Disclaimer: I don't own Our Girl. Everything you recognise was created by Tony Grounds and is owned by the BBC.

Chapter 8

Charles James would admit to being ever so slightly nervous as he stood on the platform at Birmingham New Street station waiting for his mother's train to arrive. In fact, nervous was probably an understatement – he was terrified!

There was so much that could go wrong with this meeting. In his heart he hoped that his mother and Marge and his mother and Molly would get on, but you never knew. He knew that there was goodwill on both sides, but they were all from such different backgrounds. He knew that the Dawes were good people and he hoped that his mother, as a psychologist would be able to see that, and he knew that his mother was a good person and he hoped that Molly and Marge would be able to see that. If he was honest with himself then he knew that any issues were like to come from Molly's side because of her low self-esteem.

He knew that class issues were not something that even came onto his parents' radars. From his parents' point of view it didn't matter where and how someone had been born and brought up, it was their actions, morals and behaviour that mattered. They had been equally as receptive to his friend Willy from university (who had grown up on a council estate) as they had been to his friend George who was just as middle class as them.

But he was concerned that class issues may be on Molly's and Marge's radars. He had overheard some of Molly's comments about toffs and Ruperts when she was talking with the men at the FOB and he knew she had a not particularly realistic or positive view of people with his upbringing. He was sure that she would make an effort, but as soon as his mother opened her mouth it would be totally clear that she (and by extension he) were squarely middle class. While it was possible to dodge that as an issue on tour it would be less easy to dodge as an issue in real life. He could only hope that Molly, and to a lesser extent Marge, could see them for the people they were, rather than the upbringing they represented.

- OG - OG - OG - OG -

Charles was beyond nervous as he walked into the Queen Elizabeth Hospital with his mother later that afternoon. This was it. This was the crucial meeting. His mother had been quite emotional when he had greeted her on the platform and they had held onto each other for what felt like ages. He had accompanied her back to their rented house and let her get her stuff unpacked and settled. He had done his best to make sure that the room that she was to stay in was as clean as possible and that she had clean towels etc.

She had finally come downstairs at about 15.00 and he could see that she was just as nervous as he was. They had made small talk for a few moments and then he had suggested that they left for the hospital. Noticing his increasing nervousness, his mother had stopped him for a pep talk just outside the hospital entrance, "Don't worry Charlie," she'd told him, holding his upper arms "I'm sure it will be fine."

He had smiled at her, "I'm just nervous Mum. Molly's become very important to me, and Marge has too. I just want everyone to like each other."

His mother had smiled back at him, "And I'm sure that's what all of us want as well Charlie." Then she had squeezed his arms reassuringly and they had continued inside the hospital.

Charles paused outside Molly's room. Baz had been here to visit Molly today, but the plan was that he left just after lunch to give Molly a chance to rest. She had had a tough physio session this morning; he felt that she had pushed herself particularly hard because of her own nervousness about this meeting, but it was good because her physio, Noora, had told her that she was making reasonable progress. He took a deep breath, then knocked on the half open door and, without waiting for a reply, entered the room.

Molly was lying on the bed, propped up a little higher than normal. Her right arm was now unbound and lay by her side with her left one in her lap holding her mobile. That had been yesterday's excitement – when the doctors had told her that she could start using her right arm again, although her movement was still restricted. She was wearing a clean hospital gown and covered by a white blanket. She gave him her usual bright smile as he entered, but he could tell she was nervous as well. Marge was sitting at her side reading a magazine and she stood up as he entered, already holding her arms out for her hug (they had a running joke between them that Marge was a bit of a hug demon). He shared a smile with Molly before crossing towards her with his mother following behind.

"Bout time you was 'ere, Charlie!" she told him, hugging him briefly, then disengaging and, turning to his mother, she told her, "And you must be 'is mother. Good to meet yer. I'm Marge, Molly's grandmother, and I think we're gonna be flatmates!"

Charles had carried on around the bed as usual to hug Molly, as his mother crossed to Marge and shook her hand, quietly introducing herself. As Molly leant forward he gently wrapped his arms around her, kissing her on her left cheek, before pulling back. Still holding Molly's shoulder he turned to his mother and Marge and told them, "Mum, I think you've already met Marge, but this is Molly. Molly and Marge – my mother Celia."

His mother had smiled nervously, and then looked directly at Molly and told her, "Molly I'm so pleased to meet you. Charles has told me so much about you… what?!" she asked querulously, glaring at him, having noticed his grin. "It's all right Mum, you don't have to be on best behaviour here!" he told her, "they both insist on calling me that name as well!"

"Oh." She exclaimed, and he could see the surprise in her face since she knew how much he detested being called Charlie normally. "Well," she started collecting herself, before grinning at Molly and Marge, "I can see we are all women of taste!"

"Or something," he muttered.

"Watch it Charlie!" Marge told him, "it looks like you're outnumbered!"

"Story of my life, Marge." He told her more loudly but that exchange was enough to well and truly break the ice and he pulled some more chairs around the bed so that they could all sit and talk comfortably.

They talked for a few hours and Charles was delighted to see that his earlier fears seemed to have been unfounded. His mother and Marge seemed to get on like a house on fire and were rapidly forming a great partnership for taking the piss out of him. Molly was, understandably, a bit more unsure but still seemed to be relatively at ease and was happily engaging in some of the conversation, and most of the piss taking.

Just before 18.30 he looked at his watch and caught his mother's eye. She nodded and, as per their earlier plan, he started making his excuses and left them there to go and cook dinner. Not before stopping for his regular good night hug and kiss from Molly though. He wasn't doing without that!

Marge and his mother wandered into the house just after 20.15, right on time, and he was just dumping the basil into the tagine and taking the couscous out of the oven. This time he'd cooked a lot more than they'd need for dinner, conscious as he was of his promise to Molly that next time he'd save some for her. They both made appreciative noises about the smell and, as Marge went upstairs to freshen up, he looked inquisitively at his mother.

She stood at the bottom of the stairs and smiled at him, "I'd forgotten what a good cook you were Charlie. I still remember when we used to bake cakes together in the kitchen. Those were some of the best times of my life. Then you went off to university and came back cooking proper dishes. I remember when you first cooked for your father and I. You were so nervous, but it was lovely.

"Molly and Marge have been telling me all about you and what you've done." She paused, and he was surprised to see tears in her eyes. He crossed over to comfort her, "I just wanted to say that I'm very proud of the man you've become. It looks like young Molly is a very lucky girl." She gently kissed him on the cheek and went upstairs herself.

He stood at the bottom of the stairs for a second, rather surprised. He had only wanted to know whether his mother liked Molly and Marge. He supposed he had his answer. It seemed his mother approved. He was rather touched by her words though. He had a good relationship with his parents but a particularly close one with his mother. His father had been away a lot at work when he was young and he'd spent a lot of time with his mother. She'd introduced him to a lot of her hobbies; cooking, gardening, art and literature, and some of them, like cooking and poetry, had become interests of his as well. Although she could keep the gardening!

- OG - OG - OG - OG -

Dinner had gone well and they had had some wide-ranging conversations, still getting to know one another. One of the most interesting had been about their childhoods. Marge had talked about growing up in the East End in the 1950s and about how difficult it had been what with the damage to services and destruction of whole communities caused by the War, as well as the gradual closure of the industries like dockyards that had supported the East End.

He had been interested to find out that his parents and Marge were of a similar generation; his mother was only about 5 years younger than her, and his father was of a similar age. Celia and Marge had talked about growing up in the 60s and about how different their lives had been. Celia had compared her childhood in a village in the Home Counties with Marge's recollections of her upbringing in the city and then they talked about their 20s with Celia successfully convincing her parents to allow her to go to university and Marge working as assistant to a property developer.

They had talked about his childhood too. About how difficult it was for him and his mother moving around the world for his father's role in the Diplomatic Service and effectively having no roots, and particularly about how tough it was to make friends in each different place and keep in touch with those friends once you moved on, and had little in common with them. They had compared that with the strong community spirit of the East End that Molly had grown up with. But then Marge had told them that it wasn't necessarily all sweetness and light and about how upset Molly had been that her old friends from the East End hadn't been prepared to accept the change in her once she had decided to join the Army.

His mother had told them about his parents' decision to send him to boarding school at 13 to help give him a centre, and about how tough it had been for her without him to keep her company at home. He had noted that it hadn't been too much fun for him to start off with either, but he had grown to enjoy being there and had managed to get on well with everybody without making any lasting friendships. It had helped that he was good at sports and easy to get along with. But it was at school where he'd first been introduced to the army with CCF, or Combined Cadet Force as he'd explained to Marge, which provided kids the opportunity to play soldier once a week and go on adventure training and night exercises. He'd loved it and it was at that point that he'd decided that he might want to pursue an army career. University had been where he had really come into his own and he had made great friends and laboured away at his Literature degree while acknowledging that he already knew what he wanted to do with his life.

Just before they all turned in for the night his mother had told him that he would be on his own at the hospital in the morning because she and Marge were going into town to get some clothes for Molly. Now that she was becoming a bit more mobile she wouldn't want to be wandering around in a hospital gown and she needed something loose to move around in and she didn't want Two Section and the other male patients gawping at her pyjamas! His mother and Marge would be back by about 11am and then she would pack up her stuff and they'd come to the hospital together and all have lunch before she needed to catch her train at about 3.30pm. Charles was quite pleased by this development because he thought he might have been the one tasked with the clothes shopping and had been dreading it. He should have known that his mother would volunteer. She was always up for any shopping after all! It would also be nice to spend some time on his own with Molly.

- OG - OG - OG - OG -

The next morning Charles paused outside Molly's room with some trepidation. Although things appeared to have gone well yesterday, he was conscious of the fact that he hadn't been able to talk to Molly about how it had gone and that fact had gnawed at him overnight so by now he was in quite a state. A reassuring voice in his mind was telling him that if Molly had let his mother go shopping for her then she must have trusted her to some extent and that Marge had seemed to get on well with her, and that should be a bellwether to Molly's feelings. But he was still worried.

Oh well. Standing out here wasn't going to get him any answers. He knocked, pushed open the door and entered to find Molly sitting up in bed and grinning at him happily.

"Morning Dawesy," he greeted her.

"Bossman," she acknowledged, leaning a little forward as he reached the bed, to allow him to hug her. That, in itself, was quite a sign of improvement because, as he well knew from having his appendix out when he was younger, that movement used quite a number of abdominal muscles.

"Good progress, Mols," he told her, adding, "are you OK?" as he hugged her gently and then kissed her on the lips.

"I've been workin' on that movement with Noora," she told him grimacing, "but it's a bit tragic when you get excited about bein' able to lean forward a few millimetres!"

He gently caressed her cheek and pushed her hair out of her face, savouring the feel of her skin on his hand, "Baby steps Mols," he told her, leaning forward to kiss her cheek, "You don't want to push it at the beginning. Once you've healed a bit more then we can go harder with the physio, but it's only been just over three weeks."

She reached up to clasp his hand against her cheek and his heart went out to her as he saw the look of abject frustration, as well as a little uncertainty and fear, on her face. "I 'ate this," she told him, "It's not me. Lying in a bed. Bein' a wimp."

"You are NOT being a wimp, Molly Dawes. You were shot three times." He stared into her beautiful green eyes, willing her to believe what he was telling her, "It takes time to get better. I think you're being fantastic about it actually Mols. And I know the others do as well. I spoke to Noora yesterday and she's delighted by your progress. You're ahead of where you should be for someone with your injuries you know?" he smiled at her sadly and moved in for another hug, enjoying their closeness as she held him tight. Having spoken to Noora Singh and Dr Matthews he had known that this stage would come. They had both cautioned that she would have a fall-out of confidence as the reality set in about the length of time her recovery would take. They had cautioned that as she started to feel better, and before she could move, she would find it difficult to cope and it was very important that she had as much support as possible during that stage. In fact he had been thinking about a surprise for her and, given this conversation, thought he should mention it to Marge at some point.

"Anyway Mols," he told her, pulling back and seeking to bring a bit of levity back and try and pull her out of her depressed state, "Wimps don't get to enjoy my patented chicken and apricot tagine for lunch, so you can't be one!"

"I can 'ave some?" she asked, looking at him hopefully.

"Yep, I checked with the doctors and we have approval! Your Grandmother and my Mum are bringing it round when they get back from shopping. We should even be able to have it hot!" He knew that one of the things that had really been getting her down was not being able to have proper food but the doctors had confirmed that she should be OK now. The temporary colostomy bag was still there and probably would be for another few weeks while her intestines fully healed, but they now felt she was well enough to eat normally. He knew she had been really depressed about missing out.

"I understand it's going to be tough for you Dawesy." He told her, winking at her as she looked at him questioningly, "Well, when you're not enjoying my Gordon Ramsay-esque cooking you'll need to put up with hospital food, but I'm sure you'll cope. I mean, maybe it's karma since your grandmother and I had to suffer hospital food for the first few weeks you were here. Payback's a bitch isn't it Dawesy!"

She snorted, trying not to laugh at him, "I bet it's all bollocks Boss. I bet you can't cook at all and you just buy it from some restaurant or other!"

"Private Dawes!" he exclaimed, clutching his heart as though mortally wounded, "I am devastated that you could think that I, a commissioned officer in good standing in Her Majesty's Army, would stoop to such a level. And on top of that how you could possibly doubt your boyfriend in such as way? I am hurt!"

"Boss…!" she gurgled, sniggering, "I told you not to make me laugh – it 'urts!"

He harrumphed, "Serves you right Dawesy, serves you right!"

Deciding to change the subject, he asked, "So, what did you think of my Mum?" He was pleased to hear a positive response and they talked for a long time with him passing on a little of what was talked about at dinner the previous night and her telling him what had been talked about after he'd left last night and filling him on Baz's latest news. They only stopped when it was time for her physio.

- OG - OG - OG - OG -

Charles was sitting outside Molly's room when her physio, Noora Singh, sat down next to him. Molly was just starting her bed bath after quite a heavy physio session earlier today.

"Captain James?" she asked, "Could I have a quick word?"

"Of course, Ms Singh," he replied, "actually, since we're likely to be seeing a lot of each other over the next few weeks, I thought it would probably be easier if you called me Charles."

She favoured him with a smile, which surprised him because normally she was quite stern, "Oh good. Then you should definitely call me Noora, like Molly does. At least that's one of the things she calls me – I don't think the others are quite so complimentary!"

He smiled back understandingly, "I'm sure you get that a lot with your job! Particularly with Army patients – their language can be a bit coarse sometimes!"

She returned his smile, "Actually you'd be surprised Capt- sorry, Charles. The Armed Services patients are normally extremely respectful. It's the civilians who generally have potty mouths!" They both grinned, "Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about Molly. Thanks for telling me about her disappointment with the speed of her recovery. We had a chat about that and I re-iterated to her that she was making excellent progress. As we discussed, this is a difficult stage, but once she's up and about it should be easier for her.

"Now, the reason I wanted to talk to you is that she's told me she's very keen to be up and about by 10th May. Apparently it's your birthday?" She asked, looking at him sternly.

He was surprised that Molly had remembered, and rather touched, "Yes, I had told Molly that the best birthday present I could have would be to go for a walk in the country with her. But I didn't mean on my actual birthday. I would have thought that's a bit unlikely isn't it?"

She smiled in a relieved way, "I'm pleased you said that. Yes, it's not going to happen. But there's no reason you shouldn't be able to take her for a walk around the ward on your birthday if you would like." She grinned at his excited reaction, then added firmly, "But you will both need to do a lot of work. I only have one session a day with Molly and she's going to need to do two, maybe three lots of exercises every day, so I wondered whether you'd be prepared to help her do some work in the afternoon and evening as well?"

He was surprised, but excited. He would love the opportunity to actually help Molly's recovery, "Of course, what do I need to do?"

She replied, "Well, if you come in for our session tomorrow I'll talk you both through the exercises that she needs to work on. They'll be tough for her at the beginning but should become easier as she gets more practice." She looked at him sternly, "I just want to emphasise though that it's important that you both do this. You can't go letting her off if she's tired or if she makes puppy dog eyes at you Charles. You need to invoke your Army discipline for this."

"Don't worry. I can do Captain Stern Face if I have to Noora! I've already had to get her into shape once, I'm sure I can do it again, even though I don't have Corporal Kinders to help this time!"

- OG - OG - OG - OG -

As Charles James lay in bed that night he considered that all in all it had been a great few days. Considering all the things that could have gone wrong with his Mum's visit, he had to consider the visit a success. His mother had liked Molly and Marge and both of them had told him that they had enjoyed spending time with her as well. As she bade him farewell on the platform she had told him that she thought that Molly was a lovely young woman and that she looked forward to entertaining her in Bath when the time came, but that he should keep following his heart in the mean time. She had explained that she understood that he needed to be with Molly to help her recover and that she wouldn't expect to see him back home for a while although she was expecting him this Sunday for Sam's birthday and would also like to see him on his birthday, although she could understand if he didn't want to stay overnight. Finally she had repeated her words to him from the previous night, that he would always treasure, and sent him back to the hospital with a hug and a kiss.

He had spent the rest of the evening with Marge and Molly and then, on the way back from the hospital with Marge, he had broached his idea with Marge. She had stopped in the street and turned to look at him.

"Are you sure, Charlie?" she'd asked him, and he had been concerned to see tears welling in her eyes.

He had been worried, "Don't you think she'd enjoy it?" he asked, a little disappointed. He'd really wanted to do something special for her and he thought this was a really good idea.

"No! It's not that - I think she'd love it." Marge replied, assuaging some of his fears, "It's just that…" and she tailed off. Seeing his concerned expression she tried again, "It's just that no-one's ever done somethin' like this for us before. Gone out of their way to 'elp our family. It's just difficult ter believe if you know what I mean Charlie?" He didn't really, but she quickly continued, "But don't ever change Charlie. I know I could get used ter this and I'm sure Mols could as well!"

"So, you think it's a good idea?" he queried, still a little concerned by her reaction.

"Good? It's the best ever! Let's get back and we can call Belinda and sort everythin' out." Belinda was likewise blown away but had agreed to the idea very quickly. After they talked briefly about the logistics of how it would/could work he agreed to look into prices and then they could discuss it later in the week. They all agreed to keep it quiet for now.

A/N 1 Sorry for the long break in this. It's been a tough 4-5 weeks. I can't promise that there won't be further delays with this fic, but I will try and finish it. As I've already noted, the epilogue is written so it's just a case of filling in between where we are now and where we need to get to.

A/N 2 This one's a bit of a bridging chapter but bear with me, it does get better. Please R&R!