The characters and most of the story lines belong to the creators of Our Girl.

The Heart Wants What it Wants

Chapter 1

Manchester - June 2016

Georgie had been at the hospital with Elvis every day since he got shot. Her parents were not too impressed that she had stood Jamie up at the altar but they could see how worried she was about Elvis, so had not said too much about her second wedding disaster.

She was struggling to decipher her feelings towards Elvis. She had told Jamie, when she had met him briefly in the church yard after the aborted wedding, that no one had turned her head; that it was nothing to do with Elvis. But that wasn't strictly true. Since Elvis' reappearance in her life, she had been drawn back to him like a moth to a flame. The heart wants what it wants – she'd heard that saying and it certainly suited her situation with Elvis. Her head and her parents were telling her that there was absolutely no way she could go down that road again but her heart was telling her something completely different. And unfortunately, her heart was doing a great job of totally messing with her head.

When she'd heard that shot ring out and Elvis had fallen to the ground, her life had seemed to go into slow motion. She had leapt off the stage just as Abu was blasted by the second gun shot, fired a split second later, by one of the first response team. Some of his blood and brains had spattered across her face as the bullet shattered his skull but she hadn't noticed as she had been completely focussed on Elvis' lifeless form, lying on the ground. Kneeling at Elvis' side, she had applied emergency treatment as best she could, without her kit available and thankfully the paramedics had arrived in record time. She remembered thinking, with relief, that they must have been on site already. In the ambulance Elvis had regained consciousness briefly. To see if she could elicit any kind of response, she had told him that she knew he would pull a stunt to stop her getting married. Elvis had replied by kissing her hand that was cupping his face and mumbling. "You're here though aren't ya, all is well in the world." Before slipping back into unconsciousness. She remembered kissing his cheek, and feeling such incredible relief that he had not been killed.

During his spell in hospital, they had talked for hours about everything under the sun, everything that is, apart from how she felt about him. She knew he still loved her, he told her so at every opportunity but she told him they couldn't just pick up from where they'd left off. And why would she want that anyway?

She'd seen his family coming and going and they had, of course, been surprised to see her there. And once Elvis was out of danger, even Debbie had been there a couple of times, to bring Laura to see her Daddy. Georgie felt her heart melt when she met Elvis' little girl and saw them cuddling up together on his hospital bed. She looked a lot like him with beautiful big brown eyes and a cheeky smile. At first Georgie had found it hard to see her, knowing that she was the cause of Elvis standing Georgie up at their wedding. But as she got to know her, she realised it was not her fault and Georgie couldn't help but see what an adorable little character she was, a lot like her father in fact! Debbie had seemed embarrassed when they met, but did not appear surprised that Georgie was there. She did try to apologise to Georgie, during a quiet moment, for causing both her and Elvis so much pain; Georgie, mortified by the way the conversation was going, just told her not to worry. She was over it.

"Are you really though?" Georgie's heart was shouting at the top of its voice. That bloody voice, she decided, needed to be silenced and soon.

Georgie knew she had to get away. She was happy in the knowledge that Elvis was out of danger. He just had a few more weeks of convalescing at home to get through before he could return to active duty. He wanted her to come back down to London with him but much to his disappointment she refused, telling him that he would have his family around him to support him. She had already made her plans – she was heading back to Kenya to the refugee camp. It was just what she needed for closure and to clear her head, after all, she still had several weeks of compassionate leave left after her kidnapping ordeal.

When she'd told Elvis of her intentions, he was distinctly unimpressed. He had really hoped that this time they had spent together, while he was in hospital, had been just what they needed, to mend their relationship and help them to start afresh. But it seemed he was wrong, Georgie was having none of it. And now she was heading back off to Kenya, back to the bloody danger zone that he'd only recently dragged her out of! They ended up having a massive argument about it and Georgie had stormed off out of the hospital for fear of giving him a relapse.

Elvis was crushed, he'd really been pinning his hopes on Georgie coming back to him, now she'd ditched that dopey doctor. Or at least he assumed she had, as there had been no further mention of him since, she'd done an Elvis, as she called it, on their wedding day. She hadn't seemed that upset about it either, he secretly hoped she'd been more broken up over their aborted wedding, even though he felt bad at having caused her such distress.

Determined not to give up, Elvis texted Georgie constantly while she was in Kenya, he didn't want to lose their closeness now that they were back in touch and had been on pretty good terms, before the argument. He apologised for his reaction to her Kenya news and assured her he understood why she needed to go back. They had some facetime conversations when the wi fi would allow and Georgie could feel her heart softening as Elvis told her over and over, how much he loved her.

Eventually, she capitulated to his pleas and agreed to see him, on her return to the UK, in mid-August. Georgie came down to London for a day of sightseeing with Elvis and he had insisted she stay over so that he could take her out to dinner afterwards. They had a long conversation about their past and their future and Elvis begged Georgie for a second chance. Georgie was finding it more and more difficult to ignore the voice in her heart that belonged to Elvis' number one fan. Georgie and Elvis ended up spending the night together, resulting in the last vestiges of Georgie's defences being completely obliterated.

She agreed that they could casually start seeing each other again, although she was not ready for any more commitment than that, for the time being, they would just have to see how things went. Elvis, realising that it was the best he could hope for, under the circumstances, was placated. He saw Georgie off on the train back to Manchester the next day with an enormous smile plastered on his face. Things were finally looking up, perhaps they would eventually overcome his earlier massive fuck up; he truly hoped so!