Author's notes: I had the urge to finish the story, (you know me I'm obsessed), so thanks to Debbie for her encouragement.

It would be best to give this a miss if you really hate anything that has any sad or weepy bits in it, I cried at a couple of bits when I read it back and I bloody well wrote it! What a sad case I am.

A Silver Lining

She knew what had happened the minute she opened her eyes. The early morning sunlight streamed through the gap where she hadn't pulled the curtains properly the night before and as she stretched, she was aware that she'd slept undisturbed all night for the first time in weeks and that the room was filled with a deep and deafening silence. She got off the sofa and went over to put her fingers on Nan's neck to check her pulse, but she already knew before she did it that Nan simply wasn't there anymore. Molly had seen lots of death when she was in the army, but it had always been violent death, full of pain and injury and trauma, and this was completely different, it was peaceful, as though Nan had simply decided that she'd had enough of a life which had become an increasing struggle, a life that was exhausting her. Molly checked the time, 5.38, far too early to start calling anyone, too early to tell all the people that had to be told, but there was one person she wanted to tell more than anyone else so she got a kitchen chair and sat next to Nan, then dialled his number, he wouldn't mind her waking him up.

"I'm on my way" She hadn't had to say a word, he'd known what had happened the minute he'd seen who was calling him at such an ungodly hour "I'll be there as quickly as I can"

"Okay"

"You okay sweetheart?"

"Yep, I'm just not sure what to do"

"Nothing, you don't need to do anything, I'll sort everything when I get there"

She knew he must have broken every speed limit to get there so quickly as she got up to answer the door, she'd simply sat on the kitchen chair next to Nan's bed since she'd rung him and not moved so that she was cold and her back and legs were so stiff that she was walking as if she'd aged twenty years in the last couple of hours. He'd put his arms round her as soon as she'd opened the door, running his hands up and down her back as he tried to comfort her and not letting her go as she tried to move back from him to offer him a drink or breakfast or something. He made the dry-eyed Molly tea and toast which she didn't want to eat, but he stood in front of her with his arms folded, in full 'Boss' mode and insisted that she had to try. He watched her anxiously as she forced a couple of mouthfuls down to make him happy while all the time she felt that she might very well throw it up again at any second.

She sat and watched and listened as Charles made what felt like dozens of phone calls, to his CO asking for compassionate, to the doctor, the undertaker, the Red Cross about the bed, the funeral directors to make an appointment, and she kept hearing Nan say that she'd never known a man who didn't like to do stuff, that they were never happier than when they were organising things or people, so that she'd said about Dave who didn't like doing anything. Nan had said that she was talking about a man, not her dad so that they'd both laughed. Charles kept asking Molly what she wanted to do, what arrangements she wanted him to make as Vera and Belinda bustled about with handfuls of tissues pressed to their eyes, and Molly stood impervious to their hugs and tears and solicitous enquiries, she was numb. She'd called Belinda shortly after eight, timing the call to catch her mum before she went off to work and Belinda had arrived almost immediately, pausing only to ring Dave and the kids and then Vera, so that for a short time the kitchen of the flat had been full of people, most of them crying. Molly had remained dry-eyed so that she felt that people had started looking at her wondering why she wasn't joining in, but she couldn't. None of it felt real, she kept expecting to hear Nan's voice from the lounge telling her to get rid of some of them nosy buggers and put the kettle on so that the two of them could have a nice cuppa, she just couldn't believe that her feisty, funny, bloody infuriating Nan wasn't there anymore and that she would never again tell Molly that Charles was a good 'un or ever again give her hell about something, with her tongue firmly tucked in her cheek, so that Molly would laugh and then warn her to shut it because she was a trained killer.

Charles jerked his head in the direction of the door so that she followed him to the bedroom and they sat on the side of the bed as he put his arm round her, kissed her temple and asked if she was okay.

"Don't you bleeding start, I feel like everyone's waiting for me to start bawling or something, but I can't, I'm all over the shop, I keep expecting to hear Nan telling me to get that lot to sod off out of her kitchen"

"I know, it feels strange without her doesn't it?" He squeezed her shoulder "Look, let's just stay in here for a bit, or we could go out for a walk, whatever you want"

"They're coming to take her away, aren't they?"

"Yup, but you don't need to be there, let your mum deal with it" He stood up and pulled her to her feet "Let's go out for a walk, get some fresh air"

She'd surprised him with how much she'd wanted him when they'd finally been alone together after everyone else had gone so they'd gone to bed and she'd clung to him afterwards, obviously desperate for the warm reassurance of his arms and his body as much as he needed hers when he'd had a nightmare.

-OG-

The day of the funeral was warm and overcast, with heavy threatening cloud, it wasn't actually raining but there was no sun either and Charles was worried that Molly still hadn't cried. He'd had to return to duty after a few days and had also been deeply worried that she'd insisted on staying on in the flat on her own, so although she may well have cried when she was on her own there, he really doubted it. She'd refused point blank to go and stay with her dad at the flat in east Ham, and even more adamantly to stay with her mother and her boyfriend.

She'd got really anxious about what hymns Nan would have liked, she kept saying that she'd never known Nan go anywhere near a bloody church or nothing and that she'd had no time for God botherers, that she'd always told them Jehova Witness people to sod off, so she didn't know what to pick. Charles again told her to leave it to her mum and that Nan wouldn't mind what they chose as long as they all turned up and that there were plenty of flowers, at which they'd both laughed at the memory of Nan complaining bitterly about a funeral she'd been to where they'd asked for charity donations instead of flowers, and how bloody cheepskate she thought it was, not a decent send off at all.

He had kept a tight hold on her hand throughout the service, the chapel at the crematorium had been fairly packed which Charles whispered to Molly would have pleased Nan, especially as they all seemed to have sent flowers, but Molly whispered back that she didn't even recognise half of them and that Nan would have suggested that they'd got the wrong service, or the wrong day, or were 'rent a mob', so that they'd both laughed again. At the end of the service the chapel had been full of the noise of people weeping, but once again Molly remained dry-eyed as she'd got in Charles' car and told him that she hadn't changed her mind, she still wasn't going to go to any bloody wake to watch people drink and eat ham sandwiches and could they just get going.

He'd wanted to take her away for a few days, preferably somewhere hot and sunny, because he was sure she needed a break, she'd been running herself ragged for months and then with all the emotion of the last few days, she looked pale and exhausted with dark rings round her eyes, but she'd refused point blank to do that either. He'd only found out yesterday that she was going to be homeless in just over three weeks, he'd never thought about Nan not owning the place or what would happen once the Housing Association wanted the flat back. He'd immediately asked her to move in with him, to live with him, so that she'd giggled and asked him whether the army would mind her sharing his room in barracks or whether they were now doing 'shacked up together quarters'. He'd wanted to say no, but they do 'married' ones, but knew that the timing was absolute shite, so he'd kept his mouth shut and suggested that they look for a small flat to live in while they sorted out what to do in the long term. She'd eventually agreed, but he was aware that her options were pretty limited so he wasn't 100% sure that it was what she really wanted.

Molly had wanted to go to St. Osyth, which he'd never heard of but which was apparently near Clacton, for a walk on the beach and had fallen asleep in the car long before they'd got on the A133 heading east towards the coast, only waking when he pulled into a car park. They'd both taken their jackets off and dumped them in the car as they got out and walked along a deep sandy pathway between hundreds of rows of static caravans towards the sea. Charles took off his black tie and stuffed it in his trouser pocket, then undid his collar and wished he could take his shoes and socks off, the afternoon had turned very warm and still and humid with hazy sunshine and he was baked, he had sweat running down his back, and they were both totally incongruously dressed for a walk at the seaside. Molly's black top and skirt made her look very hot as she stopped and peeled off her tights, not caring who was around, then walked barefoot in the sand as she carried her shoes in the hand that wasn't holding onto Charles and dumped her tights in the first waste bin she came to.

There was a shimmering heat haze over the beach and the sea was flat calm and looked oily under the sun as they stopped and sat on a bench and Molly started to tell him about coming here on her own with Nan when she was eight, just after Bella was born. They'd stayed in one of the hundreds of caravans, she hadn't got a clue which was the right one now, and she could remember spending hours on this beach making sandcastles and paddling in the sea which she remembered as being freezing, with her dress tucked into her knickers and Nan holding her hand with her fag in the other one. She remembered the weather as being sunny all the time, although she had no idea now whether that was true or not, and she remembered eating chips as she'd sat outside the caravan on the little steps as Nan had got ready for them to go and watch the entertainment in the clubhouse in the evening.

As she talked Charles could hear, and then see, that she'd begun to weep so he put his arm round her shoulders and did nothing to try and stop the steady torrent of tears that was pouring down her face as she mourned the grandmother that she'd loved so much, and he felt the prickle of his own tears at the top of his nose and the back of his eyes as she wept.

-OG-

Once the storm had blown itself out and she was at the gulping and sniffling stage and he had put his arms round her for a long cuddle, they started to walk back towards the car, her arm round his waist and his across her shoulders as they smiled at each other occasionally and Charles asked her if she had any idea what she wanted to do next.

"I thought we'd get a drink and something to eat, then go home, why?"

"Not right now, Dawsey, I meant do you want to join up again, go and be a bloody brilliant medic, go and show them how it's done?"

"Don't you want me to stay with you?"

"Of course I do, but you can do both, and you don't have to do Stage 1 again because it hasn't been six years, I've already checked. On the other hand you don't have to decide now, we've got all the time in the world, well at least three years if you don't want to do Stage 1" He stopped walking and turned and looked at her "Then we could get married, and if we got married we'd get 'married quarters' as well, and before you say that they're crap reasons for getting married, they're not the reason I want you to marry me, well not the only reason, you know that I love you and I'm pretty sure you love me too, and I'd love it if we could be stationed in the same place and even live out together if that was what you wanted, so what do you think?"

"I hated stage 1, and I might gonna have to think about us getting married, because I can still hear me Nan saying that I'd need a check-up from the neck up if I didn't grab hold of you with both hands, and I'm sure she'll come back and haunt me if I let you get away" She giggled "I think she loved you almost as much as I do, she was always a sucker for a pretty face"

"Lovely, I take it that's supposed to be a yes?"