A/N: Thank you for all the messages of support over the last couple of weeks and I am sorry for the long delay in updating, but for those who don't know, I have been enjoying the best of bad health and couldn't start to string a coherent sentence together if I tried (and I did).

I hope that this is okay, I'm a bit out of practise so please be kind, chapter 24 is on the drawing board ...

-OG-

"A key?"

All her fingers seemed to have become thumbs as she fumbled around trying to get the sellotape off and get the package open and then raised her eyebrows and looked at him, then looked down at the shiny key in her hand and shrugged, not knowing what the hell to say as he ran his hand over his head and then stroked the stubble on his chin and carefully avoiding looking directly at her.

"Are you asking me to move in with you?"

Molly could hear that her voice was a bit high pitched, squeaky and that she sounded incredulous, shocked as though it was the very last thing on earth that she'd expected ...which it was. Shit, she certainly hadn't thought about it being a key, she'd sort of thought it could maybe be a ring, not that she wanted one of them of course, but still ...

"Nope" He lifted his eyebrows "Why ... what would you say if I did?"

"Dunno, hadn't thought"

Which was a huge great big enormous lie if ever she'd told one. She'd had loads of lovely, lovely daydreams about what it would be like to live with him, mostly when she'd been lying there tucked up in bed with him sleeping on the pillow with his head next to hers so that all she'd had to do was turn her head to look at his face all smoothed out and looking ten years younger as he slept. But they were daydreams. Dreams about having loads of sex and of her making the house all homey and cosy, and of the pair of them being all coupley, the realities of paying rent on that sort of gaffe, or of getting backwards and forwards to work, not to mention her not being able to cook or of having to keep all her stuff tidy, and most of all of not being 100% sure that they were going to be forever, had all been carefully airbrushed out the picture.

"Don't worry about it, it's no big deal"

She'd been about to ask him whose gaffe the key belonged to, but then thought it didn't feel like quite the right time for her to say something utterly stupid like she normally would when she was at a loss as to what to say next, her usual fall-back position of trying to make a joke out of it didn't seem appropriate somehow when his expression showed he wasn't far off from one of his sense of humour failures, something that still set all the alarm bells ringing in her head.

"Innit?"

"Nope, it's just so that you can ..." Charles squirmed slightly, obviously deeply uncomfortable "Look, I know how much you want to get away from barracks and that you hate living there, and it means you can stay whenever you want to ... if you want to ... that's the way it worked with Adam, wasn't it?" As soon as the words left his mouth Charles knew he'd made a massive mistake mentioning Adam, he didn't want her to add two and two and think that this had anything to do with her relationship with the man, that he was in some way parading his jealousy "Of course I want you to ... but there's no point in me asking you if you want to "live" with me is there?" he made inverted comma signs in the air as he said the word 'live' "You'd say get lost, that it was far too soon to think about anything like that, and of course you'd be right, but still ... well, just think about it" He raised his eyebrows and smirked, hoping she would smile back and that that would put an end to a conversation he wished he hadn't started.

Think about what? She wasn't actually sure what it was she was supposed to be thinking about, he'd just said that he wasn't asking her to live with him, so what was he talking about? Her moving in to share? To share what exactly? She wished that just for once some bloke wouldn't decide for her what it was she thought, that he would ask and then listen to what she wanted, that he would let her make up her own mind and not make it up for her.

"How would that bloody work Charles? I mean, what about rent? I dunno what your place costs, but I shared things out with Adam, you know ... and yours makes his look like a shed, so one thing's for sure, it's gonna be a lot more than that, innit? More than I've got anyway..."

"That isn't important, it doesn't matter"

"Yeah it does matter, I can't live rent free ... well, I'm not going to if that's what you're thinking and what about me stuff? I'd drive you nuts with me being messy ... you told me once that my mess was your idea of a fuckin' nightmare"

Molly still had this crystal memory of the night in Bath when he'd lost it, how it had started with him getting pissy over her spreading her stuff about, he'd said mess followed her around ... and how his irritation with that had boiled over into a load of shit when she'd kept on asking him what it was that was wrong and ... and how that had turned out to be just about everything about her, and how he'd said that he couldn't be with someone he didn't trust and that he didn't trust her because she didn't tell him stuff and that keeping things a secret from him made her a liar ... and ...

"It was different with Adam, I didn't sleep with him, did I? And I didn't care if he didn't like me mess, he's pretty bloody messy himself, and I didn't bloody wanna sleep with him did I? ... I've already told you we're just mates, Adam and me ... so I dunno..."

There were all sorts of things she hadn't told him but that she had to get sorted in her nut before she even began to try to get him to understand. She couldn't afford to make another mistake. It was too hard when you have to start over again, and although her heart really wanted to believe him when he said it wasn't going to be like that, her head kept on telling her that she needed to think about it very carefully and not get carried away. What about the stuff she'd been planning before he'd come back? Like being independent and not relying on a bloke, any bloke even if she wanted to; like the stuff she'd decided when she was in the Yemen about maybe putting her papers in and working for one of the refugee jobbies, although not in that order obviously, she'd need to get a job first before she sacked the army. That she could perhaps find something with one of the world food lot, famine relief or something to do with refugees kids, mind she wasn't exactly sure what she wanted to do because she hadn't had time to research it properly what with getting home and getting back with him and then Christmas and that, so she wasn't even sure if it was going to be a goer or if it was out the question, but she didn't want to hear him say anything to try and put her off doing it. He'd told her once that he wanted her to be brilliant and that he loved her, but that was a bloody long time back now and things change, people change.

"Hey, don't worry about it there's no rush is there, there's all the time in the world for you to decide what you want to do ... look at me, Molly"

Her eyes were huge with anxiety as she chewed at the corner of her bottom lip and turned to look at him, at the worried expression in his eyes and at the deep furrow of the frown that had appeared on his face to match the one on hers, the easy camaraderie of the last twenty four hours seemed to have vanished in a puff of smoke.

"I was wrong ... I was wrong about a hell of a lot of things ... and your mess was just one of them" He snorted a laugh and turned his attention to putting the key in the ignition "I missed it, every last little bit of it" He was still laughing, but it was a fairly humourless laugh that sounded a bit forced to her as he started the car, checking over his shoulder prior to pulling out "Come on, better crack on or they're going to think we're having a row out here and Marge will be out to sort us out"

"Sort me out you mean, not gonna be your fault is it?"

"There is that"

"Creep"

-OG-

Molly stared at her reflection in the mirror and pulled a rueful face as she tugged at the skirt of her one and only good dress. It was definitely clinging in places that it hadn't clung last time she'd worn it and that was only a few weeks back when they'd gone to that bloody party at his cousin's house the day before his birthday. She'd been 100% right when she'd told him that the Baileys and chocolate diet she'd been on wasn't the best and after tonight she was going have to cut out all the alcohol and all the nice things to eat and go on some kind of starvation diet to get ready for going back to work in just a few days. Shit, she hadn't even started with her squats and lunges stuff and could hear her sergeant's voice now in her head yelling at her ... double shit, the bloody woman was going to crucify her ... and it was New Year's Eve when everyone was supposed to feel all positive and full of energy, looking forward to the year ahead, all ready to make changes, but she didn't feel any of that.

Not only was her dress clinging to her tummy and her bum, but her nipples were stood out like bloody organ stops because she was so sodding cold. They'd been here for more than twenty four hours now and she hadn't been warm once, except for when they'd had been in the sitting room sitting almost on top of the fire or when they'd been in bed. The whole bloody house was like a fridge so that in Molly's opinion it was most probably warmer outside, except maybe for the sitting room, and the bedrooms might be posh as hell with nice carpets and lovely furniture and might make her mum's in east Ham look like a doss-house, but at least it was warm there while here the draughts whistling through the windows made it feel like she was getting ready to go out on the east-bound platform at Oxford Circus. Charles had explained that the house having listed status meant they couldn't do anything about it, couldn't put double-glazing in or anything so the draughts whistled through the gaps even when the heavy curtains were drawn.

"Fuuuuuck"

The tears started to stream from her right eye where she'd stabbed the mascara wand in it as she tried her best to make her gob look half-way decent for a New Year's party that she absolutely did not want to go to. She'd far rather curl up on the sofa with him where it was warm and not bother to go out somewhere in a dress that looked shite to spend the evening with a load of people she didn't know. She'd thought that they were going to The Cloisters tonight for dinner, well that's why she'd agreed to come to Bath in the bloody first place, this place didn't exactly hold good memories for her, but he'd promised when he'd said about them staying here for a few days over New Year. But his promise had been made before he'd found that you have to book about a year in advance to get a table for New Year's Eve, so he'd been left having to promise that he would make it up to her.

"What's the matter?"

Charles had wandered through from the bathroom wearing just a towel wrapped round his hips which made her feel cold just looking at him. He didn't seem to feel it like she did, something he put down to growing up in the place and to spending years at boarding school but which she put down to showing off and pretending that he was a fucking superhero so that he felt no pain. When she'd stayed there in the past she'd blamed his dad for the place always being like a fridge, he had this habit of turning the heating down every time he walked past the thermostat so that his mum went ballistic when she noticed how cold it had got, but his parents were still away in Italy and it was still fucking freezing in the place.

"Nothin" She tried but still couldn't get her eye open and was well aware that she sounded like a petulant teenager "Everythin'"

"Are you crying?"

"Nah course not, I don't cry, you know that, I stuck this bleedin' thing in me eye didn't I? And it hurts" It had not been part of her plan to end up with a black eye on top of everything else.

"Well, that was a stupid thing to do, wasn't it Dawsey?" He put an arm out and turned her round, tilting her face up towards the light with one finger to look at her eye which made it even more impossible for her to get it open "Come here, let me have a look ... can you open it?"

"Nah, stings dunnit, 'n I didn't do it on purpose did I, dickhead?"

"Lovely" He raised his eyebrows "And that's all that's wrong? Just your eye?"

"In't that enough? ... well yeah that and that I hate this dress it makes me look fat but I 'aven't got anything else to wear 'ave I? ... and I'm not gonna know anyone am I? And they're all gonna take one look at me wearing a dress that makes me look cheap and fat and decide that I'm your bit of rough and ..."

"What the fuck are you talking about? No-one is going to think anything like that ... don't take any notice of what your mum said, well, you never normally listen to her do you? Your dress looks fine, it looks lovely and you look beautiful, far more beautiful than anyone else who's going to be there, believe me"

"It weren't just mum though was it? It was your dad 'n all, he thinks I'm too young"

"Who said that?"

"You did"

"Did I? Surely not" He laughed "And if he did say that then he's wrong, isn't he? you're perfect" He stood and waited for her to put her arms up and round his neck and then gave up waiting and pulled her hands up to put them onto his shoulders "They're wrong Molly, my dad, your mum, and anyone else who can't see how perfect you are"

"Really?"

"Yeah really ... now let's see what you've done to yourself, what the damage is" He took the crumpled tissue from her hand and dabbed gently at the lid of her eye as she tried her best to open it, blinking at the light and then grimacing at the black streaks of mascara that he was wiping equally gently off her cheekbones with the tissue.

"Christ, what is this stuff? It won't come off"

"Have to scrub at it a bit, it's s'posed to be waterproof or some'ing only it's not, not very, 'ere just leave it 'n I'll do it, you go and put some bloody clothes on or you going like that, give the girls a treat?"

"Heaven forbid"

Molly didn't do New Year's as such, in her experience it was always a bloody big let down and usually it turned into a bit of a nightmare. That first year her and Charles had been together she'd gone home to east Ham after Christmas and looking back now, she knew that at the time she'd heaved a bloody great big sigh of relief. Christmas with him and his mum and dad had been a strain, she'd been potty about him but didn't really know him, not the him that wasn't her boss and she had been so worried about doing or saying the wrong thing and making a prat of herself that she hadn't really enjoyed any of it, not that she'd told him, but then she'd missed him when she spent New Year in the pub with her lot. She'd spent it arguing the toss with her dad which was mostly a bloody waste of oxygen, mind you so was he, and with her sister who was a knob, and drinking shots with her mum and her Nan who were alright, but she'd been totally out of it by ten o'clock, pissed as a bloody newt. And then last year she'd been with Adam and he'd had to work, so she'd spent it in the wine bar watching him pour drinks and was totally out of it by ten o'clock, pissed as a bloody newt. Looking back now and thinking about it, she could see that there'd been a bit of a pattern to her New Year's.