About the broken happy ever afters
Disclaimer: All property of the BBC and Tony Grounds. Lyrics belong to their respective artists. Why do I always shoe-horn in the Spice Girls?
Author's Note: I wrote this just after Episode 3 of the Series 4, so NO SPOILERS for episode 4! I started Our Girl with Michelle Keegan, ( I know, I'm sorry!) then caught up with Molly Dawes and I'm pretty much in love with Molly and Captain James' story. Who isn't? This is my first OG fic, after spending about a month reading everyone else's, (what a MONTH!) so I hope it's ok!
It was colder here at night; a chill had seeped through to his bones that made his teeth chatter and reminded him of freezing winter nights away on exercise in the Lake District. He felt like he had frost in his bone marrow.
The jungle was black; he was surrounded by dark shadows. He could hear the howls of wildlife and whirring insects, but worse than that was the distant screaming of the villagers that he could still hear in his head and the acrid smoke clinging to his nostrils. He could smell barbecues, and the thought of what that meant made bile rise up in his throat.
He whimpered. His tongue felt heavy; like it was too thick for his mouth. He had told Georgie that his leg only hurt when he moved. That was true; it was a white-hot, searing pain what made his eyes roll to the back of his head, when he moved. It felt like he was being shot. Repeatedly. But now, even when he wasn't moving it was still burning. It felt like all of the nerves in his thigh had been clawed out like spaghetti, exposed and seared with a hot blade.
"Shh, Boss," rasped a female voice above him. A grubby hand fluttered at the corner of his eye and he felt it rest on his forehead, soothingly. "You've only been asleep for a few minutes."
Asleep? Dimly, he was aware that he was lying back against someone warm. A woman. Her arms were around him; he felt secure but there was something wrong with them. They were longer and the hands gripping his shoulders were bigger; not the tiny, child-like ones he was used to. She smelled of stale sweat and dried blood. This was not Molly.
A very beautiful face loomed above his, looking concerned. He knew those chestnut brown eyes from somewhere, but they were normally warm. Now, they reminded him of a sobbing bride.
"Lane," he muttered, deciding that it was her that he recognized.
"Yeah?"
He shook his head to say that it wasn't a question, he wasn't trying to talk but he didn't have the energy. He let his eyelids close, welcoming sleep, again.
OG OG OG
"You took an instamatic camera and pulled my sleeves around my heart. Because YOU'RE GORGEOUS, I'D DO ANYTHING FOR YOUU," she belted out at him tunelessly, half-singing along to the radio, half-teasing him, pointing at him with a sauce-covered wooden spoon.
"Including turning Absolute 90s off?" he asked her, stepping up behind her and kissing her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist.
Molly grinned, shrugging her shoulder up as his breath tickled her neck. "And miss me All Saints? Not a chance, sunshine."
She turned back to the saucepan of chilli, Charles still surgically attached to her back. "You are too gorgeous to be allowed, though ya know? It ain't polite."
"My manners are exquisite, thank you very much," he murmured. " And you remain the most heavenly creature I've ever seen. Even hungover," he added, nipping her neck, gently.
Molly shook her head at him, turning around to pull him towards her by his shirt to be able to kiss him properly. "Any chance your tall self can get the rice down from the top shelf, please?"
"Mmh-hmm," he said, kissing her nose and striding over to open the cupboard. "Though don't think I don't know that this is all a ploy so that you can check out my arse."
"Well, it's a very nice one," remarked Molly, openly smirking at it.
They worked together side-by-side, Molly dry-frying mince and caterwauling along to the radio and Charles boiling the rice and watching her in amusement. Until a vaguely familiar song started playing and Molly let her spoon drop with an almighty clang, letting her jaw drop in awe and hitting him on the arm, excitedly.
"Charlie! Charlie! Turn her up!"
"No," he said dryly, sensing what was coming. "Absolutely not, Molly, no," he laughed as Molly turned the hob down and pulled on his hand, as if she were pulling him onto a dance floor.
"Yes!"
She began to dance, wiggling her hips and waving her arms about. His eyes crinkled up at the massive smile on her face and her hair flying about, wildly.
He put his own spoon down and swaggered over to her, pulling his best boy band face.
"You do the 'has,'" ordered Molly, already singing.
"Oh, I'm bringing the 'has', Molly James. Here we go."
"I wanna…"
"-Ha."
"I wanna…"
"-Ha"
"I wanna…"
"-Ha."
"I wanna…"
"-Ha."
"I wanna really, really, really wanna zig-ah-zig-ahhhh! Now LEFT and point and twist!" Molly shouted, sounding every inch the drill leader, as she ordered him through the dance routine she used to practice in the schoolyard in 1997. Or, she would have if she weren't in hysterics.
Later, when they were lying not very comfortably on the kitchen floor, having…abandoned their cooking, Molly raised herself up on her elbow to peer down at him.
"If two-section could've seen that, that'd be your reputation right down the shitter," she teased him.
Charles raised an incredulous eyebrow at her and looked pointedly at her naked chest.
"Not that, you plum. I meant you dancing and spitting bars to the Spice Girls," she tittered, running her fingers through the curls on his forehead. "You'd never be able to get them to do anything, again."
"I am a commanding officer in the British Army. I do not spit bars," he protested.
"Captain Sternface knows all the words to Wannabe," she continued in a singsong.
Charles kissed her quiet, stroking her face as if it were something breakable. He couldn't help but marvel at the smattering of freckles across her nose. And the fine lines around her eyes, brought on by allowing every single emotion that she felt to play across her features. And the soft patch of skin just behind her jaw that was as soft as a newborn's. And her eyes that glimmered like sea glass. They were his most favourite colour in the world…
OG OG OG
That was the Molly who was now lying down beside him on the ground, watching him; Molly from the kitchen the night they danced to the Spice Girls and burnt their dinner. He reached out to touch her hand but found fresh air instead. He craned his neck to look at Georgie but apparently; she had not noticed their new campmate. She was dozing to his right.
"Hi."
"Hi, yourself," she whispered back. "You and that leg, Charlie. What am I gonna do with you, ey?"
"I'm sorry," he muttered, still reaching out to touch her.
"What for?" she asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.
"I got injured. You…told me not to."
"Were you doing something stupidly brave, again?" she asked, rolling her eyes at him.
"No," he frowned. "And I think Lane might be angry with me, too."
Molly snorted. "I don't envy you there, mate! She's got a hell of a slap on her. What did you do?"
Charles sighed and closed his eyes, blocking out the matte black sky, but then Molly disappeared, too so he opened them, again.
"I wrote in my report that she and Elvis were emotionally involved. We both got bollocked," he told her, wincing, his eyes pained.
"Well, they were," replied Molly, nonplussed. "The top brass knew they were-…"
"And I told her I crossed the line with my feelings for her," he admitted quickly, talking over her.
Molly's face slid from confusion to disbelief and then settled on wariness. She sat up, slowly, frowning at him.
"What do you mean?"
There was a very heavy, painful silence between them. He didn't think he'd ever seen Molly look at him like that. Not since she'd overheard Smurf asking him about his wife in Afghanistan.
He swallowed, aware of how bad that had sounded. "I just meant that…I shouldn't care about her more than anyone else in my team. But I do. Because of Elvis."
He waited for her to answer him, but she didn't. She wouldn't even look up from the ground.
"What do you mean feelings for her?" she snapped at him.
"I can't," Charles sighed, exasperated that neither Georgie nor Molly could comprehend what he meant. "I can't stay detached…I feel like I need to step in where Elvis left off."
"Well, that's very fucking noble of you," she said sarcastically, tears springing up in her eyes. "Considering they were shagging."
"That's not what I meant, Molly!" he insisted, again trying to reach for her, but feeling nothing.
"Then what do you mean?" she asked, furiously, her eyes glistening.
Charles opened his mouth, but then closed it again; at loss for words. He shook his head, forlornly, willing Molly to understand.
"Please don't cheat on me, Charlie," she said in the smallest, saddest voice he had ever heard. She stared at him, looking so devastated that he felt his own eyes prick with tears.
"I never would," he said, hoarsely.
"But you're fucking thinking about it, though!" she shouted, fury replacing hurt in about a millisecond. "And she's a medic, too. That's very you," she spat, laughing humourlessly.
He shook his head, appalled. "I only love you. I only ever will."
"Except I'm not around though, am I?" argued Molly, sounding bitter. "But she is. You've spent more time with Georgie than me these past 18 months. I can see the attraction. Hard as nails, brilliant medic. Looks like a Victoria's Secret model and all. The most annoying this is it's impossible to hate her because she's the nicest girl in the world."
She sniffed and wiped her eyes with a shaking hand.
Charles wanted to reach out and hold her more than anything; anything to make her stop crying because the sight was breaking his heart but his arms didn't seem to work.
"You left," he told her, his throat uncomfortably tight, trying to keep the accusing tone out of his voice. "They told us there was no heartbeat and then three weeks later you were back in Afghan and you left me."
He didn't bother trying to stop a tear trickling down through the grime on his face.
Neither of them spoke for a moment; he listened to the ominous cracks of the jungle in the darkness surrounding them. Molly lay back down and rolled over on her side to face him.
"There was no one to leave, Charlie," she said, softly. "You never came back from Afghanistan. Not really."
He gaped at her, the pain in his chest making him too aware of the pain in his leg. He tried to move, again to reach her but it sent a wave of agony rippling through him.
"Lie still, would you?" You're gonna make it worse," she sighed.
"Am I going to lose my leg, Molly?" he asked her, with grim resignation. Georgie had been lying to him. Molly never could.
"How should I bleedin' know? I'm not really here, am I?"
