Chapter 7

Charles' father stepped forward and put his hand on Molly's shoulder moving to guide her out of the room "Molly come with me a moment let's just have a word outside shall we?" Molly looked back at Charles a growing fear beginning to overwhelm her initial confusion at Charles' reaction to her. What the hell was going on ? Why was he acting like this ? She looked over at Charles' mother as if she would explain but she was already moving toward Molly assisting her husband with escorting her out of the room.

Charles was even more confused than all of them, their faces all looked familiar to him, the girl appearing in the film clips that had played in his head earlier but none of them had a name that he could make his own brain recall...he had heard the man had called her Molly as they all left the room.

His mother looked back as she reached the doorway, her beautiful son looked like he had on his first day at boarding school, lost and bewildered and then as now she couldn't do anything to make it better. He had to find his own way then and it looked like he was going to have to do it all over again but this time without any sense of who he was or where he had come from. Her Aunt had suffered from amnesia after a fall and never regained her long term memory, she couldn't bear to think that this might now happen to Charles. The thought of him wandering the streets in that vulnerable state for the last few days filled her with horror and she was just so thankful he was safe now, they would deal with whatever came next.

They sat Molly down on the chair, she was in shock, Charles' father brought her a glass of water and encouraged her to take a few sips and a few deep breaths. The colour had drained from her face completely and after a long silence she spoke...

"He doesn't know who I am...he has lost his memory hasn't he...his head...the wound...we need to get him to a doctor..now...they will fix it won't they?" She looked at them both desperately for reassurance.

"Molly we won't know what's going on until we get some checks done" His mother held her hand as she continued "What we do know is that he is safe and alive and back with us" Molly nodded tears beginning to stream down her face again.

One of the officers who was in the room with Charles came outside to usher them back in as Charles was becoming anxious again about Brad and wanted to go to the hospital to see him. All three composed themselves to return into the room and to begin the grim task of trying to explain who he was and what they thought had happened to him.

Molly entered the room first, pulled a chair over next to Charles and sat beside him taking hold of his hand and stroking the top of his hand with her thumb moving her other hand to cup the side of his face, looking up at him she willed those confused deep pools of chocolate to see something, anything in holding her intense gaze. They had been through far too much together for a stupid accident to rob him of their shared memories. She stared long, hard and silently praying for him to say something that would give her some hope, stifling tears by biting her bottom lip because she wanted to stay strong for the both of them. But there was nothing his eyes were empty and his expression not one of love and longing that she remembered the last time she had seen him in the park only days earlier, but one of increasing anger and frustration at not knowing what was going on and the need to get to his friend as soon as possible.

"Charles it's me Molly...we came here to New York on our first holiday, we are in the Army together in England Charles, you are a Captain and I am a medic, this is your mum and dad they came as soon as they knew you were missing...we are going to go to the hospital now Charles OK?"

God it was horrendous his mother agonised she was taken back to when he woke up in the hospital in Birmingham, drained and like part of him had been taken away, she remembered feeling all over his body back then, to check that everything was still there, thankful that he was still alive...how could he be going through another trauma so soon after the last one...how could life be handing him such a shitty deal? She felt angry inside as she gripped her husbands hand but she knew she had to be calm as her son needed her and so did Molly.

Charles was led away by the nurse into a side room on the ICU where Brad was being looked after. She had tried to prepare Charles that he had lost a lot of blood and although the emergency surgery had gone well earlier, he was very weak and in an induced coma, the next few hours would be critical. She gave Charles a few minutes to see his friend but then he would have to go and get checked out himself as they wanted to perform a CT scan to assess his own head injury. Charles sat down at the side of the bed staring at the one man he knew, Brad was like his anchor in a world that was a sea of nothingness there was nothing and no one before this brave soldier had found him. Charles pulled something out of his pocket and placed it in his friend's hand, it was one of the medals he had managed to retrieve from the floor before he had been arrested, it would act as a talisman he thought to keep him safe over the next few vital hours.

After a raft of tests and scans Charles got the all clear to leave, he needed to return to the Police station tomorrow to follow up in the statement he had already given about the men that had attacked them but in the meantime he was free to go back to the hotel with Molly and his parents. It all felt very alien to Charles to be escorted around by strangers who seemed so connected to him, yet all the while as hard as he tried to recall things, felt so completely and utterly disconnected from them. He was trying his best to not let it show and reciprocate their familiarity and kindness, but it was like looking at a shattered vase on the floor and wondering how the hell you were going to sort out all the pieces to glue it back together, all the while knowing it would never look the same again even if by some miracle you did manage it.

The taxi pulled up outside the hotel and Charles' parents made their excuses to go back to their room as they had some calls to make, hoping it would give Molly and Charles some space, at the same time making it clear to Molly that they were just along the corridor if she needed them. Molly let them into the room again trying not to look troubled at how unfamiliar it looked to Charles.

He sat down on the bed and she moved to sit beside him taking hold of his hand, her heart tightened in her chest as he began to cry, she tentatively pulled him into her and held him, she could feel his body shuddering, the tears coming harder. Even in their darkest moments after Afghan she had never seen him like this, she instinctively tightened her hold on him and whispered gently over and over into his ear.

"It's ok...I love you...it's going to be ok"

Did she believe her own words to him at that moment, that it was all going to be ok?

...she had not choice but to try and have faith that like everything they had faced in the short time they had been in each other's lives they would get through this somehow.