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When Molly thought of a counselling session with section two's medic, her stomach began to churn violently. For a fraction of a second, she thought the medic was still Georgie. Images of Charles and Georgie tangled up together made her feel physically sick, her insecurities surfacing. But they slowly started to fade once reality sunk back in. After learning of Georgie and Charles' fornication, Officials had separated the two. In fact, Molly hadn't heard anything from Georgie in over a year. That realisation calmed her down a little as she grabbed some muesli in a bowl and headed towards her quarters for some alone time.
Staring at the ceiling of her quarter, Molly picked at the muesli absentmindedly. She was eating more for the sake of eating rather than hunger; her mind spacing out as she considered what it was that she wanted to reveal to her makeshift psychiatrist. She did this before every session that the army required her to attend, battling between what she needed to reveal and what would make her sound sane. Telling a medic that she couldn't sleep or that she was still hearing Chana's laughter in her head was a cause for concern; something which Molly couldn't afford. She needed to get the perfect balance between mourning and okay if she wanted to capture the likes of Chana's abuser. If Adams caught onto even the slightest bit of mental instability she knew she was going to be on the first flight home.
But it was difficult, finding that middle ground. Because truthfully, Molly felt unstable. With Charles' presence and Chana's absence, Molly was all over the shop and she didn't like how that made her feel.
"Mols." At first, Molly really thought she was going insane and had imagined Charlie's voice. It was husky and quiet, almost like when he'd wake her up in the mornings in Bath. But as his tall frame ducked under the nylon cover-up, Molly froze. Because for once, this wasn't just a figment of her imagination, he was here. "Israel's hot, huh? I thought Cyprus was bad." As per usual, Charles' first attempt at conversation was completely off topic from what he actually wanted to say. He had a knack for rambling before he got to the point. It had been the same when Molly had learnt of his first marriage to Rebecca. She had been giving him the silent treatment until Charlie had ushered Smurf out of the room so that he could explain things to Molly. He had gone on and on about their position in the mountains and about how they were an easy target if they were attacked from the South until he finally made a declaration that had changed everything – 'all I want is to make you happy.'
And as if history were repeating itself, Molly initially intended to ignore Charles like she had that first time. Suddenly, her breakfast bowl was as enticing as ever, and she fiddled with it without meeting his gaze. "I just-" Charles' voice trailed off and he stepped forward, only for Molly to respond and step backwards. He hated that, hated that he'd pushed her away to such an extent. She had once been comforted by his touch, his gentle strokes of her cheek had been enough to stop her influx of tears when she was worried. But now, she couldn't even stand to be in the immediate proximity of him. It was like a sucker punch to the gut. "I fucked up, Mol and I just … wanted to say I'm sorry."
"Sorry don't change nothing." Molly hated the word sorry. It meant nothing in the grand scheme of life. Sorry didn't erase the past, didn't take back all the nights that Molly had spent beating herself up over her failed marriage. That one word wouldn't change a single thing – her husband had still wanted fuck Georgie more than he had wanted their marriage to work.
"Can we talk, properly?"
"No." Molly ran a hand through her hair and turned away from Charles completely.
For months, she'd been trying to get over him. She'd done everything in her power to forget about the past few years. At first, she'd done a Dave – her good for nothing father - and sought the comfort of alcohol. During the earliest periods of her rest and recuperation following their breakup, Molly Dawes had felt like a teenager again. She was the Molly who worked at the nail bar; no obligations, no worries. Molly would get drunk, sleep around and then roll into her flat with the world's biggest hangover and a large cloud of regret looming over her. That period of her life was messy and depressing but it stopped her from overthinking. There was no time for her to second guess what she'd done wrong for two people she loved to betray her like they had. As a consequence, the drunk and promiscuous cycle went on for a few weeks before Jackie sat her down for the mother of all brutal interventions.
"Molly, this isn't healthy." Jackie was stood before what looked like a half dead Molly. Her face was still adorned with last night's makeup and she had haphazardly thrown a loose shirt over her skimpy dress. The cherry on the cake was the fact that the scent of spiced rum lingered around her. "You can't keep doing this to yourself."
"Doing what-" Naivety was Molly's forte but even she couldn't play dumb to the mess that had now become her normal way of life.
"Don't!" Jackie hadn't even left any room for Molly to defend her actions because she knew this behaviour wasn't conventional of her friend. This wasn't the girl who went on secret missions and came back with a bloody mouth, pretending as if it was nothing. This was a stranger. A stranger who had purposefully danced around the sensitive topic of the negative pregnancy test that Jackie had stumbled across in the bathroom bin just mere minutes ago. "Mols, this isn't you. Please don't let that asshole dictate your life decisions."
"I'm not." Molly tried to deny it over and over again until Jackie hit her with the truth that she needed to hear out loud.
"So, the pregnancy test, that was just … what?" Molly fell into a silence which Jackie continued to fill. "I know you were starting to think of kids and startin' a family but going about it, like this, isn't okay."
As Jackie spoke, Molly felt the metaphorical light bulb go off over her head. She knew was neither that carefree eighteen-year-old nor the content married woman anymore and deep down, she knew better than to be the unprepared one with an impending pregnancy on her hands.
In actuality, she hadn't really thought much of her nausea over those past few weeks. She had first blamed it on the copious amounts of alcohol she had consumed as of recently. Also, she pegged it on the fact that she hadn't had a proper bit of nosh in weeks, her bloodstream running thick with equal quantities of rum, vodka and gin. But as the days progressed and the sickness still stuck, Molly began to presume the worst. The voice in the back of her head, that sounded strangely like her nan, kept nagging her to take a test and finally, she'd conceded. But not before crying her eyes out on the floor of her tiny en-suite bathroom. She'd blamed it on the stench of bleach, but she knew – even without having to admit it to herself – she was crying because she was having to forcefully face reality. The reality of her potential unborn baby being fathered by a stranger or worse - Charles.
And then instantaneously, Molly's worry had flipped into anger; anger at herself. But it had all been so easy, the alcohol and the endless string of men helping numb her pain. She didn't have to think about anyone other than herself and for once, it was liberating. But as soon as the effect wore off and the reality of potentially being pregnant sunk in, Molly knew it all needed to come to an end. She was in no position to take care of herself, let alone a child and she knew she couldn't let the life she'd built for herself spiral downwards. It was that harsh intervention with Jackie alongside the negative pregnancy test that had pushed her in the direction of the local college instead of the local pub.
And school had been an easy distraction. Then came a handful of tours that had demanded her full attention but now, that she was here, with him, Molly needed that sambuca fuelled numbness again. She didn't want to delve into the details that had broken her heart all those months ago. She didn't want to think about Georgie and Charles together, didn't want to think about how much she missed her step-son, Sam, and his generous laughter. She wanted to ghost past all of it and focus on work like she had been doing for what felt like an eternity.
"Molly-"
"Don't." Molly held up her hand and stepped backwards even further, the backs of her knees pressing against the bed adjacent to her. "Don't Molly me."
"We're here for the next three months, and I just … I want to know you're okay."
It was selfish of Charles and he knew it, to demand things of her when he'd been the one to blame for the distance between them. But he couldn't focus solely on his job when he knew Molly walked around hating him. It was why he had taken such a long time out before going on a tour since the dreaded discussion of their divorce.
"I'm fine, why wouldn't I be?" Like she had been experiencing since his arrival, Molly felt a serious sense of déjà vu envelope her and she tried to push back the tears that were brimming in her eyes. She had said the exact same back in Afghan; back when their lives seemed so much easier. Back when his only defect had been holding out on the truth, something that was easily forgotten amidst the weight of war and his addictive lips.
"You're going into therapy, Molly." Charles hadn't meant to be listening to her conversation with Captain Adams earlier, but he hadn't been able to stop himself. He felt like he did with Sam, desperate to protect and shield her from the world. With the obvious having been stated, and despite her reluctance for him be anywhere near her, Charles edged closer stealthily as he continued to speak. "Just talk to me, tell me what's going on."
"Talk to you?" This time, little bouts of anger fizzled into Molly's tone, her fists clenching and unclenching. He had no right, none, to ask her to talk to him when he'd failed to do the exact same thing. "Like you did to me before Belize? All those fucking calls, emails-"
"I was a mess then. Elvis-" Charles huffed out some air as the name of his best friend left his lips.
Elvis had been like his brother, the best man at both his weddings. He was an exceptional man who had made some poor choices, but ultimately, he had been one of the good guys. A guy who had deserved a lot better and in some fucked up way, Charlie felt guilty pursuing a happy marriage when Elvis had never gotten that liberty. Elvis had found a love in Georgie that he had been compelled to give up once learning about Lauren, his daughter. And then finally, he had been so close to his happy ending. He'd established a peace with Georgie and their relationship, only for it all to be ripped from him again. It was then that Charles had vowed to take care of Georgie. A sudden need to protect her had consumed him – blinded him – and he'd been unable to distinguish between what was real and what was in his head. It had only been until after he'd slept with Georgie when the lines began to grow more distinguishable. He'd woken up beside her and he felt disgusting, not because Georgie was unattractive but because she wasn't Molly. He had just wanted some form of comfort and he'd crossed a line he shouldn't have, he'd figured that out almost immediately. Charles had snuck out of that room and headed straight to the shower block, scrubbing his body aggressively as if it would rid him of his sins. But at that point, it was too late – the damage had been done.
"You know that's what I don't get-" Molly shook her head in absolute disbelief. "How you could 'ave done that to me and to Elvis? I tried, Charlie … I tried to help you-" There was no holding back Molly's tears this time, the briny water free-falling down her face. The build up of emotion over these last few days was finally coming out. She thought back to all of the times she'd tried to be a supportive wife and every time that he'd shot her down.
"I didn't mean to shut you out. I didn't even know I was doing it-" Within two quick strides, Charles was clutching Molly's face in his large hands. He couldn't bare it when she cried. It made him feel so stupidly guilty and he knew he needed to fix it, or at least attempt to. His fingers brushed away at her tears and unexpectedly, she didn't fight him. Because as messed up as it sounded, Charles was both the cause of her pain and the relief. The mere closeness of him was weirdly comforting and she treasured it … until Charles opened his mouth again. "Just don't cry, my love, please, for me."
"For you?" This time, she shook Charles off. Molly hardened her exterior and brushed her hands across her face sloppily; catching the tears before they fell. "I owe you nothin', Captain James." She practically spat his formal title out; she'd never called him that before.
"No, god no. Of course not!" He paused a second, his hands grasping at empty air as she moved away from him again. "I just … I can't explain it but everything in my head was jumbled then. Georgie saved my life and I don't know … I kept seeing you and then seeing her, seeing Elvis. It was all too much."
"Imagine how I felt?" Molly was yelling now, her arms throwing up in exasperation. She had lost Smurf, her treasured platoon, her husband, one of her best friends. If she didn't have Jackie, Molly was certain she would have continued with a lifestyle far from sobriety. She would have ended up being right off the old chip, probably a drunk like her father and a young mum who hadn't lived life to its fullest. "You hurt me…" Charles saw her face drop and her eyes glaze over in a way that made Molly look so damn vulnerable. "But whateva' it don't matter."
"What do you mean, it doesn't matter?" Even through all of this, it was second nature for Charlie to correct Molly's grammar.
"We're here to work, Charles and I'd like to do just that." Like it had been the past few days, the pursuit to find justice for Chana forced its way into the forefront of Molly's mind again. She had to focus on that or she was going to go crazy. "We can go back to how it used to be. You being a Commanding Officer and me being nothing."
"Don't," Charles pinched the gap between his eyebrows with a heartbroken frustration. He'd never loved anyone more than he'd loved Molly. "Don't say you were nothing to me. I fell in love with you the moment you scrambled across that battlefield in Afghan."
He had been petrified that day, in Afghan, so much so that he'd been screaming at the top of his lungs in order to stop her from attaching herself to that winch. He'd just almost lost her when that explosive had gone off and he couldn't bare the thought of seeing her get shot at after surviving something of that magnitude. But Molly's defiance came into play that day when she'd defied his direct orders. He'd watched her swing in the air from a helicopter, Smurf's body attached to her own as she did what many other soldiers that Charles had encountered had failed to do – be unexceptionally brave.
"None of that matters now though, does it?" Molly shrugged at their surroundings – war. Their lovers quarrel meant nothing when the innocent lives of children were at stake. "We have one common goal ou' here and then we go about our lives."
"And what kind of a life is that?"
"A life you chose."
Charles' mind drifted back to their empty home in Bath. It was virtually a ghost house without her. Gone was her makeup stand in the bathroom and the clothes from her side of the wardrobe. Everything seemed empty without her presence and it was aching. Soul wrenchingly aching for Charlie to go home. He still remembered that one time he'd return from a trip to the physiotherapist. They'd put him on some hardcore pain killers to control the pain in his lower leg and he'd been pretty out of it. He was delirious, and he'd walked into his home thinking Molly was there. And then it hit him, like a tonne of bricks to the forehead. That had probably been the first time he'd truly sobbed at the end of his marriage; runny nose and red eyes. Because all that was left of her was the painful reminder of their wedding pictures; all hung up on their living room wall.
With Molly's final words resonating deeply within both Charles and herself, she walked out of her quarters and into belly of the Israeli heat. Her heart was heavy, and she was more confused than she was before Charles had ambushed her with a conversation. And as she lifelessly edged towards the medic's tent, Molly couldn't help but wonder what else the rest of this tour had in store for her.