Rosabaya
Disclaimer: Sadly, Our Girl is vehemently not mine, unless watching it constantly for a week and a half on YouTube makes it mine? Somehow I doubt it, so don't sue me.
Author's Note: So, I watched the show because Laurielove wrote her story "My Man," and I trust her taste. That was a week and a half ago, and I've turned into a crazy person. I listen to the episodes while I work every day, I've downloaded a bunch of the songs, I even ordered some Rosabaya from Amazon, so I could taste it. Here's the sad part, I don't have a Nespresso machine, so I stabbed open the freaking pods and dumped the coffee into a filter, so I could make a pot with my regular coffee maker. It was pretty tasty, so Captain James hasn't failed me (as if he ever would). This is my first effort at Our Girl fanfiction, but this idea would not leave me alone. Enjoy!
"You went to Newport." Captain James scoffed and turned to leave the tent, but nearly ran into Kinders.
"How much of a shithole is it? Oh- Sorry, boss. Didn't see you there."
Kinders caught sight of the furrow in between the Captain's eyes and beat a hasty retreat.
"Nothing happened, Sir. My family was getting to me, and Smurf invited me to meet his Mum. We just hung out."
"Well, it's really none of my business, is it now, Dawes?"
Molly felt like she been punched in the stomach.
He turned to leave once more, but she caught his arm with her right hand just as he was pushing aside the tent flap. "Boss-"
He reached down to remove her hand from his arm, and he saw it.
Her sleeve inched up and he caught a glimpse of something he didn't quite believe. He caught her wrist in his hand and gently pushed her sleeve aside to reveal letters. It had been two weeks, but somehow she still had 'Rosabaya' written in his handwriting on her forearm.
He glanced up to see her cheeks tinged with pink and her eyes firmly on the floor.
"I don't understand… How-"
He touched a finger to the word and she flinched the teeniest bit. The pieces clicked into place, and he noticed the letters were raised ever-so-slightly and a little bit red around the edges.
"You- You had it done permanently?"
She nodded without lifting her head to meet his eyes. The last thing she wanted to see was pity, or something, looking back at her. When she had nipped into that tattoo parlor, she had never dreamed that he would see it. She had assumed it would be a sappy little secret that she would take to her grave.
The finger that had traced her new tattoo moved up to catch her chin and tilt her head back up to where she had to look him in the eye again.
The look on his face was enough to make her heart pound in her chest. A combination of affection and incredulity shone out on her, and he felt the pulse in her wrist jump.
"For days I washed around it and patted it dry, trying to keep it from fading. Finally, I took a picture with my mobile and went into this shop I know. They looked at me like I was mad when I told them I wanted a kind of coffee tattooed on my arm."
The corner of his mouth twitched.
"I suppose I wanted to keep something of you with me." There. Her heart was on her sleeve. Now it was the time to see whether he picked it up and took it as his own, or whether he stomped all over it.
But, as she had come to see, Captain Charles James was, first and foremost, a scholar and a gentleman.
He raised her arm and set his lips to her new ink in the gentlest and sweetest of kisses.
"As much as I would love to pursue this further right now, we're going to have to table this discussion until we get back to Brize Norton." But the look in his eyes said that he would be counting the hours until then.
She smiled. "Well, in the meantime, you can have this." And she reached into her Bergen and pulled out the Nespresso box with the red ribbon around it and tossed it to him.
A grin spilt his face and her knees went a little weak. "Oh, Molly Dawes, you are an incredible woman."