we came for Dylan, but that doesn't mean not supporting you." He looked at her seriously and was relieved when she nodded very slightly in acceptance of what he said. "You always were far too perceptive. You were right on the money that I want to give you a hug. May I?"
Sam sniffed and rubbed her eyes with a sleeve pulled over her hand, then nodded. Having a shoulder to cry on, and to be held while doing so, was infinitely better than crying alone. She'd done enough of that in the past to last a lifetime.
