A/N: Back to The Barn for an update on the consequences of life after the army with a new (ish) baby, three other kids and a very stroppy teenager, not to mention an Afghani girl that Molly feels responsible for ….. Thank you to Debbie for the suggestion, it was like stepping back into a parallel universe for me and has absolutely no point of reference to S2. I hope you enjoy going back there with me, please be kind and review, Ch.2 in a day or so.

-OG-

Molly

"Mrs James? I'm so sorry to have kept you waiting, come in, come in, actually we were expecting Colonel James ….."

"He's away, sorry"

Now didn't seem to be the best time to try and explain to this bloke that even though he'd just promoted him to Colonel, Charlie wasn't actually even in the army anymore, although she had this vague memory of him saying something about still being entitled to his rank, or she might have made that bit up but she thought that was what he'd said even if to be honest she couldn't exactly remember. They'd been laughing too much as well as having had maybe one too many glasses of wine to celebrate his first day at DEC, even though she'd still been feeding Livvie and had had to give her a bottle so that she'd screamed all bloody night, not the best preparation for his second day.

"Well, no matter, no matter …." He raised his eyebrows and looked over the top of his glasses at her and at the kids clustered round, at least Livvie was fast asleep and hadn't woken up screaming the bloody place down when she'd taken the seat out the car, which Millie would have done without a shadow of a doubt. She wished she knew where to get the fairy dust other mum's obviously used to get their kids all docile and behaving like angels without the need for drugs or threats and although she wished her lot were all asleep, especially Millie, drugging them was just a nice idea. Millie was already not too impressed at being threatened that she had to be good or else, or else what hadn't been established yet but Millie was still just too little to have worked that bit out, god help them when she did "Have a seat and I'll …. er … umm … go through it with you, can I get you anything, a cup of tea perhaps?"

Molly wanted to giggle and ask whether a Vodka was out the question, but that was just her nerves kicking in "Nah, I'm fine thanks, Mr… erm….Richards, um …Richardson, and I'm really sorry about having to bring this lot with me" She gestured at the children "But I didn't have anyone to leave them with, not at such short notice anyhow" And then wondered why the fuck she thought she had to apologise to him, but people like him always made her feel about fifteen again.

It wasn't strictly true of course that there had been no-one to leave them with, there was any number of people she could have asked but all of the potential baby sitters, friends, neighbours, fellow school gate mums would have needed her to come up with an explanation of some sort. Not least Penny and Bill in Bath, a quick phone call would have had the grandparents haring up the motorway to The Barn before you could say Jack Robinson, whoever the fuck he was. But that would have meant even more detailed explanations and that would have led to recriminations and an immediate phone call to one interested party in Dubai, someone who was going to be less than charmed. She had every right to know of course, Molly knew that, but it was bound to end up as Charles' fault in some way so that she didn't want it to happen until she knew what the fuck he'd been up to, what had gone on.

"No, that's fine, I'm only sorry we had to ..erm ..summon s …. I mean, get you here under these circumstances, like this" He inclined his head towards the children and nodded, smiling at them as they all stared at him with their mouths wide open obviously convinced that he was something out of Harry Potter, Sam's housemaster was the first person they'd ever seen wearing one of those gowns in real life "You understand that we're not permanently excluding Samuel, but we do feel it would be in his best interests to ….. go ….. erm ….. maybe to go home for the rest of the half, to perhaps take some time and reflect on … for a while, and there's only a week or so left till half term and then … maybe after the break we'll see where we are"

"Right" She smiled in a vain attempt to get on his good side, maybe to even get him to reconsider, change his mind although she knew there was fat chance of that happening as she frowned menacingly at Millie who had obviously come to the end of her 'be good or else' attention span and had started to surreptitiously poke Marcus on the leg to see if she could wind him up.

Molly thought she could detect a bucket load of bullshit in what the old fart was saying, it had far more to do with him not wanting Sam swanning about the place being hero-worshipped by the other little buggers, and they definitely didn't want to expel the little sod and lose the extortionate fees Charles was paying so that Sam could continue to stop here and be an ungrateful little bugger. Sam had promised her faithfully that there would be no more of this sort of shit. And where was her bloody husband when she needed him, not that she'd told him the last time Sammy had pulled a stunt like this, but that had been a while back now and at least Sam had been at home then so it had been easy for her to cover for him. But no-one could do that here, not in the goldfish bowl of this posh prison so that Charles was going to find out, same as he was going to find out that she had kept it from him last time the stupid little sod had done this sort of stuff. And she was going to have to be the one to tell him about it when he got home from sorting out aid in bloody Kenya, when he got back from playing humanitarian angel.

Last Spring he'd left the army behind him and Molly had stupidly thought that his new role at DEC would mean that he would come home at night, which to be fair he had done to start with and still did most of the time, except for when he was off organising things at some disaster or other, but coming home had got later and later and he was spending more and more hours at the weekends with his team 'sorting' stuff. Normally she didn't get her knickers in too much of a twist about it, or tried not to, he was always going to need to do something that needed action so she couldn't ever see him being a desk job man. It wouldn't be him to be sitting there pushing bits of paper about, but it was just that sometimes when things got a bit shitty like today with one of the kids ….. she almost looked back on his days in the army with a bit of nostalgia for the 'good old days'.

It was when Mr Richards, bugger it was Richardson, she had to try and remember what his name was because she didn't want to make things any worse, went off to get someone to summon her lovely stepson, who she might possibly kill when the two of them got home, that she suddenly wondered what he'd made of her. She was sitting in his book-lined study and had just picked a bit of Weetabix off her jeans without thinking. She had no make-up on but then she couldn't even remember washing her face before she'd left the house, let alone anything else, and had her hair tied back in a scruffy pony-tail. She hadn't really thought about it when she'd been dashing about shutting the dog in, changing Livvie's nappy, getting the others to go to the loo and then getting Millie to put some knickers on before she got them in the car and gave them dire warnings about what would happen if they misbehaved, but she was pretty sure that most of the mums who sat in that room would be wearing posh frocks and high heels and lippie and would have their hair done. She was a bit hazy about the details, still an east Ham girl under the surface, but she did wonder if they might even be wearing gloves.

One thing that was for sure was that they wouldn't have a whole tribe of kids with them, whereas she was like that bloody nun, the dopey mare with all the kids dressed in curtains who went around singing, not that Molly intended to do any singing, that was another thing she was no bloody good at. It was just that she was willing to bet that Mr Richards son hadn't been expecting the Colonel to have a wife like her.

"Just shut the fuck up and get in the car, Sam, it's bloody taters out 'ere and I don't wanna hear no more of it"

"Good job Dad can't hear you"

"If your Dad was 'ere, mate, this wouldn't be happening, so just shut up, get in the bloody car and we'll talk about it later on when we get 'ome"

She looked meaningfully at the other children as she tried to give him the clear message that she wasn't going to discuss any of it with him while they were there hanging on every word, especially Chloe who was going to be deeply impressed with his latest triumph. Yeah, he was seventeen and not a kid anymore, something that she knew in theory, but he still seemed much younger than that to her especially when he was wearing his school uniform. But any ideas she'd had about him being contrite because he was in disgrace and apologetic for dragging them all there to collect him had vanished immediately they'd got outside on the gravel forecourt of the school. Sam was truculent and unapologetic and had whined continually about his housemaster over-reacting and treating him like a kid over what had just been a bit of an evening out not to mention the headmaster who hadn't deigned to put in an appearance to speak to Molly. Maybe he would have done if the Colonel had pitched up, but she obviously wasn't important enough, or maybe he'd thought that she was the nanny, she couldn't blame him if he had, sometimes she felt a bit like that herself.

"What did he tell you?"

"Who, your housemaster? What, apart from you behaving like a complete twat you mean? Not much"

She had managed to hold onto her irritation until everyone including the baby had been fed and bathed, and she'd got the little ones into bed and poured herself a huge glass of wine before threatening Chloe with a fate worse than death if she dared to put a single foot outside of her door before she told her that she could. She had relented slightly to allow her to watch Frozen for the nine millionth time on her I Pad, after all none of this was Chloe's fault, even if she was getting seriously on Molly's tits by looking adoringly at Sam as if he was unbelievably clever. At nearly nine Chloe wasn't a baby anymore so that Molly couldn't shut her up with a look and Sam was lapping up her obvious hero-worship as he made smartarse comments under his breath and Molly wanted to slap him, very hard, cocky little fucker, but couldn't, so she had to settle for ignoring him until they were on their own.

"Come on then, least you can do is tell me the whole story after I had to traipse all the kids over there, 'n I've got a bullshit detector in the back of me head, so I'll 'ave the truth if you don't mind, don't even bother trying it on, okay?"

"You didn't have to be the one to come and pick me up, bringing all the bloody kids with you" He thought for a minute "I could have got a train"

"Them 'bloody kids' as you call them are your sisters and your brother, and what was I s'posed to do with them while you was getting yourself chucked out of school?" Molly could vaguely remember her mum getting pissed at her when she'd referred to her brothers and sisters as the little bleeders so that she felt a pang of remorse for the way it had upset Belinda "And it weren't my idea for you to get collected, you could of walked home far as I'm concerned but they insisted someone had to" She looked at the truculent expression on his face and thought how much like his dad he looked when he was pissed at someone or something "What? You'd have liked it better if I'd of called Penny and Bill, asked them to come and collect you?"

"What was wrong with asking my father to come and get me if someone had to, Oh no, I forgot, he's never got time has he?"

"What? You expect your dad to nip back from Kenya just cos you can't do as you're bloody told? Or maybe your mum could of popped over from Dubai? You're not a kid Sam, you keep on telling us that, so what was you thinking mate?"

"Now you're being stupid as usual, and I'd forgotten he's away, but then he's always away isn't he?"

"Okay, Sam, explain it to your dad when he gets back"

She wanted to yell at him, to slap him, to ask him who the fuck he thought he was talking to, that his dad would kill him if he heard him but most of all she wanted to tell him that he was a spoilt little sod who didn't know what it was like to have nothing and that his dad was doing his best, but she could hear Nan's voice in her head giving her a swerve about kids who'd got nothing to eat who would be bloody grateful for the dinner she was refusing, saying it was disgusting and pulling faces like she was going to puke. Molly was suddenly worn out with it all knowing she'd be wasting her breath saying anything like that to him.

"You know some'ing Sam? I don't think you know jack shit about your dad"

"I know you always stick up for him"

"Go and do something useful, take Patchy out, poor little bugger didn't get a proper go this afternoon, and then, Oh I dunno, just go somewhere where I don't have to look at you while I work out what the fuck I'm going to tell your dad"

"I'm not taking your dog for a walk, I'm going out" He pretended that he hadn't heard what she'd said about her telling his father.

"Nah 'fraid not sunshine,"

"You just said it Moll, I'm not a kid and you're not my mother so you can't stop me"

"Nah, know that" Molly resisted the temptation of saying thank fuck for that "But you just try it and see what happens, I know you think I'm a soft touch Sam, and maybe I have been, a bit, but I am pissed right off with you right now so don't push your luck"

She'd checked the time when she heard the little sod call Patch and heard the dog's excited yipping as his claws scrabbled around on the kitchen floor when Sam jangled the lead so that it appeared his defiance hadn't gone quite as far as not taking the dog out and late as it was, bloody Charles still hadn't rung. She had no bloody clue what she was going to say to him when he did, whether she was going to tell him any of it while he was out there doing, well whatever it was he was doing, and she still hadn't got the full story off of Sam.

-OG-

When he did eventually ring she was not exactly at her sunniest. She'd given up waiting for him to call and had gone to bed, so that she was warm and cosy and almost asleep. Sam had come back and stomped off to his room after kicking his shoes off in the hall so that they'd hit the wall and hadn't even bothered putting his head round the door to say he was back, so he was obviously still in a major strop. But at least he had come back and hadn't carried out his threat of going out to god knows where, which meant she didn't actually have to carry out her threat and ring his grandparents, get them to take him out of her hair and off to Bath until Charles got back. Although a few days with Penny would have done him the bleeding world of good, probably have made him grateful for her and the kids, or it might of done anyway, she was at a loss to know what was for the best.

"Hey, everything okay? Sorry, I'm sorry I'm so late, it's been a bit manic today, kids alright?" He looked like he was sitting in the middle of a digital storm of green and white flashes and he sounded like he was in the bottom of an echoey swimming pool on the far side of the moon "Can you hear me? See me? This is a crap line, hang up and I'll try again"

"No, you're alright I can hear you 'n it is a bit late innit, we can talk tomorrow"

"Sorry, I can't really see you, were you in bed, I didn't wake you did I?"

"Nah, it's okay, you okay?"

"Come on Moll, what's up? and don't say nothing, I can hear it, what's wrong?"

"Bit tired that's all, kids playing up" Which she thought would get her the gold bloody medal for understatement "Look, just take care and don't worry about trying to call tomorrow if it's hard to get through, I'll see you Saturday"

"Yeah, look about that Moll, it might take a few more days to sort things here, I will call you tomorrow, I'll know a bit more by then, sorry"

"Yeah, alright"

"You sure everything's okay?"

"Yeah"

Oh, terrific, bleeding wonderful, she'd disconnected, pressing the call end icon before she could say something that she'd be sorry for and had then realised that neither of them had said goodbye properly or more importantly said 'I love you' or 'I miss you' which was something that they always did, no matter what, even when they were having a huge barney about something, but this didn't feel like everything was normal.

Charles

He'd known it was really late back in the UK and that she would have been waiting for him to call, and knowing Molly as he did he was sure she'd have been getting more than a little pissed off with him for not calling earlier. The simple truth was that the time had run away with him and he'd forgotten, not forgotten her exactly, but he hadn't been keeping a close enough eye on the time so that he could time the call so that the kids would be in bed but that Molly wouldn't be. He was also a bit guilty of putting it off, he hadn't been looking forward to telling her that he might not be home on Saturday and as he'd expected the news hadn't gone down well even if she hadn't said anything, but he now tugged at the hair on the back of his neck and shrugged, then looked in the mirror and ran a hand over his chin.

Who was he bloody kidding here, he was not going to be home on Saturday so what the hell had he been thinking when he'd told her he wasn't sure? When did he and Molly start lying to each other for fuck sake?

-OG-