WHERE'S MOLLY?
A Fan Fiction Puzzle and a Challenge
Ever since we all found out that LT was not taking her character, Molly, through into the new series there has been heaps of angst about her impending absence, and horror of horrors, fear that Charles would disappear, too. Thank you, Tony Grounds and the BBC, for saving him and all the rest of us obsessive fans of the Bossman.
We are not sure about how you can have him there without her. We are also apprehensive about the "new" her. We are wondering whether you have LT "on ice" for a possible third series? Anyhow I thought I might ask other, multi-talented fan fiction writers of our 300+stories how they imagine you might deal with the side-lining or permanent exit of Molly from the story we all love.
So here is one possibility. I challenge all you other amazing writers to write and post your solution to this Where's Molly mystery. It will be interesting, in due course to see who, if any of us, are even close to the ingenious Mr Grounds.
"James! James! Phone call for you." The clipped accent reminded her so much of that other voice, the one she was starting to miss already. Right on time, just an hour before take-off for him. Just as he'd promised. No matter how, she would be the last person he talked to before he got on the plane taking him to Africa. It was a "thing" with them now, to be the last contact before either of them started something new. Molly recalled the first time they had kissed, gently and with such wonder at the taste of each other's lips.
"I want you to be the last thing I see," he had told her and she had replied in their code word, "Ditto." This, they realised, was where they had been headed ever since they first saw each other on the tarmac at Brize Norton over two years ago
She raced across the crowded canteen and snatched the phone, aware that her heart was thumping in her chest and her palms were sticky with nervous sweat. Why did that always happen to her when she was stressed or anxious, her hands sweaty and her breathing shallow, too fast, sometimes thready? Her new Boss had noticed that combination of stress reactions and had suggested she needed to get it in hand, pretty damn quick. Another bloody numpty with a posh boy voice. Fuck, she was surrounded by posh boys every day, you would have thought she'd be used to it by now, after a year of being Molly James, wife of Major James, eldest child of posh people from Royal Crescent, Bath.
And that they might be a bit less snobbish about her Cockney twang. Ah, fuck them, she thought, they don't know nothin' about me. Let them wait to find out how "a little tart" like me, a description she'd overheard as she'd walked past a knot of them just the other day, ended up in this most unexpected place.
"Hi, my darling." She could just hear the catch in that particular posh boy voice, the one that still made her wobbly in the knees." I'm looking out the window as the lads are making a half arsed effort at getting themselves sorted…or pretending to…for a photo, just like the one we had when you snickered at me on the tarmac. AND gave me the eye, you cheeky cow. Look at the trouble you got me into after that!"
"It weren't my fault! You couldn't keep your eyes off me, could you? And it weren't too long before you couldn't keep your hands off me, neither." She retorted in mock indignation.
"I know where I'd like my hands to be right now. Are you wearing those new lacy white knickers I left for you this morning before you left for work?"
"Don't, Charles, that's not fair to get me all worked up when I'm in my bloody fatigues and boots, getting ready to go out in the bleedin' mud and sleet with this bunch of fucking Ruperts. You need to be careful how your uniform looks in the front, too. Them Under Fives… Shit, I forgot they're under Sevensnow… will give you hell if they can spot a bulge in the front of that flash new gear with the Major stuff all over your shirt."
"You're right, Molls. It's just me refusing to think about doing without you for so long while you're here and I'm over there. Three months till I get leave to come home, can't think what I'll do without you at night."
"Just so long as whatever you do doesn't involve that Lane bird whose doin' MY job now. I'll bloody kill you and her and all them squaddies for letting it happen if you so much as look at her under them bloody sexy eyelashes of yours!"
"I told you, Molly, I can't even see her or any other woman. There's only you now, forever. You know how we are together, just perfect. We fit together and there's nothing I would do to risk losing you. Molly James, I love you so much," he murmured. "And it looks like I'm needed, my love. That rabble is still a bunch of bloody cockwombles, the new Captain has just got them sorted. I'd better go and give them the usual lecture from the Major so he can get the photo over with and get them on board."
Molly felt two tears run slowly down her cheeks. One of the Ruperts nearby elbowed another and pointed the tears out, with an exaggerated imitation of a weeping woman
"What are you, girlie?" he mocked. "Got some bad news? Can't hack it already? Crying won't work around here, you know." She could see the senior officer, their major, prick his ears up as the cruel remarks rang out across the room. Without any haste, he moved close to them and spoke, first to Molly.
"James, I take it you are saying goodbye to that husband of yours, Major Charles James? He's leading the new deployment going out to Africa tonight, if I remember? Take your time, I know how much it means to me to say my last goodbye to my wife before I head off on a mission. Knowing Charles, I'm sure he feels the same."
The major took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her without a word. Turning to the loudmouth who had been so rude to her, he spoke, almost in conversational tone, but not quite. Molly could hear the steel behind the polite words: she could almost see the shiver run down the other man's spine.
"You and I can wait till James has said goodbye to her very brave husband who's being redeployed at his own request. The man has just been through months of very difficult rehabilitation. Never thought we'd see him on active service again. Bloody marvel, really. Go on, James, finish talking to your man."
"Charles, there's a bit of stuff happening here, but it's OK. I'll write about it to you tonight when I do your first letter. I know you have to go now. I love you, Major Charles James. Only you, forever. Please take care of yourself
"Me, too, Second Lieutenant Molly James". I love you. Don't ever forget that. Be in one spectacular, sexy piece, preferably in the lacy white knickers, when I get back home on leave in three months."
"Charles…one last thing. When you open your Bergen tonight, about half way down I've packed two sleeves of Rosabaya. Make it last…think of me when you drink it. And, Charles, come back to me."
Putting the phone back on the hook, Molly turned as the Major spoke again addressing the other man directly in a loud enough voice for the rest of the men in the room to hear.
"I imagine you got here to Sandhurst in the usual way, soldier? Good education, wealthy parents, Daddy already an officer if I remember correctly? Public school? Oxford? Play Rugby? Rowing? Lots of beautiful, brainless girls who like the look of a man in uniform, especially the red one with all the tassels and braid?" The major was in full flight, gesticulating at the younger man.
"Let me tell you how James got here! She comes from a very different place from you without any of the easy stuff you were born to. Which is all a matter of luck, anyway!" Molly smiled at this knowing how much Charles would agree with and approve of the major's philosophy about, luck, chance.
"James got here because she is simply one of the most courageous soldiers this British Army has seen for many a year. I won't embarrass her by telling her the story, you can find it easily enough in our Library and in Army newspapers.
James was awarded the Military Cross for valour before she was twenty years of age. So that's why the Army can't do without her as an officer. And went after her to train her to be an officer. And we bent the rules to make that happen. And we will not tolerate her being spoken to in the disrespectful and ignorant way you did. She's here for forty four weeks' hard work just like the rest of you."
Please review. And it would be interesting if some of you rise to the challenge.