AN: Thank you for your lovely reviews and support and for not abandoning the story when our favourite couple are not quite a couple yet. I'm really enjoying writing this story and am so glad you are enjoying reading it, it means such a lot. :) There are a few lines from the show here, obviously I don't own them, I'm just borrowing them!

Chapter 7

Charles looked completely shocked and confused. Molly resisted the urge to run from the table, focussing on the bubbles inside her gin glass instead.

"I - uh - know some people don't trust squaddies, but I'm an officer, a Captain actually. I'm not some fly by night soldier with a girl in every town." He sounded very defensive now as well as confused. He had not seen her reaction coming at all.

She shook her head,

"It's not that..."

"Then what? Molly, what the fuck? I'd really like to know what the hell is wrong that you would swear off an entire profession no matter what, when you don't even know me that well." He glared at her now and she shrank back a little. He certainly knew how to show his authority.

She took another large gulp of her drink and set it down, playing for time.

"Molly?" His tone was clipped and stern.

"I'm sorry, I know it sounds awful. It sounds rude and disrespectful-"

"Too bloody right it does. You have no idea what we do for this country. The risks we take, the sacrifices we make and you sit there in - in judgment, it's just-"

"I'm very aware of the sacrifices Charles thank you!" She cut across him and he stopped. There was obviously more to this.

He indicated that she should carry on, but he was still pissed off and she could tell. Hostility was pouring off him in waves and she wished desperately that they could be back in their flirty bubble of less than an hour ago.

"It's Lily."

"Your best mate Lily?"

"Yes, we have a pact-"

Charles snorted,

"A pact?! What are you 12?!"

Molly drew herself up and now it was her turn to glare.

"I understand you are offended, but you can either let me explain or I can leave now." Her words cut through him.

"I'm sorry, please finish." He looked embarrassed that he'd spoken in such a petty manner.

"Lily's family are my family too. My Mum is great, but my Dad is a disaster. I have a ton of siblings and our house was always so chaotic, I used to escape to Lily's whenever I could. We fought like cat and dog, but we were always there for each other.

Her mum just looked after me like I was one of her own. She only had Lily and she liked having me around as an honorary daughter.

Lily's Dad was our hero. He was everything a Dad should be. Funny, loving, helpful, but strict when he needed to be. He was the love of Eileen's life, that's Lily's mum. Anyway, he was in the army so he was posted away a lot, but when he was based here he was home every night, hardly went to the pub, always there for tea and bath, helping Lily with her homework and me when I was there. We loved him so much." Molly's voice cracked and she took a deep breath.

Charles had a very uneasy feeling about where this story was going. Molly took another drink and composed herself.

"Anyway, we were in primary 5, it was 1990-"

"The Gulf War." Charles said quietly.

"Yes." Molly nodded. "Glen, Lily's Dad was posted to Iraq. We didn't think much of it, we were used to him being away, but slowly we noticed this time it was different. Eileen was more worried and there was so much on the news about it. I remember lying awake at night worrying that Saddam Hussein was going to come and bomb us. I didn't understand war, I was a kid. To be honest I don't understand it now. Anyway, our teacher's brother was in the navy and she used to speak about what was happening a lot, she didn't believe in keeping stuff from kids.

It felt like it started to dominate our lives, then one day, Lily wasn't at school. We obviously didn't have mobile phones then. I went home and my mum was sitting at the table crying. It took me ages to get it out of her, but Glen had been killed while he was on patrol. I ran to Lily's house round the corner and I'll never forget the sound of her mum wailing when I went in, it was like a wounded animal. She was broken."

Molly shook her head,

"Lily was sitting in her bedroom staring at a picture of her dad. I didn't know what to say, but she just calmly said,

'Promise me Molly, this won't ever happen to us.'

I didn't know what she meant then, but she made me swear,

'When we grow up we won't marry anybody in the army or the navy or the RAF, nobody that will go to war, nobody that can die at work.'

And I swore just like that because she was my family."

Charles sighed,

"I'm so sorry Molly."

"I know."

"And you've both kept to this pact? All these years?"

"Yes, the alternative would be too hard. It ruined everything for Lily and Eileen. They've never got over it and Lily had to stay with her grandparents a lot because her Mum wasn't able to look after her properly. She and I have protected ourselves ever since."

"So what, does she screen every potential date?" Charles asked disbelievingly.

"Yeah, pretty much. Name and what do they do, that's what she asks. Nights out, holidays, online, it's like her mantra."

"I understand where you're coming from Molly, but you have to remember that Glen knew what the risks were when he signed up. He did his job, served his country, in the full knowledge of what could happen. And not everybody dies."

"That doesn't make it any easier."

Charles nodded and just then their food arrived. Molly wasn't sure she'd be able to eat. Her stomach was in such a knot.

"Will you excuse me a minute please?" Molly stood up.

"You're not leaving are you?" Charles sounded worried.

"No, I'm not, I just need a minute."

Charles watched her go, his heart heavy. He couldn't believe the turn of events. He'd been so hopeful for the night ahead and now everything had shifted.

When Molly returned, they both began eating slowly. There was an awkward silence.

"Will you tell me about what happened to you?" Molly ventured shyly. She wasn't sure if she was overstepping the mark.

Charles signed, he felt hurt by what she'd told him, that something which had happened so many years ago was stopping their blossoming relationship in its tracks. It made him want to clam up, not share anything, to punish her somehow.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to..." Molly focussed on her fork and didn't look at him again. This was awful, the atmosphere between them was so strained.

She looked so sad sitting across from him. He wanted to scoop her up and hold her, protect her from the world where an amazing Dad is stolen from his family just by doing his job. He tried to put aside his pride and see things from her perspective. Having been through what he had, it wasn't as difficult as he thought, to see her point of view. He began to speak,

"We were at a checkpoint. We had intelligence about a suspect we were tracking and there was some confusion about stopping this truck. In the end it was stopped between two gates, there was a lot of shouting, I lost focus for a moment and then I was on the ground. Two bullets hit me, one in the stomach, one in the leg. I thought that was it."

Molly looked at him with eyes full of unshed tears as he continued,

"All I could think about was-"

"Sam." she breathed.

Charles looked shocked.

"Yes, Sam." He nodded. He was amazed at her intuition. "Anyway if it wasn't for Georgie, our medic, I wouldn't have made it out alive."

"So you owe him a lot then?"

"Her actually. Georgie is a girl, well, woman. She's pretty amazing."

Molly's gut twisted. She felt jealous of how he spoke about this other girl which then made her feel guilty. She had no claim on Charles, especially now, yet to hear him speak about another girl with whom he'd shared a life changing event, she found it very difficult. How could she ever compete with someone who saved lives for a living, who'd saved his life?

"So you came back to the UK after?" Molly tried to divert the conversation away from this Georgie who by now looked like Megan Fox in combats in Molly's mind and who Charles was secretly in love with. Jealousy does crazy things to your brain.

"Yes I was brought back as an emergency, had a few operations here then went into rehab. It all happened 6 months ago now."

"And are you ok now?"

"I suppose."

"What does that mean?"

"There was another soldier injured that day. His name was Smurf, well Dylan, but we all knew him as Smurf."

"Knew? Did he not survive?"

"No, but he didn't die right away. He made a good recovery, then two months later he dropped down dead from a bleed in his brain."

"Charles I'm so sorry." A tear ran down Molly's cheek.

"That's not the worst of it though." Charles looked haunted now, his food forgotten on his plate.

"What could be worse?" Molly whispered, almost afraid to ask.

Charles continued as if he was reading a monologue. As if Molly wasn't there listening, lost in his own thoughts,

"Smurf had a twin brother Geraint. He was in my charge as well. He died on our third tour. I crawled out to retrieve his body so Candy (their Mum) and Smurf held me up on this pedestal. At Smurf's funeral, Candy said something to me that I'll never forget..."

Molly held her breath.

"...'I gave the army my boys and they gave me back a flag.' She looked at me like she hated me, she'll never forgive me."

Charles choked a little at these words.

Molly reached over and touched his hand,

"It wasn't your fault though."

Charles drew back his hand,

"Excuse me." he stood quickly and headed for the gents.

Molly sat back, exhausted. So much pain, so much grief. She reckoned this would be in the top 5 worst dates of all time. The waiting staff had been watching them curiously and Molly figured they were probably taking bets on who would do a runner first.

She caught the waiter's attention and ordered two more gin and tonics and two single malts. They were on the table by the time Charles returned.

"What's this?" he asked warily.

"It's whisky. We're going to have a toast."

Charles looked more than skeptical,

"A toast to bloody what Molly?" he asked bitterly.

Molly lifted her glass and her voice shook,

"To Glen, to Geraint, to Smurf. Absent friends."

Charles looked at her amazed. She'd taken a horrific moment of recollection and turned it into something poignant. He swallowed against the lump in his throat that he'd worked so hard to get past by doing some deep breathing in the toilets and pushing down his emotions into the box he liked to keep them locked up in. He lifted his glass,

"Absent friends."

They clinked glasses and downed the whisky in one shot, both gasping from the burning liquid sliding down their throats.

"Another?" asked Charles.

Molly nodded,

"Are we getting drunk then? What about your car?"

"I was always going to leave it in town and come back tomorrow, but I hadn't planned on ending up inebriated. However, since none of this is going as I'd planned, I figure why not?"

"Funny I was thinking the same." she ventured a small smile. Charles gazed back at her, drinking her in, wondering what he should do next.

The waiter appeared then,

"Shall I take these plates away?" he eyed the half eaten food.

"Yes thank you." Molly smiled.

"Would you like to see the dessert menu?"

"No thank you, but keep the drinks coming." Charles sounded flippant now and the waiter didn't question him further.

Suddenly Molly remembered something,

"You said to Sam on the phone that you're not working just now. Is that just because you're on sick leave?"

"Sort of."

Molly looked expectantly at him.

"Basically I'm deciding what to do, about the army."

"What do you mean?"

"Once I was stable in the hospital, Rebecca came to see me. She was practically hysterical, accusing me of being selfish, not thinking of Sam. She told me she always knew something like this would happen, that Sam was at risk of being left without a Father every time I went to work. It made me think, more than I had done before.

I'd made it through almost 4 tours without so much as a broken bone, I suppose I thought I was invincible. Then I realised I was far from it and I looked back. I've spent a lot of time away from Sam, I always thought I made up for it in between by taking him as much as I could, but if I didn't make it back one day, where would that leave him?

Rebecca demanded I resign my commission and I almost did."

"Almost?" Molly raised an eyebrow.

"My boss wouldn't accept my resignation right away. Told me it was a knee jerk reaction, that I needed more time."

"And do you?"

Charles nodded,

"Yeah I think I do. They've let me have extended leave, agreed to a transfer up here, accommodated me wanting to be here in Edinburgh for Sam..."

"But?"

"In return they've asked me to do one more tour before I make my final decision."

Molly gasped,

"You're going back?"

"It's a short tour, 6 weeks."

"How can you be ready though? You can't be back to full fitness surely?"

"It's a non-combat tour, a humanitarian mission, supporting NGOs in a refugee camp in Kenya. I won't be going on a battle field."

Molly relaxed a little,

"When do you leave?" she felt a crushing disappointment and an urge to hold onto him and beg him not to go, all rolled into one.

"2 weeks. Luckily I'll be back in time for Sam starting uni."

"He'll appreciate that I'm sure, but what about after? How will you decide?"

"I'm hoping I'll just know, that I'll just get a feeling for what's right."

"What does Sam think about it all?"

"He's surprisingly practical about the whole thing actually. Obviously when he came to the hospital he was in a state, but when I apologised for putting him through this he told me that me being in the army was all he'd ever known and he'd never resented my absence. He said he had always loved the extended times I was at home when I could be with him on week days and although he missed me when I left he accepted it. He's really happy I've moved here to be near him especially because he and Rebecca are not getting on very well these days, but he says leaving the army is my decision."

"Wow he sounds very grounded and mature, especially for his age. He puts some of my pupils to shame I can tell you."

"I'm sorry, all we've done is talk about my work, we should talk about yours now." Charles was desperate to move into a cheerier topic of conversation.

Molly wasn't finished though,

"In a minute, please, I don't want to leave anything unsaid." She sounded so earnest, it tugged at Charles' heart and he nodded.

"What else is there to say though?"

"Why would you go back even though you know the dangers? You've been through this huge trauma, you know what it's like to be at death's door. Why keep going?" Molly desperately wanted to know, he could see her trying to understand his choice.

"When I said earlier that I wasn't very good at the life Rebecca wanted, you know settled?"

Molly nodded.

"Well I guess that's part of it. I always preferred being on tour, living out of a Bergen. The army is all I've ever known, all I've ever wanted, it's hard to question that and consider living my life differently. I'm at a crossroads I guess. I just need to decide which way to go."

"What made you go in in the first place? You had Rebecca and Sam, why would you want to go?"

"I told you there were expectations on me after we fell pregnant. I loved Sam so much, but I know now I was with Rebecca out of duty. That wasn't good for either of us. When I came out of uni, I decided the army would be a chance to escape so I did a year at Sandhurst and never looked back. I loved it, it made sense, not to Rebecca or my family, but to me."

"I get that."

Charles was puzzled now,

"What do you mean?"

"My family didn't get why I wanted to go to uni. I told you, life was chaotic. The expectation for me was leave school, get a job in a nail bar or a hairdresser until I met some guy that would get me pregnant at 18 and then spend the rest of my life producing kids and running after him."

"Why would that be the expectation?"

"Because that's what my Mum did. She's proud of me obviously and secretly she was always the one telling me to do more, do better, have a better life. My dad didn't like me going against the status quo though. I don't really see him much."

"I'm sorry." Charles didn't know what else to say.

Molly shrugged,

"It's ok, I've made peace with it now." She paused. "Thank you for explaining things to me though, about you I mean. It helps to see the other side of things."

"You're welcome." Charles looked at her seriously. Despite everything that had been said that evening, his attraction to her had not lessened one bit. He wanted her and frustratingly, he could tell she felt the same, but she wouldn't let herself take the chance.

"Molly..." he started.

"Yes Charles?" She sounded sad again.

"What do we do now?"

"I don't know." Her shoulders sagged.

"Cards on the table Molly, I wanted tonight to be the start of something. There's something between us, I felt it the minute I helped you up from the ground on Saturday. I can't walk away, I don't want to..."

Molly sighed, she wiped her hand against her cheek as silent tears appeared.

"Molly-"

"I can't Charles, I'm sorry, I want to, but I can't. Knowing you're leaving so soon? What if we started something now and then you left. I'd be here worrying myself sick. Then if something happened to you, then where does that leave me? I can't risk getting hurt like that."

"You know a non-army boyfriend could get hit by a bus right?"

Molly rolled her eyes,

"I realise that, but I'm sure the statistics are stacked more in favour of not being hit by a bus than being shot while on active duty."

"What about that saying, 'it's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.'?"

"People used to trot that out to Eileen all the time. It didn't help."

"You're shutting yourself off from something that could be really good for both of us."

"I know Charles."

Silence.

"Look I know we live in the same street, but I understand if you just don't want to see me again." She sounded pained.

Charles reached across the table suddenly,

"No! That's the last thing I want." He surprised them both with his sudden flash of passion. "I mean, no, couldn't we just see how we get on as friends?"

"I'd like that...but..."

"But what Molly?"

"Can we be friends? Knowing that we would both want more if the situation was different?"

"I hope so." Charles took a long drink to steady his nerves. "I'd rather have you in my life a little than not at all and let's face it, I don't know anybody else in this city. I need someone to hang out with for the next two weeks."

Molly appreciated his attempt at being positive though she could see from his face that he felt as crushed as she did.

"Friends it is then." She smiled a small smile at him, "But I won't change my mind Charles."

"I know." Charles nodded sadly.

They both wondered separately how they were going to manage this situation. If the kiss in Molly's living room was anything to go by they'd have to work especially hard to not get carried away.

Molly was struggling already. She'd had a lot to drink and all she wanted was to go home and pick up where they'd left off. Now she'd have to work more at being his friend than flirting and she was already worrying about him going to Kenya.

Charles tried to button up his emotions and accept their plan. Deep down though, he hoped that maybe she would change her mind if they spent enough time together, but realistically he knew she wouldn't. It was such a waste. What if she met someone else while he was away? He'd have to come back and see them together. He suddenly realised she had spoken and he'd not paid any attention,

"What? Sorry?"

"I said could we have pudding now?"

Charles smiled at her,

"Yes of course and let's talk about something more cheery please."

"Agreed. Now what kind of pudding person are you? Chocolate? Toffee? Fruity?"

He thought for a moment.

"Oh you're not a cheese and biscuits person are you?"

He laughed,

"No! Personally I don't see that as pudding."

"Exactly! Thank goodness, if it turned out that you prefer that to cake then there really would be no hope for us."

They both realised what she'd said, but chose to ignore it. Inside though a tiny spark bloomed in Charles' chest. Maybe there was hope?