The canteen at Parkers had been completely made-over, well as much as it could be, with balloons and banners and a large trestle table covered with a white sheet full of buffet food, and another one masquerading as a bar in aid of Eddie's retirement party. The staff were standing around in little groups, all dressed up, or as dressed up as they could be, and feeling self-conscious, as though they were with bunches of aliens, not the people they saw every day.

"'ello, didn't think you was coming"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Dunno, just thought you wasn't going to show so I 'ad a couple of drinks"

"Yup, so I see"

It was over a fortnight since the last time he'd been in this building, two and a bit weeks during which everything had changed, except that hers was still the first face he'd sought as he came through the door and he still had the same urge to march across the room to where she was standing chatting with 'carpet slippers' and Karen, and swing her off her feet, then kiss her soundly 'hello'. He'd missed seeing her, but circumstances had made him decide that it was probably politic to stay away until things had calmed down a bit.

OGOGOGOGOGOGOG

His meeting with Samantha the morning after he'd done his 'I'm in charge here' act had been a complete debacle. It'd been naive of him to assume that Robbie would behave as any sensible squaddie would, and keep him well clear of what was obviously a row brewing over her actions at Parkers. He hadn't, he'd obviously tipped her off, or someone had, that Charles had marched in there and countermanded her redundancy notices which had made her look pretty stupid, as if she had no real say in human resource decisions so that when he summoned her with a flick of his head she was already truculent and defensive, ready to attack.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing, Samantha? You knew that list was way out of date, that it was ancient history, what gave you the right to think you could act on it the way you did without checking?"

"I was doing my job"

"Since when was it your job to decide how a company should be run, or to make arbitrary decisions on who should stay or who should go? That's always been a team decision and I'm the leader of this team, so you don't go behind my back or over my head and do what you like, especially when the two of you were standing in as line management, and especially if your motives are, what shall we say, questionable?"

Shit, he hadn't been intending to mention the bias that the team had commented on, although Robbie may well have changed his mind and Charles couldn't help wondering if it was because if you add two and two you get twenty two, hence 'Sammy'.

"MY motives are not the ones that are questionable" She sounded very defensive so that he wondered whether she knew what she'd been doing or if it was totally subconscious "That list WAS the team decision initially before the old fart put his oar in, and now he's gone we needed to start making some sort of progress. No-one told me that those team decisions had changed and" she smirked "when they came looking for you for the management meeting yesterday, I told them what was going on and they seemed to approve, well, that was before you went and altered things, of course"

Fuck, why the hell hadn't he considered that the snotty witch might well get in first? And what did she mean about her motives not being the questionable ones? "What are you suggesting here Samantha?" As soon as he'd said it he regretted putting himself on the back foot by inviting her to put him on the defensive.

"I'm not the one everyone's sniggering about" Suddenly her voice was loaded with spite as though she'd been bottling it up "I'm not the one with 'a little friend' on the staff at Parkers, one that he has little chats with and has lunch with in the canteen he had re-opened, the one who was down for redundancy and is now, apparently, indispensable" He could almost see the inverted commas she put round the word "But, don't worry, I didn't mention any of this to the management team yesterday when no-one knew where you were"

That sounded remarkably like a threat to Charles as he recognised that she appeared to be far more perceptive than he'd bargained for and that he couldn't defend himself or deny any of it with any degree of conviction. It was all true, except that he hoped people weren't sniggering because that would be horrible for Molly, especially now, and even if he hadn't realised any of it himself until yesterday.

"I think this meeting is over but you need to know that I can't be part of any team that includes someone I can't trust, so changes will have to be made"

He got up and walked out almost tripping over Robbie and Stan who were waiting outside leaning on the wall and drinking coffee, Charles had no idea how long they'd been there and how much they'd been able to hear through the door, it probably depended on how closely they'd had their ears glued to it.

"Meeting's cancelled" He needed to go and start, or attempt to start, some damage limitation with the management team, to make sure that he presented this as a trust issue and not purely that he wanted her out because she was a jealous man-eating harpy who bullied girls who were prettier but less powerful than her. If he told them the truth, he'd be asked to explain why he hadn't dealt with it before now and he had no answer.

In the end the management team supported him, albeit reluctantly. He'd been forced into a lengthy explanation of his non-existent strategy for Parkers, making it up as he went along so that he almost impressed himself, which was more than he did his listeners who actually had quite good bullshit radar. They finally decided that you couldn't have team members going over their leaders' heads, that it would encourage others in the organisation to ignore their 'chain of command' which made Charles smile, it reminded him so much of being under army discipline, so Samantha was moved to the general, and all-female, Human Resources Department which made Stan snigger with barely disguised glee. Robbie had kept his place on the team with a verbal warning as to his future conduct from one of the senior men, a fact that left him suitably chastened and made him admit to Stan that she'd dropped him like a hot cake, blaming him for what'd happened. Stan had relayed that little nugget to Charles with almost the same amount of glee.

Charles was leaning back in his chair with his feet on the desk, rotating a pen between his fingers while Stan filled him in on what'd gone on.

"She told us all about your so-called friendship with Molly, Boss, couldn't help herself, made it sound very sleazy as if you were making decisions about Parkers to get into her knickers. I knew it was all in her bloody head, what with your wife and everything, so what did you do to Samantha, turn her down?"

"Yep, something like that, and Rebecca's back as it happens, came back a week ago but I'm not sure how long she'll stay this time; we'll have to see"

"How do you feel about it, Boss?"

"Honestly? Haven't got a fucking clue, that's why I could've done without all this at the moment"

OGOGOGOGOGOGOGOG

"You lied to me, you bloody lied to me, you bastard, how dare you sit there and say that you're involved with someone else when you said there wasn't anyone? You can't just sit there and say that our marriage is over when it suits you. This is because of Gareth isn't it? You're still punishing me when it was just as much your fault as mine, more if anything"

"Sorry Rebecca but I'm bloody sick of hearing that. This is not because of Gareth or whatever his name is, I really don't care about that any more, I did, but I don't now and the fact is that you went off with him because you wanted to, nothing to do with me. You got bored and you pissed off, now you're saying that you want us to have a baby, is that like you wanted us to have a dog?" He laughed incredulously "Are you nuts? You can't just get bored when you've got a baby and waltz off out of it when it suits you, and I'm sorry but I don't want to have a baby" He was very tempted to add 'with you' but this wasn't about scoring points, this was about calling a halt to this farce "I'm sorry but I care about someone else. I didn't say I was involved with her, because I'm not, we're just friends, I've never even touched her, not even to peck her on the cheek" He decided to ignore what'd happened in her flat, when he'd put his arms round her and wanted to do a hell of a lot more than peck her on the cheek.

"You don't deserve to be second best and that's what you'd be, I don't love you the way I used to, I'm sorry" He decided to try and be as nice as he could, it didn't cost him anything and even though she hadn't given a shit about making him feel second best when it suited her, he'd found that whatever happened or whatever she promised, he was adamant that she had no way back into his life.

"Is it that Samantha? I never trusted her, she always had the hot's for you"

"No, it's not Samantha" He laughed "and it doesn't really matter who it is does it? It doesn't make any difference to the way I feel about you, about us and the fact that there is no us any more, it hasn't even got anything to do with what's his name, Gareth, you and I, we, can't be together, it's over. I'm sorry"

He couldn't help thinking that pissing off was a very strange way of showing a girl who'd apparently had the 'hot's' for him that he wasn't available, but that also didn't matter anymore, none of it did. The whole conversation had only come about because Rebecca had decided that she was fed up with talking things over, so was Charles but he was using it as a way of avoiding going to bed with her, whereas she was sure that it was time to seduce him, making the offer of a baby as an inducement, because she knew that he wanted children while she privately equated pregnancy with terminal illness, both things liable to ruin her figure. She found babies tedious and small children boring; it was only when they got to be teenagers that they became passable and then admitting they were hers would make her look old, so this was a real sacrifice she was offering, one which he didn't seem to be appreciating.

They'd decided to take the house off the market when she'd moved back in, or rather she had while he was away In Doncaster, but a phone call from him to the agent in the morning would start that particular merry-go-round again. They sat together and made sad plans to separate permanently as she seemed to accept what he was saying and agreed to move back home to her parents until the house was sold and they could split their assets, something Charles felt was particularly generous of him bearing in mind that she'd never contributed a penny towards anything and that Charles would keep Parsnip. He felt a huge amount of relief and strangely enough he was sure that she did too, their conversation was calm and dry eyed and far from emotional as they suddenly found that they no longer harboured any ill will, now that they weren't exhausted by fighting to maintain something that was over. It was ironic that he actually liked her more than he had for months.

OGOGOGOGOGOGOG

Two down, but the one he wanted was a long way out of his reach. He'd spent nearly an hour persuading the management bunch that Samantha was talking out of her backside when she made all sorts of allegations during her disciplinary meeting, so he couldn't afford to make some excuse and disappear off to Parkers. Calling Molly to explain wasn't an option either, unless he wanted her to think he was too much of a coward to stick two fingers up and visit anyway and she might not want to talk to him, their parting had been a bit strained to say the least. Stan had visited several times and Robbie was based there for the moment, at least until a General Manager was appointed. Charles was pretty sure he wouldn't step out of line again. Stan kept giving him quizzical looks when he asked if things were okay there, when what he really wanted to know was how Molly was, but Stan wasn't stupid and Charles was a tad concerned that he was beginning to be suspicious.

The only bright spot on his horizon was his invitation to Eddie's retirement party the following Friday, he reasoned that no-one could read anything into his attendance at that and it would, in fact, be very rude to stay away.

OGOGOGOGOGOGOG

A/N: Thank you so much for your support, you made my Sunday, in fact, my whole weekend!

I would like to say a big, no a huge, welcome back to the Klip Doctor and to say that I wish some of our other 'lost authors' would come back. We miss you.

I would also like to say welcome to our antipodean friends, one of whom is my cousin, but I've told her to wait until the series is complete before she joins us on this site, otherwise she'll know the outcome and that'd spoil it for her.

Next chapter is Eddie's retirement party and Charles having to make all sorts of decisions about the direction he wants his future to take.

"