Chapter One
Heels. She was still trying to work out quite what had possessed her to wear them when she eventually got back to her office. She kicked them off under the desk the second she flopped down in her chair. She'd been in and out of an endless stream of meetings all day- without a doubt the worst part of her new job- and it hadn't helped her mood. She was tired and most of all she missed Charles. They'd both known this tour was coming for a while but having time to prepare for it hadn't actually made it any easier when it came to waving him off.
She logged back into her computer, groaning at the sheer number of emails that had come through in the couple of hours she'd been away from her desk. She was quietly thankful that she had something to do- the house was far too quiet with him gone, but she also wanted to go home at some point before midnight. She wondered briefly if anyone would notice if she had yet another takeaway pizza in her office for dinner. She'd become something of a regular at the Domino's across the road from the hospital. Charles had thought it was hilarious when she told him. She couldn't find it in herself to really care about it. It seemed ridiculous to keep cooking just for herself.
She skimmed through a couple of emails, then flicked back over to her calendar. Three weeks away. The date Charles was due back- it was marked in her calendar and she sometimes found herself sitting there staring at it, willing it to come sooner. She'd been able to speak to him on the phone a couple of times at least, but it wasn't the same. She'd booked a week off work for when he got back on the pretence that they might do something. She highly suspected that the only thing they'd be doing was laying around the house in their pyjamas just enjoying being back together and she was more than okay with that. But it did bring her attention back to the fact that if she didn't get some of her work done she wasn't going to be able to take the week of to spend with him.
She fished her phone out of her bag to turn it off silent now she'd finally escaped from one of the most tedious meetings she'd ever been too. She frowned at the screen as she saw she'd got three missed calls from Georgie. She hit the button to call her back straight away, not bothering to listen to the voicemails she'd left. As the phone rang and she waited for Georgie to answer she was running through potential scenarios in her head about what might be wrong this time.
After they'd relocated for her new job they'd ended up living not that far away from Georgie and Elvis, just on the outskirts of Manchester. The new proximity had meant Molly had been on the receiving end of more than a few panicked phone calls from Georgie. She didn't mind, even if a couple of them had been in the middle of the night. Elvis had been deployed again a couple of months after Charles, leaving Georgie at home with their six month old daughter which made Molly her first port of call a lot of the time.
"Oh thank god." Georgie breathed as she answered the phone. She sounded out of breath and Molly wondered for a moment what she'd been doing.
"Sorry, I've been a meeting most of the day. Is everything okay?" Molly asked.
Georgie was silent for a moment. "No." She whispered, her voice cracking. "It's Elvis." Molly felt her heart sink as she listened to the muffled sobbing on the other end of the phone.
"Georgie?" Molly was already out of her seat, rummaging in her bag for her car keys. She wedged her feet back into her heels and grabbed the rest of her stuff. "Are you at home? I can be there in fifteen minutes." She could hear the baby crying in the background over the sound of Georgie's muffled sobs.
"Please." Georgie choked out. "I'm sorry, I didn't know who else to call and…"
"It's okay." Molly reassured. "I'm on my way, take a couple of deep breaths. Put the kettle on and by the time you've done it I'll be there- okay?"
"Okay." Georgie replied weakly, hanging up the phone.
Molly ran down the corridor towards the car park- well as fast as her heels would allow anyway. In reality it was more of an awkward and uncomfortable jog. She skidded to an abrupt halt as she reached the nurses station. "I've got to go, family emergency. I don't know if I'll be back. Does anyone need anything before I go?" She asked, looking at the three junior doctors sitting at the desk. They all shook their heads and she carried on towards the exit. "Good, you can call me if you need me but Rob is in his office!" She shouted back over her shoulder.
She was five minutes away from Georgie's house when the phone rang, the noise filling the car and making her jump. She glanced at the screen in the middle and realised it was Charles. Usually she'd be excited to talk to him but it really wasn't good timing. What was she supposed to say to him? She didn't want to lie to him about his friend be she also hadn't got any information to tell him. At the moment she had no way of knowing whether Elvis had stubbed his toe or he was….. She stopped herself, not even wanting to think about it.
"Hey." She forced a smile onto her face as she answered the phone, he'd always been good at knowing when something was wrong. She highly doubted he needed something else to worry about while he was out there. Maybe she could get away without telling him.
"Hi." His voice filled the car and a wave of sadness hit her. God she missed him. "Sorry, I know you're probably at work. I was going to call later but… well… things happen." His voice faltered slightly and her stomach dropped.
"Charles- is everything okay?" She spotted a layby just up in front, before the turning to Georgie's road and pulled in so she could talk to him for a moment before she went in.
There was a long pause on the end of the phone. "I'm okay… It's um… It's Elvis Molly."
It took a moment to sink in. "You're there with him?" She hadn't really known where Charles was. They'd originally been sent out to Nepal for disaster relief, but the last time she'd skyped him he'd been somewhere different. A change of plans he'd said, but he hadn't been able to tell her where he was. Elvis hadn't said where he was going either, but that was much more normal for him. It had never occurred to her that they might both be in the same place.
"I am." He said quietly. "Well, I was."
She didn't need to see his face to know it wasn't good. "Georgie called me in a state- what's happened?" Her stomach churned, the anxiety taking over. She wasn't sure she wanted to know- what was she supposed to say to Georgie if it was really bad? It would've been easier to play it down if she'd been clueless.
"It's bad Molly. Really bad." His voice was small and childlike, she got the impression he was barely holding it together. She wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and comfort him. The harsh reality of the situation was that he was almost certainly thousands of miles away and there was nothing she could do.
"Is he….?" She couldn't bring herself to say the words out loud. It made her feel physically sick.
"No. Well, as far as I know. It's not good Molly." Charles sighed.
"Are you allowed to tell me what happened?" She asked.
"We um…. Well I suppose it doesn't really matter why. He was on the roof of a four-storey building and there was an explosion. I was at the bottom and I saw him fall Mol… Is there any way he can survive something like this?"
She didn't know what to say to him. She could picture it in her head with an alarming clarity. She also knew all too well the kinds of injuries the fall alone could cause, never mind the explosion. "It's possible." She said slowly, she didn't want to give him false hope that Elvis was going to get up and walk it off but she also didn't want to completely crush any little bit of hope he'd got left. "Are they bringing him home?"
"Yeah." Charles said quietly. "He should be there in a few hours."
"Are you sure you're okay?" She asked again.
"I um… I don't really know." He mumbled. "It all feels a bit surreal."
"That'll be the shock." She said softly. "I need to go, I promised Georgie I wouldn't be long." She didn't want to hang up on him but she knew he wouldn't be able to spare long to talk to her anyway. There was something she could do try and help Georgie at least. There wasn't much she could do to comfort Charles other than sit on the phone with him.
"I know." He sounded lost and she could feel the tears welling in her eyes. She tried to remember that he'd be home soon and she'd be able to hug him. Only a few more days.
"I'll call you if I hear anything?" She offered.
"Please." He nodded. "I'll do the same if I hear anything from this end. Give my love to Georgie?"
"I will." She whispered. "I love you."
There was a pause and she could hear voice in the background talking to him. "I know. I love you too." And then the phone line went dead as he hung up. She was left sitting there in the layby fighting her tears as she tried to pull herself together enough to go and try to convince Georgie everything was going to be okay.
She let herself into Georgie's house in the end. She'd knocked twice and got nothing in response. "Hello?" She called, kicking her shoes off and dropping her bag on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. She turned to the left, going through the living room to get to the kitchen.
Georgie was standing in the kitchen, two cups of tea brewing on the kitchen counter beside her. Her daughter was in her arms, fast asleep. "Sorry, I didn't hear you knocking." She mumbled, looking up at Molly with a tearstained face.
"It's okay." Molly smiled. "Why don't I go and put her in her cot and then we'll sit and drink these?" She suggested.
Georgie didn't move so she took it as a yes, slipping her arms under the baby and carefully taking her from Georgie so she didn't wake her. "Hey Lauren… How's my favourite Goddaughter?" She whispered, smiling down at her. She made her way carefully up the stairs, turning left at the top and going through the door into the nursery. She gently laid Lauren down in her cot, freezing for a heartstopping moment as she stirred slightly in her sleep and she thought she'd woken her up. Much to her relief she didn't wake up.
She stood there for a moment watching her Goddaughter sleep, saying a silent prayer that Elvis was going to make it back to see her grow up. She'd been fairly sure he was going to explode with excitement when he'd told her and Charles that Georgie was pregnant. She could remember sitting on the floor of the nursery more or less exactly where she was standing, laughing at Charles and Elvis trying to put together the IKEA cot that he'd brought to surprise Georgie. It had taken them an embarrassing amount of time to figure out how to put it together but Elvis had been so happy when they'd finally managed it. She blinked back another tear that threatened to fall as she thought about the fact he might not be there to spoil her rotten for her first Christmas as he'd promised he would.
With one last look at the sleeping baby she slipped out of the room and back down the stairs to find Georgie. She was sitting on the sofa holding a cup of tea. Molly sat down next to her and picked up the other mug that was sitting on the coffee table.
Georgie looked at her with an expression that could only be described as hopeless. "I can't do this on my own." She whispered. "Why did he have to go out there? This was supposed to be exciting, the three of us finally a family and now…."
"Don't go jumping to any conclusions just yet." Molly suggested, squeezing her friends arm. "One step at a time. What did they say?"
Georgie rolled her eyes. "Same thing they always say. There'd been an incident and they were flying him home. I just…. This is Elvis we're talking about Molly, you just know he's going to have got himself involved in something stupid. It's what he does. He's not sensible like Charles."
Molly grimaced. "I spoke to Charles on my way over here." She admitted. She wasn't going to be able to keep it from Georgie long enough to find out what happened. She felt too guilty about lying to her.
"He's due home soon isn't he?" Georgie mumbled, sipping at her tea.
"Yeah." Molly nodded. "But that wasn't why he called. He was on the operation with Elvis, Georgie."
She heard Georgie's sharp intake of breath. "Did he say what happened?" Her stomach flipped and she wasn't really sure she actually wanted Molly to tell her the answer. She couldn't bear the not knowing, but she also wasn't sure she wanted to hear the news that was almost certainly coming.
"He didn't say much." Molly said slowly, trying to work out how to word it to try and stop Georgie freaking out more than she already was. "I don't know all the in's and out's of it. There was some kind of explosion from what Charles said. Elvis fell from a couple of floors up."
A strangled sob escaped Georgie. "Oh god. He's dead isn't he?"
"I don't know." Molly answered honestly. "Charles said he was stable when they airlifted him out. That's all I know." She didn't want to go into detail of all of the kinds of injuries he could have sustained from a fall like that. There were so many different ways it could kill him she wished she could stop herself thinking about it all. Georgie went quiet and Molly suspected she was thinking along the same lines- she'd been a medic long enough to know the kind of damage something like that could do. Even if he did survive it there was no guarantee he'd ever be the Elvis they knew and loved again.
"What do we do?" Georgie asked quietly.
"We wait." Molly said simply, putting an arm around her friend. "It's all we can do for now."