A/N: Sorry, I felt something was missing before this story was complete.

x

P.S

From: James, Charles

Sent: Oct 5, 2018

To: Dawes, Molly

Subject: Miss you already!

Hello you,

Today we finally reached our destination here in Nepal after hours and hours in the Hercules, followed by a long bumpy truck-ride until we reached the base near some godforsaken mountain village. The Army facilities are much the same wherever we go in the world, but the surroundings here are amazing – green valleys and hills, snowy mountain tops at a distance and clear blue skies above. If villages had not been ruined by the earthquake, this would be a serene place. I wish you could see it all Molly, I'll send some photos. We have installed ourselves and will settle into routines over the next few weeks, starting to make ourselves useful as quickly as possible. I'll run a PT session with the lads early tomorrow morning. I expect it will be quite tough for them, up on this altitude, but the more reason to do it so they acclimatize to the conditions. I know how much you would have liked to be part of that, you always love a PT session with me.

This time in the evening, the camp is silent, and I have a few moments to myself in the office. It's quite sparse but I have the feeling this will be my favourite place on this tour, because it's where I can write to you. You can picture me sitting by a desk on a really uncomfortable chair, writing, sometimes looking out the window where dusk is falling, leaving the sky pink over the mountain tops, and hear the crickets chirping. I'll write you as often as I can, I promise. I already feel that I'll need it for my own sake, to fill the Molly-sized hole in my heart at least partly. God, it's only been a few days and I miss you so much it hurts. When I write to you, I feel closer to you for a few precious moments.

I had time to think during the flight. The lads probably think I stayed quiet because I was very focussed on the mission ahead, and I should be – but all I could think of was you.

Molly, you have flipped my life upside down, changed everything in the best possible way. I used to think that all I wanted was to live out of a bergan, that a settled life wasn't for me. I was never happy with Becs, so I kept running, hid myself on tour but wasn't happy because it kept me from Sam too and a fulfilling life at home. Things were a bit different already when I met you, a new calmness in me after the divorce but I still thought that besides Sam, the Army was everything to me and I needed nothing else. The moment I met you, I knew it wasn't so.

You were so beautiful and angry and at the same time vulnerable that day at the station, and all I wanted was to make you smile. I just knew you would have a lovely smile. When you left, I felt empty – as I do now. Without you, something important is missing in my life. When I'm with you I feel complete, like a better version of myself, like the man I want to be. You have made me find my way back to myself, to the real Charles, not the one who's an emotionally unattached major in service of the British Army. I never want to go back to be only that again.

Meeting you, I felt like spring had come and I was thawing after a long winter – and I hadn't even realised I was frozen before.

When did I know I had fallen in love with you? I'm not sure. Something happened already at the station and I think that by the time we said bye at the restaurant, I had already fallen but I didn't understand it, or admit it until later. First, I had to wrap my head around that you were so very different from what I had imagined, you were such an unexpected, wonderful surprise. I thought you would be this obnoxious woman and then you were just lovely and intriguing, and I couldn't get you out of my head.

I don't know if I ever told you, but I sort of had promised myself not to get involved with any woman what so ever for the foreseeable future. I didn't want that kind of complications, just an easy life with Sam and the Army. Well, I changed my mind pretty fast. Maybe when I saw you in the bridal shop. Or maybe when you opened your door with flour all over and made me bake Christmas cookies with you. It was so easy to laugh with you from the start. I mean, I never would have gotten that ugly jumper for anyone else but for you it seemed like a natural thing to do – and it was so worth it just to get to see you smile. Then the evening when we were invited to Matt's and Bella's, and you let me know you were not interested in a relationship and said I should behave like I went to the dinner as a single, I was so disappointed. I know I said I wasn't looking for anything either, and that had been true a few days earlier, but your words stung, and I didn't even know why.

I soon resented the thought of you spending time with me only because Bella had set us up, because I noticed you were on my mind all the time and it got worse for each time I met you. When you were talking dirty to me at the dinner table at Bella's and Matt's, just to play Bella, you have no idea what it did to my insides. I realised I wanted you there and then and after that there was no turning back. I wanted to get to know you more, wanted to make you laugh, wanted to be the one to take you to bed at night. I just didn't know what to do about it when you had made it so blatantly clear that you were not interested.

Still, there were little moments when you gave me hope. In Bella's kitchen that morning, when we went skating, when I gave you a tour the day you came to Pirbright for the cake tasting. There always seemed to be those intense moments between us then, but I didn't know if it was just in my imagination because I wanted it so damn much. Then, when I discovered you nearly naked in the bed beside me after the stag... Do you know the effect you had on me? I almost didn't dare to even move because I was afraid I'd do anything that would come out as pervy and scare you off. You next to me in only underwear was nearly too much to handle, but I loved to have you in my arms when you fell asleep. I didn't want to leave you that day, but I had promised to get back to Sam.

I was so sure you would reject me if I told you my feelings, Molly, for so many reasons. You had said you weren't looking for a relationship, you were so much younger and me, this amazing single-girl and I was a divorced father. You know how I didn't even dare to tell you about Sam and having been married, even if it seems so stupid now. But my feelings built up gradually and that evening before the wedding, I just couldn't hold back anymore. I was so in love with you and I wanted you madly, the ambience was so great, filled with love and happiness and the alcohol obviously clouded my judgement. I regretted it like hell that evening, after you broke it off, and even more the morning after. In hindsight, I'm not sure I ever would have dared to approach you if I hadn't then, so now when everything worked out to the best I'm actually happy I kissed you that evening. I should have skipped the elevator stunt though – maybe we can have another try some other time. (Partly joking, hope you know that. It might be interesting to explore but I'll leave it up to you if you want to press any stop button).

Making love to you for the first time was one of the most shattering experiences I've had in life. To turn you on, to see and feel you come. You were so amazingly beautiful, flushed and shuddering, moaning my name, it was the undoing of me. I knew I was completely lost in you then. I still love making love to you my darling, there's nothing like it. I'm longing for it now. Kissing you on your neck, down to your collarbone and that shallow dip right below your neck which I love, I could bury my face there forever with my lips to your skin. Then again, I'd always want to continue trailing down to your rosy nipples. I love the way they first are soft, then when I touch them, transform to perfect little stiff buds, like they ask for my lips to enclose them. And I love your breasts, the way they're perfectly sized to fit in my cupped hands. I could linger there all day too, but then I'd miss your belly. I know you sometimes complain you don't have enough stomach muscles and I use to tease you that you only have to sign up for more PT sessions with me, but you should know that I wouldn't want you any different. I love your every curve, love the dip of your waist, the roundness of your buttocks, love that your shape softly fits with mine when we lie close together. I love how smooth your skin is on the inside of your thighs and the way you part your legs for me when I touch you there, showing me where you want me. The same place where I want to be. I've never wanted any woman like I want you. I don't even think I had made love for real until with you, because I was never present like I am with you, never connected like I am with you when I'm inside you and your eyes are locked in mine. It feels like we're inside each other. You're the one for me.

I was crazy about you from the start, yet it's nothing in comparison to how I feel about you now, when I know you for real. When I have seen you with Sam, with my parents, our friends, your family and know how loving and caring you are. When I know your story and how both your dad and Artan let you down, but you have been willing to let me into your life and trust me - that makes me want to take care of you, but also admire you because you're so strong. When we have spent days and nights together and I realise that things just get better and better, that I love you more for each day. I've just come here and yet I can't wait to get home, so I can continue life with you. This comes from the guy who used to be desperate to go on tour, who thought the Army was my life. Now, all I want is to settle with you and with Sam. I hope that doesn't scare you. Sometimes I'm afraid that it will, that you won't feel as much as me, but then I look into your green eyes and know that you want to be with me too. Nothing makes me happier.

It's pitch black outside now and one can probably hear all the privates snoring loudly, so I should hit my bunk too. I'm already longing to share your bed again.

I'll write you again tomorrow.

I love you, body and mind.

Always yours,

Charles

P.S. Did I say that I miss you?

I clicked the 'send' button and turned off the computer, grateful for the technology allowing my message to travel across the Earth with the speed of lightning. It made me feel closer to her. I hoped this tour would not make us drift apart, hoped the three months would not feel too long for her at home. Time usually passed quicker for us soldiers, the ones being away, than for those waiting at home. This tour though, I had the feeling that time would pass agonizingly slow for me too. The difference from before was that I always had longed to leave my home behind, now I craved to return. Maybe I should try to apply for a desk job when we came back from this tour, so I could stay home with her and Sam. I was ready to commit to her fully, could picture a family life with her and Sam and someday, if we were lucky, more children. Before I left for tour I had visited a jeweller's shop and ordered a ring. I hoped it would feel right still to ask her if she wanted it, wanted me, when I returned. I had done it partly because I needed that to look forward to, to bear leaving her.

Before leaving the office to head for my quarters for the night, I shrugged of reverie to leave it behind and put on the mask of an Officer of the British Army. Detached, focussed and alert, appearing to have my mind only on the task at hand – but on the inside I would never be that person again. Molly had irrevocably changed me, and I was fucking happy about it.