Three months. Three whole months had passed in what had somehow managed to feel like a lifetime, but also passed in a blink of an eye. It had been different somehow, Afghanistan, in a way she couldn't put her finger on. But then again, maybe it was just the fact that she was a completely different person than she had been when she'd come on tour with two section.
She'd been relieved to find that actually, she did still love her job and she hadn't been doing it just to get away from Artan. She'd been worried that being away from home wouldn't be such a draw now she didn't need to avoid him, but there was still some strange appeal in living out of a Bergen in the middle of the desert, even if she did miss having two section there with her.
She had found herself missing Captain James though, more than she'd imagined, and to begin with she'd questioned if she'd made the right decision taking the tour. She could see it now, if she closed her eyes, how easily things would've slotted into place if she'd stayed. He would've taken her out for dinner, whisked her off her feet, and she would gladly of let him. She'd got visions in her head of days out with Sam, and visits to his parents, everything being just perfect.
And that was exactly why she'd taken the tour.
The idea of getting into another relationship terrified her. Even with Charles, who she knew full well would never treat her the way Artan had. She'd realised, lying on her little camp bed one night when she couldn't sleep, that what she was most afraid of was Artan being right- that sooner or later Charles would realise she wasn't good enough and she'd end up getting her heart broken all over again. After that she'd started dodging his Skype calls, she didn't know what to say to him so it was just easier not to speak to him at all.
The only problem was that her tour was over, she was sitting in the bloody plane about ten minutes out from Brize Norton where he was supposed to be meeting her,if he hadn't got fed up and found someone else that was, and she still hadn't got a bloody clue what she was going to say to him. She'd had the best part of eight hours sitting there, going round and round in circles in her head, arguing with herself. Part of her wanted to run into his arms in the hope of living happily ever after, but there was another part of her that was petrified of what the consequences of that might be.
She could feel the plane starting to descend towards the airfield, and her stomach flipped again. At this rate she was actually going to be sick, she didn't think she'd ever felt so nervous in her life. Facing the Taliban was preferable to this. Then again, maybe he'd got bored of her and found someone else- after all she had told him not to wait around for her- he might not be waiting for her at all. The thought didn't make her feel any better, in fact the thought of him being with someone else made her feel even more sick.
Minutes later the plane screeched to a halt, and they were back on English soil. Her body was stiff and sore as she made her way off the plane, shivering as she was met with the cool English weather, a far cry from the burning Afghan sun she'd left behind. She pulled her collar up against the rain, walking a little faster.
Her heart was pounding in her chest as she walked across the tarmac towards the terminal, and she wondered if she was going to have a heart attack before she got there. She could see the crowd of families waiting inside, anxious to see their loved ones again, but she couldn't make out the faces to see if he was in there or not.
As she walked inside, her eyes scanned the crowd and she couldn't see him, her stomach dropped in disappointment. That was when she realised just how much she'd wanted him to be there, no matter how terrified she was of how it might end, she just wanted to throw her arms around him and hold on forever. But she'd screwed up, clearly. What had she been expecting? She'd barely said two words for him for a month, why would he turn up for her?
"Hi." His voice came from behind her and sent a shiver up her spine. "Did you miss me?" He winked as she turned to face him.
"I didn't think you'd be here." She spluttered, trying to regain her self control. She'd been so crushingly disappointed not to see him standing there, and now having him in front of her had thrown her completely off balance.
"I…" She quickly realised she was at a loss for words.
"Molly Dawes, speechless? Well, this is a first." He smirked. He was standing close enough that she could smell his aftershave and the slightest hint of coffee on his breath. She was tempted just to throw herself into his arms there and then, screw her earlier worries.
"I wasn't expecting you to be here." She choked out eventually.
"What, because you've been avoiding my calls for a month?" He asked, the smile leaving his lips as he suddenly turned serious. The truth was he'd been wondering for days if he should make the journey down there or not, wondering if she'd actually be pleased to see him.
She shifted uncomfortably. "I wasn't avoiding you, I just…" she didn't have a good excuse, because he was exactly right, she'd been avoiding him plain and simple.
"I didn't know if I should come or not." He looked awkward now. "I rang your mum and she said that they weren't going to be able to come and get you, and I wasn't sure if you'd be able to get home or not. You don't have to come with me if you don't want to." He held his breath, waiting for her answer and praying she wouldn't say no to going with him. He'd been hoping she'd run off the plane and straight into his arms, that was what had kept him going through the last three months, but clearly things weren't going to be that simple.
"Don't go, please." The words tumbled out of her mouth. She was so god damn confused about what she wanted. It had been easy to tell herself that she needed to be alone when she'd been a few thousand miles away from him, but now they were only a few feet apart it was a lot, lot harder to try and convince herself. "Just… can we not do this here?" She pleaded, looking around at all the families reuniting around them.
He nodded, although his expression was still tense. "Come on, my cars just outside." He picked up her bergen and threw it over his shoulder, leaving her awkwardly trailing behind him as he strode off.
"You don't have to drive me all the way back to London." She frowned as he climbed into the driver's seat of the car and set the sat nav. "You can just drop me at a train station. I'll be fine."
He shook his head. "It's fine, I've got all day." He shrugged. "Besides, I was hoping you might actually talk to me if you're trapped in a car with me."
There was silence for a moment, only broken by the sound of his indicator as he pulled out of the car park, as Molly desperately tried to think of something to say.
"I wasn't ignoring you, I was…" shit, what was she going to say to him?
"Avoiding me?" He suggested.
"I panicked alright." She admitted. "I was frightened of what might happen if I let myself be happy, so I thought maybe it would be easier to just stop."
"What do you mean?" He glanced over at her trying to read her expression. Maybe trapping her in the car hadn't been such a great idea, he couldn't look at her while he was driving to try and read her expression. Maybe he could find a service station and pull in there?
"Eyes on the road." She snapped, pointing ahead of them at the empty road. "I don't know okay, I'm a fucking mess, that's the honest truth in all of this. I'm not sure I'm ready to be happy, the thought of it scares me."
"I still don't understand." He frowned. He wasn't sure if he was just being really stupid or if what she was saying really didn't make any sense.
"I'm not sure I'm ready, for whatever this is." She gestured back and forth between the two of them. "And the problem is I want it so, so badly, and I'm afraid that when it doesn't work out I'm going to end up being the one that gets hurt." Her voice dropped to almost a whisper.
"How do you know it's not going to work out if you don't give it a chance?" He asked, stealing another quick glance over at her. She was staring out of the window, so she didn't see him.
"Because I mean just look at you for god's sake!" She almost shouted at him. "You don't get to walk away from someone like Artan and end up with someone like you. I mean seriously, you've just driven all the way down here on the off chance that I might want a lift home, which is miles out of your way. I don't deserve someone like you!"
"Don't say that." He shook his head. "I want to be with you Molly, I told you that before you left for this tour and nothing's changed while you've been gone. I've been counting down the days until you were back in the hope that we might get to give things a go. Of course I was going to be there when you got back, I told you I would. I know that things aren't going to be easy, and that's okay, it doesn't have to be perfect all the time, I just want us to at least try." He pleaded.
She turned to look at him, meeting his eye for a second before he looked back at the road ahead. "I'm not saying no, okay." She said slowly. "I'm just saying, that I thought three months on tour would let me clear my head and sort everything out, but now I'm back everything just seems so…, I don't know, overwhelming I guess."
He nodded. "I'm not saying you have to commit to anything right now Molly, I just want to know that you're willing to give me a chance. I'll be there for you however you want me to, a friend if you want or something more. Just promise me you're not going to start ignoring my calls and disappear on me again?"
"Promise." She agreed softly. "Thank you, for coming to get me, would've looked like a right twat standing there all by myself with no way to get home." She added, a smile playing on her lips.
He laughed quietly. "Now, we couldn't let that happen could we? If two section ever found out you'd never hear the end of it!"
She laughed quietly. "No, that's true. How are they all anyway?"
"Oh, don't even get me started!" He sighed, filling her in on that antics of her old section as they continued their journey to London, and for a moment it was as though nothing had ever happened and she'd never been away. She found herself wishing that they could stay like that forever, but the truth was in a couple of hours she'd be back at her parents and have to go back to real life.