She had thought briefly about going to see her Mum and Dad while she was there, but she's ended up getting on the first train she could find back to Bath- which thankfully she hadn't had to wait too long for. Part of it was her desperation to get back and apologise to Charles and explain everything to him, and a lot of it was the need to put some physical distance between herself and Artan again. The thought of just running into him, especially after all that had been said, was more than a little unnerving.
When she'd turned her phone back on as she sat on the train she'd got countless text messages, missed calls and voicemails from Charles. She felt awful, and she really hoped that she hadn't ruined his day with Sam, but she also knew that if she'd told him what had happened he would never have let her go,and it might not have been the most sensible thing that she'd ever done going to meet Artan alone but it was what she'd needed to do to give herself some closure and allow her to start moving on properly.
He answered the phone before it even rang, and she knew he'd probably been sitting there staring at it.
"Molly! Are you okay?" He sounded so relieved and she felt another twinge of guilt in her stomach.
"I'm fine. I'm sorry if you were worried." She cringed. She wasn't used to this, having someone who actually cared and worried about her, it hadn't really crossed her mind just how worried he might've been.
"Where are you? What happened? I rang your mum and she said they weren't expecting you." He still sounded anxious and stressed.
"I'm on the train on the way back now. I'm fine okay, I promise. I think it might be better if we talk about it face to face though." She hesitated, she could feel herself getting anxious- the irrational fear that Charles might be angry at her for what she'd done still there, even though she knew he'd never lay a finger on her. Years of tiptoeing around and hoping Artan wouldn't find out had that kind of effect, it wasn't going to be easy to remember that no matter what she did Charles was never going to hurt her.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "What time is your train due in? I'll come and get you." She couldn't quite work out what his tone of voice was- disappointed, upset maybe?
"I'll be back in half an hour or so. You don't have to do that if you've got Sam there, I can get a cab." She said softly.
"No,no. It's okay. I've just dropped him back at Rebecca's I'm in the car now. I'll head for the station and see you there."
"Okay." She paused for a second, biting her lip. "I am sorry Charles, really."
"I'll see you in a little while okay?" He said.
"Okay." She agreed and then hung up the phone, staring out of the window.
The trouble with being stuck on the train was that it gave her too much time to think about what had been said and over analyse it. By the time the train pulled into the station she'd worked herself up to the point where she actually thought she might be sick. No matter how many times she told herself that Charles would understand, at least eventually if not right now, it just wouldn't go away.
Her heart sped up as she spotted him standing on the platform waiting for her, a deep frown on his forehead. He looked tired and worried, like he had when he'd visited her in the hospital all that time ago and she felt so guilty that she'd done this to him.
"Hi." He stepped forward awkwardly to greet her, as though her was going to hug her but then thought better of it. "Good trip?"
"Can we find somewhere to sit and talk for a minute before we go anywhere?" She asked. She needed to explain to him, and she didn't want to do it while she was driving but there was no way she could wait until they got back to his either.
He nodded, looking around them. The station was fairly empty. He pointed at the coffee shop just behind them. "I think that might be a good idea, let's go and get a drink and you can talk." He'd been distracted all day wondering where she was and what she was doing. His Mum had kept asking questions and he didn't know what to tell her when he didn't know anything himself. Had she left because of some kind of family emergency, or had she just woken up and realised that she didn't actually want to be with him at all. He'd been driving himself mad all day going round and round in circles in his head.
She followed after him, almost having to run to keep up with him as he marched over to the coffee shop. The thought almost made her smile, it reminded her of the very first few days she'd been with two section when she always seemed to be running to try and keep up with him and she'd been almost certain he was doing it on purpose to annoy her. Maybe she'd ask him one day.
There was an awkward silence as they walked in, she went and sat at a small table right on the far side away from the couple of other people in there. Charles had gone straight to the till to order without even asking her what she wanted, she was trying to decide if he was angry with her or just knew she wasn't going to have anything other than a cup of tea so hadn't bothered to ask.
He didn't say anything as he sat down opposite her, Just raising an eyebrow at her as he slid her cup of tea across the table towards her and waited for her to say something.
"I went to see Artan." She blurted out quickly, needing to get the words out before she stopped herself again for fear of his reaction.
"You did what?" His voice was calm, but forced. It was exactly how he had sounded when he'd come in to the med tent on your and Fingers had explained to him that she was cleaning up his face because he'd cut himself shaving nicks in to his eyebrows yet again. He was angry.
"I know you're angry but I needed to do it. I don't expect you to understand." She sighed.
"I'm not angry I'm…. okay I am a bit. What were you thinking? Why didn't you tell me!" His head was spinning, this was the last thing he'd been expecting.
"Because I knew you'd say no?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "He rang me this morning when you were making us a drink." She admitted.
"How has he even got your number? I thought you changed your phone?" Charles interjected.
She shrugged. "I don't know, I didn't ask and it doesn't really matter."
"Doesn't matter?" He was getting more and more wound up, she could see the way he was clenching the edge of the table.
"If you let me actually finish speaking then you might calm down and realise that you haven't actually got anything to freak out about." She rolled her eyes.
"Sorry I'll be quiet." He agreed sheepishly.
She couldn't help but smile a little at the guilty look on his face. "Anyway he rang me this morning and he was saying all this stuff about how I didn't deserve to just move on and be happy and all the rest of it and it got to me and I just panicked. I know I shouldn't have done and I should've just told you but I'm not used to this and I didn't know what to do- so I did the only thing I really know how to do and just ran away from the problem." The words all tumbled out so quickly she wondered if he could actually understand anything she was saying.
"Okay." He said slowly. "This still doesn't explain how you ended up on a train and going to see Artan."
"You'll be waiting a long time for an explanation for that because I'm not really sure how I go there." She joked but he didn't crack even the slightest smile. "I met him at the coffee shop at the station, I don't know I think maybe I just needed to finally confront him and get some answers, some closure so that I can finally move on and we can have a future."
He didn't miss what she'd said. They could have a future- there was still hope and that lightened his mood considerably. "Do I even want to know what he had to say?"
"Probably not." She admitted. "But it wasn't all bad, and I feel a lot better for it. I just needed to have him look me in the eye and tell me why."
He was quiet for a minute. "I'm not going to be able to pretend that I'm okay with it, anything could have happened Molly he's already nearly killed you once, if you'd told me I could've come with you and…"
She shook her head and cut him off. "No, you wouldn't have let me anywhere near him." She said. "And besides this was something I needed to do on my own to work out if I can really do this,"
"What do you mean by this?" He looked confused.
"Let myself be happy, be with you and be a family. This isn't something I've ever done before and you've got Sam to think about too. I don't want to be the one that screws this up because I can't be normal." She admitted.
He reached across the table and took her hands in his. "It's okay, you don't have to keep worrying about this. I'm not going to go anywhere unless you want me to, and Sam was gutted he didn't get to meet you today so I don't think you've got anything to worry about with him either. I just want you to be happy Molly. I can't say I'm thrilled you put yourself in danger and went to see Artan on your own but I can sort of understand why you did it."
"Thank you." She leant across the table to kiss him, finally. "For being so amazing and understanding with all of this."
"Well, you are pretty lucky to have me." He joked with a wink.
She rolled her eyes. "Now can you please take me home so we can go to bed." She caught the look on his face. "Get your mind out of the gutter Captain James I'm going to sleep I'm bloody knackered!"