AN: It's been a while, again, but here's a quick one shot I just typed out…

Unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own.

Please read and review.

Lacey

xox

All rights go to respective owners, but just know that if I did own these guys, I'd kidnap Lacey Turner and Ben Aldridge and force them to film s2 haha!

I feel like this is one way Capt. James could have learned of Smurf's death in ep5.

Inspired by Coldplay's 'Fix you'.

When you love someone

(But it goes to waste)

Charles James' feet come to an abrupt halt the second he lays eyes on the figure hunched over, sitting on the edge of the curb outside his parent's home. His breath catches in his throat, hitching on the lump that's quickly forming, threatening to restrict his airway, to suffocate him, because even in the soft glow of the late night moon, he still recognises her.

He realises, as his eyes trail over the body engulfed in the too large parka coat, that he's never seen her like this before; so vulnerable, so fragile, so broken.

He balls his fists tightly, hidden in the depths of his jacket pockets, one hand gripping his bunch of keys hard enough to feel the jagged metal digging into the hardened skin of his palm.

He doesn't move.

It's fear that keeps his feet from moving, that keeps him frozen to the spot; the fear of startling her, of scaring her off, of frightening her into fleeing. Fear of shattering the memories of her carefree smile, of the sparkle in her green eyes, of the dimples in her cheeks. Fear of being completely helpless, of being unable to fix something that looks to be so indisputably broken.

It's not like he's never seen Molly Dawes have a bad day, because when you serve in the British Army, spend the entirety of a six month tour with another person, there are no secrets, no way to keep the bad stuff private, concealed. And he'd lost count of the nights he'd watched her sneak to the roof of the toilet block at the FOB, at the times he'd heard her sobbing gently, only to give herself a stern telling off for being a 'soft fool'.

He'd been the one to hold her exhausted body in the privacy of the medic tent, to rub her temples and try to soothe her headaches, to give her space from the rest of two section when she'd needed it by ordering her to stock replies, or repack her medical kit.

He'd been her go-to, her sounding board, her rock, the person she came to rely on to be there, standing by her side, as she pieced herself back together when the days events had broken her down a little.

But this? This is something else.

This is not a bad day. This is not a long, drawn out patrol in the heat of the midday Afghan sun. This is not the aftermath of a near fatal encounter with several insurgents shooting their gun inaccurately in their direction. This is not the guilt of watching a little girl being rigged to explode, before being saved, only to be torn away from the rest of her family anyway. Because no matter how hard, or stressful, or challenging those days had been, they were not enough to break Molly Dawes.

Whatever this is, it looks like the tail end of the longest, hardest, loneliest experiences she's ever had to endure. Whatever this is, it's been chipping away at her, stealing parts of who she is, wearing her down until there's nothing left but a raw skeleton, a shadow of her former self.

Whatever this is, it looks like death.

And that, Charles realises, is what frightens him the most.

As if she can sense him standing there, watching her, she turns her head and tilts it a little, bringing her red rimmed, glassy eyes up to meet his.

Her eyes have held pain for as long as he has known her, the scars of her past etched in the depths of her jade irises, but she's never let it define her, defeat her, has managed to keep the darkness of her previous mistakes, lifestyle, locked away from prying eyes, refusing to let her restricted upbringing mould her into anything other than the strong, compassionate, inspiring woman she's come to be.

The pain, the mistakes, the unambitious family; she lives in defiance of it all.

When his gaze locks with hers, he thinks he can feel whatever it is that she is feeling, that he knows what she's going through. She's in pain, but not the physical type, though she may as well be, because even from where he is standing he's sure he can hear the fractured shards of her broken heart grinding together with each labourous squeeze.

Her gaze drops, eyes focusing back on her laced boots as she sniffs quietly, barely audibly, and her arms wrap tighter around her midsection, as if she's trying to hold herself together. The silence between them settles heavily, weighed down by his sympathy and her suffering.

He knows she doesn't want him to see her like this, that she's already probably trying to work out an escape route, a way to take back the image of her sitting here, falling apart. He doesn't know what has happened, but it's ended with a soul shattering, emotional explosion, and when she doesn't move, he knows it's because she hasn't yet worked out how to.

"Dawes," he eventually says, softly, cautiously. Immediately, her back straightens, shoulders square, as if, even when she's sitting there, in pieces, she's trying to prove she's strong enough to hold herself together.

She doesn't lift her head, her gaze, doesn't turn to face him, but he can still see the fresh tears rolling down her cheek, highlighted by the soft glow of the street lights. She doesn't answer him, doesn't open her mouth, and he knows it's because right now she can't trust her own voice not to crack under the weight of her emotions.

Molly Dawes; broken.

He still doesn't know what he's supposed to do here, how he's supposed to fix her, make the pain of what ever the hell it is to go away, so he does the only thing he can think of. He closes the distance between them in four large strides, steps off of the pavement and lowers himself onto the curb next to her.

And he waits.

For what, he isn't sure, so he averts his gaze to the almost clear sky, the blanket of twinkling stars almost identical to those he'd admired on the other side of the world, and it almost makes him feel a little homesick for the Greater Middle Eastern country he doesn't imagine he'll ever get the chance to visit again.

Molly clears her throat, and he brings his eyes to lock with hers.

He can't explain how he knows what she's going to say. Maybe it's the way her brows tilt upwards slightly as they pull together, the way her forehead creases just enough for a faint line to form or how her lower lip trembles in sync with her wobbling chin, or the way her watery eyes widen and her hands shake in her lap.

He can't explain it. He just knows.

So when she finally attempts to speak, tries to put it into words, choking on her best friends name – Smurf – he shakes his head, silencing her so she doesn't have to string the words together to make it so finale, so real, because he doesn't need the details, not right now, and even as he sits with her, joining her under the weight of the unbearable grief of losing a friend, a loved one, he still feels the need to protect her.

He pulls her small frame into him, her soft curves fitting against his hard edges, and for the first time, instead of helping Molly Dawes piece herself back together, Charles James falls apart with her.