AN: Wow, it's been so long since I managed to write an 'Our Girl' piece.
I was watching the series again, because I hated S2 (sorry!) and I was heartbroken all over again when it came to Smurf's death, and so this was born.
I'm unsure if it should be a one-shot, or a multichapter – what do you think?
Please read and review!
As always, unbeta'd and first draft, so all mistakes are my own.
Lacey.
X
Wishing For Rain
(As I Stand in the Desert)
'Greif is like the ocean; it comes in waves, ebbing and flowing.
Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming.
All we can do is learn to swim."
-Vicki Harrison
Molly did not want to do this.
She hadn't wanted to ride in the car with the grieving mother, the mourning grandparents. She hadn't wanted to solemnly follow the coffin down the aisle of a small, cold church. And she didn't want to be stood here, in the living room she'd spent little time in, talking to Smurf's family and friends, who all treat her as if she's a grieving widow, as if her love for Smurf ran deeper than that of a friend.
She couldn't help but reflect on their tour in Afghanistan, and how after everything he had survived - they'd survived – he had picked the most inconvenient time to give up on living. How incredibly selfish it was of him to die after she'd gotten him home, safe and sound; when he had a real shot at a good life, a bright future; one void of rifles and IED's and FOB's. When he had finally accepted what they were; what they weren't.
She felt a deep, sharp stab of guilt. One that sliced into her chest and stole her breath. She was on the way to the front door, squeezing past unfamiliar faces and bodies, when a well known hand encircled her wrist.
"Look, Dawes," Captain James uttered quietly, "You may not think you need this, but you do." She didn't know why, but it was enough to convince her to stay, to listen to everyone tell her how amazing Smurf was, how he would be so sorely missed, and how she had meant so much to him. How lucky he had been to find a girl like her, after all the pain he'd had in his life, all the loss. Anger bottled up inside her throat and made her eyes wet.
For the remainder of the afternoon, Captain James hovered. And for once, she didn't mind. In the freaky sixth sense they had with each other, he knew when she was close to losing it. She felt his hand, warm and firm and familiar, on her nape, or on her shoulder, or at her back. He had powerful hands; hard. She had spent a lot of time admiring them in the 'Stan; as he held his gun, how they had gripped the weight's he'd lifted, cradled his cups of coffee, how they clenched by his side whenever he caught sight of her in shorts and a football shirt. They weren't pretty, or elegant. They were scarred from his rage, were muscled and veined, and he said more with them than he realised. Reading him through the subtlest of touches had become second nature to her by now, and she could tell that today was torturous for him, too.
So she let him touch her as much as he wanted, and though he was discreet when his skin brushed hers, it was a gentle reminder that she still had someone in this world – in their world – a world that civilians could never understand nor be a part of.
He let her murmur to him when they caught a moment to themselves, and he didn't care if she talked bad of Smurf, a mutual friend, or if she was sarcastic about him one minute, and desperate for him the next. He just nodded and said, "I know. I know."
After the burial, they'd headed back to the Smith family home, to join the other mourners, and it hadn't escaped Molly's notice that here, Captain James just seemed to walk. He paced like a bodyguard, the cane tapping the floor rhythmically as he limped slightly, and whether it was intentional or not, he'd sort of taken on the role of Molly's significant other, and though they'd not yet walked down that path, hadn't really progressed from their first date, he sort of already was. The ring on her finger, that once hung around her neck, burned against her finger, and she wondered if getting romantically involved with the Captain would honour Smurf, or disrespect him. He'd want her to be happy, and he knew she was in love with their boss, but how could she possibly be happy again, now that she had this giant Smurf-shaped hole in her soul.
She just didn't know anymore.
She watched as Captain James moved around the room, talking to the relatives, to friends, to the other men from Two Section, and for that, she was grateful. It took the pressure off her, because she hadn't yet denied any romantic involvement with her dead best friend, and she didn't know why. Maybe it was because, in some way, she felt like a widow.
Even her fellow comrades didn't know how to be around her right now. And she couldn't blame them, because she didn't know how to be her right now. Amongst all the pain, and denial, and lies, Captain James was her only constant. Whenever she looked over to him, she found his burnished orbs focused on her, watching, and it was soothing in a weird way, even though he was wire-taut and hawkish in his guardianship. If the others had noticed, they didn't say anything, but she supposed they were relieved that at least someone was looking out for her, so they didn't have to. She couldn't hold it against them. She wouldn't.
She was relieved when it was all over; when the mourners begun to filter out the door of groups of two's or three's, drunk and red eyed and exhausted from the memories and stories and emotional rollercoasters of laughter and tears. It was when everyone had left the home empty and too quiet, that Molly decided she'd walk the short distance back to the cemetery and say her real goodbye to Smurf. Alone.
When she walked through the cemetery gates a little while later, when the sun was low in the sky and the wind had a spiteful bite, James was waiting for her, leaning against his new car, relaxed and loose, no cane in sight. She was always struck by the difference between the times they were alone and when they were mixing with the rest of the world.
"I'll drive you home," he said.
She hesitated. She'd just spent the better part of an hour sobbing at a fresh grave that shouldn't be there; the grave she'd personally fought so damn hard to keep Smurf out of, and she felt tired, weak. "You don't have to," she said. "I don't mind the train journey."
He thought about it for a moment, his eyes trailing over her face, as if reading her. "I'll drive you home," he repeated, softly this time.
So she agreed.
He opened the car door for her, and when she slid into the passenger seat, she collapsed a little bit.
He limped over to his side, slid in behind the wheel and closed the door as gently as he could, shutting the distant sounds of traffic out, and the silence in. But he didn't start the car, and that was okay. She felt comfortable with him, even if she didn't with herself right now.
"Okay?" he asked her in that rasp that he has.
She didn't know how to answer that. Her eyes were burning, her sinuses filling, head throbbed and her throat tightened. The hot tears that misted her vision and stung her red-rimmed eyes were at risk of sliding down her cheeks at any second, so she couldn't look at him. She shook her head and then tucked her chin down, and tried to cry as quietly as she could.
"Molly," he said, and then he just seemed to run out of words. Maybe it was because he was feeling the same pain, and knew there was no solace to offer. His hand found the sensitive skin at the back of her neck, and she squeezed her eyes shut and the darkness helped.
Everything was just so jumbled inside of her.
"Take me home," she finally said, whispering so her voice wouldn't crack.
He started the car and pulled away from the curb.
He had worried her in the beginning; when she'd first joined his platoon. She was new, and eager, and desperate to make a difference, as if she could somehow erase the shadows in her past by becoming someone else, something else. She had expected her life to be reborn the day she'd arrived at Brize Norton, and she'd had the hope that she'd only make good memories from that point forward, instead of adding to the weight of her past reveries; the ones smudged by alcohol and fake friends, her father's spiteful words.
She had quickly learned of Captain James' reputation, both good- dedicated, intense, unwaveringly heroic – and bad – impersonal, stiff, distant, strictly professional. He had been in the Army for years by the time she had arrived, and to her, he was an intimidating force.
"We have to have each other's back out here," James had said to her one evening when they were alone in the med tent, as she tended to his fresh blisters and confessed her guilt for reporting her concerns about Smurf's mental health. "It's til death us do part, Dawes." Even then, when they were fresh and new and professional, the marriage analogy hadn't escaped her. It had taken a while for her to learn that his own marriage had fallen by the wayside during his time in the forces, but she couldn't say it had surprised her.
She wondered, sometimes, if things would have turned out different between them had he never married. Molly now knew his kid, had met his ex-wife, and suddenly it wasn't just about them, and the weight of the consequences multiplied tenfold. If this didn't work out, there was too much collateral damage. A part of her longed for who they were when they were on the other side of the world.
But even so, he was always there for her, was the eye of her storm, and that, she knew, was what kept her there, invisibly tethered to him.
She trusted him more than any other person on the planet, but that brought its own slew of issues along with it; he had a lot of power over her. Power he didn't even know he had. Feeling vulnerable was something she had always hated, and she didn't ever feel vulnerable around him, even when placing all of her trust in him. Even when he begged her to tell him what was on her mind, no matter how dark or twisted. Even when he asked her to strip herself bare; to expose her soul so he could try to soothe the ache that had taken residence within her.
There was a dark part inside of her. A part that grew up a survivor and fought for her own place in the world. A dark part that was still very angry at Smurf. A part that knew she was different now, even though she didn't want to be, and she blamed Smurf because he'd managed to worm his way in, made her love him in the only way she could, and then he'd died, left her behind, alone, hollow, as if she was the butt of some sick, cosmic joke.
James had that same darkness, and she could feel it. As she sat next to him in the car, heading back to London from Newport, with the rain slamming against the windscreen and the heater on low, she felt that rage and that intensity inside him, just below the surface. She could feel it charging the air between them, and it almost made her feel nervous. She put her hand on his forearm, felt the hard muscle under his skin flex and tighten along with his anger, and she said, "This isn't on you."
Like she knew him.
He didn't look at her, but she heard him swallow and his scarred hands loosened on the steering wheel a little. Almost silently he whispered, "I've let them all down." And she knew he was talking about Geraint, Smurf and their mother, but she didn't say anything. Just like he with her, she knew there was nothing she could say to negate his pain, his guilt.
Perhaps that was the moment they'd ignited a true partnership, even if neither were aware at the time.