Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, well only some of them, the rest belong to Tony Grounds and the BBC

The Week Before

"Well you can just pissing well un-invite him then" Molly was almost yelling into her phone "And I don't care how you do it, I know, just tell him Molly says fuck off, you can't come"

Molly was absolutely furious with her soon–to-be fiancé, although at this moment he was more likely to be her soon-to-be ex-boyfriend than anything else. The phone call she had been looking forward to all afternoon while she was trying her best not to piss off her Sergeant, who, she was convinced, kept a wax effigy of her by his bed to make it easier to stick pins in, had turned from the lovely and loving balm to her hurt feelings that she had been expecting into the depiction of a potential nightmare.

"I don't care, you can pissing well un-invite her as well"

He had been trying to explain that he'd been in the pub with Sarah, his best friend since childhood, and she had asked in front of everyone if she could bring him to the party as her 'plus one', and as he was standing there, it left very little wriggle room, without telling them all why not, something Molly would have killed him for. Molly didn't want to hear it, as far as she was concerned, the whole thing was going to be an unmitigated disaster and she couldn't remember now why the hell she'd ever agreed to it in the first place. It wasn't like any of her family were going to be there, his lot had insisted on a 5* hotel in Devon, close to where they live of course, but bleeding miles away from the east end and her family, and it would have cost a bloody fortune for the whole tribe, Mum, Dad, Nan and the kids to travel down there and spend a weekend in that sodding place and, if she was being really honest she wasn't too sure how much she could trust the younger kids, but more especially her dad, what with all the free booze and that, to behave, thoughts that she was bitterly ashamed of, but thoughts that were there all the same. So she hadn't told them.

"Why can't Sarah bring Jo, it's not like everyone doesn't know they're an item and if your mum and some of the others have a problem with it, that's their problem, this is 2018 not 1918"

Friday Afternoon

"Oh, that's just bleeding perfect."

Molly threw herself across the great big double bed in the hotel room and thought about throwing a complete tantrum, screaming that she wanted to know what the hell else could go wrong, but there didn't seem to be much point, there was no-one else to see it or hear it, she was on her own. Bloody car trouble on the A303 near Shaftesbury, bloody spitting distance from home for him, what sort of poxy excuse was that? Anyway he should get rid of that rusty pile of old crap he called a 'classic sports car' and buy something decent, something that wouldn't break down so that she wouldn't end up wasting part of her precious long weekend leave all on her own in a bleeding hotel in Devon. Having to travel this far by train and taxi to attend some bloody party, well it was supposed to be her, or rather their, party, but it didn't feel like it because it was mostly his family not their friends, was bad enough. It wasn't even as if she knew any of these people, well only his mum a bit, and Sarah, Oh and her 'plus one' of course, God she hoped he'd grown a conscience in the last week and would stay away, but to then get a message at Reception when she checked in to say that he was stuck on the motorway and would be hours late was the final straw. His message said that there was no mobile reception where he was, but she didn't believe that for a second, she knew he was just being a coward and didn't want to speak to her in case she went ballistic, which, to be fair, she would have done, and now his mobile was switched off.

Their last phone conversation hadn't exactly been amicable. Molly was still furious with him and had threatened to boycott the party completely so that he had asked her why it was such a big deal, was it that she was still carrying a bit of a torch? They'd been apart for years, surely she could be civilised, be a bit mature, after all he seemed to be okay with it, so why was she making such a fuss? It was at that point that her soon-to-be fiancee became her ex in a hail of yelling, bad language, tears, and accusations of him being a total tosser, so that he'd needed to do a lot of serious grovelling to even get her to the hotel, and now this!

She hadn't got a clue what she was going to do with the rest of the day until he got there, always supposing that he was telling the truth about how long these repairs were going to take, and she wasn't sure that she believed him, he had a habit of playing things down when he told her stuff he thought she wasn't going to like, something that drives her nuts, because she believes in being straight, telling it exactly how it is and cutting the crap, not hiding behind words which she once heard described as using euphemisms. She decided that if he was just going to be the rest of the day late, or even a whole day late, she would stay, catch up on her sleep and run up a gigantic bill on room service, it would serve him right, but if he was going to be longer than that then she'd push off, which would also serve him right, because there was nothing to do, and the hotel was in the middle of great big lawns, with hundreds of trees, not her type of place at all. Anyway, the weather forecast was shit, rain, high winds, cold and more rain, lovely! Just perfect for a long weekend in the country, not! Well, not unless you were going to spend it all in bed, when it would be perfect, but this was obviously not an option when her poxy boyfriend was playing AA man somewhere on a motorway, although she's glad she's not travelling here in his sports car, even if it wasn't broken down, especially if the weather is going be as shitty as they are saying. It's draughty and the top leaks and it's far too close to the road for her liking, it's also too old, or 'classic' as he calls it, to have decent seat belts, let alone air bags, so that she's never felt particularly safe and finds herself screaming 'be careful' all the time she's in it, which means that he doesn't find her the most appreciative passenger of the charms of his precious car, charms that pass Molly by completely.

She got up and had a wander about and went over to the window, admitting that, even though she wanted to hate everything about the place, at least the room was very posh, well nice and the hotel was like an old castle type place, with doors like windows leading onto little stone balconies which would probably be ace if it wasn't so bloody cold, wet and windy so that she can't imagine going out there at any price, especially as all she can see is grass and trees and the long driveway to the car park in front of the entrance.

A long soak in the bath stuff provided by the hotel, which smelt lovely, very up-market, well, better than her usual stuff from Superdrug anyway, although that's quite nice, and then she'll have room service and go to bed for a couple of hours, seemed like the best plan. Sleeping would use up some of the time as she waited for him to pitch up and would help with the boredom which was already becoming a bit of a problem, her weekends off were so precious that she wanted to enjoy every second, not waste any of it hanging around waiting for someone and being bored shitless. The first part of the plan went well, she stayed in the bath for ages, topping it up with hot water every so often and only got out when her skin began to look like a prune, and she wrapped herself in the hotel's towelling dressing gown, although it was so massive that you could have got someone else inside it with her, wrapped her wet hair in a towel and was waiting for her room service order to be delivered when she watched the silvery coloured Range Rover make its way up the drive into the car park, she knew it would be him, he always bought the same type of car. Boring fucker, she didn't want to approve of anything about him, still, she had to admit that it probably wouldn't break down so regularly on the pissing motorway. As he parked and got out of the car she moved to the side a bit , slightly behind the curtain, she didn't want him to see her being nosey, then flattened herself against the wall with her eyes squeezed shut as she was flooded with horror.

She gave herself a panicky talking to as she moved carefully round the curtain to peer out and check him out again, he was chatting and laughing to Sarah as she collected her things together and they started to make their way to the entrance, when he suddenly stopped and looked up at the front of the hotel almost as if he sensed her watching, so that she was looking straight into the never to be forgotten features of her ex-husband. She instantly flung herself back against the wall, hoping like hell that he hadn't seen her, if he had she couldn't run away, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of thinking he could drive her off and she couldn't skulk upstairs all day as she had planned to, she wasn't going to let him think she was too scared to face him.

She picked at the food she had ordered from Room Service, it looked great and probably tasted lovely but she had totally lost her appetite so she checked out the mini bar, drinking a miniature of vodka straight from the bottle, and then had another one, hoping that the neat alcohol would help her brain to stop racing and then ate half a bar of chocolate for much the same reason, then felt slightly sick as she tried to put together a plan of what to do next. Of course what she really needed was her pissing fiancee to act as a shield, a sort of accessory to hang on her arm when she came face to face with him, to show him proof that she had survived what he had done to her, to them, that she wasn't a tear soaked wreck pining away somewhere, that she was over him and had moved on, was getting married again, for Christ sake. O yeah, where was her lousy boyfriend when she needed him? Playing about with an old wreck on a motorway somewhere, that's where, and she couldn't even talk to him because his mobile was switched off, so she sent him a text asking him to let her know how long he was going to be and then spent an hour or so waiting for a reply which didn't come.

She definitely couldn't stay upstairs all afternoon and any urge she'd had to sleep had vanished completely, so she decided to get herself tarted up, for much the same reason as she had wanted her boyfriend with her when she faced him, it was important that she looked the best she could. Knowing how much he'd loved her hair, one of the first things she'd done after the disaster that was the end of their marriage, was to have inches cut off it so that it barely skimmed her shoulders and she'd kept it shorter, it was now a sleek long bob that suited her. It showed off her large greenish eyes, which she made up with great care, something else that had changed since the days when they were married when she didn't really use any make-up at all, and put on skinny jeans and a waist skimming top, both of which she knew showed off her body then checked out of the window to make sure his car was still there, she had suddenly had a vain hope that he had just given Sarah a lift and then thought better of it and pissed off, but his car was still parked where it had been earlier so she checked her appearance one more time, took a deep breath and made her way downstairs, trying hard to ignore the butterflies that were having a field day in her stomach, the neat vodka hadn't helped much..

He was standing with his back to her looking through some leaflets on the table as she went into the lounge area and took another deep breath before walking straight up to him without any pause or hesitation, she wasn't going to let him have the upper hand by acknowledging her first, so she tapped him lightly on his arm, making him jump slightly, then saw his eyes widen as he looked at her, an indefinable expression on his face as he spoke softly with no hint of surprise in his voice, so that she knew he had seen her earlier

"Hello Molly"

"Hello Charles"

Author's notes: This is set over one long weekend leave, and is a new scenario for our favourite couple who are now not a couple any more, and have not seen each other for a couple of years but are still coming to terms with their shared history. They are both still in the army just stationed at different ends of the country. Hope you enjoy it.