A/N: Was obviously having a crisis of confidence yesterday, or more likely feeling sorry for myself! I haven't really got writers block as such, I know that that's what it sounded like, but I can usually bash away for a couple of thousand words ….. then I read it and have these massive doubts about what I've written so that my finger hovers over the delete button. My thanks to everyone who was supportive, especially to Debbie, resolution, I will try harder not to whinge.

-OG-

"So, is this young man the reason your mum hasn't seen hide nor hair of you for all this time then?"

"Course not, I been busy, Nan, anyhow he's not that young, he's older than he looks" Molly giggled as he nudged her shoulder with his and then shrugged as Nan raised her eyebrows giving her a little exasperated snort and making it plain that she wasn't amused and didn't believe her anyway "Just sayin'"

"Your mum misses you, I know that the others are here and that it's hard with the little bleeders under her feet all the time, but that don't mean she don't need to see you a bit more often, she worries 'bout you"

Belinda's "Mum leave it out" reminded Molly that this was what she'd been most afraid of, not that Belinda would say anything embarrassing or horrible, her mum wouldn't, but that her Nan would be blunt to the point of appearing downright rude.

Charles turned to look at Nan, she was tall, much taller than Molly or her mother, and slim with blonde hair and wasn't at all what he'd been expecting, although he wasn't sure what he had been expecting exactly. She didn't look anything like his own grandmother, she looked as if she was from a different generation altogether, much younger than he'd expected and about as far from a little old lady as it was possible to get. She'd was standing in the doorway with her arms folded leaning up against the frame and had refused to take him up on his offer of his seat on the sofa so that Charles was deeply uncomfortable to be sitting while an older lady was standing, until he realised that whether she knew it or not she'd done it deliberately. It was a classic warfare tactic to always be able to look down on and not up to your enemy, although he was hoping against hope that she wasn't going to turn out to be his enemy.

"Molly and I have been …. close …. friends ….for a while now so it probably is my fault, I met her when I was injured out in Afghanistan and ended up in hospital, Molly looked after me"

"What are you telling me here, that you're another one what's in the bleeding army?"

No-one could have missed seeing the sharp glance she directed at her granddaughter, a glance that was full of surprise and a lot of dismay at what she'd just heard so that there was no mistaking her feelings on the matter, she was appalled.

"Don't tell me he's a friend of that other one young lady cos I don't wanna have to get anyone to roll him in a carpet and lob him off a bridge on the M25, but I will, big as he is, you make no mistake about it, I ain't standing by while some other bugger messes with you, just watch if you don't believe me"

"No Nan, he's not a friend of …. He's just told you, he was in my clutches in hospital cos he nearly died when he got himself shot and he's still like on the sick now" She shrugged her shoulders and grinned then chewed her bottom lip, looking at her grandmother beseechingly, it was suddenly very important to her that Nan liked him "He's a war hero" She giggled and nudged him back with her shoulder, she knew just how much he hated it when she said things like that.

"It's alright Molly" He decided not to respond to the 'war hero' tag, much as he hated it "I can promise your Nan that I'm not going to do anything to mess you about and it would give me the greatest of pleasure to be the one to put a contract out on Paul Walker, I'm only sorry that I can't"

"He's a good 'un Nan, really, he is"

"Yeah well, your grandad had a pretty face just like him, well maybe not quite as pretty and he had a Triumph Herald, mind he weren't never a bleeding hero, but I thought he was a good 'un, didn't I? And if I'd thought about it, I'd of picked the other one, now he was a good 'un, and then I would never of had all that grief with your grandad would I?"

"He hasn't got a Triumph Herald Nan" Molly was now openly laughing at her grandmother; Charles got the impression that this was something they'd all heard before.

"You know wot I mean young lady, and you can stop being so bleeding clever wiv your Nan as well"

-OG-

The return of her younger brothers from their Cub outing, all three of them as high as kites on sugary fizzy drinks and their own misbehaviour, which Brown Owl described at great length and in excruciating detail to their mother, meant that the 'getting to know you' conversations came to an abrupt halt. The boys has rushed in, hugged their sister, ignored Charles and were now tearing round the maisonette yelling at each other at the tops of their voices and scuffling like puppies as they ran up and down the stairs, taking no notice at all of their mother's repeated shouting at them to calm down and not to play on the stairs. Molly had followed her mother into the kitchen, leaving him at the mercy of Nan and the three Ninja's or so they described themselves. Nan just kept telling them to stop their bleeding showing off and then kept threatening to lamp them if they didn't stop immediately, but as none of them took the slightest bit of notice Charles presumed that it was a regular empty threat issued by their doting grandmother.

"Now, you listen to me young man while she's in the kitchen wiv her mum, our Molls, well, we're bleeding proud of her you know, she ain't had it easy, wot with her dad 'n that, then that prannit, that Paul, wot he done to her, but she's nearly finished now, wiv all her training 'n that so she's making summat of herself, so you just watch that you don't do nothing to mess that up for her"

"I'm extremely fond of her"

"I can see that, but you just make sure she knows it and that she never has anyfing to be sorry about"

-OG-

"What did my Nan say to you when I was in the kitchen with mum?"

"Yes, thanks for that, leaving me in the lion's den like that"

"You're a war hero, you can cope" She giggled as he put his hands round her throat pretending to throttle her "Don't be daft, she doesn't eat people, well, not on Sundays anyhow"

"Are you sure about that?"

"Nah" She shook her head and giggled as they got in the car, almost light headed with relief that it was all over, relief that was making her feel more giggly than usual "Was she marking your card for you or was she trying to lure you away from me? She loves a pretty face"

"Yup, very funny, bloody hilarious, she told me that I have to keep on telling you that I love you, or something like that, but then you know that already don't you?"

"Yeah, quite like hearing it though" She smiled and put her hand on his arm "I was a bit worried about all this, you know, I kept on thinking, well worrying really about what you'd make of it, of them"

"I had noticed"

"Well it's all different to what you're used to with your family 'n that, innit? and I thought you might think it was all a bit ….that they was, I dunno really, a bit ….. " She shrugged, struggling to put her doubts into words, she couldn't think of the right ones.

"Molly, it's all a matter of luck, everything is luck, fluke, chance ….. where you're born, who you're born to" He shrugged "Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief, it's all luck, nothing else"

"Well, three out of four ain't bad for my dad"

He laughed "You're very lucky with your mum and Nan though and having all those brothers and sisters, I always wanted some when I was a kid"

"You wouldn't if you'd had 'em" They both laughed, remembering the way the boys had been behaving when they'd left the flat "It wouldn't take long till they was doin' your head in"

"So, when are we going to Bath then?"

-OG-

They'd visited Bath and she'd fallen in love …. with Sam …. and he'd fallen in love with her. They'd had a glorious day out in Weston, cold and windy, the sea a distant grey smudge on the horizon and with more than a hint of rain in the air so that they'd almost had the entire promenade to themselves and the seagulls. The three of them had run to keep warm, Molly and Charles running at Sam's pace which had suited them all, Sam because he hated to be left behind, Charles because he wasn't as fit as he'd once been and Molly because she literally hated running. They'd then eaten ice creams, supposedly to cool down from the running and Charles had leapt about and shouted, waving his arms around and making Sam fall about laughing as his dad did his best to keep the seagulls away as they circled nearby.

Sam had demanded that Molly tell him all about her brothers, about the things they'd got up to, he wasn't one bit interested in the girls, and Molly had had to promise him that she would take him to play with them during the next school holidays. She'd carefully avoided looking at Charles while she and Sam had the conversation, she didn't want to have it confirmed, but was pretty sure he'd be horrified.

Charles' dad had been away when they'd visited and Molly had the strongest possible suspicion that his mother, Margaret, had been briefed by her son. She was so matter-of-fact with Molly, simply saying how nice it was to see her again and not making any fuss at all, simply accepting of the fact that she and Charles were together so that it didn't take long for Molly's embarrassed reluctance to fade and disappear. Before they'd arrived at Royal Crescent she'd been adamant that they couldn't sleep together, that they couldn't share a bed in his parents' house because it would feel awkward and all wrong so that he'd laughed and asked whether she thought his mother imagined that they played scrabble all night at home. All of that seemed ridiculous as soon as she realised that his mother just took it as read, so much so that Molly had wondered and then demanded to know if he'd made a habit of bringing girls home to sleep with.

She was glad that she'd actually been in the house before, it still overwhelmed her a bit, but not as badly as it had the first time she'd visited although she was more than somewhat horrified to find out that the house was destined to be his, that it was in some wort of trust so that his mum and dad couldn't sell it even if they wanted to. She'd pulled a face at him when his mum had referred to it and had asked as soon as they were on their own whether he was, in fact, related to bleeding royalty, had then giggled when she explained that if he was, Nan would be absolutely thrilled and would forgive him anything, making him roar with laughter. She'd spent some time looking at the black and white framed photographs which lined the stairway, they were all of Charles, some of him alone, and some with various groups of soldiers in various different locations and they underlined for her just how good looking he was, how posh he looked in the ones that had been taken of him in full dress uniform and once again she questioned just what he was doing with a tatty east end bird like her. He was so far out of her league it was funny.

"You okay?" He smoothed her hair back from her face, remembering the last time they'd shared this bed and how different things were now, well in some ways, in others they were just the same "Did you enjoy yourself this afternoon?"

"Yeah, he's lovely, Sam, inne?"

"Yup, I think so, but then kids are"

"Not the ones I bleeding know" She giggled "Well, they are when they're asleep"

"Good job you don't want any then"

"Who said? I never said I didn't want kids, course I want kids, well I think I do anyhow"

"We were here in this room, in this bed when you said it"

"Oh yeah, but I never said I didn't want any, might of said I hadn't really thought about it but that's different, and anyhow I didn't really know you then, did I? Might even of been lying"

"Oh good"

"Oi, pack it in, I never said I wanted them now, did I? I meant later on when I'm grown up"

"Spoilsport"

-OG-

"Feel sick, think I might puke"

"No you don't, you won't, you're not going to, you're going to be fine, brilliant"

"Will you stop bleeding saying that, it's doing me head in now 'n you don't know that, you don't know nothing about it, you're just saying that to try 'n make me feel better"

"Wouldn't dream of it" He raised his eyebrows for a second making it obvious that he was humouring her then picked up the car keys and went to the door "Come on, time to go, now have you got everything? Pens, tissues, sweets, bottle of water, sick bags?"

"Bloody comedian, it's not funny" She lifted a woebegone face to his and wailed "Charles, what happens if I fail? And don't bleeding say that I'm not going to, you don't know that"

"Come on, we'll talk about it in the car, it won't help if you're late, will it?"

She'd finally moved in with him the day after they'd got back from Bath, the week prior to her exams starting saying that she couldn't stand the group hysteria of her floor of the nurses home, what with everyone going on about what they didn't know and how they wished they'd studied more and how they all kept on saying that if anyone was going to fail it was gonna be them … and on and on ….. . She'd pretended to Charles that it was only temporary, that she was only staying until the exams were over and he'd pretended to go along with that, even though they both knew that she wasn't going anywhere, it was just that it was still very difficult for Molly to admit to any sort of commitment.

"You said we'd talk about it in the car, so what will I do if I fail?"

"You're not going to fail, alright, alright" He leaned over at her irritated exclamation and took her hand, squeezing it then bringing it up and kissing the back of her knuckles before returning his full attention to the traffic jam they were caught up in "Look, worst case scenario, you can probably sit the bloody thing again, yes?"

"Yeah, s'pose so" She sniffed knowing that getting herself in a state so that she started crying before she even got to the exam hall was just about the worst thing she could do, it was just that she wanted to have some sort of fall-back plan in her head, to take the pressure off "I'll need a job though"

"No you won't, and will you stop worrying about things like that, I've got a job so we'd manage, we'd be fine"

"What? You're saying that you'd be my meal ticket, really would make me a bloody gold digger that, wouldn't it?"

"I'm not going to answer that, Molly, I'm tired of telling you that you are not a gold digger, that looking after each other goes with the territory" He grinned, then put his head back and laughed "Now, go on get in there and be brilliant, and Molls?"

"What?"

"You could always go back to the supermarket"

-OG-