A/N:

Huzzah... guess who's finally been writing. I've been trying to this out before work stuff gets in the way, but the second half is taking more time than I expected, so here's something to keep you going.

Bizarrely this story, despite being something that was meant to be a one-off, has been on my mind, as I just find the idea of the outcome of all that transpired in OG's Canon storyline too fascinating. I think there would be so much trauma but also so much love still left for them to wrestle with, since it all seemed to dissolve so quickly.

I've been going back and reading some of my favourite old Molly x CJ fics based around this separation / how different authors have tried to tackle the idea of Charles' PTSD. So, as always, thanks so much to the following writers for their wonderful pieces, even if they were sadly never finished:

- Author of MEA CULPA & CAGES, inaniloquently

- Author of THE FUNERAL, LYING and WAKING UP, Gemmadog

- Author of FORTIFIED, LiverAlone

- Author of THAT'S AN ORDER, pjcrafty

- Author of SEIGE!, so everybody dance

& many more, obviously. I hope some of you will update your stories, or write new ones, asap too! (Please? It gives me such inspiration.)

Anyway, love angst, as always, so had to. Hopefully the next part I'm still working on won't be too long!

Rated M for Themes. As always, really recommend listing to the music inspiration. x

"Ceilings, plaster
Can't you just make it move faster?
Lovely to be sitting here with you
You're kinda cute, but it's...
Raining harder
My shoes are now full of water.
Lovely to be rained on with you.
It's kinda cute, but it's... so short.

Then you're driving me home
And I don't wanna leave
But I have to go...
You kiss me in your car...
And it feels like the start of a movie I've seen before...

Bedsheets, no clothes
Touch me like nobody else does.
Lovely to just lay here with you.
You're kinda cute, and I would say all of this
But I don't wanna ruin the moment.
Lovely to sit between comfort and chaos...

But it's over
Then you're driving me home
And it kinda comes out
As I get up to go.
You kiss me in your car
And it feels like the start of a movie I've seen before...

But it's not real
And you don't exist
And I can't recall the last time I was kissed
It hits me in the car
And it feels like the end of a movie I've seen before."

- 'ceilings' - lizzy mcalpine

Things were always easy to ignore when one was busy, but busy was hardly how you could describe a brief drive to the pub. Where once any silence between them would have been comfortable and companionable, two years of estrangement meant it seemed to fluctuate now between an unnamed tension and very dreadful awkwardness. She found herself in turmoil as they drove through the precarious twisting roads from the bay to the local pub, staring out at the blur of the greenery and grass verges in a desperate plea for some kind of divine inspiration of anything to say that wasn't absolute despair. Her mind seemed on a loop, first with her own sense of mortal dread, but now with this new knowledge of just how dark things had gotten for Charles piled on top. The horrendous guilt that she was likely responsible for abandoning him when he was suicidal and she hadn't even known it was enough to almost upend her and make her want to break down and scream in despair right there in the centre of the pub. What kind of wife did that make her? How could she, would she ever, be able to live with the mental imagery of the unknown, most terrible blood-soaked trauma he must have experienced, knowing she hadn't been there? How could she ever have deemed herself worthy of him during his worst times if she hadn't seen that things were that bad?

So much had been added to her cocktail of anxiety in the last few hours, she was practically gnawing at her fingernails. If he noticed, he hadn't mentioned it; the soft, peaceful academic tones of Radio 4 filling the otherwise charged atmosphere between them as he drove. It made her both want to smile impulsively to see such old habits of his had returned after so much of them had dissolved into stoic, rigid avoidance and silence when his PTSD had taken a-hold of him. He always had the radio on before, often caught singing along to Radio 6 early in the morning or listening to something complex about the state of the world on Radio 4 while he finished off reports. She had begun their relationship feeling out of her depth in the face of his habits, so grown-up and mature in comparison to what she was used to. After all, her father wouldn't even know how to turn on a radio, or, in fact, didn't even own a radio when she was growing up, much less listen to Radio 4 programmes about middle-eastern politics for fun.

Even once they got to the pub and Charles encouraged her in soft tones to take Tiny and go and find a table while he got drinks and menus, she found that her mind was a whirlwind of distractions. As she settled into the table deliberately in an alcove at the back, she shivered delightfully at the cosy warmth in contrast to her salty wet hair that hung around her face. Tucking her feet beneath her in the old, worn armchair, she couldn't help but track Charles' movements across the furthest end of the bar. He really was as beautiful as she remembered him, broad and trim in his knit jumper and his worn blue jeans - but he did seem… tired somehow. While the version of him she had always known had always been bouncing, jovial and upbeat in his attitude toward life, this version seemed somewhat subdued - almost like he was wary of everyone and everything, these days. She supposed he likely was.

It made her sorrowful to think about.

He clearly knew the publican as they seemed to be exchanging pleasantries, but, thankfully, it wasn't someone Molly could say she recognised. Being here, it suddenly occurred to her just what a risk it was that she might run into people who knew her when she and Charles were…well, Molly and Charles. She left so abruptly, in the end, that all those that his family had known as family friends down here in Cornwall probably were left wondering what on earth happened to Charles' cockney outsider of a wife. Perhaps she had fulfilled the pessimistic expectations that the most snobbish amongst them had always said of her when her back had been turned - the flight-risk had always predicted her to be.

As he arrived at their table, Charles gave her a sheepish expression as he placed a pint down in front of her. "I got you one of the local beers you always liked," he murmured, "Hope that's okay."

She gave him a grateful, impulsive smile at the thought he remembered, only for it to be immediately followed by an all-too-familiar pang of longing for a time when such an action would have been commonplace between them and not some grand thing that made him sheepish.

They ordered fish and chips with minimal interaction between them and Molly found far too easy a distraction in gulping down rather large mouthfuls of beer to avoid having to look at him. It wasn't until she looked up when she couldn't possibly get away with it any longer that she realised in surprise he had a pint, too.

"I thought you said you don't drink on them meds?"

He licked the corner of his lip as a small amount of foam from his pint escaped momentarily and Molly tried her best to lie to herself about how much she noticed. He'd pushed back his wet curls back from his forehead, leaving him looking like some kind of fifties movie star with brylcreem keeping his hair off his face in a way that was deviously handsome.

Her fingers twitched beneath the table, fighting the age-hold impulse to want to touch them.

"I usually don't, but I think we could both use one…." He let his voice trail off, seeming to suddenly lose his words. Thankfully, they both knew exactly what he was getting at. With a snort of agreement she managed a nod and another gulp of her own pint.

"Y'can say that again," she murmured with a sad, resigned tone she couldn't help but from letting it bleed into her voice. As they settled into their seats, she could feel him watching her with anxious eyes that were still rimmed with traces of red, a sign of all the tears he had shed in the last few hours. She wondered, momentarily, if that must be what her own looked like, too.

It was still a novel sight for her, which made her sad and feel such sorrow for him, which in turn made the bitter, vengeful part of her angry. The version of her husband she had known had rarely cried in front of her in the entire time they had known each other. There had been exceptions, most of them happy, such as their wedding day when he had struggled to get out his vows through a strangled, tear-clogged throat and a tear or two had fallen, unchecked, from his dark, soulful eyes.

Now, the pressure of his gaze rose a lump in her throat similar to that day, but lord was it for different reasons, and it had her fidgeting in her seat. He cleared his throat excessively in the way he always did when he was feeling awkward.

"Molly…" After an extended pregnant pause, where once she would have been the one to break first every time, this time Charles' anxiety drove him to nervously bounce his leg and desperately fumble for the right words. Breathless, he watched her watching him and hated to see the way she regarded him with such apprehension, as though he might just disintegrate before her eyes. "It's okay - stop it."

She gave him a look that expertly spoke of innocence at what he was implying, but he didn't buy it.

"Stop what?"

"You're…stewing," he said, curling just one end of his top lip upward in a knowing expression. Her face must have displayed her slight bemusement, unaccustomed as she was now to his long-standing ability to read her like a book. She was indeed stewing on her new discoveries and her own guilt, but she was hardly going to tell him that. "You forget, I know you. I can tell when—."

"-You used to," she found herself saying, before she could bite her tongue. She knew it was unkind and the moment the words were out there, guilt swapped her again. He faltered, his trademark mask of indifference slipping as he looked down at his hands with an expression of a wounded dog. Against her better judgement, she immediately kicked herself and physically cringed. Biting her lip, she chewed it and looked down at her own lap.

"Sorry, I didn't mean—-Not like that."

"Yes, you did," he murmured, sounding sad in his acceptance of her words as his lips tugged into a sad smile that didn't reach his eyes and had her wanting to bury her head in her hands. "But it's alright; I understand why you'd..." His voice trailed off, as if he lost the energy to complete his point. "I suppose we are inevitably rather different people now."

The still, awful kind of silence that followed made her want to scream again, if it weren't for the fact this new awkwardness was entirely her own doing. Different now? She wanted to rage at him. Of course we're fucking different now! She was so absolutely rotting at the core furious with him, at the base of it all, and not necessarily for the physical infidelity with Georgie Lane, bizarrely—well, at least nowhere near in the way that the emotional betrayal had scorched her to the centre of what was left of her self esteem. For two years, she had been so angry that he had pushed her to leave him when he had in fact needed her most, and now it had doubled as she had learned her had then dared to try and leave her alone in the world in the most violently bloody and traumatising way that would have gutted the life out of her, had he succeeded… and likely would've left her with no life left to live and no hope of any closure.

She was so angry, she didn't know what to do with it… and once upon a time, young Molly Dawes would have been like a volcano waiting to blow in this kind of scenario. But, time had shifted and so had she. Now, she felt almost hollow, as she had spent the majority of the last two years, if she were honest with herself. Watching Charles disintegrate into delusion and ice-cold indifference under the black fog of PTSD, pushing her away when she tried to reach out for affection, shaving off his beautiful curls when she had tried to compliment them, subjecting her to feast and famine when it came to his physical affection and attention, even physical intimidation at times when she tried to stand up to him, then running off abroad instead of facing her… only for it to be washed down with a side of infidelity. In all, it had left her void of any feeling left, at times, wondering how she managed to survive it.

As a result, they ate their fish and chips in silence, wordlessly grateful to have a distraction.

It didn't escape his notice how she fiddled with her phone in her lap, clearly anxious about the impending phone call she was still waiting for, but also clearly using it to distract herself from the horrendous atmosphere hanging between them.

Inside his head, Charles was in agony to observe how she couldn't even look at him. Once upon a time, eye contact had been their undeniable, bare-faced indication of not only how very much in love they were as a married couple, but at an even more animalistic level, how intrinsic and all-consuming the chemistry between them had been even in the beginning. He had always believed, and still did, that he and Molly Dawes were kindred spirits, no matter the divide that some felt 'should' have existed due to their prospective upbringings and no matter how much Molly had been sceptical, too.

It made him feel sad and lost beyond measure to suddenly realise she could barely look at him. That wasn't how they were supposed to be - other married couples, maybe, but not them.

At least, it didn't used to be.

But, of course, he gave her what she wanted - silence, time to stew, for he knew if he spoke, it would all stream out of him whether he liked it or not and he wasn't sure anyone in the pub would want that. So, he tugged on his sleeve in a self conscious habit and sipped his beer.

They only really spoke again once the food was gone and they inevitably bickered over who was going to pay the bill.

"Hey! I lost at surfin': fish 'nd chips were meant to be on me!"

He did the thing he always did, despite the atmosphere of sadness that leaked out of him, which was to ignore her with a smile and try to get to the waiter before she did. This time though, she slammed her hand over his where it held his card wallet and made a loud Cockney sound of discontent.

"No, Charles! We made a bloody deal - an' I lost. I'm paying!" She grumbled, feeling her hackles rise as the waiter hastily retreated back behind the safety of the bar with his card machine.

And just like that, they were back out in the cool air - her salty damp hair whipping her in her face as she stormed ahead of him.

"Molly…"

"God, you're a pain in the bloody arse, you always bloody did that!" Charles' dark, poised eyebrows rose as she wheeled round back to look at him as she reached the parked car, clearly not expecting her grumblings to be serious.

"Did what?"

"Talk over me! Think you know better! Never let me pay for things! God forbid, I should be able to contribute anything of my own—!"

Immediately, he stood stock still, his car keys hanging, forgotten, from his fingers as he looked at her with an expression that was more surprised now than the previous sagged, wounded posture. When he spoke, his voice was soft and quiet in comparison to hers, almost like how he would often speak to a stropping young Sam. "I didn't—I'm—I'm sorry. I never meant anything by it—to make you feel that way."

"No, you never do 'mean' to, but you do! Things are always your way—." She sighed, dejected and unsure herself what point she was even trying to make. She shivered against a particularly strong gust of cool wind and crossed her hands over her chest, suddenly aware how cold her chest was as her nipples hardened painfully against the fabric of his football shirt beneath the Regatta coat she had borrowed. "Can we just go, please?"

He gave a rigid, military nod as he immediately moved to unlock his beloved Landie without a look of judgement on his face for what she knew was her rather petulant sudden attitude, but somehow she just couldn't shake her irritation. Their journey back to the harbour was again mercifully soundtracked by Radio 4, this time she barely registered it as she was stuck in her brain's rather relentless spiral, round and round her mind in a circular whirlpool of self-doubt, toxic, unrelenting anger and a dreadfully heavy kind of sadness and back again.

Charles had to focus his mind to prevent his anxiety completely running away with him in the face of her stoney silence. He cringed as his mind replayed their earlier disagreement in the beach dune car park and it made his heart race in the most sickening kind of way to recall her bleak expression when she had seen his scars and been reduced to tears of horror. He had always hated it to see her cry and he would have always done pretty much anything to put a stop to it, but days like today, he was chronically aware of just how many of her spilled tears were now entirely his doing, after all the unforgivable ways he had hurt her.

By the time they arrived back on the island, the only calming thing left for him was Tiny's consistently sunny presence, a kind of serotonin that only a furry friend could provide. Molly seemed to thaw a little by the time they got onto the water, no longer refusing to even look in his direction, but it didn't escape his notice that, this time, she didn't ask him for a superstitious good luck kiss. He tried his best to fight the panic that he had managed to fuck things all up again, somehow. After all, she came to him of her own free will that morning, because she was afraid and he, as she put it, had been the first person her instincts told her to come to. That alone should have been the kind of olive branch that he absolutely did not deserve, and yet things were, inevitably, still so strained between them and he and his inbuilt habit to hide his fears beneath pride were managing to make it even worse.

This time, she didn't make her wonderfully childlike sounds of joy as the Cordelia bounced on the choppy waves and she leapt onto land so fastone would have thought the boat had been on fire. He let her go, intellectually knowing better than to crowd her even though every cell in his new, more anxious body screamed for him to go after her. Instead, he climbed up from the boathouse to put one or two of the surfing supplies back into the beach hut, only realising as he tried to hang up her wet bikini on the hook that his hands were shaking. At the sight, he felt his heart tremmering and he steadied himself against the wooden planks of the wall. Images of Molly's head disappearing beneath the water and racing around him in a way that was all too familiar to him. They showed him alternate endings, the most tragic kind, and he slammed his eyes against them, before the next image arrived – the look of horror on her face when she had finally seen his big secret, written in scars on his forearm – and told him she was disgusted by him. How couldn't she be? What kind of person would be so weak as to give in to that kind of selfish impulse, no matter how sad they were, when they had a young son? What kind of military man would be so vulnerable as to let his mind control him to that extent?

What kind of husband would ruin his wife so much and then try and get out of the life he had so destroyed in such a cowardly way?

His hand was still on the wet nylon of her bikini and suddenly found he was gripping it, thumbing the beige tartan strings to try and bring himself back up from the downward spiral of an anxiety attack that he was currently on the brink of. Grasping in his mind for anything he could anchor himself to to distract him, he thumbed the damp material she had been wearing not an hour before and found himself doing the very thing he had spent two years refusing, mostly, to allow himself to do. He avoided the beach and this hut all round for a reason: because in his memory it embodied too many painfully happy memories he had buried as to not entirely torture himself into a loneliness induced kind of madness. The most potent of these were the times in the early days when he had been so unable to keep his hands off her, even when they had pulled that ridiculous, tattered, second-hand chaise onto the porch of the rather large beach hut as it started to drizzle, in a way only British summer could. She had practically sat on him as he'd been reading and he had been all too happy to allow her to 'ruin' his reading time, intoxicated as he was then by the sight of her in a bikini for the first time. He had been happily pretending to read, little she knew, and had allowed her to tease him without complaint. Then, he had known she looked up to him in a way that he now realised, thanks to his psychiatrist, was in fact a rather unhealthy hero worship complex – and thus, he now understood, he had been guilty at times of dominating her without really considering he was doing it.

And yet, here he was again, in the pub, doing it again, even after all the supposed growth he had thought he had achieved. He did do it, academically, socially… even sexually. He was remorseful in a way he wasn't sure she would ever know for his previous, typically masculine, lack of self-awareness.

His knuckles squeezed hard around the bikini straps as the intimate moments of that early evening came back to him, when she had all but climbed into his lap, damp and laughing as they'd run to shelter from the rain, unwilling to leave the beach just yet; how he had rejoiced in the feeling of her on top of him after so long apart, with so much skin on show and entirely for him to drink in with no chance of anyone else around for at least a quarter of a mile. No witnesses to the carnal desires that had been racing through him out in the open air.

The memory assaulted him, like a runaway vehicle without enough space left to break, hitting him before he could stop it now he had opened that door. He had sat on that same, tattered chaise and slipped his hand beneath the single piece of elastic string holding the garment low on her hips and touched her as he wanted. He'd done it as much for himself as he did just to see the look on her face, withering under his lazy touch as her spine curled backward in a bowing reflex as rain drizzled down but two feet away.

Her eyes had snapped to his as she had lost her breath through a sudden, scandalised exhale, clearly a little shocked that he would move to touch her so intimately out in the open. God, how that look alone had almost sent him over the edge, he hadn't been able to keep from smirking.

"Bloody hell, Charles! What if someone sees?! The coastal path is up there, ain't it?!"

And yet, she hadn't pushed him away, but instead slipped her hand under the hem of the t-shirt he'd been wearing. Now, his eyes slammed shut at the memory of how the gentlest of caresses to his lower abdomen, trailing the hair that grew there and then his scar just in from his hip bone, all the while refusing to break eye contact. It had lit a fire inside him.

"Oh that's a good 200 feet away, Dawes," he had murmured with a confidence that could only have been so inflated by the touch of a woman's soft hand slipping inside his trunks. "And any neighbours are long out of ear-shot."

"Oh? Tested that theory before, 'av ya'?"

He could remember how much he had wanted to laugh at that question, because they both knew he never had… but god, since he met her, had he wanted to.

"Oh, come now, Dawes," he had murmured lazily, leaning down to capture her parted lower lip momentarily between his teeth. "You know there could be no one else with the lungs for that task..."

And just like that, he had yanked undone the bows of the very same bikini he had in his hand now, and drank in the sight of all of her, nude as a renaissance painting in the daylight, damp from the rain and sighing under his confident, unhurried touch with such a look of devotion it rose a lump in his throat. She had been self conscious, covering herself at first despite there being not a soul around, but she'd let him. They had not known each other long back then, and had had long periods apart where he had been the one left behind thanks to his bloody leg, so the entire thing when they were together again felt like a fantasy come alive. She had already had the dark shadow of a love bite low on her neck, evidence of their love making the night before. It pained him now to even think about what seeing such a thing had done to his body. He had smoothed his hands over her skin, as though admiring the smooth surface of a sculpture, and kissed the new scars on her hand she had acquired during her training posting – her first without him, where he hadn't been able to protect her.

Ever since then, he could never help but to mentally catalogue every new scar or injury on her skin once she came home, knowing there wasn't a single thing he could do, as her boyfriend, then has her husband, to prevent any single one of them. Nothing he could do except hope the next one was as minimal and non-life-threatening as the last.

Once involved, he could no longer be in her chain of command, thus could not protect her himself despite all his years worth of training and expertise that he finessed exactly so he could protect people. Thus, he had to entrust her life, and therefore his entire happiness, entirely in the hands of strangers.

A better man would have stayed where he could best protect the one he loved and sacrificed his own wants and desires in that vein… but he wasn't, and had never been, that better man.

He had wanted her for himself from the moment she went up on that winch despite the moral danger she put herself in to do so…and, looking back on it now, he would be lying if he said he had never intended to get what he wanted.

Arguably, in that respect, becoming involved with her had been the most selfish thing he had ever done… until it wasn't.

By the time his clothes had joined hers on the deck of the beach hut, he had been almost in a trance, where muscle memory and instinct had taken over him with the only thing that kept him anchored to reality being the eye contact he found he couldn't break. Her eyes were always entirely transparent to the secrets of her mind and soul, playing out openly for him as any open book. She had no idea then, but she had been so easy to read once he knew her, and he had rejoiced in being able to be one step ahead of her, usually to please her as best he could, but in his darkest moments, he now knew he had been known to use it to hurt her, too.

These days, there was no denying that PTSD had robbed him of all that foresight and he had been anxiously fumbling in the dark ever since.

That day, her pleasure had come to her easily and without inhibition, but what he had adored was how she had stifled every sound, clearly still worried a phantom human being somewhere up the cliff might hear. At the time, frankly, he would not have cared if they had - in fact, his ego would have relished in it. But he could see it played on her mind, so he had made sure to sit up and cover her torso by keeping her flush to him in his arms.

"It's alright," he had whispered, pulling a towel over her shoulders as they had moved, gently and breathlessly, against each other. "I won't let anything happen to you." She had buried her face into his neck, at first barely making sounds beyond the breaks in her breathing as she pushed against the waves of pleasure, but as it became more and more intense, even her best restraint hadn't been able to fight it. "My sweet, sweet…girl…" He lost the compliment mid-sentence as his brain had short circuited as her muscles had clenched around him, a loud sound of absolute animalistic joy escaping her into the isolated landscape around them.

Somewhere in the back of his mind that day, his ego must have known, even then, that there would be few experiences in his life that would ever rival those of that day.

Pressing his face against the wood wall before him now, he squeezed the fabric inside an anguished, iron fist as his body tensed like a stone, coursing with long-suppressed desire that the memory triggered and always did whenever he was forced to come back to the hut now. If he hadn't known better, he'd have sworn even more he could feel her teeth grazing his skin as he encouraged his touch, feel the coarseness of the beaten-up chaise, hearing her whimpering that she loved him as they were skin to skin and nose to nose, intimately making love with the wonderful lack of self-consciousness of two people who were entirely at peace with one another.

"How can I feel so safe with you?" she had murmured tearfully then in a near whisper as she neared the end of her tether. "I've never felt so safe with anybody… Ever…"

He had wanted to say more, but his self control had well and truly slipped beneath the coercion of an organ much further south. If he'd managed to reply with 'Ditto', it was merely out of reflex.

"I don't know…what I'd do…if I lost you… It would kill me… To never feel this safe again?" She'd rolled her hips shyly and suddenly things were moving much faster. With every move she made, his would mirror hers, chasing her up the chaise like magnets as she smiled down at him.

He remembered how he had hushed her, hearing the tremble in her voice, and held tight to the hair at the back of her head as he pulled her to him, trying his best to convey his mutual feeling. "I know," he'd said, his voice hoarse. "It's… You changed everything for me… You're everything…"

Her musings against his skin that day had, in the end, been tragically prophetic.

In momentary glimpses of what may have indeed been a kind of loneliness induced madness, he could have sworn he heard her whimpers for him in the howl of the wind that blew off the sea. Add to that the new images of her in that same bikini today, laying on the back seat with her bloody legs in the air as she struggled to get that bloody wetsuit off with practically everything he knew that lay beneath that material not at all well covered, and good lord… it would test the self-control of a saint.

And he was no saint.

He let out a loud, agonised groan against his forearm, cursing aggressively aloud as he tried his best to get himself together with tears of sorrow and frustration burning in his eyes.

Molly was incredibly toned these days and he had noticed, of course, but she was noticeably thinner, too. He had loved her body, always had, but there was something about her when she was happy… It was almost like it showed in how she carried herself. Now, she looked every inch the poster-ready soldier more so than she ever had, with rippling lines of strength clearly visible beneath the skin of her abdomen which had barely any of the slight womanly padding that had always been normal for her before. Quietly, he had always loved it.

Now, where she had once had curves that she carried around the flare of his hips that had his hands twitch with desire to hold her, he was quite alarmed how much her body had changed. He hadn't missed how she had left fish and chips on her plate - something she never used to do - nor how frightfully thin she seemed - enough that he could see lower ribs when she stretched.

He knew, momentarily, instantaneously, in a way only someone as prone to self-blame and self-hatred as someone with PTSD would, that this change was at least, in part, his doing. Somehow, with an awful roll of shame in his stomach, he knew this was likely an outcome of the depression he could now see he likely sent her into with his rejection and betrayal.

After all, in a way, he knew what kind of outcomes depression could bring. Only, for him, once he was out of his intensive residence PTSD rehabilitation, his attempts to bury his depression had become a compulsive need to bulk up and exercise, and in many ways, he knew it still was. What started with running, as he always ran when he couldn't solve or face a problem, became miles a day, which then became rowing, like his old university days, and then whole sessions of crossfit in the gym, including lifting weights to help with strength. Within a year, he was attempting triathlons - pushing himself to the most his body could do for him.

After all, if there was one true, guaranteed distraction from devastating, all-consuming mental pain… it was more, physical pain.

His psychiatrist, more than once, liked to remind him that there was essentially a paper-thin line between his over-reliance on exercise and the seemingly extreme form of self harm that had led to him almost losing his life and resulted in the scars on his arm.

In his mind, both were, so Jannette liked to tell him, acts of atonement: he punished his body for the pain such extreme exercise would bring because he felt he deserved it… and for all he could not punish his mind for doing to his own life and those he loved.

Now, as he stood staring down at the cruel torment of his raging erection with a self loathing and shame he hadn't felt so fiercely in a good while, he wondered if this same bullying of one's body for the torments of one's mind had perhaps become a part of Molly's life, too.

In which case, he knew he and he alone was to blame.

Immediately, thinking of her, he was suddenly filled with a renewed sense of dread. Had she left for good while he had hidden himself away, pining secretly for her like some dirty old man in the beach hut?

Suddenly, he was speed walking back up to the house despite the discomfort it caused, telling himself that even if she had decided to disappear back home in the time he had been ruminating in his self pity, he had absolutely no right to stop her. That, of course, did not stop him from feeling almost frenzied bereavement at the idea he may never see her again. He could barely feel his legs by the time he got up to the house and let himself in, looking down distractedly as Tiny immediately came to greet him.

How could he cope now, to have lost her again? It was one thing to have two years worth of recovery and become entirely used to the misery of life without her… but to lose her again now?

The idea of it made him want to openly stand and weep like a child right there in the hallway.

Then, just as he had just about managed to whip himself up for the third time in one day, he heard a clatter coming from upstairs, towards the guest room. Immediately, he took the stairs of the modern house two at a time, feeling an instinctually desperate need to see her with his eyes.

"Molly?"

The guest suite door suddenly swung open, revealing a wary looking Molly, fiddling with her salty, damp hair in a way that threw him back to the first day he ever saw her out of uniform, when she'd been towel drying her long, dark hair as he came to ask her to bring back Rosabaya capsules for him; arguably the pivotal turning point between them. She frowned slightly at him, no doubt confused about his slightly agitated state, squinting through tired eyes.

"Yeah?"

His heart was hammering in his chest and suddenly, it was all he could do to back away before he embarrassed himself further.

She's still here… The relief was heady. Thank you, God, she's still here!

"Nothing," he said breathlessly, turning back towards the master down the hall and trying his best to cover his crotch with casual, resting hands. "Just wanted to check you were in before I locked the door behind me." The excuse came from nowhere and was entirely random - he hoped she wouldn't notice. "Do you need the hot water turned on? The boiler's on the blink again."

"Nah, thanks. Only your family could spend bloody millions on such a big bloody house an' still 'ave a dodgy boiler," she drawled, dryly. Molly watched his rigid posture as his eyes kept falling to the floor, seemingly unable to meet hers. Though, after the hard time she had given him, she could hardly blame him. "Think I might get a bit of kip - I'm a bit…"

"Yes, no, of course..."

Charles retreated as fast as he politely could, only wilting into his true emotions once he was behind the safety of a closed bathroom door. Again, the atmosphere waned between them under the tension like a rigid plastic desperate to snap.

What kind of tension it was, neither could say.

Molly went back into the bedroom knowing full well that Charles was likely feeling remorseful and, as he always did, was struggling between his inbuilt reflex to sulk and, likely, a combination of new emotional complications he now lived with. She knew she should try and talk to him about all that had surfaced, but suddenly she was just too exhausted. She sighed as she stripped herself of her damp, begged and borrowed clothes, now only in underwear and gazed longingly at the perfectly made bed that used to be the bed she and Charles would use when they visited on James family holidays, before. Suddenly, as her abdomen cramped anew, she realised she needed more sanitary supplies. Cursing the fact her pouch was all the way downstairs, she quickly checked the en suite and cursed when she didn't find any.

She knew, if her memory did not mistake her, that Charles' mother always used to keep such things hidden away in the master ensuite, so, with a quick paranoid glance around as she was aware of her state of undress, she dashed down the extensive corridor towards the master.

It was only once she was in the room that she saw the ensuite was ajar but the unmistakable sound of running water could easily be heard - he had a historic habit of never locking the bathroom door out of some kind of paranoia about worst-case scenarios. She knew Charles therefore must have gotten straight in the shower… and yet, she found herself not halting her feet from their original intended path. She mouthed copious amounts of curse words or herself as she fidgeted in a circle, debating whether to give in and go downstairs looking for tampons… but she shivered with cold and, becoming increasingly worried she might bleed everywhere if she didn't get some soon, biology made the decision for her. She paused outside the door, intending to knock and ask him if he minded she quickly grab some, but as she stepped up in alignment with the strip of sight through the partially open door, her eyes settled on the reflection in the expansive vanity mirror, bringing her to a standstill.

Charles, only slightly obscured by steam, bracing himself against the immaculate stone shower wall under the spray of the water, his left-side, chisled profile clear.

For once, it wasn't so much the sight of him nude that had her mouth dry and her heart pounding in the manor of someone who was somewhere they shouldn't be… but how his face was thrown up to the ceiling into the spray, with such a look of clenched eyed, desperate anguish. Every muscle on his arm was contracting and clenching as he moved it quickly, his body making the unmistakable, frenzied movements of a desperate man who had succumbed to his physical…needs…

Breathless, she knew she should tiptoe back out before he heard her and that she had no right to accidentally be spying on him, but she felt rooted to her spot.

Not only because she realised that she had truly never seen Charles succumb to touching himself before – though, she of course had always privately assumed he must have done it as he was a soldier who'd been on tour and also the one left behind for months on end, after all – but it was mostly the hauntingly bleak, almost tearful expression he seemed to have on his face at that moment. His body was as she remembered it in so many ways, but his new bulk was still a shock - thick columns of muscle making up his thighs, the curves of his arms and the clear, rippling movements down his back in a way that spoke of a new physical dominance he never exerted before. His beauty was almost devastating as her own absolutely desiccated self esteem was nothing short of a suit of armour made of shattered pieces of her previous self superglued together yo keep her from crumbling completely.

Every day married to Charles seemed to leave her less and less certain of anything – and at this moment, she felt that more than ever. All the same, she could feel the contradictions of being human begin slashing inside her as her body was already physically reacting to the sight of his pleasure… but mostly, at the idea she was seeing a private, forgotten part of him she was never, and had never, been allowed to see.

Blood rose so hot in a flush on her torso, neck and cheeks that she felt almost smothered by it, her mouth bone dry. She had to clench everything together, worried even more now than ever she may ruin her underwear or worse if she didn't sort her sanitary products issue soon, but now she was tense for an entirely new reason, listening to his quickened, whispered breathing.

All these feelings felt so alien as she hadn't managed to feel any such kind of desire for anyone after the trauma and distrust the breakdown of their marriage had left her with. As a result, she too found that her eyes burned with a bizarre arrival of unshed tears pricking in them as this desire swamped her like a fever, despite the fact she didn't want to dwell on why.

She didn't want it to be true that sex with Charles had basically ruined sex for her with anyone else, but she had long given in to the possibility after she had tried, really tried, to forget it all with a stranger after a particularly drunken evening at her local, only to discover her body just wouldn't…engage.

She didn't want to be faced with the fact that it was still him or no one, even after all he had done… but, feeling the way her body was engaged acutely in that moment, there was no denying it now.

Within the shower, she heard a miniscule sound of yearning escape his mouth and gently bounce off the tiles and it was almost enough to make her sob aloud with the inequity and desperation of it all, as she felt her body almost leap to attention at the sound - as though knowing, assuming, it was his calling for her.

Not one to usually be scandalised by all things sexual, she felt herself paralysed, wondering why he was doing this now, after they had had such a horrific conversation about such traumatic events had been basically all they had discussed… and a tidal wave of horrible awkwardness all the way home.

The thought arrived, before she could stop it, and doused her like ice cold water…

What if…he wasn't thinking of her…?

And just like that, the spell was broken and she panicked - dashing back towards the safety of the landing as quietly as her shaking legs could carry her. As she dashed downstairs at equal speed to grab the pouch, she cursed the painful, almost electric tingling of her sensitive chest against her bra and much further below as she stood, like the ringing skin of a drum, doing everything she could to push it all back into the box she had forced her entire sexuality into two years ago and locked beneath the proverbial stairs.

As her most intimate biology clenched as her mind replayed what she'd seen, there was a sudden and jarring sharp dash of pain from her abdomen and further to her core. She was suddenly reminded of when she'd desperately tried to have a casual liaison with the stranger over a year ago… and her discomfort had been so much that they hadn't even managed much beyond kissing before she had run off.

This new pain all but knocked her down as she tried to sort herself in the guest bathroom, never having had this specific kind of pain while feeling pleasure before. Swearing repeatedly aloud, she tried her best to ignore her shaking hands and the tears that were falling and falling steadily and without a sound.

"Stop it, Molly!"

And yet, they still came, making her lips taste of salt for yet another time today.

Her mind replayed the sight of him, down to the smalls of details she'd been able to see, openly taunting the side of her that was trying to practise logic and self control; the trail of dark hair down his lower abdomen… and size and shape of him when he got himself into such a state of need… The way he touched himself with both an urgency, but still a tenderness, as though trying to replicate the touch of another…

It was enough to make her want to turn feral and abandon all attempts of what she should do.

Another sharp pain dashed, with surprise, threw her as her most intimate muscles physically reacted to the thought, knocking a small amount of breath from her. She grabbed her lower abdomen upon reflex and slowly sank to the tiled floor of the bathroom before crawling towards the bed, curling up in the foetal position to, finally, let herself scream into the nearest pillow.

She was frightened by how strong the absolute physical urge to march into that room and interrupt him had been. Did she have no morals at all? No self respect? She was really that much of a slag? She was uncompromising in her fury towards her own body for betraying her…but beyond that she knew it was sadly much more simple.

She was lonely… and plainly, so was he.