A/N: I'm back – with a fairly lengthy chapter (sorry about that) setting the scene for life at The Barn with a stroppy teenager …. I hope you enjoy it x

-OG-

Charles

Absolute pitch dark and totally silent and he was suddenly wide awake with his heart racing and with no idea why, although he was pretty sure it wasn't that he was still on Kenyan time, he hadn't been over there long enough for his body clock to be fucked. There was really nothing to explain it, not even Patches scrabbling around on the wooden floors, floors which were never going to be the same again. The only sound filling the silence and the darkness was Molly's soft breathing as she slept peacefully next to him and there was no earthly reason why he should be on high alert, there were no potential dangers to deal with, he was at home, in his own bed, with the soft round cheeks of her bum tucked against his early morning erection and the tangled mass of her hair spread all over the pillow next to his and encroaching on his own.

He lifted the curls carefully and gently, and smoothed them away from where they were tickling him and told himself not to even think of trying to wake her up. She felt soft and warm against him so that he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in her, to hold her tight and forget everything else in the bloody world except her. But as he put his arm across her and spooned a bit closer, she muttered something unintelligible and stayed resolutely asleep, so he rolled reluctantly back onto his own side of the bed and folded his arms behind his head, then stared into the darkness and listened to the comforting sound of her breathing.

He'd rushed back the day before because being half the world away when something was wrong at home scared him. He knew she was capable of dealing with just about anything, probably as well if not better than he could, but he needed to be where she was, and her hanging up on him like that had worried him more than he cared to admit, but getting home had proved to be even more of a wake-up call. The journey had been absolute shit, but he'd got used to fucking lousy journeys over the years, noisy, turbulent, totally without comfort, the army's equivalent of endless hours spent cramped in a seat without enough leg room as he had done the day before. But it wasn't the journey or even being trapped next to some deranged female for hours on end that was keeping him awake, it was worry that he'd taken his eye off the ball.

Molly had filled him in on Sam's party piece when he was still in Kenya, and he'd behaved like some bossy prick of a Rupert issuing orders to a clueless squaddie, which, of all the stupid things to do, took first prize, but he'd been shocked when she'd told him the problem was Sammie. A problem with Bashira wouldn't have come as a surprise; he still felt that Molly took her feelings of responsibility for the girl far too much to heart, but Sam? No, that was not what he'd expected to hear and the chat he'd had with his son the night before hadn't made things any clearer.

Sam was unhappy, that much was clear, so he'd apparently decided to be a bloody teenage moron who thought he was being clever and then had to justify his actions to his father. But Charles didn't know whether it was just that, some sort of teenage angst … or attitude, or whether it was more than that, but whatever it was he needed time to think through how the fuck he was going to deal with it. It wasn't like the Sam he knew, or thought he did, but as Molly had pointed out he couldn't solve it by just threatening to put the little cockwomble on a charge. If only it was that simple.

And what the hell was all that shit about him and Sasha, where the fuck had that come from?

Being brought face to face with the consequences of leaving the army and taking up a job he still wasn't sure about was one thing, and much as he hadn't wanted to hear it, Molly was right when she said he'd been getting himself too fucking involved, something he'd once lectured her about, but listening to her say she wasn't sure she still trusted him, that she was doubtful about his relationship with Sasha had been a real bolt from the blue. She hadn't accused him exactly, not outright, but there had been enough doubt and distruston her part to make her question her faith in him, in them, but she was wrong, she was one hundred per cent wrong.

He could understand she needed more, that she wanted to go back and do the job she was so bloody good at, and being at home looking after the kids on her own, cooking and cleaning and ferrying them about was nowhere near enough for her, it was a complete waste of everything she'd trained for, and that maybe some of her anger and disappointment in him were justified. He had been guilty of being thoughtless and selfish and of taking her for granted. Even though he knew that the girl, Sasha, had a crush on him, all that standing too close and calling at the weekends, and that he'd allowed a situation to develop that the Charles of old wouldn't have tolerated for a second, he hadn't encouraged it and he hadn't got the slightest desire to get involved with her.

Molly had got it wrong, but he was going to have to stamp on Sasha's behaviour around him, make sure she knew how inappropriate she was being, and that it wasn't going to happen in a million years. And as for Sam, well, every time he thought about Sam he just wanted to close his eyes and bury his head in the duvet …

The second time he woke there was the staccato sound of heavy rain hitting the windows which made the warm fug of the bed feel even cosier as he stretched and yawned and did his best to ease the painful crick in his back that was a legacy of the day before and listened to Millie yelling at the top of her voice. Someone stamped furiously up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door and Molly shouted something but he couldn't hear what, her voice muffled and half-drowned by the radio playing, the sounds of home. He took a sip of the Rosebaya she'd put next to the bed, and grimaced as the unpalatably tepid liquid hit his tongue. For some reason he was hit with a sudden vivid memory of their younger selves alone in the med tent at the FOB and him telling her he wasn't a fully functioning soldier until he'd had his first shot of coffee. He'd written on her arm, totally against regulations, it had been the first time he'd ever touched her even though she'd been an important part of his life for quite a while by then, so that walking away from her that day had been one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do. Thinking about it now it still felt like yesterday and a bloody lifetime ago.

The feelings of disquiet came back with a vengeance as he rubbed his hand on the back of his neck and tugged at the curls, suddenly very anxious for the re-assurance of her smile. He hadn't been able to keep his eyes open long enough the previous night to carry on with what they'd started in the kitchen. He'd been desperately fighting the overwhelming urge to close his eyes and let sleep get the better of him as he'd listened to her pleading with a grizzling Livvie to please give it up and go back to sleep and then nothing more …

Molly and Charles

The kitchen was warm and cluttered but with thankfully no sign of Sam.

"Sam still in his pit?"

"Mornin' Molly, good mornin' Livvie….."

"Oh sorry, good morning beautiful, you okay?"

He kissed her on the top of her head and did a simulation of lip-smacking pleasure towards the baby, who immediately broke into a wide toothless grin at seeing him and waved her cereal caked hands excitedly in his direction. She made little clutching motions with her fingers which he decided not to see, porridge in his ears and hair he could do without.

"Me? I'm fine, delirious"

She was trying to spoon porridge into the baby's mouth as Livvie plunged both hands in the bowl and squeezed it up through her fingers obviously preferring to lick it off the backs of her hands than off the spoon her mother was proffering. He couldn't help grinning at the mutinous expression on his baby's face as she turned her head sharply away from the spoon and then completely refused to open her mouth for her mother. She bellowed with outrage and flung her head back when Molly tried to move the bowl out of her reach, and looked so exactly like Molly when she was in a strop that it was like looking at a tiny mirror image, only with his brown eyes.

"Come on Dawsey .. what's up?"

"Don't call me that"

To his surprise there was a distinct lack of emotion in her voice, almost as if it was a tired routine response to something she no longer cared about.

"Nothing's up …. It's just this one being a bloody pain and Millie deciding if she can't have her own way, she's gonna make me sorry so she's in the middle of the sitting room floor waiting to be dead or for me to change me mind and let her do what she wants, which is not gonna happen, so she's gonna have a very long wait ….. and your mum rang, wanting to know if you was 'ome today. I would of lied, but Chloe answered the phone, so I told her she'd have to tidy up before they got here" She huffed and shrugged and then grinned at Livvie "It's her bleedin' punishment for telling the old dragon the truth"

"You didn't tell her that did you?"

"Might of done … bit of a mistake really, cos now she's gonna open her trap and tell the old bat …. the minute she gets here isn't she?"

"They're coming over later then I take it?"

"Oh yeah, course they are, gotta see their golden boy 'n make sure he's okay haven't they? Make sure I'm making a proper fuss of him now he's decided to come 'ome"

"Shit ….. sorry ….. Listen … we are okay, aren't we, Molls, I mean you and me?"

There was something about her words and tone of voice, maybe the way she'd looked at him, or actually her whole manner that was worrying, so he put down the coffee cup he was busy emptying and reached out for her. But she shrugged her hair back over her shoulders and moved far enough away that initially he couldn't reach her, before she moved back and let him put his arms round her, then leaned against him with a sigh.

"S'pose so, dunno why exactly but I do miss you when you're not 'ere"

It wasn't exactly the ringing endorsement of reassurance that he'd been looking for.

"Because you love me?"

"I wouldn't bank on that if I was you mate" She began to giggle in spite of herself when he put a finger under her chin and lifted her head up to force her to look into his face, then opened his eyes as wide as he could before pulling the whipped puppy dog face that he'd perfected over the years "And you can stop looking at me like that 'n all, that don't wash with me"

"I don't know what you're talking about" He smirked and bent to kiss her on the tip of her nose before whispering "What's up with Millie?"

"Told you, she says she's gonna stop there till she's dead"

Charles moved to the sitting room doorway and looked down at the recumbent form of his daughter and suppressed a chuckle when he saw her hastily cross her arms over her chest and squeeze her eyes tight shut when she realized he was there and looking at her. He bit his lip and turned away, doing his best not to laugh out loud.

"What happened?"

"Told you, she's making me sorry I wouldn't let her do what she wanted"

"What did she want?"

"Don't laugh, it's not bleeding funny, she was s'posed to be going for her dinner at McDonalds, but not like that she's not"

Despite what she'd just said to him about laughing, Molly was now giggling as she pushed him in the small of his back into the sitting room and then stood behind him on tiptoes resting her chin on his shoulder and waving her hand in the general direction of the Disney Princess lying rigidly immobile in the middle of the floor with her arms folded across her chest like a corpse. The dress with its torn frill hanging off the bottom was at least two sizes too small so was skin tight and sporting some horrible indefinable stain down the front, but Millie had decided to team it with the high heeled plastic dressing up sandals that Bella had bought for her and which Molly kept on forgetting to 'lose' in the bin. The ensemble was completed with a plastic tiara and a tangled jumble of old costume jewelry Nan had given her, which was now draped round her neck.

"Don't mind the frock, even if it is bloody filthy and don't fit, or that she'll freeze in it cos she says she's not gonna wear her coat, and I told her she'll likely break her bleeding neck in them shoes, but she needs to wash that off her gob or she's not going, and that's that"

Charles looked again and realized the hectic flush on his daughter's face wasn't due to tears or upset as he'd first thought but from the very liberal amount of lipstick she'd rubbed onto her cheeks, so that on closer inspection she looked like a doll, a very cheap doll, or a paedophile's wet dream.

"She nicked the lippy from me bag didn't she? says she has to look pretty for Jacob cos it's his birthday and he's her boyfriend, but sorry, not happening"

"Do I need to have a word with this Jacob?" Charles was now snorting, his shoulders shaking with barely concealed laughter "How old does she have to be before we can send her off to a convent?" He bent over and picked her up, she was still doing her best to keep her eyes screwed tightly shut and to be rigid, to give the impression she was on the way to breathing her last.

"You'll get piles if you stay down there on that cold floor" He smirked and then snorted a laugh "That's what Nan always says isn't it?"

"Nan loves me so she'd of let me go, it's just Mummy that's mean, and I don't like her, I HATE her ….. please Daddy"

"Nope, Mummy said no and no it is, and you don't hate her…. but you shouldn't take her stuff without asking, then you already know that Millie"

"But Mummy would of said no, she's MEAN"

Her logic was impeccable, and even though Charles wanted to point out that knowing someone was going to say no didn't mean it was okay not to ask, but he was worried about his ability to deliver the lecture without succumbing to the laughter that was bubbling up inside him.

Millie decided the time was about right to change tactics and go down the 'I'm so hard done by, no-body loves me' route and see whether she could guilt trip her father into giving in, so began to sob and then wound her arms and legs round him as tightly as she could, burying her head in the crook of his neck so that he'd be able to feel the tears running down her face.

"Come on, stop that and go and wash your face like Mummy said and get yourself dressed properly and then I'll take you, because if you don't you won't be going, will you, and while you're down there on that cold floor, everyone else will be at the party and having fun …. without you"

Millie stopped sniveling and thought for a minute or two, she was now having difficulty in producing any more tears so slid down until she was standing in front of him with the most woebegone expression she could muster on her face. She was trying to balance her loss of face with not going to the party because she knew that if her father said it, he meant it, and it didn't matter what she did, he was not going to change his mind and give in.

"But it's not FAIR"

She satisfied herself with wailing loudly, determined to have the last word as she turned and pounded up the stairs and Molly knew she should be pleased that the stroppy little mare who was her daughter had let go of her dad to do as she was told, tantrum apparently over, but she wasn't. She'd said all the exact same things to Millie, about how she'd miss all the fun 'n that, but all the little madam had done when her mum had told her was to scream a bit louder.

"Sorry, got no time for any more of this shit"

Molly turned and stomped back to the kitchen muttering under her breath as she snatched up a damp cloth and started to wipe the congealed porridge off Livvie's hands. The baby started to whimper and squirm and then turned her head from side to side to stop her mother wiping her face and began to scream. Molly hoicked her out of the chair, she wanted to scream herself. Everything that morning had conspired to piss her off and she could feel hot tears of self-pity as they began to burn the backs of her eyes.

"Oh look it's Mary fucking Poppins ….. So come on then Mary, tell me, how did you do that exactly? I said all the same stuff and she took no bleeding notice of me at all, one word from you and she does as she's told, how come?"

"I know, I really can't explain it" Charles pretended to shine his fingernails against his top "It's a gift"

"Fuck off"

He wiped the smug smile off his face immediately he looked at her, he'd thought she was joking and still thought she was, in a way, but he'd realized a fraction too late that her green eyes were swimming in tears, and years of experience of living with her told him that she was more likely to punch him than hug him back if he did what he wanted and put his arms round her to hug her, to see if he could make her feel better. So he just grinned his best self-deprecating grin and changed the subject.

"Where are the others?"

"Well, you know where Sam is and Chloe's up there having a sulk 'n all" Molly shrugged "Says she's not gonna tidy up anything that's not her mess so I said she can bloody stop up there till she does as she's told and Marky's doing his project, some history thing" She shrugged "At least one of them knows how to be'ave, 'n you know how he hates it when everyone starts yelling. Sam's s'posed to be helping him, so I hope he's got over hisself and is being nice .."

"Lovely …. …."

Charles felt a sharp pang of conscience as he thought about his younger son. Marcus was so much like he'd been as a child, a bloody carbon copy, not only to look at, and even Charles could see that Marcus was an exact replica of the little boy he'd once been, but how quiet he was and how much he hated conflict, which the girls seemed to thrive on.

"I'll go up and see how he's getting on, and I'll have a word with Sam, see what's … well, I just need to sort out where we go from here"

Molly

When he'd been off doing whatever it was he was doing, and whatsherface had been there with him doing whatever it was she did, Molly had been bloody desperate for him to be at home, with her, and away from bloody Sasha.

But she was dead sorry now that when he'd come home it was to her pity party, so he probably couldn't wait to get away again. She'd feel like that if it was her.

She hated that it all felt a bit shit. When he'd smiled at her a minute ago he'd looked exactly like he did when she'd first known him in Afghan and she'd thought he was one of the best looking blokes she'd ever come across, total bloody knob, of course, but she used to wish she was better looking so that he'd notice her, had never thought he would look at someone like her, but he had. And now she was dead scared she was fucking it up, that she was losing him but couldn't seem to help it.