"Still another half hour to Newport," Brains announced to the slumbering occupants in his car. There was no discernible response. Dangles, Mansfield and Bas were sleeping off the effects of an all nighter, sprawled across the back seat. Charles was unusually unresponsive with his eyes closed in the front seat. Brains frowned. It was unlike the Bossman, especially since he'd left the pub early last night.

Charles was awake but drifting somewhere between carnal reverie and conscous misgiving. His mind kept returning to the arresting image of Molly, lying naked between his sheets, a secret smile lighting her face as she savoured the pleasure of their recent coupling. If only he could could stop the image there.

But that was before he'd cocked it up by losing his temper in the shower. It had all gone downhill between them after that. After showering separately they'd walked along the grassy cliff to the pub. A gloriously hot, midsummer day had turned into a clammy evening, a dusky new moon suspended on the smoky horizon, sending soft slivers of light fogging across the sweltry sea.

Lethargic from the heat and still smouldering over Candy's interference, Charles had been morose and impatient. He resisted Molly's hesitant attempts to engage in conversation and she became enigmatic and unresponsive.

When they reached the tiny old smuggler's pub, she'd gone straight away to sit between Fingers and Bas. Charles remained at the bar, persuading himself that it was his duty as a former CO to buy each of his men a drink and chat to them individually. He duped himself into thinking that it was a good opportunity to find out a bit more about what each of them were doing now, but it was bloody hard to concentrate when every time he heard her shout something at one of the men or laugh at a joke, he found himself losing the thread of his conversation and trying to listen into hers.

But after two hours of stifling small talk and several whiskies he was in no mood to pretend any longer. He didn't want to be angry with her. What he really wanted was to take her outside and make amends for his boorish behaviour, to take her hand and lead her from the hot, muggy stillness of the cliffs down to the dark coolness of the quiet beach, where he could remove her clothes and make intense, langorous love to her in the damp sand.

Charles began to feel like a dick for messing things up and a sad bastard for hanging around the bar waiting for an opportunity to resolve them, even when it was becoming abundantly clear she was not going to give him one. So when Kinders cried off, explaining he was on childcare duty the next afternoon, Charles had bottled out and they walked back to the hotel, where he spent much of the night lying awake seething at his stupidity.

Why the fuck couldn't he get a grip on his temper? Charles shifted irritably in his car seat and tried to stretch his legs out in Brains' small car. For years he'd watched his father wrestle with his anger. As a Full Colonel, his father been accustomed to getting his way at work, but his mother was an individual, an amateur pianist with a social conscience who rarely backed down from her own opinions; and at home his childhood had been blighted by tense standoffs and frequent arguments.

As a child he'd needed to protect his mother from his father's intimidating tirades; as an awkward teenager, confused by adolescence and disparaged by girls, he'd felt more sympathy for his father's position. Now, with a broken marriage behind him, he could look back at his parent's explosive union with more understanding, having come to the realisation they were spirited individualists whose mutual attraction had been undermined by years of fierce contest and reluctant concession. As individuals, he loved them, but as partners they were combustable. He'd often wondered if he'd married Rebecca – who'd seemed so agreeable initially– to avoid having the same anguished marriage as his parents. What a mistake he'd made with that!

"Oh, I've got the worst shitting headache I've ever had," groaned Mansfield from the back of the car.

"Blame it on Molly."

"Yeah the sly witch."

Charles just about resisted opening his eyes. "Interesting evening?" he interrupted in a deliberately casual voice.

"What they mean, Charles," explained Brains as he changed gear, "is that Molly persuaded the bartender to let her behind the bar where she mixed a load of lethal cocktails for the boys and they all got bladdered. What was it she made for you Dangles?"

"I dunno, she said it was a Cockney Sucking Cowboy or something like that. It tasted bloody horrible. That's the last thing I remember about last night."

"She made me something called Liquid viagra, moaned Mansfield. "It had loads of red bull in it. I haven't slept a wink all night. I'm not touching one of her pissing cock-uptails again.

"Think yourself lucky, Mansfield. I got the old Afghan Monkey, but because they didn't have any melon or banana liqueur, she put in mint liqueur and a mashed up banana instead."

"Ugh, Bas. That sounds evil."

"It was minging. Just thinking about it makes me want to honk."

"You necked it though, Bas," Brains piped up.

"Don't be so fucking cheerful Brains. She only let you off cos you're driving. Next reunion, I'm going to make sure she gives you a Molly Dawes special."

"I ain't going to drink any of her drinks again, if this is the way she makes me feel the following morning," declared Dangles.

Charles smiled through his own misery. Painful as it was to admit, Dawes had clearly been on top form after he left the pub with Kinders last night. She might be just five-foot two inches high, but she was a gobby cockney and more than capable of taking over a pub and causing havoc with her strange, perverted cockails.

He supposed he should be grateful that his outburst last night hadn't seem to affect her, but hearing about it just made him feel more miserable. After last night's debacle, he'd woken up this morning recalling the moment of their coupling…

"Is it okay?"

"Beautiful," she'd answered. "I'd forgotten how amazing."

His stomach had tightened with desire at the sweetness of the memory and he felt swollen with an emotion, an intensity, something, love perhaps? It had still been early. He'd stolen upstairs to her room hoping for a chance to say all the things he'd wanted to the night before, to make up for his anger, and to ask her out in Bristol so they could talk. Somewhere too, in the back of his mind, he was hoping he could tempt her back into her bed, to make joyous, secret love to her before everyone else got up for breakfast.

Her door was open and even before he'd looked into the blue coldness of the empty room he knew what it meant. She'd gone, left already and her car was no longer parked outside.

She'd left without saying goodbye to him. He couldn't believe it. And moreover, he seemed the only one singled out for this particularly painful punishment, because at breakfast no one seemed surprised by her disappearance, so he guessed they all knew. Eventually as they were packing the car he'd asked Brains, quietly, where Molly was.

"She left early this morning… said her goodbyes last night." Brains had looked at him curiously: "Didn't she tell you?"

Charles had walked round to the boot to avoid a reply.

But Brains had followed him adding cheekily: "So hell hasn't frozen over yet?"

"What?" Charles' had regretted his waspish tone immediately.

"Ok." Brains had hesitated for a moment. "You and Molly… It's still classified then, Boss?"

"You're damn right," he had snapped as he'd swung his bergen into the boot.

Now enroute to what would undoubtedly be difficult morning with Candy in Newport, Charles shifted in the front seat and sighed.

He had the next 10 days off with Sam before he had to fly to New York. No matter how much he wanted to, he'd spent too little time with his son recently to hare off on some mission to find Molly in Bristol and try to win her over.

At 10 years old and on the edge of his teens, Sam was begging Charles to let him go to boarding school and live in Switzerland during the holidays. But Switzerland was impossible – Charles wasn't there enough – and Rebecca had flat out rejected his suggestion they put Sam's name down for his old boarding school. This holiday was his chance to talk with Sam, and get to the bottom of why he didn't want to live at home. Charles couldn't let himself be distracted by Molly at this important time in his son's life.

He suspected Sam's request was to do with Teddy, Rebecca's new husband. Charles had never anticipated that, after the relative easiness of their divorce, he and Rebecca would spend so much time disagreeing about Sam. Teddy seemed a decent man, solid, unsmiling even, but he'd taken Sam in and appeared to love him as much as the three children he and Rebecca had gone on to have. For that Charles was profoundly grateful.

Now Sam was growing older and wanting independence, but Teddy seemed unable to relax the rules and according to Rebecca, Sam had become sullen and rebellious. Recently Charles had come to dread his weekends with his son, because they inevitably started with Sam arriving tense and unhappy after some conflict at home and ended with a tearful parting, and a dressing down from a forthright Teddy and a sheepish Rebecca. Charles got the distinct impression during these awkward encounters that they thought he wasn't stepping up to the mark as Sam's father. He'd tried to deal with it on his own with Rebecca but had been rebuffed.

Brains braked suddenly and he opened his eyes again.

"Are you alright Bas? You look a bit pale."

Charles turned round to see Bas looking doggedly at the horizon as he turned an odd shade of green.

"Uh, I think I'm going to be…

"Stop the car," Dangles shouted. He's going to chuck up."

Brains managed to get onto the hard shoulder of the M4.

"Thank fuck he got out in time," said Dangles as they all watched him race to the bushes. "Uh oh. Shitting hell! You chunder Bas!"

"Urgh, Bas. I can't look," groaned Brains.

"Did you see that?" shouted Mansfield in revolted delight. "He's chucked up enough for a roadside pizza all around."

Candy was waiting for them at the cemetry when they arrived. Anxious about his reception, Charles lingered behind the men until they had all greeted her. Then he stepped forward: "Hello Candy. It's good to see you again."

He held his breath.

She smiled: "Captain James. I didn't expect you. It's nice of you to come and visit Smurf."

He breathed a sigh of relief. Politeness would be the order of the day, then. "How are you?"

"Oh, fine except I've just gone and twisted my ankle. This stupid chair." She gestured at the wheelchair she was sitting in with irritation and turned to introduce the women with her. "I'm fortunate Rhian is here to help."

"Can I push you to Smurf's grave?"

"That'll be tidy. This stupid foot."

He pushed her along the cemetary's tarmac road in silence, turning through the trees to a small open area of hillside overlooking the Bristol Channel. The lads trailed behind them, silent and troubled by their surroundings.

"So what are you doing now Captain?"

"I'm no longer in the army. I'm working for the United Nations."

"That must be interesting. Here we are. We put him in over here."

He wheeled her over to a newish looking grave with a simple granite headstone inscribed with Smurf's name and his dates. Charles nodded approvingly when he saw his unit badge engraved below.

They stood for a few solemn moments around the grave, as he repeated Dylan Thomas' words from Under Milk Wood. After he'd finished there was silence around the group, a time for each of them to think about Smurf.

Charles' mind returned to the day Smurf had joined 2 Section. It was not an easy start. New recruits are generally eager to establish themselves, but Smurf was pugnacious and his aggressive personality rattled. Then he'd proved himself in a skirmish, and established himself as one of the most popular of the boys. At one time, he'd been one of Charles' best men. That was until they went to Afghan. With Geraint's death uppermost in his mind, Smurf's personality had changed. He'd become embittered towards the Afghans, and no longer someone with something to prove, but someone who felt he was owed something. Long before the episode on the bridge, Smurf was becoming a regular topic of concern in his briefings with Kinders.

'I should have relieved him from that last mission,' thought Charles miserably as he found himself going into another examination of the past and where he went wrong. Then he caught himself. 'Not today,' he told himself savagly. 'I couldn't stand it after last night.' He looked past the graveyeards leading down the hill to the River Severn and the headlands that separated England and Wales and his mind drifted back to the moment he'd knelt before Molly, and brought her to a shuddering orgasm. He pushed the inappropriate thought away.

He heard the pffsst of a can opening and looked around.

"To old Smurfoid," said Fingers, balancing an open can of Brains on the grave. "Have a drink with your old 2 Section mates."

Bas Vegas was distributing several more cans to the boys from a plastic bag in his rucksack.

"Smurf"

"Sicknote"

"You old dog. I miss you"

Candy was joyful through her tears: "Look, Rhian, he's with his mates and they're going to give him a few drinks."

Candy turned to Captain James. "Captain, can you push me back to the car please? I don't want to get in the way."

"You don't have to go."

"What man in his 20s wants his mother around when he's supping with his mates?"

Charles smiled: "You're right."

"Besides. There's something I need to ask you."

"Here it comes," he thought, as he pushed the wheelchair down the path.

"What is Molly Dawes doing now."

"She's studying to be a doctor."

"She's done well for herself! At university? Which one, Captain?"

"Bristol."

She looked back and gestured at the Severn bridge rising out of the mist in the distance. "That's just accross the water. She wasn't able to make it today?"

"Apparently not."

Behind him he could hear Bas Vegas' voice rising as he recalled the night a drunken Smurf stripped naked and danced on a table in Cyprus.

She turned round to look at him over her shoulder: "I need to speak to Molly. Can you persuade her to come and see me?"

"I don't think I can do that," he said firmly. "If you want to see her, why not invite her yourself and she can accept or refuse."

"You were in love with her once, weren't you?"

Behind him the boys fell about in noisy laughter. He stayed silent, resenting her intrusion.

"And she was in love with you?"

"There was a time when I thought so."

"Then why did you part?"

It was hard to hold back his annoyance: "Candy, it's in the past. Let it stay there."

"I know you're going to tell me it's none of my business. But, it is you see…" Her voice trailed away as she lost the courage to continue.

He waited silently. Under the circumstances he wasn't going to volunteer any information to her.

Then all of a sudden she seemed to lose her composure. "It's too hard, Rhian," she confessed to her friend. "Look at him. He's not going to talk about it."

Her companion stroked a supportive hand over Candy's shoulders. "Perhaps you should start by telling him about your ankle. Let me wheel you to that bench, then you'll be out of the sun and the Captain can sit down."

Confused, he followed the wheelchair over to the bench.

"I'm not being a busy body, Charles. At least, I know I meddled before, but I want to make amends – if I can."

For the first time he made himself look at her properly and he realised she looked incredibly tired, somehow defeated. There was an odd quality of suffering in her eyes. Then he understood it – the wheelchair, the headscarf, her needing to avoiding the sun, the compelling desire to make things better.

She nodded at the comprehension on his face: "That's right. "It's in my bones. That's why I can't walk."

"I'm sorry. When was it discovered? Are you getting good treatment?"

"A year ago. But they can't operate. I've been having chemotherapy."

"That must have been gruelling. Is it working."

"Helping, prolonging, yes. But that's about all. It's escaped already."

For a moment he couldn't speak. He couldn't believe her life had been so blighted. A father who'd run off, twin sons killed in Afghan, terminal cancer.

"Now you'll understand why I need to see Molly. She looked at him closely. You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"

He nodded, still stunned at her revelation.

She looked away in embarrassment. "I don't know if I can make anything better. I'd like to, but that's for you two I guess, not me. What I can do, though, is try to explain why. I owe you both that."

"Yes," he said, looking her directly in the eye. "You do."

"Well, when Smurf passed I thought he and Molly were together. Even at his funeral, I thought that. So it was a big shock when I discovered, by accident, that she was in love with you."

She took a deep, reflecting breath: "I should have known that life moves onwards, in ways you don't understand. I had a cob on instead. Didn't I Rhian?

The other woman laughed: "Candy, you were tamping mad!"

Candy nodded: "I convinced myself that you were both disrespecting Smurf's memory and I did all I could to stop you.

"I'm not proud of it. It was shameful."

Charles was uncomfortable with her taking so much responsibility. "You're not the only one who was confused. There had been something between them. And…" he fell silent, not wanting to give voice to a thought that had been gathering dust at the edges of his mind since Qaseem first told him. "If Molly had discussed it with me, instead of dealing with it alone, I'm sure we could have all resolved it."

"No," she blurted out in a rush: "I knew it was wrong at the time. I just, I couldn't accept it. I needed to feel Smurf's life had meant something to someone. That he'd left behind someone who was going to love him and remember him. That his life had been worth it."

"Both your son's lives were worth living."

"Oh, I didn't worry about that with Geraint. He was an easy, lovable child. He had hundreds of friends, girlfriends, Elin, – his fiancée – and his little one. I see Geraint in Cerys all the time. But Dylan was different. He was tough and defensive. Even when I cwtched him as a little boy, I could feel him stiffen with resistance. He always ran against the wind."

Her voice broke with the strain of it: "He never had a significant relationship. Perhaps he was like his father. He'd never known any real love except mine. I didn't want that to be the sum of his life."

"When Geraint died, he left a child – a beautiful little daughter – watching her grow, every day, I could see his life had added up to something more. But Smurf wasn't like that. And after he'd died, I began to wonder what his life had been about… what impact he'd left behind him. I needed him to have something, someone he'd made an impact on.

Charles flinched. What awful pain she must have gone through after Smurf's death.

And I convinced myself that Molly was the person. I mean, there seemed to have been something between them, in the past. I don't know really. When they were down here on leave, I thought there might still be. Smurf warned me not to get involved, but I was stupid and I did. After he went back, I started thinking, romanticising. I convinced myself there was something and I sent my old engagement ring to him to give to her."

Charles could feel his shoulders tensing. That bloody ring. It had taken on a life of its own and attracted layers of speculation and innuendo. Why the hell did Molly still wear it? The best thing she could do was lose it down the plug hole!

"Then there was this trip to Vegas they were planning. Smurf was going to fly her first class and get her to gamble all his deployment money, put it on red. He'd even bought her a sexy, red dress to wear on the night - he'd asked me to help him pick it out. So how could she have done that if she was with someone else?"

Yes, how could she? Charles felt an irrational stab of anger. He hadn't known anything about that.

"He was up in London planning the trip with her... that's when he passed. No wonder I thought there was something going on. You'd have to be inhuman not to."

Yes, thought Charles. You would. I would have wondered about that too.

"I guess I wanted something – someone to reassure me that he was liked." She looked up at him. "I know mother's are not supposed to be like this. We're supposed to love our children unconditionally." She looked helplessly at her hands lying in her lap. "And I think, with Geraint I did love him like that and with Dylan I didn't."

Her devastating admission fell away. They were brutal words swiftly carried off by a gust of wind. Yet once spoken, they could never be forgotten.

This was the crux of it then, This was where all the nonsense had originated – from Candy's guilt that Smurf died alone and unloved.

"It came from somewhere so deep inside me, so hidden, I didn't even realise I felt that way until after Smurf had died."

She added: "I don't think he ever knew."

Charles said nothing. He couldn't reply. All he could hear was Smurf's peevish outburst on the bridge nagging at his conscience, yet again. What had he said about being Geraint's twin brother?

'I always got the shit end of the stick. Everyone loved him.'

Charles flinched. He guessed Smurf had known. For the first time since that moment on the bridge, he felt sorry for Smurf with his whole being. There was none of the usual feelings – anger, resentment or frustration – that Charles often experienced when he thought of Smurf.

Charles had an amazing relationship with his mother. He knew she had loved him unreservedly from his first moment and that knowledge had given him confidence and the belief he could deal with anything. He could not begin to comprehend what it would be like to live without his mother's love.

He looked back at Candy, sitting silent, guilty, waiting for his reaction. She's got guts to admit that, he thought.

But in trying to justify herself, she'd mentioned the trip to Vegas, the sexy red dress, and the ring. And in doing so, Charles thought, she'd made it much worse for him, since it had opened up all kinds of new questions and doubts about Molly, threatening to topple the fledgling love he'd rediscovered for her.

He wasn't going to ask Molly about those questions. It was bad enough just to know. So he turned his mind away from it, pushing his memories of Dawes, Kabul and yesterday evening to the darkest recesses of his troubled mind.

A/n Thanks for your reviews, comments, PMs and requests for personal orders over the past two 'smutty' or 'dark' side chapters. I'm so sorry I was unable to oblige, they did make me giggle though! There is not so much to 'enjoy' in this chapter, it's all a bit miserable with Candy's illness, and Molly and CJ as far apart now, as they've ever been. Those of you who have begged for a reconciliation for a few chapters, will have to wait out a bit longer, I'm afraid!