"I want to diiiiie!" Tom whined for what must have been the hundredth time since they had finished their round of the competition, and Sam sat him down on his bed, where he immediately fell back.

"Me first!" whimpered Alex, who Penny and Franziska had supported and then placed on the next bed, where he fell over just like Tom had done before.

"Hold my hand, comrade. We fought bravely. If we have to go, then together!" Tom sighed theatrically next to him and Alex took his raised hand, which they held up as if in a victory pose, to which the other three only smiled and shook their heads.

"All of our bones hurt and the two ladies don't even think of massaging our feet," Alex snorted disparagingly.

"Did you give us a massage?" Penny interjected skeptically.

"Franzis didn't take part in the competition and you certainly let Sam knead and pamper you!" Tom replied and wiggled his eyebrows meaningfully, which left no doubt about what he meant.

"Absolutely, Tom and it was fantastic," enthused Penny, now grinning mischievously and everyone looked at her in shock, including Sam, whose complexion suddenly rivaled that of a tomato.

"Penny! I just massaged your legs and ran you a bath!" he now defended her so as not to give rise to the wrong thoughts.

"Well, I expected a little more effort from you, Sam, but that's an interesting approach - not giving the women too much so that they stay curious, right? Well then, show what you can do," Tom said now and stretched out a leg towards Sam, who was still standing next to him.

"I'm definitely not going to massage your legs!"

"Why not? Aren't they pretty enough for you?" he asked indignantly, sitting up and pulling up his trouser leg to present his leg in all its glory.

"Not Penny enough," he replied seriously and immediately felt Penny's gaze on him before he saw her blushing out of the corner of his eye. "But it's interesting that you both have a double bed, then Franziska can do the same if you already sleep so close to each other," Sam now turned to Franziska and grinned broadly.

"Are you crazy? If I do that once, he'll want it all the time. You guys have to be held by the long arm and besides, we have this room because a certain other couple snatched the last available two-bed room from us." Penny and Sam looked at each other with a grin and found it hard to stop themselves from laughing.

"Well Sam, if we hadn't done that, maybe they would both be a little happier and you wouldn't have fallen out of bed next to me this morning," Penny objected, laughing.

"I knew it! You guys have something going on!" Tom shouted happily and Alex immediately sat up grinning and clapping his hands enthusiastically like a little child.

"Didn't you just have excruciating pain that made you barely able to move?" Sam now interjected and crossed his arms over his chest, which the two of them commented on with a theatrical groan and fell back again. "If you remember right, yesterday we freed Penny from the cold room, almost frozen. I had to warm her up somehow."

"What doesn't help better than a tender and loving..."

"Hug, exactly!" Sam interrupted him and the two pain patients looked at each other bored.

"My goodness, you're holding back a lot!" Alex commented and Penny decided that it was probably better to change the subject.

"What do you think if we go out for pizza tonight?"

"I thought you wanted to work your way through the local delicacies for your heart's content?" Franziska now objected.

"You have to be flexible, right? I would like to do that."

"I'm on board, except for the walking thing. I know an Italian who also delivers," Tom now objected.

"We certainly won't sit here and watch you eat in bed!"

"You don't have to watch, Sam. You can eat something too."

"And where should we sit?"

"There are two chairs."

"But there are three of us."

"Then Penny will sit on your lap, you should like that," he replied with a grin and Sam pulled the pillow away from him and hit him on the stomach before Tom picked it up again in annoyance and placed it under his head.

"Then why don't you and Franzis do it if it's so easy?" he replied teasingly.

"Because my damaged muscles can only recover by lying down and please don't comment on that now!"

"You're really doing yourself a disservice if you think that rest is the right thing to heal a sore muscle. If you rest, you'll rust. Otherwise you won't be able to get out of bed tomorrow," Penny interjected.

"Have you gone to the alternative practitioners now?" Alex interjected.

"I'm just speaking from experience." She stood up and glanced at Sam's watch before turning back to the two of them. "You have two hours to recover, shower and change," she then turned back to the two of them and headed towards the door.

"What role did you have on your station?" Alex asked her skeptically as he pulled himself together and groaned as he went towards the door to go to his own room.

"Deputy team leader."

"This announcement didn't surprise me. Who is your superior? The Terrible Hulk?"

"I am," Sam now objected. "We don't let ourselves be played off against each other, so I also agree with Penny and hope that you understand?!" he added with a grin and opened the door for Penny.

"Well, at least you won't have any problems raising your children if you always agree to each other like that," Tom called after them and Sam grabbed a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom next to them and threw it at his head. He was still bright red, but grinning and Penny followed him out of the room, who was having just as much fun.

The evening had been quiet. Tom and Alex had refrained from commenting further, and if they weren't paying attention, it was hard to notice how much pain they said they had to endure. They were very good actors.

Penny, on the other hand, held out braver than either of them, even though Sam could tell she was tired and that her sore muscles were also bothering her. The short sleep in the bathtub didn't seem to have helped much with her recovery and so they said goodbye to the others early and went back into the room.

The route wasn't far and the street was well lit. So they saw Pedro early with Madeleine and the other woman in his arms coming towards them.

"Sam, Penny. How nice to see you here. You don't want to go to bed yet? Come with us and have a drink," Pedro suggested euphorically and Sam saw Madeleine and the second woman glare at Penny out of the corner of his eye.

"Thanks Pedro. Not today. We don't feel like cooling down any further," Sam replied and put his hand on Penny's back to lead her past the three.

"I'm sure your little girlfriend won't leave you cold at night, will she?" he commented on Sam's gesture with a grin and Sam gritted his teeth and clenched a fist in his pocket."If you feel like dating a real man, just let me know, sweetie," he then added and Penny felt Sam pull away from her. She reacted instinctively and wrapped an arm around Sam's waist, snuggling into his side. He was so surprised that he immediately forgot what he was doing and put his arm around her too, pulling her a little closer to him.

"I'll be damned, Pedro. Although I'd be curious to see where you're going to find a real man if you exclude Sam," Penny simply replied.

"Make sure I don't stop your loose mouth at some point, wench."

"If you even accidentally touch her, you can look out for new teeth!" Sam turned to the three of them so suddenly and harshly that they took a step back. "That goes for each of you!"

"Sam, let it go. He's not worth it," Penny whispered to him and took his hand.

"You'll see what he and I are worth tomorrow, darling, when I'm done with him. You'll be surprised," shouted Pedro angrily, who had heard Penny very well.

"We'll see who's done with whom tomorrow. Don't fill your mouth too much," Sam replied when Penny have had enough and pulled Sam with her.

"Don't mess with him. He's just trying to lure you out of your reserve."

"He's a disgusting guy. I don't trust him and his women even less. After what they did to you yesterday, you can be lucky that I was raised too well to hit women."

"Relax, Tiger. I don't think you like that," she replied with a smile and was inwardly happy that Sam was smiling again. They had now reached the hotel and entered the elevator, which was open when Sam pressed the button for their floor. "Tomorrow you'll show him which of you is the real man."

"I don't know. He knows the procedure, he trains for it all year, just like Alex and Tom."

"Sam, you know those two were pretty exaggerating today, right?!" Sam just shrugged. He wasn't sure, so he didn't say anything about it. "If it really was that bad for them, then it's probably because they didn't train as intensively as they claim."

"We only tried to prepare for it for 2 weeks and even you said today that you underestimated it. You never underestimate anything."

"Stop worrying, Sam. Everything's going to be okay."

"I hope so. I'm less worried about the competition than about our opponents." They had now arrived in their room and Sam had gathered his things so he could change and get ready in the bathroom.

Penny let him have his way and changed quickly in the room behind the open closet door. It was almost a habit the way she acted. Strange how quickly something like that could happen. Just as you could quickly come to terms with the thought and knowledge that you really seemed to have enemies who wanted to stop you by any means possible.

She opened the balcony door a little. It was a warm night and the fresh air would be good for them. She missed Pontypandy. The strangest things happened there and Norman didn't exactly have a clean slate either, as he did a lot of things out of baser motives like jealousy, but on the whole there weren't any really bad people there.

"What are you thinking so hard about?" Sam interrupted her thoughts and she looked up at him.

"I miss Pontypandy. As crazy as it is there, at least everyone is peaceful within."

"I miss it too and I'll be happy when we're back home." He lay down in bed and turned to her with a smile. "But I'm not mad at being here because you're here. I have the best of Pontypandy here with me. If I were home now and you were here, I would still missing something very important." Penny blushed slightly and turned to him again with an embarrassed smile.

"I would feel the same way with you," she replied and saw that his smile grew a little wider and a wonderful light came into his eyes before she turned away embarrassed to go into the bathroom. She leaned against the door for a moment and took a deep breath.

Something was happening between them here, strengthening, giving them both more courage, and even if she couldn't fully grasp it yet, she certainly wasn't going to complain about it.

As unenthusiastic as she was at first about this trip, her anticipation of every minute, hour, day with Sam grew more and more.

She got ready and saw that Sam was still lying awake in bed, his arms folded behind his head, staring at the ceiling and she could practically hear his mind spinning.

"Don't worry, Sam. You'll be fine tomorrow," she encouraged him as she crawled into her bed and lay facing him.

"Your word in God's ear, Pen," he replied with a sigh.

"Sleep well, Tiger," she said with a smile and he smiled too.

"You too, kitten," he said before reaching for the light switch and turning it off.

It took him a long time to fall asleep because it wasn't the worry about tomorrow's competition that was bothering him. He longed too much for the closeness to her that he had experienced this morning. It was probably true what they say: you couldn't miss something you didn't know. Now that he had gotten to know it, he missed it almost painfully.

To be continued...