A/N: Looking back at the end of the latest chapter as I wrote it initially I realised that if you have not seen the series, it could be read like room exploded in applause. However, I meant to say that it exploded literally so I changed a bit to make that clear.

I hope I won't make anyone too disappointed when I now deviate from the Bodyguard plot post-explosion. I guess I'm always disappointed when main characters are killed off, unless it's the evil ones (like Geoffrey in Games of Thrones - that nearly called for a celebration). Anyway, here we go, thanks for reading!

Chapter 14: Molly

I slowly regained consciousness. First, got a sense of my own body again, heard my heart beating erratic, then tried to open my eyes which were filled with dust. I coughed because my airways were filled with the same dust and I tasted blood in my mouth. Something warm was trailing down my face. More blood? Except for my heartbeats, everything was silent until a few moments later when my hearing gradually returned. I tried to get my bearings in the darkness, get a grip of the situation. I did not feel panic, was too numbed by the shock for that. There was chaos. So many people lying on the ground, hurt - or dead, and others further away, likely not as affected by the blast, now trying to escape from the room in a disorganised manner. There was screaming, there was crying but there was also terrifying silence and stillness. All those who did not move or make any sounds. How many casualties could there be? Impossible to tell through the dust cloud and darkness. I did not know if I dared to move, if I was intact or simply did not feel my injuries due to the shock, but I desperately wanted to know where Sergeant James, Charles, was. Needed to know he was alive.

Someone kneeled by my side, touched me softly. Thank god it was him, alive, and a sense of total relief came over me despite the surroundings. He leaned over me, his face and suit covered in grey dust from the explosion, half-coagulated blood drawing lines down his forehead and cheek. I suppose I looked the same.

"Molly", he whispered in my ear. "You're alive."

"Only just..."

"Can you feel if you're hurt?"

"No, I don't feel anything."

He let his hands graze over me to check if there were any visible injuries but did not seem to find any and his grim face relaxed a bit.

"I don't dare to move you, in case you have injuries not visible to the eye, but ambulance will come."

"Stay with me!"

"I'm not leaving you."

"I mean stay with me in the ambulance too, I want you near me."

He took my hand and repeated;

"I'm not leaving you, I promise." His dark, calm voice soothed me.

"What happened?"

"An IED... it must have been. I don't understand how, with all the safety precautions..."

"Are people dead?"

"Yes... I have no idea how many. When I look around there are so many lying down, motionless, and I don't know if they're alive or not..."

"Oh, my God!"

I felt a pang of grief and hopelessness. So many casualties and the target had probably been me.

"Can you hold me until the ambulance comes?"

He did not answer, just lay down close to me before I had time to regret the question, and put his arms around me until they came with a stretcher to take me away, and then he came with me. He was by my side as I was carried through the sea of people, flashing blue-lights and sound of sirens, into the relative calmness of the ambulance. He held my hand through the drive and when I asked for it, he stayed in my room at the hospital. I did not trust anyone else, I could not stand the thought of him leaving me, not even briefly. Someone wanted me dead and the only one I felt sure did not, was him.

I was examined and apart from the superficial wounds and the shock I seemed to be all right. I was cleaned up, my eyes flushed with saline, I got a dressing around my forehead and for the second time this week I was offered a hospital gown to replace my own damaged clothes. My life currently offered more action, or rather danger, than I ever had bargained for.

He too was examined and cleaned up but kept his suit on after dusting it off.

"Have you heard any news from St. Matthews?", I asked.

He nodded.

"They say it was a carnage... I don't know how many dead or injured yet. As I thought, someone seemed to have managed to place an IED inside before it all started. I don't understand how... the place was being scanned thoroughly before you arrived... I feel like I have failed you Molly, failed to keep you safe."

He sat on a chair beside the bed I was now half lying on and leaned his head in his hands in desperation. I reached out my hand and touched his dark locks. I did not plan it, it just happened, and he did not flinch from the touch.

"No, you haven't, you're the only one I trust."

He looked up again, his eyes met mine and to my surprise seemed to be filled with agony.

"I have not deserved that."

"How do you mean?"

"I haven't been completely honest with you..."

"In what way?"

He took a deep breath and did not break eye contact.

"I probably shouldn't tell you now, you have enough on your mind… but I don't want to kee p it from you anymore. Little over a week ago, I had a meeting with my boss. When I arrived, Anne Sampson was there too."

"Anne, why?"

"She had grown suspicious of the regular private meetings you had with Stephen Hunter-Dunne. Feared what it meant that you kept her out of the loop, feared what powers RIPA-18 would give the two of you."

"Okay...", I could see how it all would have seemed to her.

"She and my boss demanded that I kept them informed about you, who you saw, when, how long... Even that I bugged meetings I was not allowed to be in..."

"And you accepted!?"

It seemed so beneath him, to spy on me when I had opened up to him, let him into my life.

"Not at first, but they threatened me. Threatened to remove me from your team if I didn't cooperate, and I wanted to remain there to keep you safe. Threatened not to let my family stay in the safe-house where they've been staying since the school attack - and I could never risk their safety either... I was not proud of myself, Molly. I had to do it but I hated it!"

His disgusted expression showed me that was true.

"Was that why you went all weird the week after the PM's party?"

"Yeah."

Maybe I ought to be mad at him, maybe I ought to send him away, but all I felt was immense relief to know there was a reason why he suddenly had shut me off, that he had had no choice.

He continued;

"It was really difficult Molly... my boss, CSI Craddock... I really respect her, trust her and both she and Sampson were so convinced you were dangerous and had to be watched… stopped if proven necessary. It made me doubt my own judgement when it came to you."

"I understand... And what had your own judgement told you up to then?"

He gave me a weak smile.

"That you were a wonderful person. They made me think maybe you had just been playing me."

Butterflies woke up in my stomach when he said he thought I was wonderful.

"And now?"

"Now I know where you stand. I've known for some time you're not behind RIPA-18 but the other day I also overheard you talking to Stephen and I know it's not you who granted him to take over the 1st October investigation."

"No. Not me, I tried to stop that from happening. And all those meetings with him... I had them because I don't trust him, because I wanted to try to control him."

"Can you forgive me?"

I was quiet for a while. Not so much because I needed to think, as because I thought he deserved a small portion of torture as revenge for what he had done. But only a small one.

"Yes. Yes, I have to, because after all you remain the only one I trust right now. Apparently, I can't trust Anne or SO15, I certainly don't trust Stephen and it feels like the PM, Roger and I stopped being part of the same team way back... on top of that there may be a whole bunch of crazy assassins out there, for all I know. I need you by my side."

"I'm here. I want to be here more than anything."

"No more secrets?"

He seemed to hesitate briefly before saying;

"No."

It occurred to me that I kept one secret from him, that I was in love with him. Well, it would have to stay like that. Total honesty is not always a good thing. Suddenly I felt very tired and unsafe here, despite that he was with me.

"I have something to ask of you", I told him.

"Anything."

"I want you to take me away from here. I want you to take me home."

He frowned and shook his head, pulled his fingers through his hair as if to gain time.

"I hate to break this to you, but your flat still isn't safe. I understand you want to go home, but you can't."

"I didn't mean the flat. I meant home to Newham, to my parents' house. I want us to go, just the two of us. I don't want anyone else to know where we go."

"Molly..."

"Listen, I don't trust anyone right now. I want to disappear for a while,"

"Newham isn't safe for you."

"But where is it safe for me to be?! You tell me. At least people won't expect me to go there so I figure it would be quite safe after all, and I just want to go home to mum and dad. I need to see them, need to hug them after all this. Do you see?"

He seemed to be deliberating internally.

"You owe me that", I insisted.

Finally, he nodded.

"Okay, I'll help you, against my better judgement."

"You will?"

Despite that I thought my arguments were good, I was surprised.

"I'll probably regret it. It will likely cost me my job, but I'm not sure I want this job anyway after all this."

I smiled.

"I think the Home Secretary might be able to pull a string or two to let you keep your job if you want to keep it in the end."

"You think she would do that for me?", he smiled back.

"Yeah, she's quite nice once you get to know her, you know. Quite humane."

"Really? I heard she's a sociopath but that must have been false information then."

"I don't know who told you, but it surely wasn't a trustworthy source."

"Surely not."

Our eyes were locked a while longer. I did not want to end that moment, wanted to drown in his brown eyes, but he did at last.

"Okay, then we'll do like this… You need to leave your mobile phone behind or they'll be able to track you."

"It seems to be broken anyway after the explosion."

"Still, leave it here. I'll get out there for a while and see if I can find a way to get rid of the guard outside, then I'll come back and get you. You need to be prepared to move then."

I nodded in agreement.

"You're really sure you want to do this?"

"Completely."

He got up.

"You are one crazy lady, you know that?"

I grinned at him.

"Thanks, I suppose."

With that he left. He was gone for quite a while and I paced the room impatiently, suddenly did not want to stay confined here one minute longer. I nearly jumped in anticipation when the door finally opened again, and it was him.

"Coast is clear, let's go."

"How did you…?"

"No time to explain, let's move. Hurry! Put this on."

He gave me a long coat and a cap. I briefly wondered where he had found them but did not bother asking. Some poor sod would have to put up with the Home Secretary nicking his clothes. Once we were out in the corridor, he quickly pulled me through a nearby door, leading to staircase and we hurried down the steps. He seemed to know exactly where we were going. Reaching the ground floor, we were near one of the smaller hospital entrances.

"The entrance will be guarded, but they don't check people going out as much as they check those coming in. Lean on me and keep your head down, don't look anyone in the eyes."

I did exactly as he told me and suddenly we were out in the street, breathing the fresh evening air. We moved away from the entrance quickly and headed towards the cab parking that was not far away. As we jumped in, he gave the driver an address unknown to me."

"But…", I started.

"Hush", he whispered. "We'll get off there and change to another cab. Once they find out you're gone, they will start interviewing cab drivers. If one of them had a drive to your parents' address they would soon find out where you are."

"Aren't you clever…"

"I have my moments."

Despite the banter, I was tense. Even if I was not a criminal on the run, it almost felt like it and I desperately wanted to succeed getting away. We left the cab a few miles away from the hospital and he paid with cash, then he hailed another, and this time asked me to give the driver the correct address. We sat beside each other in the back seat, driving towards my home, towards my roots. It was an unlikely turn of events that I was going there with him. Suddenly I giggled.

"What?" he asked.

"You're the first bloke I'm bringing home to my parents in ages. I can't even remember the last time."

"Really? How about Roger?"

"Roger? He would not set foot there. Totally convinced he would be mugged, stabbed or whatever. He met them a few times, reluctantly, but never in their home."

"I'm honoured then."

Even without looking at him, I heard the warm smile in his voice and I suddenly wished that this had been that. Me bringing him home to my parents to introduce them to the guy I was with. Well, I was glad he was with me anyway, even if not in that sense. The streets we drove through now were familiar. We passed the nail bar where I had worked after school for a few years, to get some extra money to try to afford clothes that did not differ too much from those that my class mates wore. We passed the club me and my friends had used to go to as teenagers, and the corner where I had thrown up after drinking too much one night. Then the Indian take away behind which I once had had a one-night shag, a very forgettable one that yet stuck somehow in all its pointlessness, then the pub where dad was a regular and I knew we were almost home. Finally, the cab stopped, and he once again paid in cash.

"We won't be able to use credit cards", he explained as soon as we were out of the cab.

No, of course not, that would be easy to track.

As we called on the door and waited for them to open, I was nervous for some reason. Stupid, this was my parents' home and I had every right to be here. The only stupid and unnatural thing was that I had been denied this for so many years. Mum opened, in pyjamas and a robe, looking like she was preparing to go to bed or maybe had already. When she saw me, the surprise was complete.

"Molly! What…"

"Hush! Just let us in and we'll talk."

Door closed, we stood in the cramped hallway and he looked so misplaced. Tall, handsome, posh. This house was not made for the likes of him, but he did not seem to notice at all. Instead he took mum's hand and shook it heartily.

"I'm Charles James, I'm bodyguard to the Home Secretary."

"Well, we call her Molly in this house. Welcome Charles, I'm Belinda."

She turned to me and gave me a big hug.

"We heard about the explosion and we've been worried sick. They said there were dead and injured, and that you had been giving a speech there, but they would not say how your condition was and when I called you, you didn't answer…"

"My mobile was destroyed in the explosion. I'm fine mum. Bruised and battered but nothing worse, it's a miracle."

She hugged me again and I had to tell her to go easy, because my body actually did hurt now that the shock did not have me in its numbing grip anymore. Then dad came down the stairs and I was grateful he was in t-shirt and joggers, not only briefs. My half-naked slightly overweight and very unfit dad was a sight I was happy to spare Charles from. We went through the introductions again, then mum made some tea and we sat down in the TV-room. The little ones were sleeping.

Charles spoke first.

"I have to make it clear that you can tell no one that Molly is here. If you do, Security Services will come and take her somewhere they think is safer. She's not on the run really, but she wanted to come here and as you know, security don't allow it. So, you must keep your mouths shut, is that understood?"

A giggle nearly escaped me as he sternly drilled his eyes into mum and dad and they nodded seriously. Shit, he was so hot when he talked like that.

"I just had to come home mum. After everything that has happened… I could not take it anymore. I needed you… and I don't feel safe anywhere. Charles helped me to get away. The only ones I trust right now is him and you."

"Of course, you should come home then my girl, you belong here and you're welcome anytime you like."

She hugged me again, and I held on to her for long, felt tears running down my cheeks.

"I don't understand what's happening", I whispered. "I don't know why someone wants to kill me and want it so much they're willing to hurt others."

"My little girl."

When she said that and stroked my hair softly, I felt like her little girl again. Like the girl I had been before I changed school and chose the path that took me away from her, away from them. I did not regret it, and I would not want to have it all undone, live the life I would have had if I had stayed, but I wanted to have both. Was that even possible?

We sat there for a while longer, talked about everything that had happened lately, and then mum surprisingly asked Charles a whole bunch of questions. The kind I would have expected her to ask if I actually had brought a boyfriend home for the first time. He answered with an easiness to him, fitted in here unexpectedly well. When dad offered him a beer I knew he was accepted, even if he politely declined as he was on duty but said he would gladly take up the offer some other time. Him and dad drinking beer together, that would be a sight.

"Mum!", I finally interrupted. "Charles works for me, he doesn't deserve that you interrogate him like this."

"Are you sure about that?", she smirked. I felt myself blushing, and I think I saw him do too.

"Anyway, I'm knackered and would like to go to bed. Where can we sleep?"

"The little ones are asleep in their beds, but we can move them over to ours and you can have their room."

It was the best solution, definitely the least awkward one as I would not have wanted to share mum and dad's double-bed with Charles, but the suggestion still made me laugh. My youngest brother and sister, Jack and Sally, slept in a bunk bed. The thought of Charles squeezing in his tall frame there was ridiculous, yet the best option and we said good night and closed the door to "our" room. A kid's room, filled with toys, drawings, multi-coloured lamps which gave off a dim light making the room quite cosy.

"I can take the top bed", he offered, and I laughed as he climbed up the small ladder which clearly was designed for someone half his size.

"Good night."

"Good night, hope you're able to get some sleep."

Then I lay there, wide awake. So aware of that he was lying above me. I heard his calm breaths, but I also heard that he kept stirring in his bed, so he obviously had not fallen asleep either.

"Are you awake?", I finally asked.

"Yeah…"

"I can't sleep either."

"No, I figured since you're talking. Unless you're a sleep talker?"

"I'm not", I giggled.

"Are you sure?"

"Quite sure."

"I think I heard a hint of cockney when you spoke tonight."

"Sorry about that, that's what happens when I see mum and dad."

I do not know why I apologised for it, maybe because Roger always had been disdainful about it.

"No need to apologise, I find it quite… charming."

A warm, fussy feeling inside me.

We were quiet for a while and then I summoned all my courage and asked him.

"Would you hold me? I mean… I… I'm terrified really, and I just need to be held."

By him, not by any random person. OMG, OMG, what would he say? He did not say anything, instead he climbed down that ladder faster than I could blink. He had taken off his suit and he stood there only in shirt and briefs, smirking. He even had beautiful legs, damn it, strong-looking and masculine.

"I'm not sure exactly how we're both going to fit in in one bed, but I'm willing to try. He climbed in behind me, positioning himself so we spooned and put his arms around me.

"Is this okay?"

"Yes."

More than okay. Fabulous. Wonderful. Heavenly.

Nothing more happened, but I was as content as could be like this. Feeling the length of him against my body, his body heat radiating, not too warm, just perfect. The slight pressure of his arm around me. I fit myself into him, as close as I could, and he moved himself to match me.

"You think you can sleep like this?" he asked.

"Mmmm."

I thought that I did not want to sleep, because I did not want to miss a second of this, but the events of the day had taken their toll and made me exhausted, and now safe in his arms I felt myself doze off even if I did not want to.

"I bet you never thought you would end up in a bunk bed in Newham when you took this job", I mumbled.

"I never thought I would meet someone like you when I took this job", he whispered in my ear.

I did not know what to say to that, so I just stayed quiet and a few minutes later I fell asleep, oddly happy considering everything that had happened and that I was on the run.