A/N: This is the first part of a two part short story that has been written in a sort of collaboration with Debbie Fincham ... and to those who are going to accuse me of abandoning Roadside Rescue, I am not, I am still 100% committed to it, it was just that writing this went some way towards helping with our absolute outrage at the way things have been portrayed on screen ... Part two hopefully tomorrow ... please be kind x

-OG-

What Goes Around

Part One - Betrayal

"What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm bloody doing? I'm packing" Molly resolutely didn't look in his direction as she carefully folded her clothes into the open suitcase on the bed "And before you say anything, I'm not taking anything that's not mine"

"Where are you going?"

"That's none of your business anymore, all you need to know is that I'm bloody not staying here ... I'm not gonna do this anymore ... "

"Not going to do what? Don't be ridiculous ... look, you can stay, I'll move out"

"I don't think so ... I don't wanna stay here ... I'm not going to stay anywhere where everywhere I look I'm reminded of you, of what we had, of what you've bloody well destroyed ... I don't wanna 'ave anything to do with you anymore and I don't wanna keep pretending that it's not what you do ... you're bloody good at it, mate, running away when things get a bit 'ard and then pretending you can't 'elp it ... that nothing is your fault" Molly still wouldn't look at him, she was concentrating instead on tucking socks and underwear down the sides of her case "You did it to Rebecca, you did it to Sammie and now you've done it to me ... if I'd had any sense at all I wouldn't have believed all that shit you came out with, but still better late than never, eh?"

She shut the case and swung it off the bed and then looked around the room checking she hadn't left anything behind, before wrenching her rings from her fingers and throwing them in the middle of the bed. She still didn't look directly at him, she was too afraid that if she did she would lose it completely and start hitting him. She had hoped to be away from the place before he came back from wherever it was he'd been, probably off somewhere with her, but knew that if she ever saw him again it would be too soon.

"And if it weren't me best mate, who by the way was going to marry your best mate, remember him? Wonder what he'd think? Nah, if it wasn't Georgie it'd be someone else, it's what you do, you fucked off when Rebecca got fed up with you preferring to go off playing at soldiers instead of being at home and looking after her and your son ... but then, she didn't get how important the army was to you did she? ... and you told me that that had all changed when you met me ... but what you meant was that I hero-worshipped you, thought you could do nothing wrong so I made you feel good about yourself, but not anymore, that's all finished, over, done with, I'm just glad that we never had any kids ..."

He still hadn't said a word as she pushed past him out of the room and then shouted back over her shoulder that she would let him know where to send on the rest of her stuff before going down stairs and out of the front door and out of his life, slamming the door behind her.

Charles stood still for a second, then picked up her rings and put them on top of the chest of drawers and wondered why he didn't feel relieved that she'd gone, that she'd left him, that it was over. It was what he'd wanted after all, ever since Azizi, since Elvis, and for more than a year now he'd wanted nothing more than to look after Georgie. Nothing else had seemed important. Molly was strong, she was much stronger than Georgie who needed him to be there for her in a way that Molly no longer did and his wife had been standing in the way of him being able to do what he knew to be right, so why didn't it feel like that now that she'd made it plain she wasn't going to be in the way anymore, that he was free to do what he wanted.

For a while he wandered from empty room to empty room in the house they'd bought together with such an intense excitement, remembering the way Molly had been full of happiness and excited plans for the first home she'd ever owned, but the house just felt like bricks and mortar now that all that excitement had gone. He started to collect together the odd bits of stuff she hadn't taken with her, glad of something to do as he tried to wipe her words from his brain, but couldn't. The trouble was he knew she was right, that every word she'd said was the pure unvarnished truth.

To start with he'd kept expecting to hear from her, he had been sure that as soon as she calmed down a bit she would do as she said and would let him know where she was so that he could send her the odds and ends she'd left behind and could, at the same time arrange to meet up so that they could talk. But as the days slowly turned into weeks and the weeks into months he realised she wasn't going to get in touch and that the boxes of her things that were now gathering dust in the hall weren't going anywhere, but he couldn't quite bring himself to throw them out.

It had taken him a while to realise that her post was no longer coming to the house, that she had to have arranged re-direction and for a day or so he'd toyed with the idea of seeing if he could find out where she was from the Post Office people, but had then abandoned the idea as unfeasible. They were never going to just hand out her address even if he could prove that she was still his wife. But for some reason it made the whole separation thing seem final, which it was of course, it had been final the day she'd slammed the door on her way out. He knew he could trace her through the army but that would mean telling people and he hadn't done that, not yet, he hadn't told anyone. It was easy to lie to Sammie, the little boy knew Molly went away as much as he did, but he was pretty sure Rebecca had her suspicions, although she hadn't said a word about it either and he'd made a million excuses to his mother and father to explain why Molly didn't visit Royal Crescent anymore. They'd adored her from the minute they knew she'd saved his life and afterwards for her own sake and he was dreading the moment that he had to tell them that the girl they'd taken to their hearts was gone, that he'd thrown another marriage away.

Slowly it became the new normal of his life. The empty house, the long hours spent on his own, the shopping for one and the not always eating what he'd bought so that it sat in the fridge until he threw it out, the silent phone that never rang and the going out for long runs where he pounded the streets until he was a dripping sweaty mess and told himself he was doing it to improve his fitness level when in fact he was trying to stop thinking about how his life had gone to shit. Not so long ago he'd thought he had everything he wanted, and now there was nothing left of the way things used to be. He was on his own.

-OG-

Her anger with him and what they'd done, him and the girl she had thought of as her friend, kept her going for the first few weeks after she'd given up on him. She'd spent a long time doing her best to support him when he needed help, she had kept on telling him that she would always stick by him whatever, but that he had to face it and stop hiding behind the uniform, but instead he'd bloody betrayed her. She'd quickly decided she could live without the shit she'd left behind so didn't make any attempt to contact him at all, and he hadn't called her either but Georgie had bombarded her with calls and texts and facebook messages until she'd blocked her. She didn't read any of them, she didn't want to know so had just deleted them unread, didn't want to hear what either of them had to say or to know anything about what they were doing, she didn't even want to know whether they were together now. It didn't actually matter whether they were an item or not, it was enough that he'd put Georgie first, that he'd wanted her more than he'd wanted his marriage.

She'd volunteered for everything and had done a couple of short tours, anything to help her get on without thinking too much. The first was total shit, she'd been really miserable, had found it hard to forget what he'd done, and habit had her looking for his handwriting on a letter, but the second was okay, in fact it was good and slowly life back in barracks begun to suit her. Her room was okay, bit on the small side but not bad and she could do what she liked, when she liked and there was always someone around to have a laugh with, to go out for a drink with and no-one asked her anything about him and what had happened. She'd reverted to Dawes and as time went on and she got back from her second tour she wasn't even sure how many people actually remembered about her having been married once, there was always some new rumour going round about someone, and those that did remember didn't mention anything to her about it.

She'd told her family when she'd gone away on tour the first time, she couldn't not, she had to explain why she didn't live with him anymore and why she was arranging to have him taken off as next of kin, why she'd moved out the house, but she'd told them it as a fact, hadn't gone on about how he'd betrayed her or anything and had told them without any hearts and flowers shit and since then she had absolutely refused to talk to any of them about any of it at all. Nothing that anyone said was going to mend anything.

She'd avoided having anything to do with the lads as well. At first they'd kept on asking what had happened, and saying that they were worried about her, but eventually she'd ignored them for so long that they'd given up trying. She had no wish to get into any of it with them either, she didn't want to talk to anyone about old times or what had gone wrong ... nothing, and she definitely didn't want to talk to anyone about him and what he'd done.

Her getting promoted had helped a bit, at least it seemed as if she was doing okay at work even if the rest of her life had gone to shit, well, someone obviously thought so anyway, and things were actually slowly starting to get a bit better. She wasn't quite at the stage of being able to say she was happy yet, but she wasn't unhappy either and there were days when it felt as if her marriage had never been.

-OG-

"Go on, you'll enjoy it ... once you get going ... well, the Molly Dawes I used to know would have aced it ... and it's not as if there are a whole lot of other medics with medals to pick from is there?"

"Oh I see, no choice ... I know ... I'll get Dawes to do it" Molly giggled "You silver tongued charmer you"

"I think you mean, yes Sir, no Sir, three bags full Sir"

"Do I? Oh go on then if I have to ... 'ere is that an order boss?"

"You'll enjoy it ... you'll see"

"Is that a promise then?"

Her new role as mentor for those just out of basic who were aspiring to be medics was something she was well used to doing on tour and she was happy that she was good at it, but it had filled her with trepidation when she'd found out who her boss was going to be, a hell of a lot of water had gone under the bridge since she'd last seen him, but she had always liked him. Sort of. Had even fancied him a bit back then, but all of that was long forgotten now that he was her boss, that mistake was one she was never going to repeat. She'd had to get used to not calling him Corporal Geddings anymore, she wasn't the only one who'd got herself promoted and last she'd heard he was a Sergeant but was now Staff Sergeant Geddings so she had to get used to calling him Staff, and it was him that was in charge of setting up this trailer stall thing at the family day where she'd apparently just volunteered to give a talk about what it was like to serve overseas as a medic in a war zone. And how she'd got a fucking medal for it, something that she really wasn't sure she wanted to do. She was afraid she was going to stuff it up because it was going to bring back too many memories, but it looked like it was all set now so that she had no choice, and anyway it was a bit of a test for her to check whether it still hurt to talk about it.

-OG-

" ... so I suppose what I've been trying to tell you is that it doesn't matter if you win a medal or not ... although that is quite nice" She waited for the ripple of laughter to die down before going on with the rest of her presentation, the one that she'd practised in front of her mirror about a hundred times and then in front of Staff Geddings while he'd smiled at her with pride written all over his face, the same proud smile he had now as she got to the closing bit "It's never just about you as the medic, whatever happens it's always going to be a team effort, you are part of a section and you all look out for each other... it's what sections do, it's not all about looking after number one, it's about looking after numbers two, three and four and however many there are in your section, it's just that as the medic you get to do all the gory bits ... but that is just you doing your job ... thank you"

There was a prolonged burst of applause as she smiled and repeated thank you several times to her admiring audience before jumping off the stage with a huge smile of relief and pride on her face and pretended to stand to attention in front of Matthew Geddings as he grinned happily and then threw his arm round her and hugged her. They had decided that they wouldn't do questions as such, that they would just let people come up and ask her stuff after if they wanted, which suited Molly. One to one would be a lot easier.

"Well, well who'd have bloody thought it? Little Miss Gobby up there holding the audience in the palm of her hand like a professional"

"Shut up Boss" She smiled up at him "Was it really okay?"

"Well, I would tell you, but we don't want you getting a big head do we?" He laughed "Come on ... I'll shout you a cuppa and then I can tell you what a star you are"

"And a sticky bun?"

"Don't push it Dawsey"

He couldn't possibly have known about the pang it gave her to hear someone call her by that nickname as she swallowed hard and grinned again, she hadn't been called that for a very long time.

-OG-

He had been intending to bring Sammie with him to this family day, but at the last minute Rebecca had called to say the little boy was sick, something he wasn't 100% sure was true, but he was committed to attend so was alone as he walked around acknowledging people and willing the time to speed up so he could decently leave when he saw her. Almost six months without a word since she'd slammed out of their home and there she was, Molly, standing on a platform looking very tiny and very beautiful and exactly the way he remembered her except for an extra stripe as she talked to a large crowd and his heart missed a beat exactly as it had all those years ago in Afghan. The fact that he didn't even know she'd been promoted felt like a slap in the face. Judging by the blown up posters displayed on the stage behind her, she was describing what life was like when you were serving as a medic in a war zone and what it was like to get a medal for being brilliant at it. His Molly, his wife, the girl he'd once described as fucking awesome, the girl who used to tell him he was the beat of her heart but who wasn't his wife anymore even though she looked and sounded and smiled the way she always had and he was swamped with a massive overwhelming sense of loss.

He stood and watched and moved close enough to the back of the crowd to be able to hear what she was saying and then listened with a huge sense of pride until she was getting the prolonged and very well deserved appreciation from her audience. He didn't stop to think about what he was going to say to her, just obeyed every instinct and skirted round the edge of the crowd to where she was standing off to one side of the stage talking to a Staff Sergeant. Then, to his utter dismay, he saw the Sergeant put his arm round her and hug her, and worse still, she hugged him back, both their faces alight with laughter.

"Molly?"

It was obvious she hadn't seen him as he saw her back go rigid at the sound of his voice and she whipped round to face him, then stood to attention as though she'd never set eyes on him before in her life and his heart sank.

"Sir"

-OG-