Summary

Captain James didn't survive the jump in Bangladesh. Five years on from a tragedy that touched them both, Georgie and Molly meet and talk for the first time.

Disclaimer

Our Girl (and the characters, storylines and ideas related to them) belong to writers and any other relevant Copy Right owners. This story has not been written for any profit and no infringement is intended.

Acquiescence

acquiesce (verb)

ac-qui-esce | \ ˌa-kwē-ˈes

Definition: to accept, comply, or submit tacitly or passively

acquiescence (noun)

Definition: the act or condition of acquiescing or giving tacit assent; agreement or consent by silence or without objection.

Five Years Later

Georgie Lane was beginning to feel the length of the day as she stood beside the Army recruitment stand, the fixed polite smile on her face required to cover her boredom and the ache in her lower back. It was barely past twelve and she was already sore from standing. The pain was an unwillingly received gift from five years ago, and from a time in her life she worked hard not to think about.

"Prepare to move, guys!" Dark eyes looking for reassurance stare at her. A nod in reply. "Move!"

Seconds of flailing through warm air and blue sky almost to the point of it being scary-fun, like the sensation of your stomach being left behind on a roller coaster. A slap of pain on contact with the water that steals the breath from surprised lungs. Cold wet that obliterates body heat as a maelstrom of filthy water and debris turns the world from blue to a hell of churning brown…

George snapped back to the present as ice-cold water splashed from the bottle in her shaking hand, drenching her down one leg and catching the leaflets she was holding in the other. The world came back onto blurry focus with a jolt as Georgie cast her panicking gaze around, trying to focus on attainable details around her as a grounding technique to shake of the debilitating aftermath of the flashback. They were blessedly rare these days, thankfully, but still caught her like a hand squeezing her throat when they happened.

She forced herself to concentrate on the here and now… Three strands unwinding from a frayed end of nylon rope that were flapping in the breeze. A recruitment poster that had come loose from one corner on the displayed stand because the missing push pin lay loose on the table under the display. A crushed Starbucks coffee cup in the grass between two tents opposite. A white paper bag, stained transparent in places from its previous greasy contents, rolling across the grass in the wind. The look of enquiry on 2nd Lieutenant Lewis' face that meant he'd have questions that Georgie didn't want to answer unless she pulled herself together quick-smart.

Georgie straightened up automatically, quelling the desire to pull the cold damp cotton off the skin of her thigh and swear about it loudly while she was doing it.

"You alright there, Lane?" he asked looking young and earnest and making Georgie feel old and worn by comparison. Being a thirty-one-year-old sergeant to his fresh faced twenty-five your old Officer was a reminder that she'd been doing this job for long while now.

Grace Lane's occasional questioning about when was she going to think about settling down didn't help. She normally stopped short of saying and get a proper job, as though being in the Army was playing at soldiers. On the surface of it, her mother's benevolent nagging was slightly self-serving, because what she wanted was more grand-babies, despite Marie and Fingers having presented her with one last year. Daisy-Mae Stilles, all blondes curls and baby smiles wasn't enough to keep Granny Lane busy and off her eldest daughter's a back. Digging deeper into it, Georgie knew it was done out of concern because, from Grace's point of view, the Army had brought Georgie more than a little hurt and heartbreak.

"I'm fine, Sir. Just a bit of spillage." Georgie said, indicating the wet leaflets in her hand and the trail of damp down her camo clad leg. "Only water, I'll dry out."

The Lieutenant made a sympathetic face then studied his watch. "Miller should be heading back from lunch in a minute. I can hold the fort here until then. You go grab some lunch; a bit of sunshine might help dry you out faster."

"Thank you, Sir."

She ducked out of the tent and squinted with a jaundiced eye at the sun which was fighting for space with a few grey clouds that threatened a shower at some point. The sky illustrated her current mood perfectly–mixed up and moody. What had she expected of a Saturday spent manning a RAMC recruitment tent at an Army family day in Aldershot? That it would be rewarding and absorbing? Hardly.

Training newly minted Medics at home in Manchester wasn't exactly thrilling her either. Perhaps it was an age or life experiencing thing, but lately Georgie had been feeling a bit jaded. Which was why Lieutenant Lewis' almost puppy dog like and near constant enthusiasm about a two-year training posting to The British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS) in Alberta, Canada was irritating rather than exciting her, especially today. If she heard him spout on about what an amazing opportunity it was, she was fairly sure she'd crack and tell him exactly where to shove his opinions.

She knew she was in a quiet rut with her posting in Manchester. Comfortably bored, but the safety of family and familiarity had been what she needed to heal after Bangladesh and Nepal. The distraction of her noisy, happy family with on-going counselling from the Army Support Division had been her life line, was it any wonder an opportunity that would need her to be thousands of miles away from that support made her wary?

Contemplating the various food vendors available, Georgie was trying to decide whether she wanted a brew, food or both. Settling on a decent coffee as a mood lifter, she turned towards the coffee van and had to step back quickly to avoid a small woman who was innocently crossing her path by her side.

The word sorry died on Georgie lips, replaced instead with the gasp of a name that she never thought she'd say again, at least not in the presence of the owner of the name, as the young woman turned to face her with an equally apologetic expression.

"Molly!"

Georgie's eyes skipped across standing figure of her former friend with a tense sort of urgency, unsure of the response she would receive. Molly was much the same, small slim, dark hair long to the waist styled in a waterfall braid at her crown, the rest loose with the dark brunette strands moving gently in breeze. Same wide green eyes and heart shaped face. It was almost a jolt to see her dressed in a floral maxi dress instead of camo but it shouldn't have been because she'd heard on the grapevine that Molly had left the Army several years passed.

The movement of Molly's hand against her chest, drew Georgie's attention to the cloth hanging around her neck that she had first thought was a scarf, to the small blond-haired head nestled within the material that Molly was stroking gently.

"Hello, Georgie, how have you been?"

"You have a baby?"

Molly cocked her head, a hint of familiar Molly cheekiness in the gesture. "What this?" She indicated with her hand to the tiny baby it the scarf style sling. "I found him under the bushes a few weeks back, thought I would keep him. For shits and giggles and that."

Unsure what to do, in the absence of the hostility she'd expected to be rained down on her head, Georgie laughed nervously.

"He's tiny."

"All shiny and new, six weeks old tomorrow. Don't let his size fool you, he's got lungs loud enough to bring the house down around you. That's the Dawes DNA in him."

"I wasn't expecting to see you at an Army thing. I heard you'd left."

"You're half right. I started specialist training while I placed at Headley after the funeral and bought myself out later. I finished uni and went back to Headley as a civilian staff. Physiotherapist, I work in the rehab unit. My old man's in the Army though. He around somewhere. It's why we're here today. What about you?"

"Manchester. Training. I'm running a recruitment stand with a couple of colleagues."

"I heard you transferred out of Two Section after, not missing Bulford then?"

"It was time for change. I wanted to be based close to home. Are you still in contact with the boys?"

"Social media. We catch up in person sometimes. I guess Fingers keeps you up to date."

"Yeah, some. Not like I can get away from him since he married and sprogged up my sister." The truth was, Fingers didn't keep her up to date, at her request but she wasn't going to volunteer that information.

Anxiety twisting in her stomach, Georgie tried to read Molly's expression. Perplex by the course of the small-talk type chat they were having. The thought occurred–did she know what that happened between Charles and her in Bangladesh. Was that why she was standing relaxed and settled in front of her dead husband's lover? While that fact would let Georgie off a very awkward hook, the thought left her sick to her stomach.

"I haven't seen you–"

"Since the funeral." Molly said suddenly. "The irony is not lost on me that the last time I saw you before that was Elvis's funeral. We make a bit of a pair, I guess."

"I thought of getting in contact with you…afterwards. But–" Georgie shifted her weight from one foot to the other, uncomfortable with the weight of guilt from her own carefully crafted lie. "There never seemed to be a good time."

The baby cradled against Molly, whimpered softly, and Molly croon to him softly swaying from side to side to settle the infant back to sleep.

Molly lifted her eyes to Georgie and studied her for several stiffly quiet seconds before saying with more of an edge to her voice. "No, you didn't"

"Didn't what?"

"Intend to get in contact with me afterwards. I know what happened. It's been five years, Georgie, I've never come after you for it. You can give me the truth now, surely?"

Georgie stiffen her stance defensively. "I'm not sure what you want me to say."

"That you're doing better. That you're living your life and your happy, I suppose."

"But why?"

"Time heals a lot of hurts. Lets you grow new skin under the bruises. Eventually they fade."

"How can you be so calm about this, after he and I got together. The way we got together." Georgie said, her voice breaking as tears she thought a long time over sprang to her eyes.

"I lived a loss, and survived. Anything after that is a bonus. I never wanted to hold onto any of the shit that came with it. Charles was never the love of your life, Georgie."

"No, but he was yours."

"As Elvis was yours. We both lived the same loss." Molly said softly, the sheen of tears in Georgie eyes reflected in her own. "There's a common bond there, and like I said, I worked bloody hard to let the negative stuff go so I could heal. I don't want to go back to that again. It's a poisonous place to be."

"I'm glad you managed to make peace with it." Georgie said, voice shaky. "I'm not sure I'm quite there yet but if you want the truth, I never had any intention of seeing you again. How could I? The guilt was eating me alive after he died and I was holding onto things by a thread as it was. Seeing you would have finished me off."

"I'm not judging you."

"But you should, don't you see? I should never have got in between you. Using Elvis as an excuse. We were both so broken by that point, we couldn't see everything we were messing up for each other."

Their last meeting. Molly at the funeral, surrounded by silently supportive bodyguard of the original members of Two Section with Sam cuddled into her side. She was stoically expressionless and dry eyed up to the point when the folded flag from the coffin, cap and gloves of her husband were presented to her, as was the tradition. Georgie had watched her raise vacant green eyes to the Officer holding them with gentle solemnity, and Georgie had recognised the look of dawning horror on her former friend's face. It had been the same for her at Elvis's funeral. The same point when the protection of operating as a sort of hollowed out mannequin fell away and the reality of the moment became bit, finally. That he was gone, planted under the ground in a box, and this wasn't just a nightmare from which relief could be found by waking up.

Seeing that all wash over Molly was when Georgie had finally switched off emotionally and left. The rock of her rock bottom finally having been reached because she could see it all too clearly, the rights and the wrongs of her in Charlie written painfully all over Molly's grieving face.

It wasn't love for each other that had wedged them together, it was running away from a common pain, and Molly hadn't left her relationship with her husband anymore than he had. Physically, yes. With words and actions. Emotionally, well that was another matter, and now he was no longer around to be able find a way back. A tragic end that came to soon and left no room for a fairy-tale resolution.

"It wasn't never that clear cut." Molly said, eyes casting down towards the blond baby cradled to her chest in the sling. She passed a gentle hand over the down soft fluff of hair, and smiled–softly, sadly, but with love. "Please let it go, Georgie, I did."

Georgie dashed the tears away from her face, and took a deep breath, trying to centre herself again. "You seem content."

"I am."

"I'm happy you found love again. I'm not so sure that's an option or me anymore."

"I used to feel that way. Perhaps it's about being open to it. I wasnt looking for anything romantic when we met, and it was the last thing I expected but it just saw of grew slowly." Molly said softly, almost bashfully.

"How'd you meet?"

"At Headley, he was a patient, but I knew him before. You know what the Army like, a very small world."

"Was he injured in service?"

Molly laughed, a light warming sound. "No, nothing that dashing. Car accident. A deer jumped out onto the road, he tried to save the deer and hit a tree instead. He was in rehab for months with crush injuries. We started talking, and laughing and it kind of built slowly from there."

"I'm glad for you, Molly."

"It took a lot of time, for me to be happy, to recognise when talking changed in feelings, we took it slow and I think Charles would approve." Molly's hand brushed over the baby's head again. "We used to talk about it, in the early days, that he didn't want Sam to be a lonely only, like he was."

Georgie felt a pang of regret. Hearing how close Molly had managed to remain with Charlie's son made her feel guilty that she'd not built the same bridges with Elvis's daughter, Laura.

"Sam had to wait a while for this little one."

Molly smiled, kissing the baby's head, her eyes lightening with mirth. "Not as long as you might think, and there more of a brood than this little man. Don't marry a man who's a twin unless you're after a big family. This is Ellis, and his womb buddy, Keir, is with his Dad, sister and Sam. They're all around here somewhere."

Georgie did a sum in her head. Sam at the funeral must have been about ten, making him perhaps fifteen now. Thinking of the solemn faced, dark haired little boy from the funeral, Georgie found it difficult to imagine the teenager he must be by now.

"How's he been? Since…"

"It took him time as well. He had a lot of support from family and school. Charles' family are all ex-Army, so he had people to turn to who know what it means to lose someone in that way. He got through it and he's growing up into someone that would make his dad proud. They're very alike in a lot of ways. He's here today with the Army Cadets."

"Sandhurst and infantry for him later then, like his Dad?"

"Much to his Mums horror, but it's a sort of yes and no. He wants to be a Surgeon like his Granddad, but through the Army, so I guess he can't escape his DNA. He very smart, motivated. It's a bit of a battle of wills between him and Rebecca but I think he's going to win in the end."

"There they are now." Molly said, smile widened, bright as the sun, as she pointed to small group some distance away. Blond Officer in uniform, incongruously pushing a buggy with a lanky, dark haired teenager in a cadet officer's uniform by his side who was unmistakably Sam. The height, colouring, hair, even the way he walked was all his father.

It was the little girl holding onto Sam's hand skipping along the stopped Georgie's next question dead as her eyes passed over the dark mop of curls trailing down the girl's back.

"Always together those two. She's had her big brother wrapped round her finger tight from when she was born. They're thick as thieves despite the age difference."

"How old?" Georgie asked, mouth suddenly dry.

"She'll be five this year."

"You were pregnant, when he said you finished things… you were pregnant with his daughter."

"He told lot of lies, towards the end. To himself more than anyone else, but the biggest ones he told where about his PTSD. That is started after Elvis was killed. It didn't, he struggled with it ever since he was shot in Afghanistan. He had it managed until…well, seeing what he saw… he never really had a chance."

"I didn't know, Molly."

"It wouldn't have mattered; we weren't together when you and he cemented things between you. We were struggling when he went off to Belize. I thought we had a chance, after, when he agreed to look into a medical discharge, but the call from the Brigadier finished all that. In the end, he needed me to let him go, and I let him go."

"Did he know?"

"That I was carrying Charlotte?"

There was a look of almost pity on Molly's face as she took in the urgency in Georgie's voice. With a sinking heart, Georgie realised she was being naïve even before Molly had a chance to confirm her worst thought.

"He knew, but he wasn't capable of staying at home and facing his demons. He had to want to get help to accept help and he didn't want it. That final Tour should never have happened. All the ways he was struggling was there on his records, but the Brigadier ignored it because he wanted him back. The rest of it was just a tragedy waiting to happen, and it happened."

"I don't know what to say, Molly."

"What do you mean?"

"This wasn't the sort of conversation I thought we'd ever have if we ever met again."

"What did you expect. Swearing and a cat fight? The furious spurned wife? I've been all that and more, years ago. I couldn't hold onto it all and look after Charlotte. I had to move on to survive."

"I'd probable deserve it."

"Who's to judge? Not me anymore. It's not worth anything to hold onto that stuff, trust me."

Georgie ran a shaking hand through her immaculately pinned back hair. "I'm not sure I'd be capable of being so magnanimous if our roles were reversed."

"I'm not a saint, Georgie, I had my moments, but I'm not angry with him anymore. I used to be, but I'm not now. The man the left to go to Bangladesh wasn't the man I married, or the Dad that Sam knew.

"After Elvis died, he tried, for a while to get better, to engage with the support that was available, but the PTSD chipped away at him and bit at a time he lost himself along the way. We lost him because he let the Army become all he had left."

"You should hate me."

"But I don't." Molly paused, a wry grimace on her face, eyebrows raised, she met Georgie's gaze. "I did, but I don't anymore. If I hate anything, it's the disease that took him away from all of us."

Georgie wished it was that simple. Her feelings towards the success that Molly and Charlie had made with their marriage after Elvis failed to turn up to their wedding were complicated. Envy, regret were all in there, mixed up with a feeling of 'what should have been' flavoured thoughts. They went from couples who double dated and celebrated each other's engagements to strangers. In a world were Molly seemed to get her dream man, Georgie struggled to keep hers at a necessary protective distance. When they finally got their act together, he was taken from her so brutally. No one came out of that explosion without scars. Looking back on it now, in the final stages they'd both walked the same path–one of loss.

"You need to let it go. Elvis would have wanted you to be happy, Charles as well. Life's too short, Georgie, you've got to live it."

"Like you are."

"To the best of my ability, yeah."

A call of her name from a distance, had Molly looking over her shoulder towards her approaching family. When she took a step back, Georgie, realised that their conversation was coming to an end.

Georgie watched as Sam took over the buggy from the blond officer, the dancing little dark-haired girl letting go off his hand to lean in and pull funny faces at the baby inside.

"Is time for me to go."

Georgie's eyes widened as the Officer drew close enough for her to recognise the rank insignia of a Colonel on his chest, as Molly stepped towards where he was standing with his hand reaching out, palm up waiting for his wife to join him.

"Is that?"

"My husband, yes." Molly said, eyes dancing with humour. "That Bambi had a lot to be thanked for. Take care, Georgie."

She was gone as suddenly as she had appeared strolling across sunlight grass with her husband and kids at her side before disappearing into the crowd.

Georgie turned and returned to the recruitment tent, too much time having passed for her to get lunch and the urge to eat lost in her tumbling thoughts.

Lieutenant Lewis was waiting for her as she ducked into the tent.

"Bit late, Lane."

"Sorry, Sir. I met up with an old friend. Lost track of time talking."

"It's fine, Lane. Just grab a handful of leaflets and crack on."

Georgie took the leaflets from him, but paused.

"Something else you needed, Lane?"

"The placement at BACUS… I've been thinking. I might be interested in finding out more about it."

"I thought you were happily ensconced in Manchester."

"I was, I mean I am, but maybe it's time I was looking for a change."

I was in a funny mood when I wrote this and I blame The End of Romance by Daniel Ahearn. Listened to the lyrics, thought about CJ & Molly at the end of Season Three, and out popped this story a a cathartic (sort of) attempt at real life 'drama' instead of fairy-tale endings.