"We could go down to Bath at the weekend if you like"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I mean it's not like we gotta worry about taking too much 'ave we? Just a couple of 'undred nappies and she'll be fine"

Lexie Elizabeth James was born ten days late when her mother had decided that she was never, ever putting in an appearance. Charles had suggested that maybe an action replay of her conception would encourage her, but Molly insisted that making a trip into the office at lunchtime when he wouldn't be able to get anywhere near her and anyway she had no intention of having sex up against a door, was completely out of the question. Charles had no idea why she was so convinced that their one-off lunchtime activity had created Lexie when, to quote his old colleague Stan, they had been at it like rabbits for weeks, but she kept insisting that her mum had told her that she'd know because she'd always known and let's face it she'd had enough practice.

-OG-

A few days after her running away to Eddie's, Charles had taken the bull by the horns and called her mother, knowing that he was taking his life in his hands, or at least he was taking a hell of a risk that Molly would be so absolutely livid with him that she might never forgive him, because since the news about his own mother he'd had this sense of not wanting to leave things to chance or until it was too late. He was also convinced that Molly needed her mother as well as her grandmother, and that Lexie should know and be part of her wider family, the knowledge that Betsy was ill had made everything seem very fragile. Belinda had promptly burst into tears when Charles had introduced himself, she seemed to know who he was and all about him and all about Lexie, which he presumed was courtesy of Nan. She'd immediately begged him to bring Molly over for lunch, or dinner or tea, whatever they liked, the following day or if necessary the day after, but as quickly as they could manage, which left Charles unable to avoid owning up to what he'd done without any sort of delay or time to prepare the ground.

"You 'ad no bleeding right"

"I know"

"So, why the fuck did you do it then?"

"I thought it was time"

"YOU thought it was time, it was none of YOUR bleeding business"

Charles decided to pay his trump card, the one he hoped would make her forgive him anything, at least for the time being.

"I thought Lexie should have as big a family as possible, I mean, my side is pathetic, even before mum got sick, basically there aren't exactly hordes of us are there? I thought we should introduce her to her Dawes family when she's born, balance things up a bit"

"I wouldn't 'ave called my lot balanced exactly"

"Tell me about you and your Mum; tell me what happened, why you don't see her"

"You wouldn't understand"

"Try me"

"I got out once, I didn't wanna go back" She looked at him through eyes that weren't really seeing anything in front of her "You had no sodding right to interfere"

"So tell me, and tell me about your dad"

"Where I grew up, people spent a lot of time screaming at each other, where keeping stuff private meant me dad yelling fuck off at the neighbours, where family meant that 'e'd tell me mum that 'e loved her right after 'e'd walloped 'er one because he was rat-arsed and didn't know what 'e was doing, then 'e'd tell the neighbours to mind their own fucking business and to do one, and then 'im and me mum would 'ave sex where I could 'ear them" She took a deep breath "I don't know how she could, the way 'e treated her ….." She took a deep breath and shook her head "It weren't really me mum what made me leave, but she didn't do anything to stop 'im, me dad I mean, nothing. She just stood there when 'e was saying all this shit about me not thinking I could come crawling back and all because I wouldn't do what 'e wanted. I wouldn't do it , so 'e said I 'ad to choose, choose what he wanted and I could 'ave me family or I was on me own, so I chose on me own and Mum did nothing, nothing at all"

"What did he want you to do?"

"Get back with this arsehole ex what I'd dumped because he was shagging me best mate and who wanted me back and who'd promised me dad a bit of this insurance scam 'e 'ad running if 'e got me to do it, so when I said to get stuffed, me dad weren't thrilled"

"What happened to make you so scared when we were stuck in that lift?"

"It was a long time ago"

"I remember you said you'd been like that since you were very little"

Sitting on his lap with his arms round her, Molly suddenly found the story of being shut in the cupboard pouring out as she re-lived every second, knowing that even though it had been a very long time ago, more than long enough for her to get over it, the horror and fear were still there as the tears ran unchecked down her face. Charles stroked her hair and held her as he wished desperately that he could go back and change the past, fix it, and then wished that he hadn't interfered; if her father was at home when they visited he wasn't sure he would be able to control his reactions to the man she called a selfish fucker.

He'd spent a very long time telling her all his worries and fears about his own mother and what her future held and what the consultant had told him and how his father had behaved and how angry that had made him, and she'd just put her arms round him, not saying a word, not trying to 'make it all better' just listening. He knew that there was nothing she could say that would change anything and he didn't want her to try because that would have meant that he would have had to play down his own worries to comfort and reassure her.

In the end their visit to east Ham passed off without incident, her father wasn't there, he'd stayed in the pub, so it was just Belinda and her sisters who were waiting for them. They'd sat in the car for ages before they'd gone in, her face white and set so that her eyes looked enormous and anguished, dark shadows under them showing how little sleep she'd had the night before.

"Hey, you sure this isn't bandit country? I mean, will the car still be here when we get back, and will it still have four wheels?"

Molly shrugged and gave him a weak smile; he got less and less sure that he'd done the right thing, as he tried to remind her of the times when he'd driven her home to her 'cupboard' in Hackney.

"Dunno, but just remember this was your bleeding idea, okay? And they're gonna think you're some sort of posh knob, you do know that, don't you?"

"What, like you did when I first met you?"

"Well I was right wasn't I?"

"No"

They'd climbed up a set of foul smelling concrete steps and suddenly her mother and sisters were there on the balcony in front of them and they all, including Molly, immediately burst into tears and hugged each other without saying a word. He stood watching and feeling like a bit like a spare part as he recognised how alike they looked and sounded and how young Belinda was compared to Betsy, who had aged a lot in the past year or so. A short while later the hugs and tears started all over again as her brothers came rushing in from taking part in or watching some school football match, as the entire family, minus her dad of course, all talked at the same time, no-one listening to a word that anyone else was saying as Molly kept beaming happily at him, occasionally going over to where he was leaning so that she could hug him. He didn't say very much, he didn't need to, anyway no-one would have been able to hear a word above the racket of the seven of them all talking nineteen to the dozen at the tops of their voices, the boys bickering as they vied with each other trying to recount some story to their eldest sister, so he just stood and smiled and watched her, it was enough.

-OG-

"Have you rung your mum and dad yet?"

"No, I mean, Mum might not understand, you know what she was like yesterday, and I don't think Dad will be there"

"Will you stop it, you need to call and tell them"

Lexie was an hour old and had finally stopped screaming the place down, which had been a very welcome sound to them bearing in mind how floppy, pale and silent she'd been when an exhausted Molly had finally pushed her out, giving Charles a heart-stopping period of anxiety before she'd started screaming at full volume because she was being manhandled and suctioned by a midwife who was telling her to "Come on darlin' " and then "I might have to …..." as Lexie gave him another heart-stopping moment, this time of utter relief, when she started screaming with pure outrage, turning first pink and then scarlet with fury.

Now he couldn't make up his mind who she was most like as she lay in her mother's arms drifting off to sleep after being fed and dribbling slightly out of a rosebud mouth; she had her mum's nose and chin and his eyes and curls, but Molly reckoned she looked exactly like him when he was pissed and falling asleep in a chair, except that she was utterly beautiful. Charles agreed about the beautiful bit, even if he privately thought she looked a lot like his dad as he fell asleep after Sunday lunch.

"Go and tell your mum, you don't need to talk to your dad if you don't want to, but you must tell your mum, cos it might not happen again, well not for at least another ten years, if ever"

"What? We're not having any more?" Charles raised his eyebrows and smirked at her as she cuddled their sleeping daughter "I thought we were going to have a big family"

"Did you? Well you'll have to find someone else to 'ave them with then, cos it ain't gonna be me. I ain't doing that again in an 'urry, and anyway I'm not even gonna have sex again, especially not if you keep on calling me a bleeding Womble"

-OG-

Lexie and Molly had been home for over two weeks and had sort of established a routine, Lexie slept beautifully most of the day and was awake nearly all night, requiring feeding every couple of hours with frequent nappy changes which meant that her parents had grey faces and sleep deprived eyes. Charles was intensely grateful for the presence of Brains in the print works. He had taken him on in a sort of General Manager, assistant to the Boss, foreman type of 'arse kicker in general' role, and even though they couldn't afford him, Charles thought it could be the best move he'd made since he'd bought into Parkers, not counting Molly of course. Parker James was finally making a profit and was even paying Charles a salary, even if it was far less than most of the staff could begin to imagine, and any rise he'd planned had been diverted to pay for Brains.

He trusted him and the staff liked him, respected him, probably even more than they respected Charles who they'd known since he was the 'hatchet man from Head Office' that had gone all soft and bought the place with Eddie and then waltzed off with Molls. Molly and Brains had immediately got on like a house on fire, as Charles had known they would, sometimes he felt it was a little bit too well when they ganged up on him because Molly thought he was being a bit pompous.

They hadn't seen much of the Dawes family although Molly spoke to them frequently and the female members of the family, Charles still hadn't yet met Dave, had visited Bow to coo and fawn over Lexie who repaid their adoring attention by screaming blue bloody murder as they passed her around until Mollie had to take her back and pacify her by feeding her, even though she wasn't due a feed and wasn't hungry so she'd fallen asleep immediately she'd latched on. Nan had laughed saying that she was just like Molly had been as a baby, but Belinda had argued, saying instantly that she'd been perfect, that all her babies had been perfect so that Molly had raised her eyebrows, that wasn't quite how she remembered things from when the little bleeders had been tiny.

-OG-

He had got into a habit of ringing his mum every other day because any more than that and she complained that they'd got nothing to tell each other and that she felt he was checking up on her, which he was, but he knew it wasn't the right thing to be doing, there was time enough for daily calls if, or when, things got more tricky. Sometimes, unfortunately fairly rarely, there were really good days when Betsy chatted and laughed and asked after Molly by name, and then asked after Lexie and even the dog, and some days when she was extremely vague and wasn't sure if she could remember who this adult son was, seeing him as a schoolboy or a young soldier at Sandhurst and constantly telling him to be careful, and he found it very hard to come to terms with the fact that the consultant had warned him that there might well come a time when she wouldn't be sure who he was at all. He was having to learn to take each day as it was and not to attempt to plan and control everything as he so desperately wanted to do. He hadn't properly repaired his relationship with his father, they were cordial and polite to each other, something that Charles thought might be about to be turned upside down again during the coming weekend.

Taking Lexie to Bath to meet his parents wasn't anything like the travelling light scenario that Molly had described; in fact, to Charles it felt a bit like moving house the amount of stuff which was apparently essential for one tiny baby, and a dog. He and Molly had had a huge row which she'd won, so that Parsnip was in his bed in the hatch of the car, dog guard in place and Charles was dreading what his father was going to say. He had a nasty suspicion that there might well be a scene, it wasn't that his dad was scared of dogs like Doreen was, he just disapproved, but his mum loved them and Molly felt that they should go and see her as a whole family, dog included, and that his dad would get over it …. eventually.

-OG-

Author's notes: Thank you for your reviews, I know that it's a tricky subject but I'm glad that so many of you are enjoying following the dilemma of someone in the family suffering from a horrible illness which affects everyone in that family, albeit in different ways.