A/N:

Hello friends. Safe to say, I never thought it would be this long until I updated again when I last did. All the madness we're living through was still quite fresh then... but now its stagnant and exhausting and has really be affecting my ability to sit down and do any one task... even though we're stuck inside! (Ironic, no?)

Anyway, I've had what I wanted to happen bubbling in my brain, and I have seen your 'please update'. Please know I tried my best to make my brain get this down...but it's taken until now. This isn't all I have, but I thought I'd give you something while I work on the rest. I think in all likelihood there will be two or three chapters left after this, if the story carries on the way I always envisioned it.

Anyway, I hope you're all not struggling too much. I know I am... These two characters are the only thing keeping my belief in romance and love alive, currently. Here's to brighter days one day soon.

(Lyrics in the inspiration is are by Taylor Swift from her lockdwon album 'folklore'). They felt rather fitting to this.

Stars Walk Backward


"Our coming-of-age has come and gone.
Suddenly the summer, it's clear.
I never had the courage of my convictions,
As long as danger is near.
And it's just around the corner, darling,
'Cause it lives in me.

No, I could never give you peace.

But I'm a fire and I'll keep your brittle heart warm,
If your cascade ocean wave blues come.
All these people think love's for show
But I would die for you in secret.

The devil's in the details, but you got a friend in me...
Would it be enough if I could never give you peace?

Your integrity makes me seem small.
You paint dreamscapes on the wall.
I talk shit with my friends,
It's like I'm wasting your honor..."

––'peace', t.s.


XXXVII

Peace (Part I)


When Brains asked her to the pub for a debrief of sorts, she hadn't been surprised to find all the boys with him. She had been mute at the sight of them, immediately anxious for what to say, only for them to pull her into a hug as a group, which rendered her basically incapable of making any sound at all as she had concentrating on not breaking down.

She hadn't been sure what to expect when the Board had come back. It could have gone either way from what she could see and she had not wanted to hope, since the disappointment would have been the most painful kind of reopening of a wound.

"We're fucking furious for you, Moll," Fingers had said, uncharacteristically quiet and abashed. "I tol' Brains he should have let us be there so we could have beat the shit out of the bastard."

"In that case, I'm glad you didn't," Molly murmured quietly, still in the grips of a hug. "Last thing I needed was another person in trouble for havin' a bust up over this––me."

"Another?" Fingers immediately bounced towards Brains in his usual excitement at the idea of gossip. "Did the Bossman 'ave a pop at 'im, then?"

Molly cringed, kicking herself for the slip. "Y'really think he's that stupid?"

Fingers smirked, sitting down at their table on the opposite bench seat as they settled. "No, but I think he must be that murderous. The guy did r––."

"––Fingers! Shut up!"

Molly's expression twisted as she shrugged, flashing a grateful look to Brains for his intervention. "Oh, you know the Bossman," she replied gravely. "'I can neither confirm or deny. Ask me no questions…,'" she added in her best 'stern Bossman' voice, hoping the humour would deflect. The all laugh and suddenly conversation is lighter again and finally Molly can breathe again.

"In all seriousness though, Molls," Brains said, looking round the table at the originals of Two Section, "we are really fuckin' proud of ya', aren't we boys?"

She smiles weakly at them all, overwhelmed again with gratitude for them: for Fingers' ability to continuous push a joke to the brink; Brains' ardent loyalty and kindness; Baz's ridiculousness; Nudenut's gentleness and Dangleberries' many talents. Kinders and Mansfield were unable to come that day and the gap they left was noticeable, but nothing compared to that of their poor fallen comrade. Poor, naive Smurf.

Georgie, her ever-glamourous replacement, was late, as usual, but that didn't matter. Molly wasn't sure how long she'd last, anyway. Charles had left her to have some time with the boys, knowing his presence would complicate things, make things formal in a way that she didn't need –– not after the day she had endured. She really hated to admit it, even to herself, but she missed him, even when it was one afternoon away. She was itching to get back to him, even if she ended up falling asleep on the settee before the ten o'clock news. She had so little time left with him, now that his compassionate leave was officially ending in a matter of days, she wasn't sure how she was going to cope going back to their separate lives, after all that had happened: each trauma more lingering and exhausting than the last.

"Bossman is too, you know," Brains said with authority. "Could see it in 'im today."

Molly smiled. "Thanks, wankers," she sighed, shaking off the topic. "Now… can we get a bit pissed?"

One pint wasn't enough to remove the lingering rotten anxiety bestowed onto her by the day she'd had, but she started to feel it fade after two and a half. She hadn't been able to stop seeing the faces of the Board as they'd returned, none of them wanting to look her in the eye. She had felt so nauseous she had to strain to stop her shaking hands from showing.

It was like some sick kind of film scene, how long they'd dragged out the verdict, layering on the jargon and procedure. She had barely understood what was happening by the time the Lead of the Board has stood.

"Foreperson of the Board – have you reached a verdict?"

"We have, your honour."

She had only just held down vomit.

"And is that verdict unanimous?"

"It is, Your Honour."

She shook off the feeling that she was still there, still stood before an entire room of people feeling every set of eyes on her back –– the most unsettling of those on the other side of the room. Tipping her pint, she tried her best to focus on the story Baz was telling; tried her best to pretend that the word wasn't ringing in her ears.

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

"We, on count one of the indictment, the charge of rape, do find the defendant: guilty."

She had all but fallen to her chair, managing to hold herself to attention, but only just. As she stared with tear-filled eyes at the spokesperson, trying her best to portray her more sincere look of thanks through blurred vision –– the same kind of blurred vision she found she kept suffering with now, as she stood waiting for more drinks at the pub bar.

"Stop it!", she scolded herself under her breath, dashing her eyes angrily. It didn't miss her notice that the barman gave her a strange look.

"On count two of the indictment, the charge of aggravated sexual assault: guilty… and on the charge of abuse of power and breach of trust: guilty."

The room had erupted and Molly had almost crumbled, barely holding down her emotion as she struggled not to turn to face those behind her whose joy she could feel emulating toward her. Her chest heaved as she tried to hold back her escalated breathing, as she couldn't help feeling that a 'but' was coming. The pessimist inside her told her there had to be something to curtail what was otherwise an all too perfect result.

She really hadn't wanted to be right.

Glancing down at her phone now, she simpered at the series of emojis that were being sent to her from Charles' phone, no doubt from Sam by the sheer number of them and their random nature. He'd gone to have tea with him while she had drinks with the boys.

Daddy says don't drink too much, came the text that followed.

She had grinned, then, despite her general melancholy.

Tell your daddy he's very bossy, she replied quickly, before slipping the phone back into her pocket.

Charles had been as much of a mess as she had been when the JA had announced that the punishment of Lawrence's crimes would not be the most harsh possible. According to him, this was based on the fact this was Lawrence's first reported transgression of this kind, as Katie had not reported him when he had groped her and even if she had, this was the first allegation to go much further than a simple case of harassment.

She had felt hot all over, as though the shame of a Judge Advocate basically telling her that Lawrence deserved the benefit of the doubt was boiling her blood. At that, as he banged the gavel and declared the sentence was just seven years inprisonment, the rush of elation she had felt had come crashing to her feet. There was always something.

Just like that, it seemed to be over. Lynn immediately spoke up about the factors of aggravation, arguing that there are signs that Lawrence was building up to the event, that he entirely planned it and that he had blackmailed her, but the JA and the board did not seem swayed. Lawrence's attorney gave the argument that there was only her word that this blackmail occurred and that all argument for fore planning was also hearsay. The sentence was to confirmed by the Crown Court, but the Judge's final recommendation was clear: a long sentence of imprisonment for a chance at rehabilitation was preferable…rather than dismissal from his commission.

Molly had watched Lawrence get taken down, lead away in handcuffs looking furious, but she felt no joy, all but falling over her chair as Charles appeared at her side, the crowds from the gallery dispersing. She practically fell into him, despite the uniform and the setting, as everyone around them was no longer quiet or standing to attention.

"Come on, sweetheart, come on," he had murmured with a soft urgency, taking her against him to keep her up and trying to move her back to the privacy of the back office.
"They didn't dismiss him," she had beseeched, clinging to his jacket as she felt rage building, though her voice portrayed nothing but quiet rage. "Charles––wha'––why––why didn't they dismiss him? Or at least discharge him!" She had stumbled as they made it into the office, her eyes blurry, the fury inside her making her face hot. "What the fuck!"

"Lynn – what the fuck was that?! I thought the maximum sentence for rape is at least fifteen years?! And they didn't even discharge him!"

Lynn moved into the room looking equally frosty and silently furious as Charles, placing down her paperwork.

"It is and we will appeal. The JA's often view that a longer sentence is favourable to dismissal as it allows for a longer chance at rehabilitation––."

Molly snapped, throwing a fist down against the table top with an exclamation that could only be described as a cry. Immediately, Charles hurried toward her, summoned by the sound.

"How?" She had cried out, her voice the kind of high and croaky that she hated as she started pacing, the words racing out of her mouth. "After all I've fucking given the fuckin' Army, the shit I've seen––Oh, throw him for prison for a bit, he'll be out in half the time and then, wha'? He goes back to being a Rupert? So he can keep doing this?" She had been shaking her head and felt the age old default reaction within her to flee, to quite literally fucking run as far away she could. "I can't do this. I gotta' get out of here."

"Molly––," Charles had tried softly, quietly reaching for her, but she moved away from it, fled from it, fearing the familiarity of his touch would break down her last shred of resolve.

"No, Charles, please––I have to––I have to go. I can't do this right now."

Just like that, she'd run away to the pub, changing in the bathroom and sneaking out the back door to the awaiting door of an Uber.

It was cowardly and naive, to think she could run from her own anger, her own emotions, and yet every so often she still tried it. She sat nursing her third pint and considered how Charles must be taking the sentence, given she barely lingered long enough to watch him blink, much less react. They were supposed to be a team. She was supposed to be over this 'running away' impulse and yet, she had left him to stew and now, with every sip, she could feel the guilt building.

"How do think Charles is takin' it?"

Molly was leaning on elbow, chewing her lip, looking down at her phone screen in the increasingly noisy pub. "I don't know, Jacs," she sighed, looking up and fiddling with the snag in her jeans. "He looked pretty steamin' when I left. I shouldn't've scarpered like that." She closed her eyes, sighing again. "I just wish we could forget the whole thing and get back to before."

"An' he really kneed him in the knackers." Her voice was now a whisper to keep the chatting boys from overhearing. "Wish I'd seen that."

Molly shushed her, looking over at the boys conspicuously, though they were being far too loud to be listening. "I've never seen 'im look like that… Like 'e might actually really hurt someone."

Jackie sipped her pint, portraying a grave look over the rim of the glass. "Men and their tempers, eh?"

"Yeah, but Charles wan't ever like that, I thought," Molly reasoned aloud as she took her own gulp. "You know, you've seen how soft 'e is… It jus'…shocked me, s'pose. Maybe it makes me daft, but I never thought he could be…like that."

"Wha', like a dick-waving caveman?" The share brief smirks at the use of the term that was all too loved by Charles and many other officers alike.

"Yeah, somethin' like that," Molly replied, the smirk slipping away.

"I think extreme circumstances can bring out extreme things in people," Jackie replies, philosophically, but Molly was still following her own previous thought thread.

"I mean, God, I used to be so used to me' Dad breakin' door hinges and Artan grabbin' at me, but Charles has always been so… calm and…kind and…thoughtful and––".

"––Sulky?"

They both broke into a giggle at Charles' expense, before Molly sobered and tried her best grasp at what exact point she had been making, not that she was entirely sure herself.

"Yeah, well, wha's even weirder though is… I was stood there, fucking shitting myself…watching him using this voice like murder, but all quiet, which made it so much scarier…and…filth words that I ain't never heard from him before…" She looked down at her lap and flushed, leaning against the back of the bench, closer to Jackie. "An' for a minute, I couldn't stop thinkin' how…hot it was… Oh God––am I nuts?"

"No! You ain't nuts, Moll," Jackie giggled, reassuringly. "I think, I'm afraid, your diagnosis may a good-ol'-fashioned thing the Army likes to call 'Bossman kink'…"

"Oi!" Now the two really were giggling, Molly whacking Jackie around the arm as she felt heat rise up her neck and across her cheeks.

"Seriously!" Jackie continued. "You fell in love with him when he was your bloody boss. Of course it turns you on to see him all shouty…and he was defending you! Of course that's hot."

Molly chewed her lip, trying to ignore how her cheeks still felt warm. "I was worried it made me…broken, or som'ing…" She looked away now, fidgeting. "Since, y'know, what kind of person would feel that after they've been…" She trailed off, not comfortable verbalising. Luckily, Jackie seemed to get the gist of it, putting her arm over Molly's shoulder.

"You're not broken," she replied, close to Molly's face. "Just mending." As Jackie forced eye contact, Molly couldn't help but smile. "An' being horny for your husband ain't any kind of crime."

Molly rolled her eyes as her face flushed again. "Yeah, well, I ain't exactly shit hot on that topic lately either. It just feels like…like I said yesterday, like he's… being too careful, especially since I got discomfort the morning after our…most recent time."

"Ah! The sexy hotel date!"

"Jacks!" She berated, lightheartedly.

"What? It sounded sexy!"

The night before, they'd spoken on the phone while Charles went for a run, both trying to distract from the day to come. She'd mentioned a similar thing then, as she did now, because she just couldn't get the worry out of her mind. "They've given me these…dilator things that are just like the worlds most…unsexy dildos you've ever seen…free on the NHS an' all! Said I'm supposed to try using the largest I can manage without discomfort and…leave it in a while, once a day, then…move up the sizes, y'know." Jackie nodded in understanding, having heard of such things before. "I just… It's like I said yesterday… Sometimes, I just want to make him so hot that he can't…can't be so bloody careful and worries and controlled, all the time. Like it used to be; in the early days, when he…lost control around me. I miss that."

"I mean, there are ways to make a man lose it, you know––"

"––I don't just mean the odd blowjob," Molly interrupted in a deadpan tone with a smirk, before her expression slipped into one of thoughtfulness. "Thinkin' of it, it's been a bloody long time since he got one of those from me––."

"––Jesus, spare me, would ya?" Jackie giggled, holding up her hands as though assaulted. "I didn't mean that, I mean: there are other…things you can do." Suddenly Jackie's head disappeared under the table as she rummaged in her bag, before producing a box subtly beneath the table and sliding it onto Molly's lap. "Reminds me: I got you something, after yesterday's conversation."

Molly took one peep inside the pink box and snapped back to Jackie in alarm. With shocked laughter ruffling her voice, she grabbed towards Jackie's arm. "What the fuck are these?"

"Remote vibrators! His and hers," Jackie replied matter-of-factly, as though they were discussing something as everyday and dull as apples and pears and it was obvious. Molly must have been looking at her with a slightly outraged, perplexed expression, because Jackie laughed and leaned in conspicuously.

"So, y'know how…woman have a spot? The spot that makes it…happen?"

Molly rolled her eyes. "What? Jackie!"

"Hang on, listen! Well, men have one too."

Suddenly, Molly's bashfulness was replaced with surprise and intrigue as she felt her chin hit the floor. "Y'what? I thought that shit was like…a myth or som'in?"

Jackie smirked. "Put one of those lil bad boys up the arse of that husband of yours and you'll soon see it ain't a myth, mate."

Molly tried her best not to look so entirely scandalised by this knowledge, but it felt futile as she found herself in a rare state of speechlessness.

"Up his––? Really?"

"S'why straight men as alpha-bloody-male as Charles James don't tend to discover it: because it requires…using the backdoor."

Molly was now laughing, falling apart, full-body guffaws, in a way that felt so beautifully cathartic and was most definitely thanks at least in part to the pints she had consumed. It was just so ludicrously funny all of a sudden, as her brain went to automatically envisioning trying to explain this new discovery, and the new toys, to Charles. As traditional and 'know-it-all' as he could be, the idea felt ludicrously funny.

"Wha's so funny, then?" Baz asked as she shuffled onto the bench, entirely squashing the two women in the manner of an oblivious toddler.

"'ere – did you know men have a G-stop up their arse?" Molly asked boisterously, joshing for laughs. It worked, as the entire group drew the attention back to her just as she slipped Jackie's gift away into her bag.

"I mean, I knew but I ain't gonna go looking for it," Fingers replied with a snort. The rest of the boys began vying for the most dirty retort over one another. Brains, across the table, just smirked knowingly, shrugging without comment. As the only bisexual at the table, Molly was in no doubt that he knew more than he would say. He didn't have the nickname he did for nothing, after all.

x

Charles had felt his fuse well and truly burn out when Molly had run away with the age-old look of flight in her eye –– a sight he had thought was a testament of times long past. With heat rising up the back of his neck, he had launched out of the back room and towards where he knew his parents would be waiting down the corridor. He felt like a raging bull, unable to keep the rage inside him under the thumb any longer. He had hoped that his momentary lapse outside the fire exit had been the worst of it, that it was, in fact, momentary, but he felt the same rising heat, tension and breathlessness he felt now, powering him toward as if in a wind tunnel of rage. He swiped the dreaded brown evidence file from Lynn's table on his way out of the door, boots making a loud echo on the solid floors, punctuating his pace. Upon sight of his father, standing around in his uniform and talking low amongst a friend or two. He could see the pomp and ceremony between them, in the way they stood, as though they were at any other excuse to get together and for some reason, today, it infuriated him. As he reached them, they all turned to greet him with a look of pride and trepidation, all ready to give their misplaced congratulations and bluster with chorus.

He interrupted his father before he could speak, riding the wave of rage. "So, this is what she's left with is it?!" He voice was unexpectedly louder than he had intended, sharp and barely under control. "This is what your beloved institution does to predators?"

His father's acquaintances quickly directed their eyes and made themselves scarce out the door of the office room through which Charles had just charged.

"He's incarcerated, Charles," his mother injected, ever the peacekeeper, but in this moment, he regretted very much that it riled him up worse. "Let's just take today to at least focus on that––."

"––Oh, I'm sorry, I'll just forget the bastard gets to keep his fucking commission, shall I?"

His father immediately looked at him with the flat, unwavering indifference that one would give a gobby squaddie, as he always did upon Charles speaking out of turn.

"That's enough, Charles. Perhaps we need to accept small victories."

"It is not enough! You said you would speak to them!"

"And I tried! God––I can't listen to you when you're like this," his father replied, dismissing him with a wave of his hand and the turning of his back.

"Like what?" His shadowed his father's footsteps as he went to leave the room. "Like what, Dad? A loving husband, perhaps? Or, better yet, what about: just a concerned fellow officer who doesn't want to share the same uniform as a fucking monster."

"Like someone who thinks that his father can snap his fingers and solve anything for him!"

"Please," his mother sighed, standing in the doorway and regarding both of them. "Let's not do this. Let's just take a breath."

"I can't take a breath," Charles replied, anguish hollowing the anger in his voice. "I am so full of rage that I would tear this building down if it might help."

His father stopped and turned to him with a look that told Charles he was keeping back more than he dare say. "We are furious for her too, Charles, but I don't know why you think––" his father replied, staring him down. "I don't know why you're under the impression that I can somehow solve this for you, when you at least got a conviction! Many sadly don't even get one of those, as we well know. You're being unfair."

"The institution for which you've advocated for your whole life––my whole life, the men you golf and drink with at that bloody club of yours––can't discharge a rapist! Can't––or won't, and what, because his father's a member of the club, too?" He knew his hands were shaking, the adrenaline coursing through him making his stomach lurch. He heard his voice almost crack at that file, cursed word, but he couldn't stop. He took a breath and tried to lower his volume. "You know these people, if not literally then by association: the Army's a fucking village. Everyone knows you helped foresee the induction of women onto the front line. You pushed for it, for fucks sake –– it's only because of that Act that Molly was even out there. You have to talk to the JA, Dad. Please."

"You overestimate my power," Oliver began, sounding exasperated. "I adore Molly, Charles, but I am not enough of a legal mind. I can't get myself involved in direct red-cap process. Besides, these things unfortunately boil down to technicalities––"

"Ha, technicalities…!" He whispered under his breath, the word in a laugh that without humour, sotto voce as he shook his head. He threw the brown file down on the table beside them. Suddenly, it felt as though the wind tunnel had subsided, the pressure momentarily relieved. He was still angry, but it no longer had direction, so it no longer propelled him forward. "The only technicalities that matter here is what's in that fucking file––in those fucking photos." Charles' voice cracked upon emphasis. They both regarded the brown folder for a long moment, knowing horrors of printed photographic evidence that lay filed within it, before Charles looked up at his father again. "Private Molly Dawes trusted the Army to take her in, when everyone else in her life had given up on her; when he father had tried to marry her off… to a man whom had shagged his way around her only friends… After the world told her she would never be anything but a overburdened house wife with no GCSE's if she stayed in the world she knew." Charles took a step towards his mute father, pointing toward the file. "She trusted the Army to take her in, train her up and give her a new life––a family… and look what it gave her when it mattered." He had his cap under his arm, having ripped it off in rage. Now, he looked down at it and turned it over in his hands, as though the object was like looking the poison chalice right in the eye and realising it for the first time. "She had nothing and we've always had so much: generation after generation in uniform and yet, what do we do with it? Did we really change anything?"

Another step and he was toe to toe with his father, looking back up at him finally only to his eyes glistened with emotion that was all held tightly behind a dam, the inner fortress wall he built for himself.

"Charles––."

He took one last look at him, interrupting his attempts to excuse placate him like a child, as if he didn't understand, but he knew. He knew that even the most high profile of cases could be influenced by position –– he knew that the Army looked after their own, as the Police often did, too. He thought back to all the time he spent as a child wanting to be just like his father and his father's friends, without really considering what one might have to become to get there… or what one might have to learn to swallow to be accepted.

Now, he felt beaten down, used up; the dream, the symbol, the ideal he had always been running towards was, in fact, a mirage.

He turned and threw his cap down onto the table on top of the brown file, feeling childishly like the need for a dramatic finality, before leaving his father, whom was looking as though he was trying desperately hard to appear indifferent, with a parting statement.

"What good is this uniform if for women it stands for nothing?"

He all but ripped off his uniform in the bathroom before leaving, infuriated by the very sight of it. As he hitched a ride home in Elvis' car, he gave in to his burning desire and pulled out his phone.

I love you, he typed, shaking his own head at his own sappiness, deleting the words as fast he wrote them, feeling ridiculous to write such declarations so out of any kind fo context, given how they parted. Instead, he played it safe: Say hi to the boys and tell them I expect them bright and early and SOBER at base 48 hours. Enjoy your drinks… but do save one for me later. x

"Fuck, that was rough," Elvis muttered as he pulled on his seatbelt.

Beside him, Charles stared blindly out the window, seeing nothing and found, even though he knew that to be the world's most criminal understatement, he had nothing left to say.