"So what's wrong with 'er then?"

"I don't know exactly. Dad says she gets a bit vague sometimes especially if he goes out and leaves her on her own, which he has to do a fair bit what with his golf and his council work, and she gets a bit upset which makes her more muddled and she keeps going on about me, why I, why we haven't been to see her"

"Nah, you 'ad it right the first time, it's you she wants to see, not me"

They had been having similar conversations to the one they'd had after his phone call with his dad every evening for almost a week and were now on their way to Bath, much against Molly's better judgement, she had absolutely no wish to spend the weekend with Charles' parents, who as far as she was concerned hated her, and she loathed the fact that they'd put a woebegone Parsnip into kennels, because Charles' Dad didn't really like dogs and hadn't thought it was a good idea to take him with them. Right up till the time they'd left Bow she'd been manufacturing good reasons and fanciful excuses why he should go on his own, until he'd looked at her with his best beaten puppy dog expression and said "Okay, but if you're not going, I'm not going either" which meant that guilt had forced her into the car, although she still kept telling him that it was going to cost him, she just hadn't decided what yet.

Despite two loo stops Molly was once again desperate for a pee when they got to Royal Crescent. Lexie was firmly squashing her bladder meaning that she had the capacity of about an egg cup whenever she sat down and it had been a long way to sit in the car, apart from which she was thirsty, stiff and crumpled, not very warm and in not in the best of moods, dreading the next few hours.

There was no sign of Betsy when they got into the hallway although Bill was making all the right noises of welcome. Molly had only been to the house once before when she'd found it intimidatingly posh so that she couldn't for the life of her imagine living there with Charles and their baby much as he kept telling her that it would be her home eventually, and then laughing at the appalled expression on her face as she tried to imagine cleaning those bloody stairs for a start, let alone the rest of it. They tracked Betsy down in the kitchen where she was washing up the lunch dishes, ignoring the perfectly good dishwasher, whereupon Bill explained that she didn't think it got things clean enough. Molly couldn't help thinking that she would be perfectly happy with dishwasher clean if only there was space in their miniscule kitchen to fit one in.

"Mum" Charles smiled as he kissed her on the cheek, looking really pleased to see her which made Molly feel slightly guilty that they were a bit estranged and that if the truth was told she hadn't really wanted him to come today either. The fact that she knew they didn't like her made her feel very uncomfortable.

"Charles, what a lovely surprise, what on earth are you doing here?" There was an awkward silence, Bill had assured them that she knew they were coming and had said how much she had been looking forward to seeing them so either he was lying or she'd forgotten "And Rebecca as well, how lovely to see you, we haven't seen you for such a long time"

"No Mum, this isn't Rebecca, it's Molly, Rebecca and I aren't, um ….… together anymore"

"Of course not, sorry, I'm no good with names, hello Molly, how nice to meet you"

"Don't be so silly Betsy, you've met Molly before"

A fleeting expression of confusion on Betsy's face at Bill's impatient comment made Molly feel a bit sorry for her, there was obviously something wrong here which Bill's irritable outburst hadn't helped at all. She didn't know whether Charles had noticed the exchange, he seemed to be too busy talking about Parker James and his dad's golf lessons and laughing about his army reunion to pay that much attention to the troubled expression on his mother's face and her obsessive scrubbing of a perfectly clean saucepan.

" 'ere, let me 'elp you" Molly grabbed a tea-towel and started drying up, as Charles and his dad left the room and Molly wondered whether she could ask for a cup of tea. She was parched and still needed the loo.

"Thank you …um ….… um ….… dear" Betsy had obviously forgotten her name again, but before Molly could remind her, she went on with a puzzled frown on her face "Who are you again, dear? Are you a friend of Rebecca's?"

"No, I'm Molly, I'm Charles' friend" Shit, where the fuck had Charles buggered off to anyway? Molly considered making an excuse and going to find him and to use the loo, the inconsiderate pig was supposed to be here seeing his mum, not sodding off with his dad leaving her here on her own not knowing what to say next.

"Shall I make a cuppa?" Apart from her thirst, it meant that she could take refuge in doing something instead of standing around like a spare part, and it would give her an excuse to yell for Charles and his dad to come back to the kitchen and rescue her.

It was when she lifted the kettle to fill it that she found the first post-it note on the worktop. It was under the kettle and said simply 'kettle' and there was one marked 'tea' stuck on the top inside the canister, and one on the mug tree as well, so that she knew Betsy was having trouble remembering what everyday things were called, and that she was the same as Nan's pal from years ago, the one who'd ended up going into a home but Molly couldn't remember her name or what'd happened to her afterwards.

The rest of the day seemed slightly unreal to Molly, Charles seemed oblivious to his mother's peculiar behaviour, the fact that she was swinging from what seemed to be 100% normal, chatting and laughing, to being completely confused and his dad wasn't helping, pulling faces and being irritable and snapping at her when she got a bit muddled and forgot what she was saying, which made her worse.

"She doesn't seem too bad, I think Dad might have exaggerated a bit" They were sitting side by side on the bed in Charles' old room and Molly couldn't help noticing how dusty and grubby everything was compared to the last time they'd slept there.

"Where 'ave you been all afternoon?" Molly couldn't believe that Charles really hadn't noticed how much his mother had struggled through the afternoon and the evening and how much effort she'd had to make as she got more and more tired "She's 'aving a complete mare, Charles, so don't start pretending there's nothing wrong, and your dad ain't 'elping getting ratty with 'er like that"

"Yes, I know" He sighed deeply and shook his head "I'm not sure what to do, she's got an appointment at the hospital on Thursday and now Dad doesn't want to go with her"

"What do you mean, 'e doesn't wanna go? 'e'll have to go, she can't go on 'er own"

"He isn't good at this sort of thing, never has been, she's always been the one who takes care of stuff"

"Oh poor 'im, my 'eart bleeds for 'im"

"Don't be nasty, it's hard for him"

"I'm not being nasty, actually I like 'er better like this, she's forgotten that she 'ates me" Molly nudged Charles who reluctantly smiled at her "And It's a bleeding sight 'arder for 'er than it is for 'im, especially as he keeps getting narky with 'er"

"I know. I might have to come down to go with her, I mean I know you won't want to …"

"Charles, she don't even know who I am, I 'eard 'er ask your dad who the girl with the belly was, although she didn't say belly, she sort of drew it with 'er 'ands, and she kept forgetting me name, then called me Rebecca twice, and said about the 'ouse in Richmond, so she wouldn't want me there anyhow"

"No, but …..…"

"I still think your dad should go, 'e's the one who knows what's been going on and 'e's the one what's been writing out 'er little labels 'n that"

"What labels, what are you talking about?"

"She 'as these labels on things like the kettle cos she can't remember what things are called"

"Oh shit!"

Their journey home was very quiet, apart from Molly asking him to stop at each set of services so that she could use the loo. Charles was very much the "I'm so bleeding miserable" snappy bastard that Molly had first known and she didn't like him one little bit in that mood, although she understood how worried he was about his mum she didn't see why he had to take it out on her. Parsnip was absolutely thrilled to see her and was actually whimpering with joy, which made her feel a whole lot better, even though Charles barely smiled at the performance the dog put on, and just marched off and plugged in his lap top as soon as he'd taken the bags into the house. He'd done his best to find out from his dad how long it had all been going on and whether it was getting worse and why the hell no-one had told him before and was now desperately googling to find out as much as he could, and what treatments were out there.

" 'ow long are you going to be like this?"

"Like what?"

"Being a miserable sod and being 'orrible to me?"

"I'm not being horrible and I wouldn't expect you to understand, she's my mum Molly, she was always there when I was a kid and when Dad was away it was always just the two of us, and anyway you don't do family, do you?"

"What, like when she sent you off to boarding school you mean? And I 'ave got a family, thanks very much, just cos I don't go on about them all the time" Molly knew she shouldn't have said anything about boarding school, it was spiteful and unfair, but she was incredibly hurt at what he'd just said about her not understanding and thought he was being unnecessarily nasty about something he knew she was very sensitive about.

"Meaning I do?" Charles could hear himself lashing out at her and knew he should stop; none of it was her fault. She slammed the door as she flung out of the room in tears and he knew he should go after her and apologise, being nasty to Molly wasn't going to wave a magic wand and make things okay again.

-OG-

"Don't worry Mum, everything's going to be fine" He had ended up taking her on his own, his father had asked him to accompany them so that the three of them could go together and had then made some excuse about urgent council business, something that Charles hadn't believed for a second, and he wasn't sure how much his mother had understood about her husband of forty odd years running away from the reality of the day. Charles had set off from Bow before dawn and had left Molly apparently fast asleep, although he had his doubts.

"Your Dad's not very happy"

"Don't worry about Dad, he'll be fine, let's just get things sorted for you so that you can stop worrying, but Mum you have to try and remember that I'm not with Rebecca anymore, that I'm with Molly and we're going to have a baby, a little girl, so that's something to look forward to isn't it, your granddaughter?"

"Was that Molly who came here with you once, a long time ago?"

"It wasn't a long time ago Mum, it was just a few days, and yes that's Molly, she's got dark hair and Rebecca was blonde, remember?" He smiled not wanting to acknowledge that Molly had visited once before quite a while ago, when his mother had been really vile to her, ignoring her most of the time because she blamed her for his separation from Rebecca and making it very plain that Molly didn't match up to their expectations, but he was sure his mother was referring to the previous weekend. He didn't hold out much hope that she'd taken in what he was telling her, it had been a very long day and she was tired and the consultant had explained that the condition got very much worse when she was tired. "Molly and I are planning to get married after Lexie's born, so you'll enjoy that as well, won't you?"

The consultant had emphasised that it was important that his mother attended the memory clinics at the hospital and that they did their best to give her things to look forward to, even if she kept forgetting what they were and that, most of all, they were patient with her. Charles wasn't looking forward to the conversation with his dad about that one.

For the first time since Eddie's retirement party he wasn't sure of Molly, of anything. He knew he'd been horribly unfeeling and uncaring towards her the last few days, locked into some hideous nightmare that he'd taken out on her, refusing all her attempts at peace-making, so that she wasn't speaking to him at all now and he wasn't sure he could blame her. In less than two weeks the happy bubble he'd been living in had burst and he'd gone from wanting to ring her all the time they were apart to putting off the moment when he'd have to call and tell her he was staying over in Bath. Things were definitely not going to improve when he told her what was going to have to happen next; he couldn't see him being able to rely on his Dad, and admitted, probably for the first time ever, that his father was actually pretty selfish especially where his mum was concerned.

-OG-

Author's notes: Thank you for reading and reviewing and for your kind comments I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Thank you also to our Australian readers, especially the one who talked about her children's winter break from school, I think we've got your normal weather here today, because we're having a sodding heatwave, but then I'm obviously a typical Brit, I moan when it's cold, moan when it's wet, moan when it's dry and I moan like stink when its bloody hot like this, never satisfied.