"Come on, come on, ring damn you" For the first half an hour or so of his drive to Pirbright he was urging his mobile phone to ring, even though he was driving so would have to use hands free, and he was getting increasingly irritated at the deafening silence. He had no idea whether she was at work; he knew she had been at the point of changing to days, or asleep or just ignoring him. It underlined the distance between them; a few short weeks ago he would have known her shift pattern as well as she did. Then he realised that even if she did ring he hadn't got a clue what to say to her, and until he'd found out first-hand what had happened and what the current situation was, anything he said would be pure speculation and he couldn't do that. His first impulse had been to talk to Molly but he hadn't thought it through, so now he was considering turning the phone off, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it while there was a chance she'd call.

It was another ten minutes before he had a blinding flash of recollection of something that Molly had said when she'd been drunk and mad at him; that Smurf had told her that he was going to, as she'd put it, top himself. That was the point at which he turned his phone off. The only thing he knew for sure was that there had been an accident, Smurf had fallen off something or over something during a training run, a cross country obstacle race, and appeared to be badly hurt. He had some kind of head injury apparently and had been taken to the base hospital where Charles was headed now, but there was no way he was going to tell Molly anything until he knew exactly what was going on.

After an endless nightmare of a drive where he seemed to get stuck behind every slow motion driver in the south of England, he finally pulled into a parking space outside the hospital and checked his phone for missed calls. None! He didn't know whether to be relieved or annoyed, he was still obviously 'public enemy number one' as far as she was concerned. He strode into the reception area and was greeted by an anxious looking Derek Kinders who was waiting by the seating area and was clearly very relieved to see him.

"What happened, Derek?"

"I have no idea boss, we built a log bridge and were crossing the river sitting on it and sliding along on our backsides when he seemed to just fall off, must have hit his head when he fell because he was out cold when I reached him and was still out cold when we got here"

"He fell, right? No-one pushed him, you know, got too close or anything?"

"No, there was no-one near him"

"Make sure you keep this to yourself Derek, but is there any chance he could have rolled off deliberately?"

"I shouldn't think so Boss, he'd have to have been bloody stupid, it was a long drop and I mean I know he's a dick but why the hell would he do something like that?"

"No, you're right of course, forget I asked. Let's go and find out how he's doing"

To outward appearances he was cool, calm and in total control of himself, every inch the army Captain. He was striding along the corridor looking for the right room and medical team so that he could get an update on what the damage was to Smurf's head, but inside he was like a hamster on a wheel frantically running on the spot to get nowhere, and if he was right in his suspicions, terrified of the effect this would have on Molly.

og…og…og…og…og…og…og

"So it wasn't exactly the start of a beautiful romance then?" Molly was giggling at the expression on Suzie's face as she shuddered theatrically.

"No it bloody well wasn't! And I'm never letting you pick again?"

"He looked okay"

"Yes he looked okay alright, but he was the most boring fucker I've ever met in my life"

"Oh, so there's no chance of a shag then?"

"Stop taking the piss! I know every bloody detail of his job, his house, his car, his last bleeding holiday, his last girlfriend, poor cow, you name it I know it, he never stopped talking about himself all evening, and he never asked me anything about me. It was like being out with someone From TripAdvisor. I went to the loo so many times to call you to rescue me that he must think I've got cystitis or a case of the shits. In the end I was writing my Tesco's shopping list in my head" In spite of her mock indignation, Suzie was now giggling as helplessly as Molly.

"Sorry, me phone was switched off"

"Why?"

"Cos 'you know who' called wanting me to ring him for a cosy chat about Smurf, so I turned it off in case he rang again" Molly changed the subject, she didn't want to talk about Charles or Smurf "So, you're not going to give whatsisname another chance then? He might have just been nervous and that's why he talked too much"

"What, it's not enough for me to hate him once? I've got to give him another go so that I can really, really hate him?"

"Okay, let's have another look, see who else is available"

"No, I'm going to look for myself, I'm going to stop looking for a George Clooney look alike and go for ugly and human, someone who'll be grateful for my company thanks very much"

The post mortem was on Suzie's first ever internet date the previous evening and the two girls were making the most of a rare Saturday off together by eating breakfast in their pyjamas and half watching breakfast T.V. Molly had the whole weekend off as she was transferring to days on Monday, but was feeling at a loose end, all her recent blocks of time off had been spent in Bath.

"What shall we do today? Let's go out somewhere"

"Molly, it's pissing down out there, maybe later if it clears up a bit, and are you ever going to turn your phone back on?"

"Yeah, but if he's rung again its going straight off, okay?" She turned her phone on "Look, told you, 5 missed calls! Oh, there're all from you…. sorry"

"Nothing from him?"

"No, he said it was important, can't have been that important, can it?"

"You're never satisfied are you? Poor bugger can't do anything right can he?"

"You've changed your tune"

og…og…og…og…og…og…og

Charles and Kinders stood watching though the window as the medical team worked on Smurf, they had been there most of the night, waiting in the main reception, and then returning to the room where Smurf was being treated. There were monitors lit up with coloured lines and numbers and an alarm was sounding continuously so that Charles got irritated and wished that someone would turn the fucking thing off. Some of the activity was giving him a frightening sense of deja vue; it was like being back in Birmingham and being aware of medical staff scurrying around and monitors beeping with alarms going off, and the horrible sensation of not being sure of what was going on. He saw one nurse shine a light in Smurf's eyes and was instantly taken back to Bastion and Molly. For a moment he felt an ominous prickling at the top of his nose and behind his eyes making him aware that he missed her more than he could say, that he was scared and he needed her to be standing next to him so that he could slip her tiny hand into his to make him feel better.

One of the medical staff noticed them watching through the glass and moved to close the venetian blinds so that Charles and Kinders could no longer see what was going on, so they moved to lean against the wall opposite the room, there were no seats, and waited for someone to come along who could give them an update.

"Sorry Boss"

"What are you sorry for? It wasn't your fault was it, it was an accident"

"I don't know what happened, I thought we had all the safety shit covered"

As Kinders spoke, the door opened and Charles knew instantly what the man in the green scrubs was going to say, a large knot of dread formed in his stomach as he walked towards him and introduced himself.

"I'm really sorry, Captain, but there was nothing we could do to revive him, but we knew from the first it was probably hopeless, we did our best but it was virtually all over before he even got here"

Charles wanted to howl "Nnnoooo", this couldn't be bloody happening, it was a fucking nightmare. He heard Kinders' sharp intake of breath and knew that he would be torturing himself with guilt as well as beginning to think of ways to defend himself against the inevitable speculation as to who was to blame.

"Do we know yet what killed him?" Charles was saying a silent prayer that it had been a dizzy spell or something similar that had made him fall.

"I don't think it was a head injury, there are no signs of trauma to his head, no bruising or anything. We'll know more when the post mortem is done and we can see whether there were any drugs or alcohol involved"

"When will we know?"

"Couple of days, maybe three, we'll keep you informed"

At the mention of the possibility of drugs or alcohol Charles heard Kinders take another sharp intake of breath and whisper "Christ, no" and knew he was contemplating the repercussions on him as the officer in charge on the exercise if it was proved that Smurf was impaired through drugs or alcohol. He agreed with the sentiments, but for a whole different bunch of reasons as he patted Kinders arm and gestured that they should leave.

He had to make a decision as to what to do about Molly, whether to drive up and tell her, but he didn't know whether she would be at home or work or even whether she would talk to him, or whether to try phoning again, he knew he had to tell her but couldn't for the life of him think what to tell her exactly. In the end he sent her a text asking her to call him. He couldn't say what had happened in a text so he just said that there'd been an accident involving Smurf, and then waited for her call, still unsure how to tell her.

og…og…og…og…og…og…og

They were walking on the downs, enjoying the late winter sunshine, even though Molly kept complaining that it was bloody taters as the wind blew her hair around. She wished she'd stopped being so stubborn and had put her 'boiled egg' hat on, after all he wasn't here to see that he'd won and she was bloody frozen.

She looked to see who her text was from and went to delete it unread, thought better of it and read it then turned her back to Suzie and scrolled frantically through her menu and heard it start to ring.

"What's 'appened"

"I'm sorry Molls"

"Sorry about what? What the fucks 'appened to him, is he okay?"

"No, he's not, I'm sorry sweetheart, but Smurf died this morning" Neither of them noticed his use of the endearment; Charles had his eyes closed as he was filled again with the horror of what he was having to tell her.

"Oh shit, he did it, he said he was going to and he did, he said he'd make me sorry and he 'as, this is all my fault, I've killed him"

He could hear the tears thickening her voice, as he sought to find the right words to comfort her if he could.

"You haven't killed him, Molly, you haven't done anything and we don't even know yet what happened, how he died, all we know is that he fell off a log bridge. They're doing a Post Mortem, so we'll know more after that"

"Oh God, poor Smurf, don't matter what anyone says, we killed him Charles and what about his poor mum? Oh God" Charles could hear her sobbing and then heard Suzie's concerned voice as she spoke to Molly, although he couldn't hear what she was saying, then she spoke to him on Molly's phone.

"I'll get her home and look after her"

"Where are you?"

"Out on the downs. Look Charles, I'll get her to call you later, okay?"

Charles sat and looked at his phone and wanted nothing more than to get in his car and drive up to Epsom and put his arms round her, hating this feeling of powerlessness and hoping that Suzie would keep her word and get Molly to call him later.

og…og…og…og…og…og..og

She went on the train and stood looking up at the front door of the house, then took a deep breath and knocked and waited for it to be opened, hoping with all her heart that he wasn't there. As soon as someone opened the door, she burst into tears and was pulled into an embrace. "Hello Mum"

og…og…og…og…og…og…og

Author's notes: I wrote this a little while ago and have just re-read it and then had to find a tissue for both of them. Hope you enjoy it, although with this much emotion I'm not sure enjoyed is the right word.

Thank you so much for all the reviews and positive feedback