Mood music
Red Earth & Pouring Rain – Bear's Den, Call It Love – Archer, Say Too Much – Sarah Proctor, I don't Want to Change You – Damien Rice, Storm – Lifehouse.
Chapter Seventeen
To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border on miraculous. ― Elizabeth Gilbert
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.
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The first night of Molly's stay in London was a night of pizza, gins and long overdue confessions to her mother. What she had needed to say about her reasons for walking away from her marriage and the way she'd ruthlessly shutdown any further discussion on the subject in the aftermath had come easily enough in the end. Belinda had listened in the most blessedly non-judgemental way possible and Molly have felt better afterwards. Lighter for finally taking the proverbial lid off a box which had kept a taboo and deeply painful subject locked away for too long a time. Guilt was a nasty, corrosive sort of emotion, and taking this step had lessoned the feeling immeasurably.
Molly second night, but for witnessing a small verbal skirmish between her parents on the doorstep involving raised voices and slamming doors, was peaceful enough. It had been Molly's turn to listen to her mother's frustrations over the situation with her Dad and his inability hear what Belinda was trying to say which has resulted in her chucking him out until, in her words, 'he grew up and stepped up'. She'd parted company with her mother her bedroom door with a hug and thanks for being around to listen.
Molly's sleep was disturbed by the chime of her email alert pinging on her phone sometime after two in the morning as her phone lit up the darkness of her childhood bedroom jarringly.
Georgie had replied, finally.
From: GLane .org
To: Molly_James
Subject: Re re: You & Him
I'm not going to try to pretend that I understand why you want to know this stuff. If it had been you and Elvis, I'm pretty sure I'd want to know as little as possible but you asked, and I owe you an answer.
That afternoon I got blown up. I was standing in an office doing my job one minute, next I was semiconscious on a stretcher with Charlie holding my hand saying I was going to be alright. In all that panic he was the only thing I could focus on. I don't know if I can adequately explain it myself. When your whole world is shaking you try to find something to hold on to find stability, a focus. In the aftermath of staring my own mortality in the face, he was that for me. Solid.
I watched Elvis and Bones die in similar circumstances. I should have died. Living in the moment, seeking the physicality of a connecting with someone was, I think, me trying to find something life affirming. I went to his room that night because I thought 'we' was what we both need. Maybe in that moment it was true.
It certainly wasn't afterwards. But that's the problem with waking up and coming back to the reality of life. There are consequences. Charlie saw that straight away. I was so screwed up by that point it took me longer to figure it out, but we both came to the same conclusions and had to pick up the pieces in the aftermath.
Charlie never shared details of why you two ended, beyond that he couldn't function at home when we were trapped together in the jungle in Belize.
I've had a lot of time to consider what should have happened after he made that confession. I should have done my job and reported it and he should have done his and made sure that we never served together after Elvis died.
That's easy to say looking backwards. Not so easy in the moment. We were both struggling and two people drowning can't help each other swim, so we pulled each other under instead.
I found him in his office on the day you both ended things. He was devasted and trying to hide it. Well, you know better than me how he would have been. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that I was sure that things were over between you both before I let anything progress between us but I also saw how losing you destroyed him even while we were pretending getting together might fix the broken parts of both our lives. It's not much of a defence, but it's still true.
I don't know if I contributed to things breaking down between you, but I'll say with complete honesty that I'm sorry if I did, and for everything that followed after. I know I tried to say it before and you said it didn't mean anything to you. I understand that, but I still mean it all the same.
I'm not sure why you first emailed me and won't ever know if you found what you needed in these emails. Only you could answer that.
I'm trying to build a new life now. To leave past mistakes where they should be, in the past. I hope you are, too. Hopefully together but perhaps not because life isn't always clean like that, but my hopes for you both are still there, for what they are worth.
Georgie.
After reading it, Molly laid her phone down and got up silently and left the room, letting her feet tread the familiar path to her parent's room and the side of their bed.
Belinda woke to the sound of the familiar squeaking hinges of her bedroom door that Dave had never, in years of asking, managed to get around to fixing.
Rolling to her side to face the door, she tracked the small, silent figure of Molly in the limited light from the street lights outside that escaped around the edges of the curtains.
"Mols, you alright?" she said, her voice a low whisper.
"I'm fine." Molly replied in a quiet voice that wasn't altogether steady as Belinda studied her eldest daughter silently in the blanketing semi dark of the bedroom.
Wordlessly, Belinda flipped the edge of the quilt back, and Molly climbed into the bed and into her mother's arms because sometimes a hug was worth more than words.
ooOOoo
On the home stretch of a nightshift, Molly stretched her back out with a satisfied groan, before turning back to her task of setting up the drugs trolley for the incoming day shift staff who taking part in the morning handover meeting. Pay back for swapping shifts to be able to go visit her mother had been to return to a run of nightshift on half a day's restless sleep and she was feeling it now.
Contemplating the countdown to her being able to say hello to her bed again, Molly ran through the drugs control checklist for the first time, signing at the bottom of the form as voice whisper yelled into her ear, "Corporal James as I live and breathe."
"Jesus, Jacs, you scared the daylights outta me." Molly said, turning around to find Jackie, obnoxiously bright as a button and energizer bunny level grinning.
"Missed you last night and you don't write, you don't call."
"What are you on about you, mad cow." Molly said with a tired grin.
"Galivanting off to London, leaving the rest of us working for days and days." Jackie said, laying it on thick with the long-suffering tone. "Being an outrageous stop out who doesn't phone or Snapchat!"
"I was away for two nights."
"Exactly."
"Bit different when it was you off to Amsterdam with Matt for the weekend, wasn't it?"
"Totally different. A dirty weekend, by its definition, infers that I shouldn't, by way of being busy being dirty, have been in touch. You had no such excuse. Unless you have something to report?"
Molly's raised eyebrows in replied said it all. "Exactly what do you think I was up to this weekend? Trawling for trouser?"
"Sense of humour transplant needed there, Mols?"
"Yeah, I think it finally left me about hour ten, when my feet went numb." Molly replied, stretching her back out again with a groan. "I cream-crackered. No word of a lie."
"James!" They both turned towards the Sergeant calling Molly's name. "You can head off now. Ashton, don't you have somewhere else to be?"
"I've been sent to pick up some records from A&E, Staff." Jackie replied, lying confidently.
"You're two floors too high up for that task, Corporal. See you tonight, James."
"Thanks, Staff." Molly replied, turning back to Jackie. "Got time to walk me to the car. It's sort of on the way to A&E… depending on which way you walk."
"Thought you'd never ask." Jackie said, as they headed towards Molly's locker.
"So, how'd it go?"
"Awkward as hell, then easy in the end. It involved gin."
Jackie grinned. "I love your Mum on gin, she's hilarious."
"More for me than her." Molly said with a grimace. "Liquid courage."
"That bad?"
"It was a relief, in the end. It all just came out. There were some tears…both of us. Mum just gave me a hug. Said she as there if I needed her. Said she hoped we managed to work it out one way or another."
"I always thought she'd be team Major James."
"He's her favourite, of all our significant others. Not that she'd admit it. Packed me off with her photo albums. Said I'm to look through them and try to remember what we lost."
Jackie's eyebrows lifted questioningly, fully aware, as she was that Molly had disposed of all such photographic reminders of her marriage with ruthless efficiency when she left her marital home in Bath.
"And your response was?"
"A strong no thank you. She sneaked them into my bag anyway. I found them last night."
"Where are they now."
"Still in my bag at the back of my wardrobe."
"Well that's progress on wheelie bin, but you know you can't just hide them and forget about it, don't you?" Jackie scolded gently.
"Yeah I now. Avoidance, and all that. What would Dr Sinclair have to say, etc, bla, bla, bla. I don't need the telling off. I know I should be dealing with it… and I will when I'm not so tired I can barely see straight."
"Long night?"
"Normal, but I didn't sleep that well. Couldn't shut my brain up."
"Any news for me?" Molly asked as they passed through the main entrance and starting walking towards the carpark
"Actually yes, and it's about your favourite patient."
"Tommo? How's he doing?"
"Much better, I think. He's had a mystery visitor, twice now. Older chap."
"Be his Grandfather, no?"
"Apparently not. Whoever he is, he seems to have got through to him the way his family and the Army Shrink's not managed."
"How so?"
"Improved mood, engaging with his physical therapy. It's all in his notes, I'm not the only staff member to see it."
"It's early days, but that's fantastic. Are you sure it's no somebody from his family?"
"Yes. Definitely, military though. Can tell that just with the way he holds himself. You know what I mean... or maybe ex-Army, since he has a fairly pronounced limp."
"Wounded colleague?"
"Maybe, but he was older. Might be retired out."
"Don't suppose it matter so long as they're helping with what's going on in his head. Be nice if it helped out his wife."
"That's the thing, he was back yesterday with his wife or partner, and she and Nicole went off with the baby, tight as you like. That baby by the way, beyond adorable."
Molly yawned widely as they approached her car.
"How'd you leave it with your parents?"
"They're like boxers. Both in their corners trying to out stubborn each other right now. It's a mess."
"But it's their mess. You might be best to leave them to it."
"Never going to be that simple with my family, is it."
Jackie pulled Molly into a hug. "Try to get a better kip today. I made sure there was a loaf and milk in the fridge for you."
"You're a goddess."
"I try." Jackie said with, taking a half bow as Molly laughed. "Matt is coming down this afternoon. Weather should be good. If you can manage to get up a bit earlier, he's promised some BBQ before you have to be back on shift."
"That sounds amazing."
"Great. We'll see you later."
ooOOoo
Matt arrived later that afternoon. He let himself in with his key, dropping his duffle bag onto the floor in the hall.
"Jacs! Molly!" Matt shouted, craning to see around the turn in the stairs to the upper floor when he couldn't see anyone in the kitchen.
"Out here." Molly called. "Good drive?"
He turned, following the sound of her voice to the back of the house and out through the kitchen door into their small courtyard garden. Molly was sitting under a green garden parasol at a wooden garden table, with various photo albums spread out on the table top in front of her.
"Got a bit sticky at Banbury, but could have been worse. Where's Jacs?"
"Tesco." Molly pointed towards the dusty BBQ Jacs had brought up from the cellar. "She's off to get supplies. I was promised you and BBQ but one day of good weather and she's decided she's Gordon Ramsey."
Matt laughed at the disgusted look on Molly's face at the thought of raw meat, open flame, and Jackie's cooking.
"It's fine. I'll manage the grill for you both." Matt said with a grin, pulling out a chair and sitting down. "You keep my supplied with beer and I'll make sure nothing raw ends up on your plate."
Leaning over to see better, he was surprised to find one of the albums opened to a picture of Molly in a wedding dress with Major James standing beside her on the steps of a hotel. He lifted his eyes to Molly.
"I know, I was as surprised to see these again as you were. My mum kept them. We got talking about Charles and stuff this visit, and she reminded me she had them. Well, hid them in my bag, is more like it."
"Taking a trip down memory lane then?"
"Mum was right. I needed to do this. It doesn't sting the way I thought it would to look at them again. Got me thinking actually."
Molly turned both albums around to face Matt.
Molly pointed at a photo of Major James, herself and an Italian looking guy sitting on a sofa. They were all leaning into each other to fit into the picture. Molly was in the middle with her husband and the other guy's arms around her like bookends. Everyone was grinning towards the camera.
"My parents' house, New Years before Elvis died." Molly said, running her fingers over the smiling faces in the picture. "Elvis was always the life and soul of the party. Spent the whole night flirting outrageously with my Mum. He was a little devil for that. She loved it."
"You look like you were having fun."
"It was a great night. So rare for all of us to be off and available just to have a night out together on a special occasion. I still miss him, you know. I mean, he was Charles' best friend, but he was like a big brother to me. Drove me nuts and the bleedin' time, but I love him to bits."
"Look." Molly said, turning several pages of the album over to a similar group photo on a different sofa, Major James, Molly and an older lady sitting by an open fire with a very formal looking Christmas tree lite up and decorated in the background.
Everyone in the photo was smiling, as you might expect in a family Christmas snap, but what drew Matts attention was fixed almost, false smile on Major James' face. Matt looked between the two pictures, comparing one to the other and could clearly see the strain on the markedly thinner face of Molly's estranged husband.
"This was taken at his parents the Christmas after…" Molly's voice hitched as she swallowed passed a lump in her throat. Matt put his arm reassuringly around her shoulder.
"You see it, too, don't you? That's how he was after Elvis died. Present but not really there anymore. All the life in him from this moment" –Molly touch the photo with Elvis in it– "to this moment is gone. Like somebody switched a light off in him somehow.
"This was taken maybe four months after Elvis died, and a bit before the problems between us really started. It seems so obvious now, looking at these pictures. He was struggling, even then and he was doing his damnedest to hide it from me."
"He looks worn, older somehow." Matt said, picking his words carefully.
"Losing Elvis, broke him and us ultimately. They were close as brothers."
Matt lifted his arm, with a smile, and Molly leaned in to tuck in to his side, gratefully receiving his quiet affection.
"Loss changes even the strongest of people."
"Death divides but memory clings." Molly murmured.
"That's a bit of a heavy sentiment for you, Molly James."
"On basic, when we went to France to visit the war graves. It was written on one of the war graves. Stuck with me, but I never really thought of it before until now. That's what happened with us, wasn't it? Elvis' death divided us but the memories still cling."
Matt looked down on Molly with worried eyes, until, in front of him she seemed to mentally give herself something of a shake as she straightened, forcing a smile.
"Sorry, for letting things get a bit heavy. It's been a bit of a long weekend."
"I'd heard. No resolution with your parents then."
"Nope, still verbal daggers and slamming doors."
"Hello! That your bag I about broke my leg on in the hall, Matthew Geddings?" Jackie yelled from the kitchen as she dumped several carrier bags on to the kitchen counter with the distinct sound of glass bottles clinking together giving a clue to the nature of her purchases.
"Well," Matt said, slapping his hands onto his thighs before standing up. "Look like our evenings supplies have arrived. Glass of something for you?"
"Sure, why not." Molly said. "Fruit juice please, living the high life as usual. I'm back on shift tonight."
"Jackie said as much."
"Matt?" Jackie called.
"Coming, hold your horses, woman!"
Matt squeezed Molly's shoulder. "You sure you're okay?"
"As long as you do the cooking, I'm fine." Molly joked, then more seriously. "I promise, I'm fine. Go say hello to your girlfriend before she comes looking for you."
Molly gave them a couple of minutes together to say hello and to gather her own thoughts, before heading into the kitchen to find Matt loading food into the fridge while Jackie poured out some drinks.
"Bought half of Tesco then?"
"Nope, just enough." Jackie said, handing a glass to Molly
"Righty-ho, chief Geddings. I'm hungry enough to eat a scabby horse." Jackie said, stepping into Matts arms, pressing a kiss to his smiling lips and then taking a respectable sized swig from her wine glass. "So, chop, chop."
"What do you want first," Matt asked. "Burger, kebabs. Seems you've bought both?"
"Well both, obviously. Maybe with a bit of the salad bits I bought as well. Molly, what do you want?" Jackie asked, turning to find Molly looking at photo albums in her hand as though mesmerised.
"Either, both. Doesn't matter. Look, I'm just gonna put these away and I've got quick call to make. Back in a bit." she said, heading off.
"Something I said?" Matt, said.
"Nah, nothing to worry about." Jackie said, looping her arms around Matt's neck affectionately. "She'll either be calling he who shall remain nameless or her mum. Now where's my food? I'm wasting away here."
ooOOoo
Middle of the day for everyone else was the middle of the day Molly as she woke up to the sound of her mobile phone blaring out Wake Me Up Before You Go, Go! and the realised that Jackie had been messing around with her ring tone, yet again.
"Fuck sake, Jacs."
Grabbing the phone in the dark of her room, she raised it to her ear while dragging her tangled hair off her face.
"Hello?"
"Mols, that you?" Dave asked, sounding uncertain.
"Since you called my mobile, be a bit weird if it was anyone else, Dad." Molly grumbled, dragging herself upright against her pillows. "What do you want?"
"There's no need to be such a grumpy cow."
"I'm on nightshift. Remember, I told you. You woke me up. That's plenty reason to be grumpy."
"Ahh, right, sorry I forgot."
Molly sighed, trying to rein in her temper. "Yeah… Look, its fine… and sorry, I shouldn't have snapped."
"This thing with you Mum. It can't go on. I'm having to crash on your Nan's sofa and the old bag is taking every chance to turn the knife."
"I agree, it shouldn't go on."
"That's my girl, knew you'd see sense. So, you'll speak to your mother?"
"Already done, mate. I'm on her side."
"You saw what she was like last weekend, yelling and slamming doors and that."
"You turned up asking if she'd done laundry for you."
"Yeah, I'd ran out of clean stuff. What else was I supposed to do?"
"I don't know. Let's see. Cleaned your own clothes maybe. Or, wait, yes. Done what she bleedin' asked and done something about getting a job. Then you'd been back at home, maybe even with some clean y-fronts as bonus."
"Mols, come on. You know it ain't that easy."
"Actually, I don't. You're wasting your time looking for sympathy here."
"Like that is it?"
"Yeah, exactly like that."
"Might have known…"
"I'm hanging up now."
"…third member of the bloody coven..."
"I need to sleep."
"… and another hand to shove the knife…"
"Maybe you need to get a job so you won't have time to wake up people who do!"
"…into a man who's already on his bleedin' knees–."
Molly cut her dad off mid rant by ending the call before put her phone aside and rolling over to bellow, "FUCK!" into her cushion as her phone sound with a text notification which Molly knew, without looking would be from Dave trying to continue the argument.
Grabbing her phone up again, the put it into airplane mode, and rolled over onto her side and tried to get back to sleep.
Two hours of drifting between fitful dozing being wide awake, Molly finally gave up. Opting to get up and go for a ran to pound out her frustration on the scenic paths of Sutton Park before she called Charles from her usual park bench.
ooOOoo
Charles was a patient audience of one as Molly vented about her conversation with Dave.
"He woke me in the middle of the night to tell me I had to talk some sense into my mother."
"And you said?"
"Told him to get a job then he wouldn't have time to wake up people who did. Hung up on him after that."
"Molly."
"Don't Molly me, Charles. I've been living with his bullshit my whole life. He knows what he has to do. It's not difficult; he's not stupid. Has some stupid ideas but he's not stupid. That's the most frustrating part of all of this. My Mum has put up with this too long and me and the kids along for the ride. Now she's finally had enough. All he has to do is step-up, and all he can think to do is whine to anyone who he thinks will listen." Molly ranted. Her words merging into an anger rush of sound that ended with a big breath and a pinched with frustration expression on her pretty face.
"I think it might be bit more complicated than that." Charles said gently. "I know he's been a bit of an arse-hole in the past."
"A bit! Understatement of the century right there, mate!"
"Maybe," Charles said soothingly, but having to work hard to hide his smirk because he found her rather inappropriately adorable in her anger. She was usual so guarded when they'd spoken recently, almost shutdown. Seeing her like this. Fired up and spitting with temper like a provoked kitten was a glimpse of the Molly he'd lost.
"It's never that black and white though is it? Look, Molly, I'm not trying to take sides but Dave is as human as the next man. With all the fragility and failures that come with it."
Molly sighed, running her hands through her hair and tucking the loose strands behind her ears. On one hand, she understood there was a strong ring of truth to Charles' words on the other hand, her annoyance at the situation was still on the simmer.
"You're ruining my rage, Charles."
"I'm trying to give you the other side of situation." he said, smiling. "It's up to you if you want to hear it."
"Mr reasonable, huh?"
"I've been called worse." he said, poking gentle fun at himself, and it was Molly turn to smirk, remembering some of the more colourful names her Unit had used to refer to him after a 10K tab in full kit. How his ears would burn if he'd known the worst of it.
"He's scared. I know that's what you're getting at."
"Do you want me to try to speak to him?" he said, then frown at the slightly confused expression on Molly's face. "Don't look so surprised, I used to speak to him pretty regularly. Especially when you were away on tour. He's part of your family, I wanted to have a connection with them."
"Why? I mean, don't get me wrong. I understand you talking to my Mum, you always were her favourite, but my Dad… Can't imagine you'd have much to say to each be beyond his views on how life done him wrong before he tapped you for beer money."
"You're maybe a tad unfair. Dave has faults but he loves family. Always had the best stories about you when you were little and he's very proud of all you've achieved."
Molly's expression remained sceptical.
"I concede, outside of his less than desirable moments."
"Mum used to say, he wasn't always a dickhead."
Charles made a humming noise in agreement. "We're all just human in the end."
"You said that already, old man."
"Thirty-two is not old, Molly James."
"Joking aside, he needs to do something. Being scared doesn't justify him not stepping up and facing it. My mum is serious this time." Molly shifted in her seat with nervous energy, looking down at her hands still trying to analysis quite why she was so unsettled by this situation with her parents which was hardly new behaviour.
"You seem upset." Charles said gently, eyes warm. "More than I'd expect from your parents having a tiff."
"Tiff? Is that what it's called in polite circles?" Molly said with a laugh that very much lacked humour. "World War Three is what I'd call it."
"It's not unusual for them, is all I'm trying to say, and I don't like seeing you so distressed over something you have no control of."
"It's different this time. I think she's actually had enough. I know it's not my fault or anything, but just worried about the effects on the kids and stuff if it all goes properly to shit."
There nothing you can do, Molly."
"I know!" Molly said, slightly sharper than she meant, then rushed to explain why, anxiousness clear in her voice. "I'm sorry, I'm snapping. It's just the idea of being part of a broken home as well as a broken marriage is really doing my nut in."
Two seconds after the hastily spoken words were out of her mouth, she regretted them, and it showed on her face clear as if the words were written in large letters.
Her eyes flicked to his two seconds after she realised what she said, like she was expected him to break, or to be facing some other emotional fall out from him made Charles annoyed at himself.
"Sorry–I… that was too… I was too blunt."
"Doesn't making it any less than the truth. You don't have to obscure the truth about our situation for my benefit. I won't break hearing the truth from you. What we had is fractured."
"I shouldn't have said it like that." Molly said in small voice.
"I promise you nothing but total honest. You're giving me the same back."
"I don't always think before I speak, you know that. I could have been less direct. I didn't mean to be hurtful."
"I don't want you to sensor your words around me. If anything, I need you to be more direct with me. Avoidance didn't end well for us, or more honestly me before. I want us to build something new. We both need to be ourselves for that to work."
"Is that what we're doing." she said, her voice quiet, careful. "Building something new?"
Though it had never been her intention, she could see the moment when the meaning of her question both hit him and, hurt him, in the tightening of the muscles along his jaw and the pulling back of his shoulders and head as he sat further back in his chair.
When he spoke, his voice was even and quiet and calm. Too calm.
"I have no expectations. All of this is about taking things at your pace and in whatever direction you need."
Two thinks occurred to Molly. He was taking the blame for their split on his shoulders wholly, just as she had herself, and that both approaches would and had ultimately failed.
She meant what she said to Dr Sinclair weeks ago. That she had, finally, come to realise that it hadn't been her job to fix Charles, even though she her hardest to do exactly that, to the point of breaking her heart each and every time she failed and let her own, often lacking, self-confidence slip away like oxygen draining from a room in which she'd be trapped and left trying to gasp for breath in what remained. She'd let herself suffocate to try to save him, or herself – at least the her that had been part of the partnership that had made them them– and lost him anyway.
Ultimately it had been his responsibility to ask for her and should have been her role to support. By the time he'd sought help, Molly was already gone–physically, emotional, geographically. Both too far down a road of hurt and distance to be able to turn back. Yet here they were, despite everything.
His statement that he had no expectations was a lie. Her statement that she didn't mean to be hurtful was also a lie. They both knew that.
The line from Georgie's email struck Molly in that moment. That two people drowning couldn't help each other swim, only pulled each other under. That's what they'd been doing to each other before she left. Drowning each other.
What she'd been doing since was running, and Molly was to exhausted to do it anymore.
Holding back tears, Molly laid the basic truth out in words. "You slept with Georgie."
"You left me."
"You left me first." Molly said, and her, quiet, contained accusation and truth was so heavy he felt he would crumble under the weight of it.
"I know."
"You never came back from Afghanistan. Not really."
"The man we both knew died with Elvis." he said, giving her the same, frank, painful honesty back. "And I'm never going to be that man again."
Away from pleas for forgiveness, confession of weakness or excuses, illness, explanations and all the rest. After words, too many words perhaps, what remained was both their stark statement and the striped naked truth. Nothing else mattered, ultimately.
"What is it that you want from me?"
"A chance."
"An if I can't?"
"Then I walk away. If that's what you need."
"Be cleaner, wouldn't it?"
"Maybe." Charles said softly. "Is that what you need?"
Molly wiped across her eyes. It came away wet. She took her time giving him an answer. Counting off twenty, two fast heart beats drumming away in her ears before she found the courage to say what she need to say.
"I want to stop running. I'm tired. It's exhausting. I tell Jackie, and my mum and myself that I'm talking to you again, so I'm trying. I haven't really, it's all just more of the same because keeping you away felt–feels… safer, to be honest."
"I understand and I meant what I said. I want this to move at your speed, Molly. Ultimately I want a chance to show you who I am now."
"That's not fair, either. Like you're putting it on me to know what to do next."
"I hadn't thought of it like that." Charles sighed. "Seems even my best intentions are falling flat."
Molly laughed, a rough bark of sound at the irony. "You and me both, mate. We've both ran away from our problems in the end. Even the fittest of runners has got to stop or drop at some point. Maybe that's what were both doing."
"What can I do, to make this easier…for us both?"
"Got a Tardis?"
Charles smiled, despite himself. "Unfortunately, my answer is still an indefatigable no."
"Maybe I need to ask you the same question, because I ain't got a Tardis either. What can I do?"
His reply was quick and precise. "Meet me. Anywhere you like. I want to spend time with you, properly. No hiding behind technology."
"Okay, I can do that."
"I'm going to my parents again on Friday. I can meet when I'm driving back."
"Coffee shop in the Squares maybe?"
"You recognised that was where I was?"
He nodded. "I won't lying, realising you were so close by and still choose to phone instead of see me in person stung a tad."
"So nearly did. Chickened out in the end. Sorry."
"You've got nothing to apologise for. I've been meaning to ask you to meet a hundred times. I could never find the words. I chickened out as well. Too worried if I asked, I'd frighten you off."
"We're a pair, aren't we?"
"I think so, yes. But I like it, to be honest. Knowing were both feeling the same things is comforting in an odd way. A sort of common ground."
"Yeah, maybe." Molly said smothering a yawn.
"You seem tired."
"I'm on nights again tonight. Bit passed by bedtime."
"You need to go?"
"Yes…" she hesitated with her next words. "I don't want to go, but I need to."
Strangely that hesitancy brought I smile to his face. "See, more common ground."
"What are you on about, you nutbar?"
His smile widened. "I just mean I don't want you to go either. Even miss you Molly brand insults."
"Now I know you're definitely losing it."
"I love you, Molly." he said, his voice suddenly serious. "Whatever else happens between us, that's never going to change."
"I love you, too. Despite everything else, that never changed."
"It was always what was right between us. I'm glad that never will change. Goodnight."
She found a smile for him surprisingly easily. "Don't you mean good morning?"
"All depends on your perspective." he replied with a smile, tugging his hand through his hair which was a sure sign that he was feeling unsure of himself.
"That's a Rupert answer if I ever heard one."
"Will you be running tomorrow?"
"Probably."
"Same park, in the evening before your shift?"
"Probably."
"So, if a chap happened to turn up, maybe in his running gear, possibly with the intention of buying a coffee and maybe a sticky bun afterwards at your park bench. Would that be okay with you?"
There was a touch of almost boyish hesitancy in his expression and in the way he looked down towards where his hands were laid flat on the surface of his desk as he spoke before lifting them back up to Molly, waiting for her answer.
"Did you arrange for someone to come and speak to that young patient I was telling you about?"
"Yes."
"Would you have told me if I hadn't work it out?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"I'm was just doing my job."
"For someone not in your regiment."
"For someone who needed help."
"And someone who was important to me?"
"Yes."
Molly took a big breath and came to a decision about taking a big, scary step into the unknown.
"Well, I guess you know me, never was one to say no to a sticky bun and a brew."
His answering smile was perhaps the first genuinely relaxed, response of delight that Molly had seen him make in a very long time.
"More common ground?"
"Yeah, something like that."
Death divides but memory clings – is an actual quote from a First World War military grave in Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery