"Hey … watch it, that's hot …"

Charles' voice was low, barely more than a whisper as he handed her the mug of tea, he was very aware of Millie being fast asleep and that Molly would kill him if he woke her.

"Ta …"

She glanced quickly in his direction but didn't look at him properly, just nodded as she took the mug and put it down on the floor next to where she was sitting on the floor by Millie's bed before immediately going back to staring into space and slowly stroking her hair. The little girl looked to him as if she was deeply asleep with her precious Mr. Fuddley tucked up next to her but it was equally obvious that Molly wasn't ready to let her out of her sight. Not yet.

He knew that Millie had got over her fright very quickly, which was more than anyone could say for Molly. Molly was still very quiet, whereas Millie looked to have completely recovered from the massive fright she'd had when she'd lost the bloody dog and had ended up on her own outside in the dark, where she was cold, wet and scared, although he wasn't convinced that she'd learned any lessons. She had been very slightly chastened and had clung to Molly's neck but had then told them with a butter wouldn't melt in her mouth expression on her face that she'd only gone out there to look for the dog, at which point Molly had made it very plain that telling fibs wasn't going to help her, not this time. That they all knew that poor Patches had only been out there in the first place because she'd taken him. But Charles wouldn't have taken any bets that she'd actually learned anything from the lecture the head of the search party had dished out to her either, in fact to be honest he wasn't even sure that she'd listened to a single solitary word he'd said. Millie had this innate ability to bounce back, broken hearted one minute and back to her normal self the next, and if he was being honest it was one of the things that endeared her to him the most. He couldn't help shaking his head and having to do his best not to smile. Not that it was funny, he knew only too well that she was often very naughty, that she was difficult and defiant and disobedient and could definitely be more than a bit devious when it suited her but she was incredibly mercurial and her tough little shell and incredible resilience meant he could never seem to stay angry with her. She would look at him with those huge eyes of hers, and would bite at her bottom lip and say that she was sorry, and would look so exactly like her mum that it totally melted his heart. She not only looked like a clone of her mother but she reminded him so much of Molly when she was claiming to be hard and as tough as old boots when it was plain to everyone that she was only saying it because she thought she'd shown the world how soft her heart really was.

Millie had asked for and been allowed three Mummy stories and, unusually for her, Molly had given into her seemingly insatiable demands for drinks of water and biscuits, which in turn meant more delays for more teeth cleaning, and then for more light and for the curtains to be left open a crack and arranged in a certain very specific way. Finally, when she'd run out of all the other excuses she could think of she'd clung onto Molly's hand and begged in a series of heart-wrenching pleas for her to stay because she was scared of being on her own in the dark. And that was despite the way Molly was raising her eyebrows in disbelief.

Molly had known she was being played like an old violin and also knew only too well that she shouldn't be letting her get away with any of it. It wasn't as though it was even dark in the room, nowhere near, the nightlight and the light streaming through from the landing made sure of that, but try as she might she hadn't been able to find it in her heart to say no and stick with it. She simply hadn't got enough energy.

-OG-

"You okay?"

Charles waited with eyebrows raised, fully expecting her to say the words that had become a standing joke between them, but she didn't. She just shrugged her tired shoulders instead and muttered something about being with him in a minute, the absence of her usual snippy response worrying him more than he was prepared to admit even to himself. He couldn't help the frown that appeared between his brows as he watched her pick up the cup of tea and lean over to put it carefully on the chest of drawers without even taking as much as a sip, it was obvious she had no intention of drinking it, or of following him to bed.

"What's up?" He made a point of keeping his voice very soft so that he didn't wake Millie.

Molly shrugged again without speaking as he raised his eyebrows and stared at her steadily and waited for an answer, as she shook her head slowly from side to side.

"Come on Mol .. don't say nothing, because I know there's something … I can see there is … now are you going to tell me ….or is this going to be some sort of guessing game?"

He could hear the distinct note of tired irritation creeping into his voice, it sounded almost as if he was spoiling for a fight with her, which was actually the last thing he wanted. A fight would just about be the perfect way to end a perfect day, especially as he genuinely didn't know what was going on with her. Millie was back safe and sound, everything was sorted out, as much as it could be anyway and time would take care of the fright that she'd given them. But he knew he couldn't even start to put things right if he didn't know what the fuck was wrong.

"Look …" He ran his hand over his hair and then the back of his neck "Today was a … complete … fucking shambles … and I know she scared the living shit out of you … well, me as well as you, but she's back …okay? She's alright …. she's safe in her bed, she's in one piece and everything is going to be alright … no real harm done…" Charles knew as soon as he said it that it was completely the wrong thing to say "We'll talk to her tomorrow …put the fear of god into her"

"What you mean is that we was lucky this time … but … yeah, okay we'll talk to her tomorrow … but let's just leave it for now …"

She still hadn't told him that she didn't feel particularly great, that she'd been a bit under the weather all day and had started to feel shit when she'd been driving home from work. She'd been bloody knackered all day, not to mention generally pissed off and hadn't told him that she'd actually been sick when she'd heard that Millie was safe, she didn't know why she hadn't told him, she just hadn't. And it wasn't only the bleeding three-ring circus or all that crap with the bloody police and the rest of it, although it hadn't helped that she was still convinced that the coppers somehow thought it was her fault, that she was a crap mum who'd driven Millie into running away.

"Okay ….if you say so … have it your way …" He put his hands up in a defensive gesture and began to back away from her out of the room "I'm going to bed"

He stopped and picked up the pink sparkling dolphin that Millie kept on top of the little cupboard by the door and turned it over and over in his fingers apparently examining it closely before putting it down again carefully. Then shook his head as he looked at her again.

"You know …. you always have been a crap liar Moll .. "

Watching him hold that tacky bit of over-priced Italian tourist tat in his long fingers made the sick sad feeling of loss and longing in her stomach start to bubble up again. She loved his hands, always had, had used to get off on watching those long slender fingers of his touch things, had done ever since those far off days when she used to watch him twirl a pen between them and that day he'd written on her arm with that permanent marker thingy and had then held her hand. The first time he'd ever touched her. She'd spent the whole time she'd been back home looking at the writing on her arm and thinking about him still out there in Afghan and had been doing her best to keep her arm dry out of the shower, well she had for as long as it took for the writing to fade.

Inside she had known before it had all hit the fan. Every instinct she had somewhere deep in her gut had told her that all the things she believed to be true about them weren't somehow, not anymore. That all the years of feeling safe that he was the other half of her simply wasn't the same anymore, and that even though it was all supposed to have been sorted out, or at least he thought so, it wasn't that easy, not for her, her mind wouldn't let her forget. Her head was all over the shop and it wasn't like she could get some bleach and scrub it away. And he'd seemed defensive somehow, was serious and distracted and kept looking at his mobile a whole lot which she knew was probably to do with work, but he'd said at the time that he was going to find another job and as far as she knew he hadn't even begun to look yet. She knew she wasn't exactly helping, looking at him the way she kept doing was getting on his nerves, but she didn't even know whether he still saw the bloody girl every day, or even sometimes, or whether she even still worked there, he hadn't said and she hadn't asked. She knew it was stupid, but she'd been afraid of his answer, or rather had been afraid that he would lie to her.

Charles had bought the hideous bloody pink sparkly thing after Millie had treated them to one of her spectacular melt-downs in a touristy gift shop in Peschiera. The shop had been really crowded, packed full of tourists like them and Millie had been driving her insane, had been full of beans and tearing round the place looking adorable in her bright pink sundress with her hair tied up in curly bunches and getting in everyone's bloody way. She'd been an absolute nightmare, had been refusing to take any bloody notice of Molly telling her over and over to pack it in. People had been looking. Eventually Molly's edginess and irritation had boiled over and she'd hissed at her that she didn't understand why the hell she could never behave nicely like the others.

She'd known the minute the words had left her mouth that it wasn't the cleverest thing she'd ever said and that it would undoubtedly make Millie worse, that she would go ballistic, and she'd been right, it had. She'd thrown herself on the floor in a full blown display of broken hearted wailing, making sure that even more people were looking and had then begun this heart-broken sobbing that she really, really wanted some piece of over-priced tat, and had gone into complete overdrive when Molly told her in no uncertain terms that she wasn't getting it. Eventually Charles had come back from wherever he'd taken Marcus to look at something, had probably heard her from outside the shop and had come in looking all tall and stern and had picked Millie up to take her off to look at all the stuff down the other end of the shop. But he'd told Molly quietly over his shoulder that Italians loved kids and that she should maybe try and calm down a bit and should stop worrying. She could still remember how fucking livid she'd been with him, not only for making her feel like she was the one in the wrong and that she'd been making a fuss about nothing, but even more when he'd come back with Millie holding his hand with a smug look on her face and that piece of pink shit in the other hand. Although to be fair to him it hadn't been that dolphin that all the fuss had been about and he had taken the other two with him as well, had treated them to their own bits of tat, it was just that she'd felt like he'd undermined her and that Millie didn't deserve any sort of reward for the way she'd been behaving when she couldn't have what she wanted. He had apologised afterwards, had told her that she was right and that he was really sorry, but the damage had been done so although she'd pretended she'd forgiven him, she hadn't, not really. It had been one more thing to add to the list of things.

There was only one person she could possibly blame for them even being there, it had been her fucking stupid idea to take the kids to the family gaffe in Italy. Charles hadn't wanted to go to Garda, he'd wanted to go somewhere just the two of them for a few days on their own for a bit of a break, leave the kids behind, but Bashira had just started a holiday job, and Nan was in Skeggie with her mate Maggie so there was no-one to look after them. Well no-one that is apart from Penny, and there was no way Molly was letting her get her hooks into them. Charles had been full of how getting away and spending some time together would be good after the whole crappy thing with Sasha and he was probably right, it probably was a good idea, in theory, but even though for once Penny and Bill had decided not to tag along and it had just been her and Charles and the kids, even Sam had opted to stay behind, Molly's heart hadn't been in it. No matter how many times she told herself it was a holiday, and they all needed one, she just couldn't make herself want to go.

She really had thought that once Sasha had been put back in her kennel everything could go back to normal and life would go on the way it had before. But it hadn't turned out like that, she had all these growing feelings of disappointment, of anti-climax that she kept trying to push away. She'd grudgingly accepted that she'd be going back to being bored shitless, pissed because of not having a job and not being able to find some nice kind Mary Poppins to look after the kids, well not one that they could afford anyway. It was obvious that getting a proper job wasn't going to be anything like as easy as she'd thought, but it was just that she'd thought that would change, given time, and that her days of feeling like fucking Cinderella watching Prince Charming having a life while she was stuck at home chipping Weetabix off the chairs would be over.

Charles had been a massive part of her life since she was nineteen years old for fuck sake, and except for when she'd got cold feet and run away after her first tour of Afghan, until Lady Luck had thrown them together again and they'd gone off on tour her life had revolved around him. They'd been together pretty much ever since. It was as if he was always going to be there, a part of her, but that had been before, and now everything had changed, she was questioning everything since Sasha, she couldn't swear that they still wanted the same things. She wasn't even sure any more if any of it at all was what she wanted and she was afraid of the way she felt, as if someone had shot at her and hit the bottom of her heart with something, so she wasn't even sure that she still loved him the same way she had. She knew perfectly well she was never going to get back to feeling like she'd taken a shed load of recreational drugs all at the same time at the thought of him, but then she didn't expect to, but all the feelings that she used to have of wanting to spend every minute with him, of dreading being without him, even for a few nights let alone when he'd been deployed or on exercise or something, or sorting out some fucking disaster somewhere seemed to have upped and fucked off. And she had no idea how to go about getting any of it back or how to start living without it.

Getting ready to go on a holiday she no longer wanted had been a bloody chore, it hadn't mattered how much she kept telling herself that they did have bleeding shops in Italy, she'd ended up writing all these dozens of lists and had then had to force herself to get on and actually pack stuff. By the time they were traipsing through the arrival hall at Milan airport she felt like a refugee hauling all her bloody worldly goods in an over-loaded trolley with a grizzling over-tired baby hanging off her. She'd hardly slept for days, had kept waking up convinced she'd forgotten something, so was dog tired and sweaty and scruffy and grubby feeling with a sticky stain on her jeans where Livvie had upended her drink. She could hardly feel any worse as the world's most glamorous travellers looked at her sideways. Women that reminded her of Lady sodding Penelope, all blonde hair and glossy with long legs and they were all dressed beautifully, looking like they'd been polished, or even worse looked like Sasha, the slag with the shiny hair, so that she was already sick to death of the whole bloody thing. And to make things a whole lot worse the kids had been bickering and threatening to kill one another ever since their dad had vanished to sort the hire car. Their flight had been delayed so they were all tired and hungry and fed up, and that included her.

Looking back now she could see she that it had been like she had to punish him or something for how bloody awful it had all been. It wasn't like she didn't know how crap it had been for him as well, actually it had probably been a whole lot worse, he'd been fucking miserable, but then she couldn't help feeling that it was partly his fault whereas it definitely hadn't been hers. None of it. And she was sick of pretending that nothing had changed.

Molly had always thought that the house on Lake Garda was beautiful, not fuck-off huge and showy like Royal Crescent where she was always dead scared the kids were going to break something but big enough to not be falling over one another all the time and it had all these marble floors so it was cool inside even when it was bloody roasting outdoors. It had this small private garden to one side which was mostly grass, well it was actually a bit dead because there was no-one putting the sprinkler on it every day, and there were some trees of some sort for shade and a big terrace with the pool. But instead of being able to calm down and relax and enjoy it, she'd seemed to spend the whole of that time in Italy stopping Livvie from crawling towards the pool and rushing about after Millie, keeping her away from the bloody thing unless she was wearing her arm bands, and even then not being happy unless Charles was in there with them. She'd forgotten until they bloody got there, and she reckoned he had as well, just how easy it would be for one of them to end up in the fucking thing. It was where all those years ago now that he'd taught her to swim, but she was never going to be a water baby like Chloe or Marcus, who were in their element, and probably the other two would be the same, while she was definitely never going to be an accomplished swimmer like Sam or his dad. Molly still wasn't sure that she liked it that much except to have a bit of a cool down when she was bleeding hot, she still absolutely loathed her face being under the water.

Going down to the lake wasn't much better, she'd felt like she needed to have eyes in the back of her bloody head to watch that none of them got lost, or drowned or were getting sunburned or were doing something they shouldn't and even though she knew Charles was right and that she should back off and calm down a bit, that she was in danger of wrecking the holiday for everyone. But she couldn't seem to do it.

-OG-

She woke with a start when he gently touched her on the back and then crouched down to help pull her to her feet. She was still sitting on the floor next to Millie's bed and was stiff as a bloody plank, not to mention cold and she hadn't got the faintest idea what time it was, or how long she'd been asleep with her head on her arms on the bed. Millie was flat out fast asleep, but Molly moved her head gingerly, a tiny bit afraid she would still feel a bit under the weather, but to her relief the horrible feeling she'd had that she was about to throw up had gone. She could actually murder a cup of tea, even though she hadn't touched the one he'd bought for her earlier that was now stone bleeding cold. And she was actually quite hungry, not only hadn't she touched the tea but she'd actually had nothing to eat or drink since she'd puked her guts up earlier on.

"Come on … bed" He put his arm round her and held her as she stumbled on legs that were so stiff they felt as if they'd gone to sleep.

"Need a pee …"

"Come on then …"

She strung it out as long as she possibly could in the bathroom without taking so long it would make him come in to make sure she hadn't fallen asleep on the bog or anything, she was lingering hoping he would be back asleep by the time she went to get into bed. But he hadn't. He was lying on his back with his eyes wide open staring up at the ceiling with one arm bent above his head on the pillow, but as soon as she got into bed and lay down next to him he turned to look at her and rolled onto his side to face her.

"Head up" His voice was soft and gentle.

She lifted it so that he slid one arm underneath her and then wrapped the other one over her so that he was holding her close and she could smell his smell and feel the warmth of his skin, could see the dark shadows round his eyes as he whispered into the darkness and pulled her even closer into his side.

"Come on, tell me what's going on …. you know you're scaring me don't you, what's wrong?"

"I dunno … nothin'…"

"Nothing? Right …."

"It's just …. Look … it's nothing"

Molly yawned and wondered if she could get away with pretending to be almost asleep but decided she couldn't. She was tired and still a bit cold but although she thankfully didn't feel ill anymore she was too bloody churned up to want to start talking about everything, anyway she didn't know exactly what it was she wanted to say to him, and definitely had no idea what it was she wanted to do. Apart from find someone with a Tardis they could let her borrow.

-OG-

A/N: Thank you for your reviews and for the kind comments and as usual a huge thank you to Flossy for her unwavering support and encouragement