TW: This chapter contains mentions of Physical Abuse/ Violence and Addiction so if any of those things trigger you then don't read any further.
Sam Nicholls took a deep breath as she walked down the Marina. She stepped down onto the dock of Dylan's houseboat and raised a hand to knock but stopped short of actually knocking. She couldn't believe she was about to explain the events of the last 5 years to her ex-husband, she knocked sharply on the door of Dylan's boat.
Dylan made sure that Dervla was shut in the living room before going upstairs to answer the door. "Hi," He said, not really knowing what to say
"Hey," She smiled, holding up a plastic bag, "I bought takeout."
He led her down the stairs of the boat and into the small living room "Make yourself at home, I guess, do you want a drink?" He gestured awkwardly to the sofa
"Actually, i bought some non-alcoholic wine; I thought it would go better with Chinese than coffee" She grinned
Dylan sat down awkwardly on the edge of the sofa opposite where Sam had kicked off her shoes and was sitting cross-legged. She playfully rolled her eyes at him "You don't need to look so afraid, Grumpy. Come on, loosen up a little."
Dylan reluctantly sat back on the sofa and accepted the carton of Chinese food that Sam held out to him. "How did you-" He asked
"You always ordered the same Dylan, so I took a guess," Sam told him
After sitting in awkward silence for a few minutes, Dylan finally broke it. "So are you going to explain or-"
Sam sighed. "It's a long story, so we might be here a while."
"I'm not working tomorrow, so i've got time," Dylan replied
Sam set down her carton of Chinese food "So me and Tom got married in 2013 and moved away to Newcastle. It sort of all went downhill from there, Tom started stealing prescription drugs from the ED where we both worked and he refused to accept help. He threatened to tell our boss that it was me that was stealing them if I tried to report him; I tried to get him help from support services, but he-" Sam's voice broke, and she shuddered
Dylan immediately grew concerned for Sam, he reached forward and gently placed a hand on her shoulder "Sam, he didn't... Did he?" He asked quietly
Sam's face was contorted in fright and panic as she replayed the memories in her mind, and Dylan felt an innate need to comfort her. "You don't have to tell me if it upsets you" He stroked her hand gently
Sam swallowed hard and looked at Dylan "No..No, it's okay. I want to tell you. It all came to a head one day about 2 years after we'd moved when we were working together on a complex paediatric case together. A family had been brought in after a car accident, and I and Tom had been assigned to work on the daughter- Tom ended up making a huge error because he was withdrawing from the drugs, and he gave the child an overdose of medication and tried to blame it on one of the student nurses, but I caught his signature on the notes and reported him to our clinical lead." Sam started to tell him
Dylan kept a hold of her hand, stroking it gently "Sam, that's awful, what did he do next?"
"Our clinical lead called all of us that had been working on the case into a huge meeting with the exception of Tom, who had been suspended pending an investigation, he asked us all to write an account of what had happened but there was only me and a couple of nurses who had actually witnessed the actual overdose. Tom caught up with me at home and he begged me to lie and say that I'd done it but I'd had this amazing job offer from the army and I knew that if something like that went down on my records, then I'd never get back in" Sam explained
"Sam, that's terrible; please tell me you didn't cover for him," Dylan asked
Sam shook her head vehemently "Oh god no, of course not. So naturally, i refused, and that night, he went out and got blinding drunk which, combined with the withdrawal of the drugs, made him angrier than ever, and when he got home, he … he turned on me" Sam dropped her focus from Dylan and stared at her hands
At that moment, Dervla padded over from her basket and placed her head in Sam's lap, almost like she knew that Sam needed some comfort. Sam smiled a little "Hey there, I can't believe you still have her, Dylan. I remember when she was a puppy" Sam scratched between the dog's ears and Dervla growled happily.
Dylan looked slightly miffed off at this reunion "Is that how it is, I've been keeping you fed, watered, and taken you on daily walks for the last 10 years, and she shows up after forever and she's your favorite person"
Sam giggled "She loves me, don't you, Dervvy" She buried her face in Dervla's fur
Dylan got up and poured them both a glass of the non-alcoholic wine that Sam had brought with her, he handed one to Sam and she took a swig and continued with her story.
"So that night, he got a bit violent… He was never a happy drunk, but the withdrawal from the drugs made it 10 times worse, and he was like nothing I'd seen before. I tried to escape from him and get upstairs but he followed me and he grabbed me. He started shouting, saying I wasn't a loyal wife because I wouldn't take the fall for him. He held me up against the wall and forced my arm behind my back, I was screaming for him to stop, but he was too drunk to either notice or care and then when he finally released me, he gave me a good kicking as well. Somehow I managed to escape and locked him in the house, I practically crawled to our neighbor's house on my hands and knees and begged her to call the police. She called the police and an ambulance for my sake, Tom was arrested for GBH and I was taken to the hospital. I spent 6 hours in emergency surgery that night to repair my damaged spleen, I also escaped with fractured ribs and a broken wrist. As soon as I was discharged from the hospital, my parents insisted that I go and stay with them whilst I was recovering, and as you can imagine, they had a few choice words about Tom" Sam grimaced
Dylan shook his head, he'd had the misfortune of meeting Sam's parents whilst they were together, and they'd never been too keen on her marrying him either, so god knows what they thought about Tom. "Sam, I'm so sorry you went through all of that, even more, so that you were by yourself, I wish you'd have called me. But that doesn't explain why you more or less faked your own death."
Sam drained the rest of her glass and set it down on the carpet "I'll get to that in a minute. Once I was fully recovered, I contacted my army general to see if the offer of the job still stood. They asked me to go to London for a medical, so I caught the train down there and headed for my medical, I thought everything was going pretty well until they found my notes from the assault and they wanted to know more about my lack of spleen and ultimately it was decided that I wouldn't be able to actively serve any longer"
Dylan felt his heart break in two for her, Sam's passion had always been the army, and he would gladly tear Tom limb from limb for causing her so much damage that she was no longer able to serve. Suddenly Dylan's phone started to ring "I'm sorry, Sam, I can just let it go to voicemail"
Sam smiled, god she was so pretty. "It's fine, Dylan, it's your house I'm not going to stop you from answering your phone. I'm fine here with Dervla."
Dervla had now curled herself up on the sofa at Sam's feet and was making the most of being fussed and scratched, Dylan wasn't an overly affectionate person to human so he showed even less emotion and affection to his dog.
Dylan got up and left the room to take his call, Sam took this chance to have a little snoop around his boat. She hadn't noticed any wedding ring on his finger but she could see lots of pictures of a ginger little girl. Did Dylan have a daughter? She wondered, if so, who was her mother.
Dylan came back after about 15 minutes "I'm sorry about that" He said apologetically
"Don't apologise, Dylan, me and Dervla have been getting reacquainted, haven't we girl?" Sam smiled
"Don't be expecting her here every day" Dylan warned the pooch
Sam decided to casually drop it into a conversation about the little girl in the photos "Your daughter is very pretty Dylan, does she live with her Mum?"
Dylan almost choked on the rest of his wine "My daughter?" He spluttered, "I don't have a daughter."
Sam blushed furiously "Sorry, I just-"
Dylan burst out laughing "Sam, if you wanted to know who the pictures were of you could have just asked"
"I shouldn't have presumed" Sam rubbed her neck, a telltale sign she was uncomfortable "So is she a relative?"
Dylan picked up one of the photos from the mantelpiece "She's my half-sister, she's called Rihanna and she's 2" He passed Sam the photo, it was a recent photo of him and Rihanna taken at her birthday party
Sam smiled a little "She looks like you, poor kid"
Dylan choked back a smile. "Poor kid inherited Brian's genes, at least her mother had the sense to leave him before things got too bad"
Sam realised she owed Dylan the rest of the story but she knew she'd hurt him and it hurt her to realise that. "I'm sorry Dylan…" She burst out, "I should have listened to everyone when they said that Tom was no good.."
Dylan reached out for her hand "It's not your fault, you didn't know he would do that. But you're away from him now and he can't find you… he can't find you right?" Dylan asked
Sam shook her head "He wouldn't know that I'd retrained as a paramedic and even if he did he'd have to search under my maiden name to find me and god knows he was never that bright"
"So we still haven't clarified the whole you not being dead thing" Dylan said
"Oh shush" Sam smirked "I'm getting to that, you always were impatient. So after they told me that I'd never serve again, I went back to working in the ED in Newcastle. About 8 months went by and one night I was walking home from a night shift when I thought I saw Tom lingering by the house. Obviously, I had no solid evidence but I reported it to the police anyway and I asked one of my male colleagues to walk home with me just incase, I was almost certain it was him and i kept seeing him in different places- first it was the house, then it was the supermarket where I did my shopping and then I swore i saw him waiting outside the hospital. The police were utterly useless, they told me that because all of those places were public places then they couldn't prove anything. In the end I reached out to one of my old army colleagues to see if they could help me and that's how the whole me faking my death came about, they suggested that it would be safer for me to put the word about that i'd died somehow almost like a witness protection programme."
Dylan was astounded, he couldn't believe that she'd been through all of this on her own. That jackass deserved everything he would get in Prison. "So how did it all happen?" He asked, he was intrigued
Sam laughed "Always the impatient one Dylan. So over the course of a month or two, me and my old colleague worked together to formulate a plan and we decided that i would tell people that I was going back to the army- i hadn't told anyone i'd been rejected so it wasn't anything suspicious. I left the ED and my colleague had managed to get me a position working in the GP surgery on the patch where all of the army spouses lived, they even gave me a false name just in case. After a couple of months of being there, my colleague decided it was time to tell everyone back home that i'd died, I gave them your number because well… I didn't know who else to have them call."
"What about your parents, do they know anything," Dylan asked
Sam shook her head "I stopped speaking to them after the accident, I wasn't in a good head space at the time and I needed to work through what had happened in my own time without my parents pushing their opinions onto me. I couldn't risk telling them anything in case Tom got to them, I suppose I owe them an explanation of everything seeing as I haven't seen them in a few years. And before you ask Tom is back in prison where he belongs, he got 16 years with no chance of bail for GBH and then another 18 years for Gross Negligence Manslaughter for what he did to that poor girl, I know it won't bring her back but I hope it brings some comfort to the parents knowing that the bastard will pay for what he did to their little girl"
Dylan was stunned into silence, for a few minutes they both sat in comfortable silence. Eventually, he broke the silence "It's getting late… are you working tomorrow?"
Sam looked up from where she was running her fingers through Dervla's long fur "N-no, are you?"
"Looks like we're both free agents then, where are you staying now? Do you want me to walk you back?" He offered
Sam looked pleasantly surprised "You know those flats that overlook the quay? I'm staying in one of those until I can afford somewhere better."
Dylan wrinkled his nose "I've not heard good things about those"
Sam laughed "Don't be such a snob Dylan, it suits me fine. I'm a simple girl with simple needs"
Dylan put Dervla's lead on and they walked Sam back to her apartment, when they reached her apartment block Dylan tied Dervla to a lamppost outside and insisted on walking Sam all the way to her front door. When they got to her front door she stood on her tiptoes and placed her arms around his neck "Thank you" She whispered "Thank you for listening and not judging me"
Dylan was shocked by the unexpected physical contact "I'll never judge you, Sam. You deserve so much better than what he put you through. Take my number and you can call me anytime even if it's 4 in the morning" He took Sam's phone and put his number into her phone.
Aww, Poor Sam. I never liked Tom but I've always been a solid Sylan shipper - oops. Now that Sam has Dylan in her support network will she start to heal from what Tom did to her? Also for anyone who wants to know what the title means, it's Latin and for anyone who does find out what it means you'll see it dropped in to the story in various places. I promise I'll try to get better at uploading, I'm off Uni until end of September/ Start of October but I still have some work to do so I'll try and upload when I'm not working.