Author's notes: Thank you for your reviews, I know that some of you are getting mad at her because she won't say what's going on, what's happened, but she will come clean ….. eventually.

Going To Shit

"Promise?"

He wasn't asking her to promise that she would go to Headley Court and visit him, what he was asking her to promise was that she would still be there when he got back, so she nodded and smiled, not sure whether she was lying or not, but she couldn't bring herself to maybe lie to him out loud. She knew she had to make some sort of plan before he came home, either to go or to tell him everything and she couldn't imagine being able to scrape up enough courage to do that.

-OG-

"Why did you tell my daddy to do as the teacher told him? I thought he was going to hospital again, you don't have teachers telling you what to do if you're in hospital do you?"

"No, it was just a joke, mate, I was just teasing Daddy, that's all"

They were sitting on the garden bench and Sam was swinging his legs backwards and forwards deliberately kicking the leg of the bench and getting on Molly's nerves, which were pretty frayed anyway, she had put her hand on his leg to stop him twice already, but he kept starting again, obviously upset and angry at Charles' departure.

"Do you like my daddy?"

"Of course I do"

"My mummy says that he fancies you and that you fancy him"

"Does she?" Molly was at a loss to know what to say to the little boy who was seven going on fifteen at that moment, she wouldn't have thought it was the right thing for a kid of his age unless you wanted him to come out with something really embarrassing somewhere, like in front of his grandparents.

"What does fancy mean Maggie?"

"It just means that you like someone a lot, it's sort of a grown up sort of thing, don't worry about it mate"

She wanted to giggle, she supposed she should be grateful that the Nazi hadn't gone into a full explanation to him, but she wished Charles was there at that moment because she wanted to slap him, almost as much as she wanted to kiss him, she had no idea what the hell he'd been thinking of putting on that little display in front of bloody Rebecca, they weren't even actually together or at least it had only been less than twenty four hours, so where the fuck had all that come from?

-OG-

Stripping the sheets and pillowcases off his bed so that whoever changed it, probably his mum, wouldn't find the evidence of their night together in the form of her eye make-up all over his pillowcase or worse, she felt like they'd had a very lucky escape when she'd found a stray foil wrapper from a condom in the tangled bedding. She put it in her pocket and then resisted the temptation to put his pillow against her face and breathe in the lingering smell of him and his shampoo before she changed the pillowcase. It would be at least ten days before she saw him again and that was always supposing she stayed and whether she stayed or not it was still going to be a very long ten days. As she put a fresh sheet on the bed she couldn't help trying to work out where he and his mum would be at that moment and hoped that he didn't feel obliged to say anything to her, to give his mother any sort of explanation of why he'd decided to kiss her like that in front of all of them.

-OG-

"Is there something the matter?"

"No, why would there be?"

Molly watched him walk out of the room and close the door behind him again very much as he'd been doing ever since he'd arrived home for the weekend from Headley. She had been counting the hours until he walked through the front door, wanting nothing more than to see his face break into that "I am so pleased to see you" smirk, instead of which he'd looked as stern and forbidding and downright angry as he had when he'd been at his worst in hospital. She'd stayed on at Royal Crescent because she'd wanted to see him and knowing that he had to go back after the weekend for another two weeks of rehab, left her plenty of time to sort something out, and anyway she hadn't found a job or anywhere to live yet, although to be fair, she hadn't actually looked. She knew that it was probably stupid to keep putting things off, but she was finding it so hard to just pack up and go when she wanted to be with him, when she'd missed him so much when he wasn't there. He might have been behaving like a complete knob when he left and she had no idea what he thought or felt about her, and they might not have spoken since he'd gone into Headley, he hadn't called her and she couldn't think what she would say if she called him, but even in her worst nightmares she hadn't expected this and now she wished more than anything that she'd listened to the little voice in her head that had told her to leave.

It was blatantly obvious that he now regretted what had happened between them before he went, that the time they'd spent apart which had seemed like a lifetime to her but which had strengthened the way she felt in an 'absence makes the heart grow fonder so that I can't wait to rip his clothes off' sort of way, had had completely the opposite effect on him. She wasn't even sure now that it had been his heart that had been involved in the first place, it was looking increasingly likely that it had been some other much more basic part of his anatomy, and that he was now the one who was avoiding being alone with her.

"Are you gonna tell me what's the matter, what I've done, why you're being like this?"

"Being like what? I don't know what you're talking about" He shrugged.

"Yes, you bloody do and I'm …. um, …. I'm sort of fond of you Charles, I didn't know that we'd fallen out"

He stood and stared at her, arms folded across his chest, and not a hint of a smile on his face, obviously weighing up whether to explain what was bugging the hell out of him or to slam out again so that she was just starting to get more than a bit mad with him, as she tried again.

"I thought you might have missed me too, but it don't look like it does it? It seems like I was wrong there"

He still didn't say anything, just stood with his arms folded across his chest and looked down at his feet, as Molly stared at him, unsure whether she wanted to cry or yell that if he'd changed his mind and didn't want any sort of relationship with her, didn't even want them to be friends, then he only had to say. It seemed to her that it was getting more and more obvious that that's what had happened here, but he only had to tell her that spending the night together had been a mistake and that he was sorry, there was absolutely no need for all this crap.

"You're fond of me? Hey, well, here's the thing, you see, I was thinking about you one afternoon during the week, you know, missing you and wondering what you were up to, wondering whether you were still at home or whether you were getting ready to piss off, and I decided to look you up. So I did, and then hey, guess what Maggie? I couldn't find any fucking trace anywhere of any Maggie Dawkins, or a Margaret Dawkins or even an M. Dawkins or a Dawkins of any sort who was a medic, nothing, anywhere, not now, and not in the last few years. So, I know I've asked you this before, but I'll ask you again now, what the fuck's going on?"

"Look, it's not what it looks like"

Shit, shit, shittin' shit, this was the last thing she'd expected. She'd known she had to tell him, she'd had every intention of doing exactly that, some time, eventually, but just not now, not like this when she hadn't even had a chance to get her story straight.

"So, what is it like Maggie? Or whatever the fuck your name is"

"It's Molly"

"Nice name" He nodded, pursed his lips then smiled as if he was actually considering it "Tell me something, is it yours or is it just another one you've plucked out of thin air? And while we're at it, were you ever a medic, or in the army at all for that matter, or is all that just another bunch of shit?"

"Please don't be like this, I am Molly, it is my real name, and I am an army medic, or at least I was until a bit ago, I've never lied about any of that and there was nothing made up about you and me, that was all real, I promise, but I can't tell you what's gone on, I just can't"

"You've got a bloody nerve haven't you? Don't be like this? You've never lied? There was nothing made up? Only who you are, and I can't help asking myself, why? Why would you need to lie about who you are or what your name is? Why would you need to hide? And don't say you're not hiding because you are, so why the fuck can't you tell me what's going on? I presume it has to be something illegal, shit, you're not fucking AWOL are you?"

"No, course not and I'm sorry, I didn't do nothing illegal, well not really, but there might be some people looking for me, I'm not sure any more ….."

"You know what, Molly? If that's your real name, it doesn't actually make any difference does it? You lied, you've lied to all the people I love, you lied to my parents, you lied to Sam, and you lied to me even when … well …. and now you won't tell me what the fuck is going on, so how the hell can you expect me to believe a single word that you say? So it really doesn't matter does it? Please just keep out of my way, I don't want to speak to you, I don't even want to see your face after this weekend, okay?"

He turned on his heel and walked out leaving her staring at the door he'd almost slammed as he'd left. She'd had plenty of one night stands before she'd joined the army, but had thought she'd put those days well behind her, and anyway she'd believed that this was different, that he was different. Snotty bastard had walked out without even giving her the chance to defend herself, alright he'd asked what was going on and she hadn't wanted to tell him, but he hadn't tried to change her mind, he'd just accepted what she'd said, not that she knew what the hell she could have said that would have made any difference, he was right, she had lied, she'd lied to them all.

A whole weekend of avoiding him and not catching his eye made Molly so angry with him that she was relieved when he finally set off with his mother after tea on Sunday. He'd avoided using her name at all and in fact he'd avoided saying a single word to her directly all weekend, so that his mum and dad had picked up on the shitty atmosphere between them and his father had given her a very sharp glance when he saw how upset she was that he'd left without saying goodbye to her. It upset her far more than it made her angry because they both knew that they would probably never see one another again. There had been some very puzzled looks exchanged between his parents and Molly hoped that he wouldn't give his mother his version of her sins on the way back to Headley, he didn't know anything about what had happened and what had made her do it, he hadn't let her explain and she was now left with no choice but to find somewhere to go and to move out in the next two weeks before he came home again.

-OG-

Another trudge around the back streets of Weston the day after he'd gone back to Headley Court had paid dividends in the end. She'd simply looked for any 'Help Wanted' notices stuck on shop windows and the odd cafe in the side streets of the more run down parts of the resort, and the second one she'd enquired about had borne the fruit of a waitressing job in a small one man greasy spoon café. There was very little actual waitressing, it was more standing on a sticky floor behind a chipped and scarred formica counter all day and smiling at people as she took orders for 'All Day Breakfasts' and everything with chips, bread and butter and dark brown tea, then wiping over the tables with a damp cloth in between, sweeping the floor at the end of the day and generally wiping round because the cleaner only came in once a week. The job wasn't bad, it made the balls of her feet ache to the point that they were burning, and the money was pretty crap but most of the regular customers were lovely and the tips helped, but the worst thing was the smell of rancid grease which she couldn't seem to get rid of out of her hair, no matter how often she washed it.

The best thing was that she found a room to rent three doors down from the café and over the bookies, a room that was still small, damp, smelly and barely furnished, and a room which had the added drawback of making her the one who lived nearest to the café which meant that she was expected to open up in the mornings and close up in the evenings, but the room did have access to a kitchenette and a bathroom which, although minimal in the comfort stakes, wasn't shared with anyone who thought that because you cleaned yourself in one it meant that bathrooms were self-cleaning. Once she'd cleaned it thoroughly, and tipped two bottles of bleach down the lavatory which looked disgusting because it was stained dark brown from the tea leaves that the staff from the bookies poured down it, it stayed clean.

A bit of her couldn't help wondering about them all, especially when the café was quiet and she hadn't got much to do, she hadn't told them she was leaving, she'd simply collected her stuff together and moved out when they were out for the day with Sam and it felt all wrong. She'd thought about writing them a note, had even started trying to compose one, but then couldn't think what the hell to say, so she'd scrapped the idea and told herself that she would wait till she was sorted and then ring them. She missed them dreadfully and felt incredibly guilty about the way she'd just vanished and hoped that they wouldn't worry about her, but she was also pretty sure that Charles would fill them in with his version of the facts once he got home and saw that she'd gone so that would stop them worrying and as no-one in Bath had her mobile number they couldn't call her.

She badly missed her access to Mr. J's lap-top, although Norman, known as Norm, who owned the café and did all the cooking, or more accurately waved a grease encrusted frying pan around, had a lap-top, Molly hadn't yet plucked up the courage to ask him if she could use it. Norm was very lazy, overweight and pasty faced and not only seemed to live on his own fried everything, the sort of diet her dad favoured given half a chance, but he never got his backside off his high stool in between cooking artery furring fry-ups for his customers. He was, however, very, very kind and had already given her two advances on her wages because she needed to buy a duvet and a cover, together with a couple of saucepans and a mug.

She was using her own name, she had no idea why she was doing that when Norm was paying her cash in hand with no questions asked, but Norm had said that he couldn't be arsed with all the tax bollocks, which most likely meant he wasn't paying any sort of tax himself. She was sick of pretending and was working on the principle that if they traced her, she'd face whatever had to be faced, and that she couldn't hide forever.

-OG-

Travelling home to Bath from Headley had made Charles want to scream at his mother to 'please shut the fuck up', she hadn't stopped wittering on about Molly or Maggie as she still kept calling her and how worried both she and his dad were about her because she'd just disappeared. He was totally aware that his mother kept looking at him, little sideways glances as she drove, she was so obviously waiting for him to say something, to provide some sort of explanation of what had been going on the last weekend he was home. The expression on her face was a human question mark, because she knew only too well that something had happened between him and Maggie, she wasn't blind so she knew that the two of them had got very close before he'd gone off to Headley. She didn't know whether they'd actually slept together, she didn't think it was any of her business, but much as Charles might think he had the ability to keep things to himself that he didn't want to share, his mother reckoned that she could always tell when he was trying to hide something.

He had been silently cursing for the first five minutes of their journey home, asking himself what the fuck she'd thought she was doing and why the fuck she'd taken so much notice of the things he'd said to her when he was upset and angry, she must have known that he didn't actually mean any of them, well maybe at the time he'd meant them and he still thought that he'd had every right to be furious with her, but she should have known that he would calm down and that then they could probably sort out whatever it was that needed sorting. Now she'd just moved out without telling anyone where she was going so that no-one knew where she'd moved to. He didn't even know her real surname, except that it wasn't Dawkins, or what had happened to start this whole bloody mess and he didn't even have the number of her mobile, so he couldn't call her and find out where she was and ask her to come home.