All rights to TG and BBC etc

A/N: I've written the first couple of chapters of this so I can see how it goes before I go on. I am also doing a sequel to Consequences but have a bit more research to do before I'm ready, as well as I have to decide how far to go with some issues around Sammie ...

-OG-

No rugby and not his turn to have Sam for the weekend either. But not even the thought of another weekend spent drinking in some grotty boozer with whoever was around could persuade him that this had been one of his better decisions when it clearly wasn't. But, as Elvis had so kindly pointed out the alternatives were also pretty gruesome, a weekend in the flat on his own, probably ending up feeling sorry for himself, or a trip to Bath to see his parents and being forced to listen to another one of his mother's endless lectures. Elvis had been wrong about one thing though; he couldn't see himself ever being lonely enough to think this was a good idea.

The others were all too busy drawing attention to themselves to notice that he'd arrived, even though he'd noticed them as soon as he'd walked in. They were hard to bloody miss making a racket like a bunch of teenagers as they eyed up a group of girls who were giggling and pretending not to notice that the men checking them out were far too bloody old. To Charles' jaundiced eye the girls didn't look much older than Sam.

He'd known from the second he'd got there that this was a mistake of epic proportions. He hadn't got the slightest desire to spend time with a crowd he'd had nothing to do with since Sandhurst and the idea of getting involved in the antics of an over-grown toddler like Elvis appalled him. Charles wouldn't mind betting his house and probably his car on top that the idiot had every intention of recreating their most stupid exploits, mainly involving copious amounts of alcohol, as he made some mistaken attempt at recapturing their youth. Charles knew he was too old, no, that he was fucking ancient.

He couldn't help noticing the flicker of interest on the receptionist's face when she looked up from her screen and smiled at him, holding onto his fingers when she gave him back his credit card for just a few seconds too long as her gaze lingered on his mouth and she showed him all her teeth, but he wasn't interested. She was a pretty enough girl, that wasn't the problem, if you ignored the heavy make-up, who was neat looking wearing the ubiquitous striped shirt buttoned up modestly to hide any hint of cleavage. She had a name badge he couldn't read even if he could be bothered to try and it wasn't her fault of course that he was in such a foul bloody mood that he couldn't even conjure up a smile in response, just a nod of acknowledgement. His face felt too stiff and awkward and as if he needed a hell of a lot more practise before a smile might begin to look genuine again.

"Hey ... careful"

The girl in the football shirt wasn't looking where she was going so she'd barrelled smack into him, whacking him painfully on the shins with her case on wheels. She almost sent him flying before she fell over it herself and tumbled to the floor, then pushed the loose strands of hair back from her face with one hand as she glared up at him from down by his feet.

"ME? That wasn't me, that was you, you bloody bashed into me, why don't you look where you're fuc... going?"

He instinctively put out his hand to help her get up as she scrambled awkwardly to her feet and ignored it, so that he was left standing with an awkwardly outstretched arm, before picking up the handle of her horrible bright pink shiny case on wheels and then narrowed her eyes to glare at him again.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, no thanks to you" She turned and started to flounce off in the direction of the lifts without saying another word and then tossed her hair back in some gesture of angry defiance "Twat"

He wanted more than anything to rub his leg, dissipate some of the painful legacy of the Taliban bullet that had this bloody awful habit of flaring up at the most inconvenient times. Most of the time he did his best to keep the residual weakness hidden from people around him, but getting smacked on the scar had set off all kinds of teeth-grinding agony which he hoped would be transient, but which was at that moment putting the icing on the cake of his mood. Despite the extreme provocation, venting some of that anger and pain on little Miss Attitude wouldn't actually have done anything to help, it would be an exercise in futility because she was now way out of earshot and short of running after her, which he had no intention of doing, it would be a complete waste of time and energy. She wouldn't be able to hear a word from here, and probably wouldn't care if she did.

The biggest challenge now wasn't hiding the limp, he was used to that, but was ignoring the sinking feeling in his guts that had been there from the first moment he'd arrived. He'd had to drive up and down the sea front looking for somewhere to park which hadn't done a whole lot to help his frame of mind, as he'd loudly cursed whichever moron, probably Elvis, had thought it was a good idea to choose somewhere at the seedier end of the sea front instead of one of the better places with proper parking, a spot had magically appeared in one of the side roads. His heart had started sinking even further as he made his way on foot towards the sea front, the grey skies and the stormy sea and the fine drizzle that was blowing into his face as he got his first real look at the grubby exterior of the hotel and at the tatty area surrounding it all just underlined how bloody nuts he was to be spending two days somewhere that looked like a dump with a group of people he hadn't seen for bloody years and who knew nothing about his life as it was now, with exception of Elvis. That was unless Elvis had told them ... and if he had Charles would kill him.

"Good on you Charlie boy, you might be out of practise, but you haven't lost it I see"

Elvis had taken his sunglasses off and raised his eyebrows as he leered at the football shirt girl, the one who was exuding irritable impatience by tapping her foot repeatedly as she waited for a lift "She looks like she could do with some of the old Charlie magic, needs a bit of cheering up by the look of it ... what you waiting for?"

"What? What the fuck are you talking about?"

Charles raised a sardonic eyebrow at the idiot who'd been his best friend in the days when they'd been young and stupid, before Rebecca, before Afghan, actually before any of it, and gave him the sort of stony stare that, coupled with that particular tone of voice, made 2 section shut up and pretend to be outstanding examples of obedience and respect "I don't know what you're talking about" He shook his head as Elvis pasted a lascivious grin on his face obviously getting ready to continue winding him up "Second thoughts, I don't want to know, so ... just ... shut the fuck up ... and ... stop calling me that ridiculous bloody name, it's time you grew up isn't it?"

"Bloody hell Charlie, I can see you're about ready for a weekend of booze and maybe a stripper or two, and you never know you luck, a bit of leg over maybe ..."

"Fuck off Elvis"

"Oh, you're going to be a barrel of laughs, I can see that" Elvis smirked and put his sunglasses back on with a flourish even though they were still standing in the dark lobby and Charles contemplated simply walking out, leaving, walking out of the door and going home even though he'd just paid for his stay "Come on, it's been more than a year now, mate, nearer two isn't it? ... time to start getting over it ... and you look like you could use a drink"

MOLLY

Molly dumped Bella's case on the bed and looked for something to wear that was more in keeping with the place than the West Ham shirt she'd got on, she'd only been there about ten minutes but already it all felt a bit shit. She'd been sure people were looking at her a bit funny when she'd been checking in and then some prick in a suit had bashed into her and sent her arse over tit as if she wasn't even there, and he hadn't said sorry, had just looked her up and down as if she was nothing, how bloody dare he? She had as much right to be there as he did, and it shouldn't matter what someone was wearing, should it? But it seemed like it did, or maybe it was just her being a bit ... touchy ... but it had done her head in.

Most of the stuff in the case belonged to the owner, even the knickers, because Molly had very little that was suitable for anything other than an evening down the pub or a booze fuelled outing to some tatty dump of a night club where it was either too dark or everyone was too pissed to see what it was you were wearing. She hadn't bought much with her, most of Bella's stuff was very nice but was too small for her so she still hadn't got a lot that was suitable for this crappy weekend that she'd got herself involved in.

The room wasn't bad, quite nice really, okay, it was a hell of a lot nicer, bigger and better than the one she shared at home with Bella. It had a nice big double bed which she'd bounced up and down on as soon as she'd got in there, and it's own bathroom with a shower, even had a sea view so it was a bit of a bummer that it was all cloudy and damp and horrible, and she was still a bit bothered about paying for it and how far over the her credit card limit it was going to take her even on a special weekend deal. She'd been supposed to be sharing a twin with Sarah but that hadn't happened, but the bored girl on the desk hadn't even looked at her as she'd taken an imprint of her card but she hadn't pissed herself laughing either or told her to bugger off and take her useless bit of plastic with her. It could still happen when it was time to go home, and she didn't know whether coppers get called if someone can't pay their bill, just hoped that if it came to the worst one of the others would give her a lend. But that wasn't going to happen till tomorrow and there was no point in bloody worrying about it until she had to was there?

This hen night weekend thing had seemed like a fabulous idea when they'd been hammered celebrating Phoebe's engagement to knobhead Mike, so that Molly had heard herself saying 'yeah, course, what a good idea' even though she hadn't got any intentions of doing anything of the kind. She hadn't got the money for this sort of thing, especially now she was on her own with only one minimum wage and part-time job in a shop to pay for everything, and anyhow it had been ages back now so that it had seemed like it was something that wasn't ever going to happen. Who in their right bloody mind would marry him? And even if it did turn out to be true, there'd been plenty of time to come up with a good reason why she couldn't, but she'd hadn't seemed able to find the right time to tell Phoebe, and then one by one the others had started to drop out and Phoebe had got all emotional about not having any mates so Molly had kept on putting off telling her. And then putting it off a bit more, and then it was too bloody late, so here she was.

When she'd been little she'd longed to be grown-up, she'd thought it must be magic to decide things for yourself, to do whatever you wanted when you wanted and have no-one ordering you about all the bloody time or making you feel bad about anything. No–one going on and on about how you had to do this or that, how you had to go to school or do the washing up or all the other shit that she'd hated. But to say it hadn't turned out that way was an understatement, leaving school without a qualification to your name just meant you had to work twice as hard as any other bugger to get anywhere.

But she'd made it. She'd done an access course and had worked two shitty off the books jobs while she was doing it, one at a care home which stank of cabbage and piss and one in a bloody awful pub that hadn't smelled much better, but she'd got herself into Uni and was dead proud of it. Okay it might be the University of East London and not somewhere that was famous or dead sought after, well, no-one she spoke to had ever really heard of it, but it was in Stratford which meant she could easy live at home, because one thing for sure, she hadn't got enough money to live anywhere else.

The shower using all the freebies was glorious, it was long and hot and best of all no bugger kept bashing on the door and yelling at her not to use all the hot water and no the little bleeders were shouting that they needed a pee. She'd dried her hair and done her eyes but was now in a bit of a quandary as she tried to decide which of Bella's clothes looked the least tarty. After a bit of getting pissed off and thinking it was easier to give it a swerve and stay up here, watch the tele, eventually deciding on the black one which showed less flesh than the others even if it was a bit on the snug side as well as being too low cut, but on the plus side Bella's killer heels fitted her spot on and gave her an extra couple of inches of much-needed height ... and confidence.

-OG-

They'd come up with this brilliant money-saving plan when they'd been in the pub and had all agreed that the best thing to do was to find someone to pay for their drinks, some bloke who was well pissed so that he'd feel generous, would think all his Christmases had come at once. Phoebe had insisted that it wouldn't make them look cheap or tacky, that it was a tradition, something that they'd all pretended to believe at the time, but they'd also agreed that they'd stick to just one in the hotel so that it wouldn't cost him too much. They didn't want to look like they were hookers or anything, that would be ... well, it'd be all wrong, and anyhow none of them were exactly Julia Roberts. And then after they'd had a drink they'd go for a walk and find some fish and chips or a burger or something and eat it on the pier before seeing what else Brighton had to offer. Then, when they got fed up of that, they'd hit the pubs and start the serious shit. Sarah, who'd been going to share the cost of the room but who'd cried off, had worked in a Holiday Inn for a bit, although not anymore, and it was probably best not to ask why not, but she'd filled them in on how hotels hiked up the price of the booze.

"Molls, MOLLS, at last, where you been?"

The original plan seemed to have gone out the window a little bit if the state of the bride was anything to go by. Phoebe was wearing her hen-night veil with all the condoms dangling off of it which she'd called funny but classy, which it definitely wasn't, and had already got that glassy look that only several very large glasses of something or other could produce, although Molly wouldn't be a bit surprised if she'd taken something mood altering on top. Her fiancée was the local dealer after all. They'd been joined by, well, they'd picked up by the looks of it, a group of blokes, strangers, who also looked like they were having a really good time, especially the one wearing shades who practically had his nose in Phoebe's cleavage.

"Sorry getting ready ... Shit, Phoebs, thought we was just having the one"

Molly tried not to look or sound judgemental, it wasn't exactly unknown for her to be in a similar state, although not usually this early in the evening but right now she was way behind the rest with some serious catching up to do by the looks of it "You gonna introduce me to your friends, then?"

"Yeah course" Phoebe banged her glass down on the table to get their attention and spilled a large amount of coke in the process, or more likely something alcoholic and coke, and then peered closely at them one by one, obviously trying to get them into focus "This one 'ere is Elvis ..."

"Yeah, course he is, I can see that" Molly laughed aloud and widened her eyes at him, she couldn't have made her scepticism any plainer if she'd written a sign saying 'lying shitbag' and held it up in front of him "Thought you was dead"

"I've heard that before..."

Phoebe didn't seem to notice that he was saying anything as she carried on "Nah, he is, honest, that is his name, he said, and the others are ..." Phoebe looked around and then narrowed her eyes as she scratched her head surprising herself when she got a handful of veil, before going on with the introductions "Not sure now ... everyone this is our Molls"

Molly smiled a vague greeting at them even at the one who called himself Elvis, the one who obviously thought he was on a promise for later on and was, in the meantime, posing like god's gift in his sunglasses, tosser.

And then the one who'd been sitting with his back to her stood up and did the gentleman thing giving her his seat. The smile and her words of thanks died on her lips immediately as she got a proper look at him, Mister Tall, Dark and Fucking Miserably Up Himself, the one in a suit who didn't know how to look where he was going so went around bashing into innocent people like her who happened to get in his way. Worst of all, though, his eyes just skimmed over her without any hint of recognising her, no smile, no nod, no nothing, as he moved to lean up against the wall and undid the top button of his shirt loosening his tie. He looked all broody and miserable, and like he wasn't having a good time at all, not a bit like the others, but then he didn't look as though he knew how.

"I think we might 'ave already met"