"You look well"

"Thanks, so do you, still in I see"

"Yep, you're not, well obviously"

"No"

There was a short but excruciatingly awkward pause as they both tried to think of something to say next, then, avoiding his eyes, Molly smiled and gestured at her tray with her head and said she that she'd better go and circulate as she was supposed to be working, then smiled and walked away from him out into the garden on knees that had turned to jelly with hands that were actually shaking, making the glasses vibrate so that the wine slopped over onto the tray. She was doing her best to pay no attention at all to Ronnie who was hissing questions in her ear. Charles stood and watched her walk away from him and ignored his instincts which were telling him to shout 'stop, come back, come back and talk to me'.

"Come on; how the fuck do you know him?"

"Later, Ron, not here, I'll tell you later, I promise, just not now, okay?"

Molly was practising the deep breathing exercises she had learned on her course, the ones that were designed to help reduce the adrenaline rush you get when you are faced with a potentially dangerous client situation. They'd all wondered how well the exercises would actually work in real life, and whether they'd be able to remember them if someone was actually trying to rip their head off, and she smiled to herself that if it hadn't been for the embarrassing nature of the situation she'd just used them for, she'd be telling everyone just how good they were.

The party seemed to drag on forever as far as Charles was concerned, he chatted and laughed and shook hands with people and smiled and mingled and circulated with Miranda, very conscious of her hand on his arm, had a short conversation with her father, the Brigadier, and his wife, and all the time he was 100% aware of exactly where she was and what she was doing. He was watching her out of the corner of his eye and trying to form a plan of when and how he could get to be on his own with her so that he could ask her some of the questions that had started screaming inside his head, demanding answers, from the minute he'd set eyes on her. His memory of the day when he'd last seen her was slightly hazy, but he could remember her with absolute clarity. She looked only very slightly older, except for her hair which was much shorter, curling softly onto her shoulders, but her eyes were the same clear green as he remembered, still without a trace of make-up as far as he could tell, mind you it was so hot in that marquee that it would probably have melted anyway. He knew that this was neither the time nor the place, and that even if he could get her on her own, which was highly unlikely, it would be impossible to explain it to Miranda or her parents, and he was doubtful if Molly would give him her phone number or anything else, so he picked up a paper napkin off the buffet, one of those with the logo and name of the catering company on it, and pushed it into his pocket. He was exceedingly relieved that he wasn't expected to stay over with Miranda after the party and that she wasn't expecting to leave her parents' house to stay over with him, he just wanted to go home and to be on his own and to try to get his thoughts straight.

-OG-

Packing up at the end of the party took all the concentration Molly could muster, half of her was terrified that he would appear at any second so that she was fearfully checking over her shoulder every couple of minutes looking to make sure that he wasn't standing there with his legs wide apart and his arms folded across his chest waiting for her with that look on his face, and half of her was desperately disappointed that he wasn't. She had spent the last couple of hours completely aware of him as she'd served drinks out in the garden which was still very warm, and he'd mingled with other guests. She'd been totally aware of Miranda's hand on his arm which had made her think what a 'couple' they looked, how well they matched. Although Miranda was tall, he was a good head taller than her, and of most of the other guests at the party, and he'd lost none of his looks in the four years since she'd last seen him. Molly badly needed to get away from him and from the memories that were so unsettling.

Both the girls were totally knackered when they'd finally finished unloading the van and jettisoning uneaten buffet food, of which there was very little, into the re-cycling waste and industrial bins and loading the dishwashers ready for the morning. It had been a very long, hot and exhausting evening and they were now lying in their underwear in the sauna-like heat of Ronnie's flat and drinking cold beer out of bottles without the benefit of glasses, Ronnie smoking a legal cigarette, this was her home and not the workspace. Neither of them was hungry but that was nothing unusual, Ronnie always reckoned the best diet in the world was watching other people pig out on food you'd spent all day cooking, it never failed.

"You need to spend some of your bleeding profits on a fan for this bloody place" Molly swigged another mouthful of cold beer and turned the cushion that was supporting her head, looking for a cool bit to lie on.

"Never mind all that, tell Aunty Ronnie, how do you know him, Mr Bleeding Gorgeous?"

"You're not my Aunty, thank Christ, I've got enough shit relatives as it is, don't need you as well" Molly sucked her teeth and took a deep breath, knowing that Ron wouldn't let it go until she had what she thought were all the details "I used to know him a bit when I was in the army, well obviously, but it was a long time ago now, haven't seen him for years"

Molly hoped that her nonchalant tone would be enough to satisfy Ronnie's self-confessed nosiness.

"And that's it? Come off it, babe, you were shaking like a bloody leaf when you saw him"

"He was my boss, Captain Charles James, my CO in Afghan, Commanding Officer, the first time I was out there, happy now?"

"What and you shagged him?"

"No, of course not" She giggled "There are bloody rules about that sort of stuff in the army; you can't go round shagging your boss"

"And that's it? I told you, come off it, Molls; you weren't shaking like that because he used to be your bleeding boss"

"Okay, well, I might possibly have had a bit of a thing about him, a bit of a crush"

"And?"

"And he might possibly have had a bit of a thing about me"

"And?"

"Okay, okay, I most likely would have shagged him when we got back home, well there's no probably about it, but he got hisself shot just before we came home" She carefully didn't mention her part in the exercise that had seen him get so badly injured, or her part in saving his life "I really thought he was dead to start with, Ron, then I wasn't sure if he was gonna make it, I don't think anyone was, and even if he did make it, no-one knew whether he was going to lose his leg, so I went to see him in Birmingham in hospital and his wife turned up, with his little boy"

"Oh, shhhiiiit"

"I didn't even know he was married to start with, he never said, but I did already know by the time he was shot, he never told me I found out by accident, but then he told me that they was separated, turned out that they was divorced, I mean, what sort of bloke don't tell you he's married, then tells you he's separated when he's actually divorced?"

"One who wants to shag you but doesn't want you getting any ideas?"

"Yeah"

"So what happened?"

"As I said, his bloody wife was there and they didn't look very divorced to me, so I left them to it, I didn't know what else to do. I went back after to say goodbye, I was still bleeding nuts about him then, and she'd gone and taken their little boy Sam with her and he started telling me that he was going to leave the army to be with me. Shit, Ron, he was really ill and there was all this stuff with his wife, I didn't know what to think or what to do, I didn't even know if he meant any of it, and there wasn't anyone I could talk to about it, not even him, he was so ill and it was so against the rules you know, so I panicked. I was nineteen, wasn't even twenty yet, and he was nearly thirty and I had no idea what was going to happen, or what the hell I was doing, so I told him that I'd see him in a couple of days and I walked, and then I kept on walking, never went back. That was four years ago."

"And you haven't seen him since?"

"Nah, he rang me a few times to start with but I didn't pick up, so then he stopped ringing, so ….." She shrugged.

"What are you going to do now? What if he tries to contact you?"

"What for? He won't, he's not stupid, he ain't gonna risk pissing whatsherface, Miranda, off, she's perfect for him and they looked like a proper couple, she's a much better bet than I ever was, and her dad's a Brigadier not a piss head like mine, a Brigadier in the family must be pretty bloody handy if you want to get on in the army."

-OG-

Early morning on what looked like being another beautiful day and a tall dark haired man was again pounding the streets of Aldershot, building up a sweat as he ran over and over the events of the last twelve hours in his head and tried to make a sensible, considered decision. In the cold light of day he was sure that the sensible thing to do would be to let it go, to do nothing to open that particular can of worms, after all it had all been a long time ago and if you play with fire you'll get burnt.

The first thing he'd done when he'd got home was to log on to find the right catering company, and had decided that the one in Camden was the most likely bet as he made a note of their phone number; he didn't think they'd respond to an e-mail request looking for contact details for one of their staff. Now all he had to do was decide whether to call them and try and find her, or whether to just bin the piece of paper with their number on it and try to forget that he'd seen her.

"Hello, I'm trying to get in touch with one of your staff from last night's party at Oak Trees in Farnham, an old friend of mine, a Miss Dawes, Molly, at least I presume she's still Miss Dawes" A horrible thought occurred to him as he spoke, he hadn't looked to see whether she was wearing a ring, it hadn't even crossed his mind that she might be married "She was one of the waitresses and I wondered if I could have her phone number"

Ronnie was making frantic hand signals and pulling faces at Molly, pointing to the receiver and smirking and gesturing at holding the receiver out towards her, miming asking if she wanted to speak to whoever it was on the other end of the line, to which Molly was equally frantically shaking her head and mouthing "NO".

"We don't have a waitress by that name, Sir, although she might be one of our casuals" Ronnie was grimacing, making a face that was saying sorry Sir, I'm lying through my teeth here "But I'm sorry, we don't give out the personal details of any of our staff, its company policy"

"Right, of course, but could you please just check to see whether she is one of your casuals, and if she is, could I perhaps leave a message for her?"

Ronnie confirmed that he could leave a message, she could hardly deny that Molly had been a waitress at the party and she couldn't pretend that they didn't know her, that they had just dragged in any old someone off the street. He left his mobile number and asked that she call him, putting down the receiver with a deep sense of dissatisfaction, he was pretty unconvinced that Molly would get the message, and, if she did, whether she would call him. During all his soul searching during his all but sleepless night and on his run he had known all along that he was going to make the call and was now disappointed with the outcome. He wished more than anything that he'd made an effort to speak to her the previous evening, but there was nothing he could do about that now, it was far too late for those sorts of regrets.

-OG-

"You gonna call him?"

"Nah"

"You won't want this then?" Ronnie made to throw the piece of paper with his phone number on it into the bin.

"Oi, Give that here"

"What for"

"Stop being such a nosy cow and stop bullying me, keep that for the lads, them poor buggers 'ave gotta put up with it, you pay their wages"

"I pay yours too"

"You call that a wage?" Molly snorted "Give us it, Ron, I need to think about it"

"You can't call him and not tell me, that's not allowed"

"Who says? Anyway I'm most probably not gonna call him, I mean what the bloody hell would I say to him?"

All the way home on the bus Molly kept looking at the piece of paper with his phone number on it, and once or twice she thought about dialling his number, then changed her mind. She hadn't been lying when she'd said to Ronnie that she had no idea what on earth she'd say to him, it was the truth, far too much time had passed. They were now very different people, well she was anyway, and she expected that his life had moved on as well, well she'd seen that for herself the previous evening, so they would have nothing or very little, just some ancient history, in common anymore.

She was rotating her phone through her hands as she stretched out on the bottom bunk wishing that they had a garden when she finally took her courage in both hands and punched out his number, she'd been gearing herself up for more than an hour, working out her opening words only to have the wind completely taken out of her sails as her call went straight to voice mail.

"Um, hello, I'll, er, umm, I'll try again later, umm, oh, it's Molly by the way, I had a message to ring you"

She immediately started beating herself up as she disconnected the call and cringed, she couldn't have sounded more stupid if she'd tried, she should have hung up and called back when she'd thought of something even marginally intelligent to say, instead of which she'd sounded like the tongue-tied inarticulate nineteen year old lovesick Molly Dawes that he'd known.

It was less than ten minutes later when her screen lit up with his name, she had stored his number in her directory, telling herself that she might lose the tatty scrap of paper and knowing when she called him that he would be able to get her number from that call. For a moment she considered letting his call go to voice mail, she wasn't sure she was ready to talk to him, wasn't sure what to say, then swiped 'answer', she was as ready as she was ever going to be.

"Hello"

"Hello Molly"

"Hello Boss"

He laughed "I never thought I'd hear that again, well not from you anyway, how are you? you looked really well last night"

"Good, and you? I see your leg's better, no limp or nothing"

"Yes, its fine, I'm fine" He paused and she heard him take a deep breath, sounding unaccustomedly nervous "It's been a long time hasn't it? I was wondering if there was any chance I can see you, I'd love to have a proper chat, you know, maybe get together and go for a drink or a walk or something, what do you think?"

"I dunno"

"Please?"

"I s'pose so"

He laughed "I've heard you be more enthusiastic Dawsey"

"Don't call me that, no-one ever calls me that anymore"

"That's sad"

-OG-

Two days later in Hyde Park and sitting on the outside terrace of the Serpentine bar, watching the people out on the water in small boats and the groups wandering around the edge of the lake and the tourists, Molly was asking herself what the fuck she was doing there. Charles was inside getting their drinks as she contemplated doing a runner before he came back, she'd been quite right when she'd said they were now two different people, all the things that had drawn them together in the first place had gone, changed beyond recognition.

Charles was in the bar waiting to be served and asking himself pretty much the same question, he'd watched her walk across the grass of Hyde Park from where he was sitting waiting, and had had the strongest urge to get up and leave before she saw him. On his way up on the train he had got increasingly worried that he would experience those stomach churning sensations he used to get when he saw her, a hint of which he'd had on Saturday night. He was now congratulating himself that it hadn't happened, that Saturday had obviously been because it was a bit of a bit of shock seeing her like that, and that he had everything under control now. It was going to be like having a drink and catching up with any other ex-colleague.

-OG-

Author's notes: Another long one, so hope you enjoy it. I'm blown away by the reviews for Chapter one, thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to review for me and for being so kind. I'm sure that there must be other authors on this site who suffer the same agonies of insecurity as I do as to whether people are going to love or hate what I write, so your reviews made my day.