A/N: Could just as well be called "Erase and rewind".

Following a serious trauma on the night of her 18th birthday, Molly Dawes, unable to deal with reality retreats to an imaginary world and spend the next four years in a mental hospital. Now, twenty-two years old she has returned to the real world, remembering only fragments of what she has been through. She faces the challenge to figure out what she wants out of life, whilst vague memories keep haunting her. Sometimes she is not sure what has been real and not when her memories seem to mingle with the real world.

Sounds serious enough, but this is intended to be a chick lit kind of fic. The likelihood of this plot happening for real is minimal, but I hope that does not prevent it from being a good story where everything can happen as Molly is back to square one. Or, is she?

As usual, I don't own the characters but I happily kidnap them from Tony Grounds for a while.

Chapter 1: A rough beginning

The mind is everything. What you think you become.

Buddha

Discharge summary of patient #XXX, M. Dawes

The now 22-year old female was admitted to St. James' Mental Hospital four years ago. On the evening of her 18th birthday the patient endured a traumatic assault at the hands of her then boyfriend leaving her with various physical injuries and she remained in a coma for three weeks . After awaking from the coma it became apparent that the patient's way of coping was to create a fantasy world and to withdraw from reality.

Through conversations with the patient, it appears that in this imaginary world, she enlisted with the British Army, went through basic training and further training to be a combat medical technician and was deployed to Afghanistan. She developed friendships and a romantic relationship with her commanding officer, who she normally referred to as the 'boss' or 'bossman'. Despite that the fantasy played out in a war zone she seemed to be able to cope better there for several years than facing reality. The patient shared stories that she went on several tours to Afghanistan and eventually married the captain she had fallen in love with.

Five months ago, the fantasy world seemed to start to fall apart; friends died, the imaginary husband soldier was injured and later unfaithful. This was interpreted as a sign that the patient was begining to let go of the imaginary world and return to the real one, a step-wise awakening. Two months later, a breakthrough was made when the patient during therapy acknowledged that she had in fact never been in the Army or been married. Gradually she has returned to and accepted her real life and been able to deal with the trauma. She now understands that she has spent the last four years in St. James' Mental Hospital and never has set foot in Afghanistan.

The patient is deemed fully recovered and fit for discharge.

The weirdest thing happened to me. Actually, weird hardly covers it. On my eighteenth birthday I went out for an evening of fun, and here I find myself four years later, knowing very little of what took place in between except what people have told me and fragmented memories of events that apparently never happened.

It started as a party evening like any other with my mates Mary and Sharon, except it was a bit special because it was my eighteenth birthday. We all dolled ourselves up in my room, the one I shared with my younger sisters Jade and Bella, but today I had thrown them out so we more mature girls could have some fun. We downed our first drinks for the evening, lukewarm lagers I had nicked from dad.

When I had a last glance in the mirror I felt pretty pleased. My long platinum blonde hair fell in loose waves, my green eyes were framed by sexy smokey eyeliner and I wore the new sequin mini-skirt I had stumbled on at the nearby market. I would probably need to pull it down all evening not to show my arse, but it was worth it because it was gorgeous. Before we left, mum sneaked me some money she had hidden from dad, saying I deserved it and she wanted me to have fun. If only we had known she would not meet the real me again for years, I would have hugged her even harder than I did. I would even have hugged my tosser of a dad.

We had so much to drink, far too much and got completely pissed. We started down at the local pub where dad hang with his drunken pals as usual, then went on to a new night-club a few stations down the metro line and met up with my boyfriend, Artan. We had beers, sambuca shots, more beers, cocktails. First, I drank because I wanted to enjoy myself, celebrate my day. Then I drank because I was annoyed and disappointed with Artan for flirting with another girl, and finally I drank because I was completely furious and devastated after I had walked in on my Mary giving Artan a hand job in a toilet booth. In my heart I already knew Artan was no good and if it had been any other random girl I would have kicked the door in and knocked her teeth out before kicking his balls, but the discovery that it was my best friend Mary made me retreat silently from the ladies' and return to our table. Greedily I gulp the four sambucas I happily had bought for us. It hurt, it really hurt that they had cheated on me with each other.

Minutes went by and they did not reappear from the toilet and I imagined they had moved on from hand job to full on sex, could not help imagining him pinning her to the wall. Unsteadily, I got up and left the table, left the club.

I remember vomiting outside an Army recruitment office. The eyes of the healthy-looking poster-girl soldier seemed to watch me reproachfully when I wiped my mouth with the sleeve of my jumper, noticing I had some in my hair too and I thought she could just fuck off. Then Artan came running after me, wondering where I was going. I was furious with him and told him we were done, I was leaving him and there was nothing he could do about it.

"I saw you, I saw you with that slag."

"What are you on about, you're acting like you're mental."

I could barely bother to face him with what I had seen. I felt betrayed and angry, but he was not worth the effort.

"I love you Molly, you can't break up with me. You're my girlfriend."

"I've had it with you, I'm worth someone better, someone treating me better."

He flinched, and his expression became hard, but he did not give up.

"Please come to my flat and let's talk things over."

I knew that Artan probably did not know the real meaning of love and I truly was set on breaking up with him because I had had enough of him shitting on me, but I was terribly cold, drunk and nauseous and did not want to go home, so I thought I would go with him and let him beg me to reconsider. I could do with some affirmation because in that moment, my self-confidence really had hit rock bottom.

Going with him turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. I had never tried to leave him before and it turned out he did not handle rejection well. The moment he closed the door behind us, the first punch hit my face. Meanwhile I still was in shock, he furiously went at me and punched again. And again.

"You don't get to break up with me, useless girl", he hissed between gritted teeth, then brusquely gripped my hair and pulled me further into the flat. He punched and kicked me where I was lying in foetal position, whimpering. Unable to scream, too scared to scream and knowing no one would hear me anyway, or if they did it would not be an unusual sound in this neighbourhood so they would not care. Maybe I tuned out already then, passively let him have my body but closed my mind to him. It was just that I closed it to everything and everyone else too - for the next four years.

Hours probably passed, Artan having his way with me until no one would have been able to recognise me because my face was a bloody mess. I was no longer conscious when he was finished with me, pulled me to his car, drove off and left me somewhere in the street. I only know this because I have been told the forensics identified substantial amounts of my blood in his car and a kind person found me and had me brought to hospital. Artan seemed to have intended for me to die on a deserted pavement.

After a few days the police somehow managed to identify me and let my family know I was hospitalised. I was in a coma for a couple of weeks and when I finally came around I was not the Molly they knew. I had started living another life on the inside of me and the medical opinion was that I found reality too brutal and painful to face. There was nothing wrong with me physically once the wounds had healed, but I had shut reality out during the assault and no one could tell when and if it would be possible to connect with me again for real. Without being aware of it, I was submitted to a mental hospital with the hope that time and the right treatment would make me recover.

I stayed in my own world for several years and now when I have returned it seems so strange to me because I can only remember bits and pieces vaguely. I remember even less of the hospital, except towards the end when I became aware of my surroundings again. It was not like I did not see them with my eyes before, but I was not able to fully register what was in front of me. Of the vague memories I have of my fictional life, some makes me all fuzzy and warm because there was love and friendship. Others, towards the end of my mental escape, make me want to cry because there was death and betrayal. Still, it seems like the bad parts filled a purpose because that somehow made me want to leave that imaginary place and return to my real life.

During my recovery, I was allowed to read my medical records and the staff retold me some of the stories I told them over the years. It seems I have a much more vivid imagination than I ever knew. I thought I was a soldier in Her Majesty's Army, my psychiatrist thinks maybe because I needed a strong alter ego to feel safe from Artan. I thought I went to war in Afghanistan and even got married – not to a Taliban, but to a captain, mind you. Now I know none of those things were true.

So, here I find myself, a twenty-two-year-old who has lost four years of her life to something I do not even remember and do not have a clue what I will do when I leave this place today. It does not feel like home, but it feels safe compared to the world outside.

To my relief, I was told Artan is in prison for the foreseeable future. I will not have to face him when I walk the streets of Newham. I'm not sure how I would manage. I still cannot bear to think of that night even if I no longer have the need to hide inside my own nut.

Mum and Nan came to get me, and we travelled home by bus, train, followed by another bus and I felt my heart thumping in my chest, my palms get sweaty when we got closer and the streets turned into familiar sights. Some shops and restaurants had closed and been replaced by new ones but otherwise little was different at first glance.

The council estate where my family lives also looked the same on the outside, but inside things had changed over the last four years. It was apparent already when mum told me dad had not joined them to pick me up because he was at work. At work. Dave, who had not had a steady job for as long as I could remember. He had sobered up, passed a driving test and was working for a firm delivering groceries to restaurants all over London. All of this would have been unthinkable four years ago.

Dad was there when we got home and gave me a me a long, hard hug. I can barely remember him hugging me before either. I have plenty of memories of him shouting at me and mum we were dirty skanks, but now he did not seem like a man who would do that.

"I'm not on the sickie anymore, I got myself a proper job", he proudly told me.

"And I'm working too, helping in the school", mum said.

This seemed familiar somehow and for a moment I felt confused.

"You didn't back then, did you mum?"

"No, I started two years ago."

I wondered if she had told me when I was still in dream land and it somehow got through, but I guess I will never know. There was something else I had to ask about.

"Do I have a baby brother? I mean one who's only three years or so?"

"No, are you crazy? I'm done having babies. More than enough with the ones I have and so great now when all of you are grown enough so I can have a job."

Apparently, there would not be any more babies in the Dawes' household unless Bella got knocked up. I had been so sure, remembering his lovely baby scent and tiny hands, that I felt deprived of the little toddler despite that he never had existed.

As soon as we came through the door, I noticed that the house was much tidier than it had used to be. It smelled fresher and it seemed like they had repainted the walls and changed some of the furniture. With both mum and dad now having jobs, they had been able to afford that. I stood in the small hallway, taking it all in.

"How does it feel?" mum asked.

"I don't know, strange. In one way it feels like yesterday I was here, in one way it feels like I have lived a whole different life in between – and I have in a way because it was real to me, but now I don't remember most of it."

"Were you happy Molls? In that life?"

"I think I was for a while, then all went a bit shit. I miss the good things somehow, but the bad ones made me return to you. At least that's what the psychiatrist says, so I guess I should be grateful for that."

A flash of someone faceless wiping tears away from my cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, then leaning his forehead to mine caused a feeling of loss to run through my body. How stupid, it was never real.

"I'm so glad you're with us again."

"Me too, mum."

I am. I'm also lost. I have quite some catching up to do and then I must figure out what to do with the rest of my life.

A/N: Even if I've had this in my head for some time, I really only have the beginning and a few pieces of this story, so we'll see how fast and in what direction it develops. It usually unfolds when I drive to and from work listening to music.

As always - glad if you let me know what you think!