For those who haven't read Ties That Bind Us yet: maybe skip this chapter if you still want to read it, otherwise you'll spoil the fun. I hope everyone else enjoys reading it.

"Dinner's here!" Chester called into the house as he walked through the door, and Penny, Sam, and Liam looked up in confusion. The next moment, the lawyer appeared in the doorway, looking at least as confused as the three of them. "What are you doing here?" he immediately asked his best friend when he saw that he was sitting with his parents, who were already having lunch.

"It was our turn to cook today," Liam replied curtly, grinning cheekily at his friend's clumsiness, which was starting to really get on Chester's nerves again.

"Who says that?!" he interjected as he stood next to Liam and placed the basket next to him on the table. Sam didn't let this bother him and continued eating calmly. Penny, on the other hand, suspected what Liam's sometimes arrogant behavior usually resulted in when he directed it at Chester.

"Mairi arranged it with Fiona because she had to go to the police academy today," Liam explained to his friend, leaning back and folding his arms to emphasize his point.

"Why didn't she tell me? She knows I'll cook if she can't," Chester replied, confused.

"I guess you'll have to sort that out between you two. Enjoy your meal!" Liam simply said, grinning broadly as he pointed at Chester's basket, making it clear to him that he could eat it himself.

"I've already eaten. What am I supposed to do with it? Maybe your parents would rather eat what I brought?!" Chester replied, now annoyed by Liam's pompous posturing, and now Sam also looked up and exchanged a questioning look with his wife, while Liam snorted dismissively.

"Absolutely not!" Liam retorted grumpily, knowing how well Chester could cook. But what could one expect, considering Chester hadn't learned how to do it until his mid-30s?

"Says who?!" Chester immediately rebelled against Liam's self-confidence.

"Me! My wife cooks better than you!" he retorted, something Chester could hardly deny. After all, Fiona had been cooking since she lost her mother. Chester, on the other hand, had to learn it from Mairi, and not just from her.

"You only say that because you go to bed with her and you're too lazy to cook yourself. Here, try this and then tell me again it's not good!" Chester retorted angrily, slamming a pot on the table and reaching for the drawer and a spoon inside before handing it to Liam and uncovering the pot with his other hand to push it towards Liam.

"Urgh, what is this? It looks like dog food!" Liam remarked disgustedly as he glanced at the stew Chester had cooked today. Sam and Penny exchanged another questioning look before leaning forward enough to take a look themselves, only to realize that it didn't look so bad.

"I'll show you who I'm turning into dog food!" Chester, meanwhile, grumbled angrily at his brother-in-law's continued insults.

"Oh really?" Liam replied seriously as he jumped up and stood in front of Chester, while Penny put her hand over her eyes and shook her head with a sigh. "Well then, let's go outside!" he demanded.

"Okay!" Chester retorted angrily.

"Okay!" Liam answered him again, and the two walked one behind the other into the hallway, then went back and through the back door into the garden.

Sam wasn't bothered by the two of them at all, having been used to them being like that since they were little. Penny, on the other hand, had never felt comfortable when the two of them challenged each other or fought, but she too had accepted by now that they would probably never grow up in their relationship and that this was apparently what their friendship was all about.

"Do you remember when Chester came back into Mairi and Liam's lives?" Penny turned to her husband, trying to block out the fact that the two of them were probably about to fight to exhaustion in their garden. They were already used to that.

"Very good, in fact. At the time, I really thought it wasn't a good thing, but apparently I was wrong. He's still kissing the floor Mairi walks on," Sam remarked, shoving the last forkful from his plate into his mouth before getting up and taking his plate to the sink to prepare the dishwater. He wanted to finish quickly so he could watch the two of them for a while longer.

"You're exaggerating," Penny replied with a smile, although she was a little confused as to how Sam had been able to eat in peace while the two men were arguing in front of them.

"But not very much," Sam replied with a smile, and she couldn't help but smile too. After all, he was right. Chester truly adored Mairi, even if it sometimes seemed different with the two of them. It was just as tiring that Liam and Chester could sometimes be like cat and dog. But that wasn't anything new. They'd been like that since they were little. "I still get nightmares when I think back to what she told me back then, what she had to go through on that case," Sam sighed, his mind drifting while he washed his plate.

"She talked to you about it?" Penny asked him, surprised.

"Not with you?" Sam replied after he turned to her briefly, and she shoved the last bite into her mouth before bringing her dirty dishes to Sam so he could wash them too.

"Not in detail," she answered truthfully, reaching for a few bowls in the cupboard to transfer Chester's food. "What did she tell you?" she then asked Sam as she handed him one of the empty pots after another, while she transferred the stew, pasta, and vegetables into three containers to keep in the fridge for tomorrow, so that Chester's efforts wouldn't have been entirely in vain.

"Don't you think we should skip this? Your nerves..." Sam began skeptically, and she rolled her eyes in annoyance.

"They're still better than yours. Go on, tell me!" she finally interrupted him resolutely, but still with a smile on her lips, and Sam gave in with a sigh, thought for a moment about where to begin, then just did it.

I still remember Mairi's revelation on Aidan's birthday that she was going on this undercover mission like it was yesterday. No one had expected it, so the boys had taken it pretty lightly and tried to bully her sister. But when she finally blurted out what she was really planning, none of us were particularly comfortable with it. Going undercover in a club to take down one of Wales's biggest drug lords and arms dealers wasn't comparable to any of the missions she'd been on before—especially since she hadn't had to cut off contact with us, as she was required to do in this case.

I flicked through the newspaper every day, listened to the news at the station constantly about what was happening in Newtown because I was so worried about her. But two days later, she was back in Pontypandy because she needed someone to talk to, and to avoid being caught, she'd made an emergency call. We had to pick her up from the sea in a skiff. This was truly one of the strangest distress calls we've had. Mairi knew full well that if there really was a shark lurking in our waters, chasing tourists in a skiff, neither of us would miss the opportunity to take over the operation ourselves.

Anyway, she revealed to us that she'd met Chester and that he'd become this crook's lawyer. It didn't make my worry about my daughter any easier, especially since she just wouldn't give up. She was so determined to stay on this case, and I couldn't even tell if she still trusted Chester enough not to betray her or if she had more confidence in herself to be able to deceive him.

She checked in with us every day, which at least went some way to calming our nerves. To my surprise, Chester really didn't give her any trouble; he seemed to simply accept her there. At least until the assignment she was supposed to complete, which involved bringing Chester along as a minder. I was so angry when she later told me that she'd had to play drug mule, and as if it wasn't enough that she'd had to defend herself against a couple of late-pubescent, criminal teenagers, MI5 had also become aware of her and shot them both. They caught Chester by the leg before Mairi could reach the car they had used to get there, and they made a breakneck escape through the city.

Remember? We read about it in the newspaper. The reporter at the time assumed it was an illegal street race between two rival gangs. In reality, it was our daughter. When she told me that, I was glad for a moment that you taught her how to drive.

The next day, as she was walking to work, she intercepted this dancer Chester had recently been flirting with and she threatened her with a knife. That was the first time, Mairi said, that she realized how crazy this woman was. But one of the bouncers and Chester helped Mairi and treated her after she had cut her throat. Mairi, meanwhile, felt sorry for Chester, who was quite upset by his gunshot wound from the night before, partly because this woman had kicked him on that spot while trying to overpower her. After work, she rang Liam out of bed and asked him to take a look, which he did. Liam had secretly given Chester his number because Mairi would have exploded at him for breaking the rules. But no one could deny that the two were happy to be back in touch.

Mairi had taken Chester home to her fake apartment and left him the couch. He had planned to surprise her with breakfast the next morning, which had gone terribly wrong, and Mairi had helped him before taking him home. To her horror, she discovered that he was living in an apartment in the drug lord's house and had also met his son, whom Chester had apparently taken in because he grew up completely isolated from the outside world, without friends or other social contacts.

She said she didn't know what was happening to her because everything had happened so quickly, and Josh and Chester had persuaded her to spend the day with them. That evening, when they returned and Mairi was about to leave, a thunderstorm came up, and we know what that meant for her. So she stayed over at Chester's, and even though she says she was the one who took advantage of the moment, I could still strangle Chester today for not being able to hold back, even though he should have known she was just seeking comfort in her fear. He then even got her to spend her days off with him, which they probably only spent in bed, which is where we now know Piper was conceived.

James had called us that weekend and asked if we knew where Mairi was, but at the time, we couldn't tell him anything. We were completely lost, even after his call. If not even her team knew where she was, who did?

But the next day, she texted you, and because that wasn't enough, you called her just as we were pulling Arnold and Niall up so they could paint the training tower. Even though they still claim we were distracted and didn't pay attention to the lines, I won't blame them for their childish shenanigans up there, getting tangled up worse than a ball of yarn.

Anyway. Mairi was fine and when she reappeared the next day, she quickly realized that her disappearance and her jealous colleague, who couldn't bear to see her in the arms of another, especially one of the bad guys, had aroused considerable suspicion of her and her actions within her own ranks.

But she'd been able to convince her superior that she meant no harm, while still trying to protect Chester and, from then on, Josh as well. With Josh, I could understand her motives. He was just a kid. But Chester? She felt like she owed him something, especially since he didn't reveal that he'd known her for much longer than everyone thought. But when it came out that he'd had a bet with the drug lord's nephew, which he'd emerged victorious from thanks to the previous weekend, Mairi had at least kept him at arm's length again.

He'd assured her that he'd had no choice but to enter the bet and that he'd never intended to win it honestly, but one thing had led to another, and of course, he'd hurt Mairi quite a bit in the process. But our organization for the rescue of stray dogs in Eastern Europe was suddenly £2,000 richer because Chester donated his efforts by sending us the money anonymously via mail. I could have done without it, to be honest.

To make matters worse, MI5 raided the club where they were looking for Chester. Despite the rift between them, Mairi couldn't bear to think Chester was in these people's hands and, by imprisoning herself, had ensured that Chester could at least escape. But when she was released from their custody the next morning and returned to her apartment, a bomb was already waiting for her.

Fortunately, Chester had left no stone unturned and sent her a message informing her that there was a bomb in her apartment. Thanks to his boss at the time, he had accidentally discovered that this woman, who was so jealous of Mairi, was capable of building bombs and had apparently done so in her free time at the club with the intention of planting one on Mairi. This way, Mairi had at least been able to find safety in the cast-iron bathtub.

We received the emergency call shortly afterward. Newtown itself was on high alert because no one knew if more bombs had been planted in the town. While they were evacuating public buildings and other places so that they could be searched by special police units, they had alerted a few surrounding units to take over the firefighting operations in the house. We arrived just as the flames were contained enough for the house to be accessible, and we were tasked with equipping ourselves and searching for injured and dead people. Something I had always hated about my job. Luckily, we didn't really have much to do with that kind of thing in Pontypandy.

I was in charge with Elvis of the apartment where Mairi lived, without knowing it was hers. You can imagine my reaction when I heard Elvis calling me from the bathroom the next moment, only to find our daughter unconscious in the bathtub. We immediately took her outside and to Liam, who immediately drove her to the hospital.

Luckily, she hadn't suffered more than a few scratches and bruises from the plaster and the debris that had fallen on her from the walls and ceiling, but we were all in a panic that evening, sitting at the station, wringing our hands, waiting for Liam to call and tell us she was out of danger.

Chester had sneaked into the hospital to see her that night, and later, under the guise of acting as an arson investigator for the attack, you also went to the hospital to bring her some things. You'd already told me that Chester had given her flowers, a cell phone, and who knows what else, but nothing calmed me down more than the fact that he'd left this guy on her doorstep to protect her if the woman showed up again.

The following Monday, not only Mairi showed up for Liam's birthday, but Chester did too, and it was a bizarre afternoon. Chester showed his best, almost lovable side, while Mairi wasn't particularly nice to him. But in the end, he drove her home anyway. Mairi assured me, though, that he didn't stay with her that evening.

The next day, she fell victim to the drug lord's nephew, who had given her a date rape drug to get her into trouble. Chester had come to her rescue once again, just in time. But as if Mairi's mission hadn't been complicated enough, the same crooked lord himself then sentenced her to teach his son how to climb, and to make matters worse, she had dragged you and Liam's twins into it.

On one of the days when Mairi had wanted to teach Josh, she had taken the opportunity to look for some clues in the drug lord's study, where they had caught Chester first and then Byrne himself. But once again, Chester had gotten her out of there. Not without raising suspicion, though, and Byrne had used the following weekend torturing Chester into revealing whether he knew anything about what Mairi was up to and whether he himself was in cahoots with her. Chester, however, remained strong and even though he no longer enjoyed the boss's full trust, he was at least satisfied enough to let him go into the mountains with Mairi and Josh once again.

However, Mairi's jealous colleague Reece had meanwhile plotted with MI5 to hand Josh over to them as leverage, and he himself wanted to arrest Chester, but Mairi prevented that, just as she got you and the twins out of there because you didn't want to hand Josh over either. Just thinking about the danger you all were in makes me want to explode. Mairi said you escaped through the caves. She with Chester and Josh through the mines, and you with the twins through the crevice and the mine entrance near the tracks. So I don't need to tell you all about it in detail. But Mairi was very brave. She mastered the journey, despite what had happened to her there when she was little.

That evening at the club, after they had safely dropped Josh off at home, Chester and Mairi confessed everything to Byrne, and he actually wanted to kill them both for putting Josh in danger. The fact that Mairi had saved his son didn't matter to him. But the nephew, who had since been kicked out by his uncle, had saved both of them by setting fire to the club at the right moment, even though he certainly hadn't been aware of it at the time. Byrne got hurt himself, and Mairi even saved him, thanks to her extensive knowledge, which she owed to us.

She had also spotted a woman in the restroom who was helping Chester out, but that's why he hadn't noticed that the stage behind him had collapsed, trapping Mairi. We were already on our way there because Newtown had requested all the support they could get. But this club was so big, no fire department could have handled it alone.

As soon as we got there, we saw Chester raging in anger at the entrance, wanting to go back inside. When one of the Newtown colleagues stopped him, he simply knocked him down, then another who also tried to stop him, and ran back to Mairi. Since we had heard exactly why he wanted to go back in, we just looked at each other, and it was out of the question for either of us to leave this job to someone else. We geared up and took a breathing apparatus with us before storming in, amid the protests of our colleagues.

We got Mairi out of there, and Chester too, and Liam took them both to the hospital. Mairi hadn't been hurt much, but Liam had told us later on the phone that he was worried about Chester's injury, which he thought at the time must have been caused by a nasty beating. Only later, when Mairi called him because Chester had fallen unconscious and had a fever, had he learned that he had been tortured. Liam had taken him to the hospital under a false name, where Chester had been immediately operated on because his kidney contusion had caused internal bleeding and he was on the verge of death.

Mairi, meanwhile, had passed the time the next day by walking to Pontypandy and visiting Fiona. But instead of calling one of us to take her home, she had tried to walk back, which had proved to be her downfall. Because she met this crazy dancer on the beach, who overpowered and knocked her down, then tied her to one of the buoys at low tide, before going to the hospital to reveal to Chester what she'd done. Not only had she landed herself in jail, because Chester had tied her up there so the police could pick her up later, but she'd also saved Mairi, because Chester had immediately informed Liam when he'd come to visit him. The two of them drove to Pontypandy together and reported the emergency call to us. They had found Mairi before you and Ellie. I still shudder when I think about how close Mairi came to drowning.

We then took Mairi and Chester in, where Mairi had already told us everything that had happened up to that point, but she had left out some details. Nevertheless, we were both relieved that she was already off the case, and our biggest problem at the time was, on the one hand, Chester had proposed to her, and, on the other, the two of them were home alone while we had to work.

Yeah, okay. That was my biggest problem. Not yours!

Shortly after, Josh showed up at Mairi's landlady's, and we gave him shelter too. He was on the run from his own father. He'd realized that he wanted Chester and Mairi dead, shot Bruno because he wasn't serious, and also revealed that his mother wasn't dead because she fell down the stairs, but because his father had made sure she did. To make matters worse, in his anger, he'd also said he'd rather kill the boy than ever lose him. The poor boy was so distraught. He was only 9 years old. He was far too young to have witnessed such cruelty, especially from his own father, who was supposed to be protecting him.

They hadn't even been there a week when Mairi sneaked out Saturday night. I was a light sleeper, and since her room was across the hall from ours, I heard her talking quietly. At first, I thought Chester had sneaked in on her again, but shortly after, she came out of her room, as I could see through the open crack in our bedroom door. I also got up to follow her, but I stayed in the doorway because Chester came out of Liam's room shortly after her. She had barely closed the door behind her when he sneaked downstairs and grabbed my car keys. At first I thought I was stuck here because they had taken both cars, but then an idea came to me and I quickly gathered everything we had at home in the shed so that I could create a distraction if things got serious, before I crept up to the car that had been parked in front of our front door for days.

Mairi's boss had posted two plainclothes police officers outside our door to keep an eye on us in case one of Byrne's henchmen showed up to eliminate them. The two guard dogs inside were sound asleep, though. I rolled my eyes in annoyance at their vigilance; they hadn't even noticed Mairi driving off in your car and Chester driving off in mine. They jumped when I knocked on the window, and I offered them a cup of tea, which they accepted, a little hesitantly at first, but eventually.

The two hadn't even gotten out of the car yet when I jumped behind the wheel and drove off. I saw them cursing in the rearview mirror, but I was already long out of range and had soon caught up with Chester, who has parked a little way off on the outskirts of Newtown. I imitated him at a distance and discreetly followed him down the road to a fenced-in property. At one point the fence was open and he slipped through while I watched everything from a safe distance with my night binoculars, trying to find Mairi somewhere in the crowd unloading several trucks.

It took some time, but eventually I spotted Mairi and Chester, who were being led past the house by two gorillas and threatened with a gun. I knew I had to do something to get them out of there, and an idea just came to me when you called. I tucked the phone between my shoulder and ear while I searched my backpack for the flares.

"Sam! Where the hell are you, and where are Mairi and Chester?" you yelled at me, while I heard the two police officers chattering excitedly in the background.

"They've sneaked away. I've followed them and am keeping an eye on them. Alert our colleagues and come here quickly. I'll send you the coordinates," I answered you as I removed the caps from the flares so they were ready to launch.

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to set a house on fire."

"Very funny, Sam. You can't even start a fire," you replied the moment I fired the first flare. Then the next one. "What's that noise, Sam?" Then I fired the next one at ground level, directly toward Mairi, Chester, and the two guys. "Sam?!"

"I started a fire, my love!" I told her proudly, as I saw Mairi seize the moment to free herself from her attackers and flee with Chester as the bushes burst into flames.

"Don't touch anything else! We're coming!" was all you replied, and I heard that slight undertone of concern as you quietly murmured, "It was bound to happen sometime!" I bet you thought my wounded pride had blown a fuse by now after all these years of you all teasing me about it.

I hung up and alerted Mal and Rose as well, before pulling Mairi out through the gap in the fence to safety as soon as she was within reach, just like Chester. Then you arrived, and I climbed in with you so we could start putting out the fire.

Even though you had clearly told them to wait there, they followed us with Rose and Malcolm shortly after I took over Jupiter. A shootout broke out, and I couldn't believe my eyes when Mairi fell to the ground. I immediately targeted the shooter and neutralized him with the water canon. Rose and Mal arrested him shortly afterward. I was so relieved to see Mairi was still alive and back on her feet. However, I wasn't anymore when she instigated you to create that diversion with the firefighting foam and you drove right into the line of fire. But your plan still worked.

I was even less thrilled when this Byrne guy fled in one of the trucks and Mairi jumped onto the running board. When Chester then jumped onto the back of the truck, I knew we had to do something, and you and I gave chase in Venus. Mairi did a great job trying to stop Byrne on the moving truck through the open window. Chester then helped her by climbing over the truck into the driver's cab. That was pretty brave of him.

When they finally overpowered him, however, they discovered that the truck's brakes had failed, and they drove the truck along the country road for a while before driving down an embankment and into the riverbed. I immediately secured myself with a lifeline to Venus's winch and waded into the river to pull the two of them and the crime boss out so they wouldn't be swept away by the current, but the two of them were sitting in the cab and...urgh...moving on.

With your help, I got them both to the bank, and it turned out that Chester had also been infiltrated undercover for the NCA. I was casually told that my daughter was now making us grandparents. Okay, Chester was more surprised, and definitely more happy, but at least he still stood by his proposal. But besides finally finding her true love, she also married a monkey, and Josh, who was later given to Chester. But the two had at least been on pretty good terms after learning that the boy would otherwise have had to go to a orphanage. The monkey, on the other hand... she was even cheekier than your cat, and that's saying something.

"Are those two still fighting out there?" Sam finished his story, because his wife had gotten up again a moment earlier to look out the window. Dusk was now falling outside, but it had also been quiet for some time, and the rants and ravings of the two friends had also died down.

"Looks like they're done. Completely exhausted. I just texted Mairi and Fiona to gather their men and, thanks to Chester, no one will have to cook for us tomorrow," she replied to Sam with a grin as she sat back down next to him after seeing the two boys holding each other up with one hand on each other's shoulders while still throwing punches to the chin with the other, which, however, were more soothing than hurting, as they were both completely exhausted from their tussle.

"In some situations, they never seem to grow up," Sam said with a grin, knowing that they would meet again tomorrow for a beer to have a good laugh about their differences.

"They've been best friends since kindergarten. If they can't let themselves go with each other, who can they with?" Penny said with a smile and a shrug, before she couldn't suppress a yawn as she watched Mairi and Fiona get annoyed out of Fiona's car outside to collect their husbands. "Are we going to bed?" she then asked her husband, who shivered beside her.

"I don't know. After that memory, I need a shot," he said, a little nervously. Every time they talked about Mairi's biggest case, he had nightmares for nights on end. He had to nip that in the bud. He was getting too old for upsetting nights.

"So that it'll raise your blood pressure even higher? Absolutely not!" Penny replied unenthusiastically, pulling herself together to take his hand and help him stand. "Come on! I need two strong arms to protect me tonight," she remarked when he simply wouldn't budge, commenting on her efforts with an annoyed groan.

"Well, in that case, I'm happy to play the hero," he replied, which she had already expected. Sam was and always would be a hero—although the prospect of cuddling made him hope that even then, he wouldn't be plagued by nightmares. "At least as long as my back can handle it," he added with a sigh as he finally stood on his feet and straightened his back, knowing full well that he'd wake up with back pain tomorrow if he was forced to lie on his back all night because his wife was using him as a pillow again. But even then, he wouldn't complain as long as she was okay.

To be continued...