A/N:

I have no idea what my job is going to be soon... and I'm somewhat sad that the story I've had about these two in my head for SO long is almost done... but here's to hope, folks.

Lord knows we need it...

Stars Walk Backward

Trigger Warning: discussions of kidnap, assault.

"Your integrity makes me seem small.
You paint dreamscapes on the wall.
I talk shit with my friends,
It's like I'm wasting your honor...

And you know that I'd swing with you for the fences
Sit with you in the trenches
Give you my wild, give you a child
Give you the silence that only comes when two people understand each other
Family that I chose now that I see your brother as my brother
Is it enough?

'Cause there's robbers to the east, clowns to the west
I'd give you my sunshine, give you my best...

But the rain is always gonna come if you're standing with me."

––'peace', t.s.

XXXVIII

Peace (Part II)

When the taxi pulled up to drop her off home, a chorus of rowdy and childish goodbyes echoing through the sleepy quiet before she closed the door on them. She stumbled, giggling at Two Section's mumbled parting shouts that could still be heard even through the concealed glass and metal of the taxi as it pulled away. It took her longer than it should have to get her key in the lock. She managed to get over the threshold without another stumble, starting to wonder just how tipsy she actually was. She was greeted to welcome warmth the moment she shut the door behind her, the smell of cooking making her stomach gurgle.

She found Charles where she predicted he'd be, over the hob… and, she grinned, appeared to be making her favourite: fajitas!

At first, she was not sure he heard her come in by the way he kept his back to her, but then she remembered how much noise the front door could make…and, unusually, he didn't even have any music on. Suddenly, at the edges of what was left of her sober self, she was conscious of an unusual sensation of awkwardness, or rather, apprehensiveness, unsure what to say.

"Hello," he greeted quietly, glancing over at her as she leaned against the kitchen counter. He tried his best to give her a smile, but she wasn't convinced by it. He was standing in his post-run clothes, a soft lean-fitting long-sleeve and slacks, his version of 'loungewear', which was still pretty formal as far as Molly was concerned. Although, she noted with a soft smile, tonight his feet were only clad in socks and his hair was damp.

So, he went for an 'angry run', then.

"Hello," she mirrored, suddenly feeling a little less full of drunken bluster, unable to help but drag out the 'o' in an attempt to lighten things. Moving slowly to try and minimise chances of stumbling, she leaned closer to him to reach for a glass of water.

"How were they, the rabble?" He still didn't really look at her, tension in his movements as he put the last of the finished ingredients on plates on the countertop before moving to the chopping board.

"Good, loud…like bouncing puppies," she answered, not really paying attention to her response. "Nosy bloody puppies."

"Hm, typically," he murmured with a light shrug.

"They asked if you took a pop at Lawrence today… an' I said no,'course, but they mus' know you more than you think if they asked it of their own free will––." She stopped herself, hearing that she was rambling to fill the silence of his uncharacteristic indifference, pulling at her sleeve in insecurity. "Are you…are you not talkin' to me or somethin'?"

Immediately, he bristled and sighed loudly, which he only ever did when she was on the money and he didn't want to admit it. "What?" He looked toward her, away from what he was doing in a quick movement of surprise. "Of course I'm not 'not talking to you', I just––Fuck!"

Suddenly, with a metallic clang, he dropped the knife in his hand and grasped at his other hand, fresh crimson blood already rushing from it. It took a second for her to realise what he'd done: in his sudden distraction, he had sliced his thumb instead of the pepper.

"Fuck, ah––bloody hell," he gasped, squeezing his fist around the bleeding appendage. As though on autopilot at the all-too-familiar sight of blood, and despite the alcohol in her system, Molly immediately moved with purpose to where the first aid Tupperware was kept, precariously having to climb on the kitchen counter to reach it.

"Why the fuck do you have to be so bloody tall!" She grumbled light-heartedly as she climbed back down, one-handed. "It's very inconsiderate." Moving in front of him, she pushed his chest, shepherding him until he sat down on the kitchen table, so he was the right height for her to work. "Sit."

He obliged, grimacing as she pried away his hand to wipe away the already rather impressive amount of blood, already dripping into his palm and ruining the edges of his sleeves, checking the damage.

"Sorry. I wasn't looking," he murmured, quietly.

He had taken a sizeable nick out of the pad of his thumb and it was bleeding rather profusely, but she knew that wounds like this always did and rarely needed stitches. "I'm not…I'm not angry with you."

"It ain't gonna need a stitch," she said, without thinking of the history of her choice of words, busy concentrating on cutting absorbent gauze to size. "Just will be a bitch to heal." She felt his watching her, in the same way he did the first time she ever treated him for blisters, seeing it in the corner of her eye. After all, the weight of his gaze was not something easily ignored. "This is going to hurt," she said, though it wasn't much warning as she had already started rubbing antiseptic into the cut, forcing a hiss from his teeth which she ignored. She looked up at him through her lashes as she pressed the gauze down hard on the wound, catching him looking at her. She had wanted to do that the very first time, back in the heat of that Afghan med tent, but he made her nervous and she hadn't wanted him to see it. This time, he made no attempt to hide the fact he'd been looking, though his expression was cautious.

"You're right," he suddenly said as she taped the layers of gauze down with medical tape around the base of his thumb. "I was 'sulking'," using a word he knew she would be thinking. "I'm sorry. I'm just…I've been so angry since the verdict, I don't know what to do with myself."

Immediately, her hands went limp, pausing in their task as she pinned him with her eyes. Though a little hazy with alcohol, they were defiant. "Wha', and you don't think I'm angry, too?"

He let out a breath, feeling guilty. "––Of course! I know––."

"––I thought we were done with all this a million years ago: you getting angry at the outside world and then takin' it out on me?" Her fingers were still on his own, though they made no move to hold them as she looked right at him to portray her disappointment.

Momentarily, his eyes sparked defensively, his apologetic tone gone. "And I thought we were done with you running away from me instead of letting me in?"

She opened her mouth to let out a retort, but said nothing; she knew he had her there. The trauma of the day has thrown them both into old toxic behaviours. No one person was wrong here…and neither of them were to blame. After all, they did not ask for them and there was no rulebook.

She huffed and gave him a resigned smirk. "Okay, so, we were both sulky." She visibly wilted back to her previously relaxed state and so did he as she resumed her movements to wipe up the blood on his hands with a fresh wipe, the metallic of his wedding ring dirty covered with red. "I shouldn't have run off. It was stupid. Sorry."

"But mine was in retaliation, so was much more petulant. I'm sorry, too."

She snorted, the alcohol in her system making the sound rather undignified. "Whatever that means––Up." He held his now-bandaged thumb, double the size of his natural thumb, up above his heart obediently as she instructed, eyes looking visibly tired but warm as he seemed to be trying to gauge her mood.

"A little tipsy are we, Dawesy?"

Her face made an exaggerated expression of nonchalance, only further demonstrating his point. "Sober enough to be y'nurse," she remarked pointedly, chucking the used wet-wipe into his lap.

He smiled for the first time since she came in, making any bluster she had disappear as her pulse stuttered into a staccato. He hooked his feet behind her legs, keeping her between his thighs when she made a move to tidy up. She giggled as he tightened his crossed legs behind her until she had no choice but to almost fall into him, tension thankfully forgotten.

"Thank you, sweet nurse," he simpered with a jovial look, momentarily closing his eyes when she finally raised her hands to hold him in return, touching his neck and moving fingers into his hair. It was moist and frizzy and darker than usual, lingering evidence of a shower. For a microsecond she found herself unable to think of anything other than his body under the spray of hot water.

"I'm lucky to have you," he continued, an undertone that the statement was intended more seriously, oblivious to her mind's slip into the gutter. Perhaps the slip, or perhaps it was the alcohol, but she flushed a noticeable shade of pink.

"After today, I should be sayin' that to you," she sighed, brushing her nose against his. His hands had settled low on her hips, before encircling her entirely to squeeze her to him. "Although, it was also stupid what you did."

"I wish I could say I'm sorry I did it, but I'm not," he shrugged. "I'll take whatever bollocking Beck wants to give me."

Molly sighed, not wanting to validate such reckless behaviour, because she knew the Army meant so much to him, but secretly it thrilled her to see him defend her, even at such cost.

"I've never heard you say 'cunt' before," she smirked, stroking the soft skin on the side his neck. Now it was his turn to flush, though only a little. "It was kind of…hot?"

His brow quirked in bemusement, but he did catch his bottom lip between his teeth. "Bloody cockneys," he quipped, before the humour slipped off his face and a more tangible tension settle between them; the good kind that made her squirmy. He was so warm, arms strong around her and it was all utterly distracting.

"No, but really," she whispered, pressing herself against him and looking down into his eyes from where she stood over his seated body. "Maybe it was just that you stood up for me, but… I'd forgotten how much it…" She flushed again, eyes slipping to look at his round collar instead of his face, "It gets me when you're all stern… and then hearing you use them words, just took me by surprise."

He closed the gap between them and placed one, very deliberate kiss on her throat. "Good to know," he whispered, a laugh in his voice. Her exhale came audibly out shaky as she leaned down to hide her face into the crook of his neck. "I was trying to be scary, you know. Clearly my sex appeal just knows no bounds."

"Don't tease me," she whispered.

"No." He reached to ease her face from its hiding place, giving her a soft smile as he held her face in his palm. "I'm not mocking you, just surprised." Sensing the moment had passed, he pulled back and smoothed down the frizz of her hair on top of her head. "Shall we eat before the chicken is ruined?"

She moved back to let him get down, only to kick a piece of plywood beneath the table. She frowned, recognising the colour of it to be one of their dining chairs. Looking around, she realised one was missing.

"'ere - what happened to one of the chairs?"

Now it was Charles' turn to blush as he went about gathering the food together.

"Uh… I may have taken my anger out on it."

She gave him a look. "You beat up a chair?"

"I know, I know, I'm ashamed." Moving the chopped peppers onto a plate, he carried two plates at once into the living room. "Come on, Dawes, pick up the tortillas. Up for a surprise?"

Immediately, her giddy tipsiness seemed to return to her as she trailed after him. How she loved his surprises and this one didn't disappoint. The living room was dim and lit with candles on the coffee table and along the fireplace, in which a fire was crackling. On the living room floor, there were layers of sofa cushions both flat on the floor and up against the front of the sofa as well as a duvet. In front of the little nest, Charles began placing down the plates of food on the carpet.

"A living room picnic!" She gasped, reaching to grab his arm as he set the food down on the rug. When he straightened to stand, she grinned up at him in the dim, pulling at his arms and cuddling herself up to him. Before either could speak, she suddenly inhaled and looked down at herself and her outfit, as though realising she was dressed all wrong. "Wait!" Like a child, she suddenly ran off as though in pursuit of something only she knew and he grinned to himself as he heard her bound up the stairs in a manner that may to knock of few boards loose. When he returned again with the rest of the plates of food, she was bounding back down the stairs with the vigour of a small elephant, this time dressed in her favourite fluffy joggers and yet another one of his t-shirts that she long-ago commandeered. She grinning like a giggly teenager as she took her place on the cushions, her back against the front of the sofa, cuddling up under the duvet and taking in the smell of fajita spices, expensive candles and the scent unique to their sheets that resembled traces of his aftershave.

Dreamily, she thought back to their very first weekend when they did almost exactly the same thing, gorging on easy food and wine and pretending to watch Dirty Dancing while they pressed into one another getting easily distracted. It had all been so new then, the jolt of desire she would feel ever time he even looked at her, the absolute flummoxing that would overcome her whenever he would use vocabulary she didn't understand to explain something with passion or quiet, hushed intensity. She remembered being fascinated with the way he spoke with his hands, their gentle nature a complex juxtaposition to the callouses that adorned them. Even though he had uttered that he loved her more than once by the time they had settled on his parent's living room floor to keep warm by the fire, she had struggled to believe any of it could possibly be real.

Now, she at least felt secure in the truth; Charles really did love her for all her sins. Still though, in so many other ways, she still felt like that same wide-eyed girl with more questions than answers… and a desire to sit and absorb every word that came out of Charles James' mouth.

He re-entered the room with a bottle of wine and two glasses, settling cross legged beside her, trying his best not to be distracted by the hard peaks of her nipples under his t-shirt. He knew she always rushed to rid herself of her bra when she got in: an ever predictable sign she felt at home.

"Wine, I assume?" He had already begun pouring, giving her a side-eye smirk. "Or, have you had enough?"

"Oi! Wine, please!" She watched him pour and pass her a glass before taking a sip of his own. She clearly looked thoughtful as she dug into her food, because he kept looking over. "What?" She wiped her mouth, subconsciously.

"Nothing - you just looked miles away… and I'm just admiring you in that shirt."

She blushed, self consciously tugging at the shirt and sfocusing her eyes on her food. "`I was just…thinkin' about the first time we did this, how nice it was."

His lips drew up in a lop-sided smug smile, clearly suddenly pulled back in time to the memory as well. "Ah, yes: 'Dirty Dancing'." He tore into his own food, piled high with guacamole, suddenly realising how hungry he was. Beside him, Molly wrinkled her nose in disgust at the sight of so much avocado, making him laugh. "You know, I hated that film before that night."

Molly gave him a deadpan look, but the expression was hard to take seriously as she had salsa smeared at the corner of her mouth. "Liar," she mumbled unceremoniously through a mouthful of food. He went to counter her, but found himself distracted at the sight of her, so delightfully tipsy and stuffing her face as though she might never eat again. He reached over to pass her a napkin, enjoying how she barely allowed time to wipe the sauce away before more replaced it. His parents had never allowed him to be anything other than a prim and proper dinner guest, so he adored to watch her unapologetically enjoying her food without paranoia for rules, shame or inhibition.

This was the Molly as he had dreamt of her, so many times… but never more than in that damn Kenyan desert, when he had thought he would never see her again.

"What?" She asked again, this time with a slight exasperated emphasis as she touched her face and quickly wiping away the salsa at the corner of her mouth. "You know I can't eat this shit without gettin' it all over the shop."

"Nothing, I just…" He shook his head at himself as he chewed, silently berating himself once again for being so bloody soppy. Looking back up at her, he could see she was bemused, taking a gulp of wine. He reached over the small distance between them and caught her forearm, leaning into her space to capture her lips with his before either of them could really register it. Her lips tasted of the sweet tang of wine and made him smile against her mouth. It was just a single, tender kiss, but he lingered a moment, drawing back enough to open his eyes and look down into her hers, which had, a moment ago, had been filled with bemusement. Now, he was pleased to see they were clouded with a hint of something else that told him she was distracted in the way only the overstimulation of being intoxicated could accomplish.

"You're beautiful when you stuff your face," he murmured sheepishly, still two inches from her face, as though those words offered an adequate explanation for his behaviour.

A smile slipped onto her features –– one that he knew meant she was thinking humorous things that were bound to be at his expense and he was about to be at her mercy. "Only then?"

He let out a breath, feeling himself blushing. "I just meant––" He sighed, frustrated with himself. He had a beer or two alone as he had dwelled in his anger after his run and now he felt sorry for it. "Never mind." He dropped her arm and pulled back, reaching for another tortilla and piling it high with more guacamole than chicken.

"No," she pulled at his free hand to return his attention, her voice soft and intrigued. "Tell me."

He shrugged, trying to make light of the sudden maudlin that had briefly settled over him. "Eat, eat, before it's completely cold!"

She obeyed, but still kept her wide eyes on him, clearly expecting an explanation. He finished wrapping his second tortilla, the distraction making him braver. "I just had a thought how much this…kind of thing is what I thought of in that damn desert when I thought I'd never see you again." She clearly hadn't been expecting that, because her own chewing slowed.

She nudged his knee with hers as both her hands were preoccupied, a gentle, encouraging gesture. "You thought of me stuffing my face?"

The heat on the back of his neck and on the tops of his ears returned in a flush and it occurred to him momentarily that he was thankful for the dim lighting. "Yeah, it was as much a mystery to me too," he returned, equally sarcastically, stealing a glance at her as she laughed. Her words might be mocking him, but her socked foot was needlessly touching against his, another physical sign she was telling him she didn't mean it. He looked down at the food in his hand, swallowing down the urge to run away from this conversation. Suddenly, her gentle, reassuring hand was on his wrist and when he looked up, her eyes weren't laughing, but asking.

"What is it?" she implored, her usual impetuous, curious self. "Everythin' lately has been about me! We haven't even once talked about what happened to you."

"There's nothing much to say," he denied automatically, feeling self conscious.

"Clearly there is, mate." She moved to take his wrap from him like a mother about to confiscate a treat from her child.

"Molly––!"

"––Talk to me and you can have your wrap back." Her expression softened from one of determined, amused resolve to one of kind, caring imploring. "Please."

He sighed, turning entirely to face her and using his height and long arms and taking back the wrap. "Okay."

She smiled softly as she ripped a mouthful of tortilla, snuffling close enough for her knees to touch his shins in a kind of campfire confession pose. "What 'appened to you ain't no small thing, Charlie," she said, her mouth full of food, "Did they ever hear any more about the leading guy?"

"Not that they'd tell me," he replied, level with disinterest. "Thankfully," he added. "To be honest, I'd be happy to just completely forget the whole thing."

"I know that feelin'."

A moment of quiet settled between them as they chewed, both contemplating this shared feeling. Molly watched as he seemed be fighting a heaviness, a fleeting expression crossing his face.

"It was horrific, what happened to you, Molly." The words were soft and sad, making stomach sink. "What happened to me…well, it doesn't haunt me half as much."

Just like that, the sadness turned to an exasperated sigh. "It's not a contest, Charles."

He frowned, rubbing his bottom lip and shaking his head. "I don't mean it to sound that way." His eyes were down, which was so very unusually dejected for him. "It's just…all I could think about at the time was getting back to you, just one last time… I was in this self-revolving survival spiral… It's just hard now, knowing that when I went out there and took such a risk that could have got me killed, you were suffering even worse than I."

"Worse than you? You were kidnapped by terrorists and I was––I was just rap––."

Fire fuelled his interruption. "––Don't you dare say you were 'just'!"

He had put his food down and reached for her with a furious urgency, but he didn't say anything more right away. Suddenly his eyes were glassy as he allowed himself a moment to just cup her face and neck in his hands. "Nothing about anything I heard today is 'just' anything."

He made his point, as it was a valid one: she should not minimise the gravity of what she went through just to placate his feelings. Silently, she nodded, like a child who had finally realised their lesson.

"I just mean to say: I was very lucky," he added, his voice still very quiet. "They may have starved us and beaten me, but here I am: my head is still attached to my body. I still have my limbs. The fuckers really did enjoy dragging it out, until I almost wished they would do it. The day the SF saved us, they'd…separated me from Lane suddenly and… I really feared the worst for her."

Molly gulped, wondering where he was going with this.

"I gave myself up to distract them from Lane, who'd they'd been…harassing…and it looked in that moment they were about to…well…do what Lawrence did to you."

Molly felt her breathing catch as she realised what he was saying. Georgie had mentioned that he had helped her by giving himself up, but she hadn't realised things had gone that far… and that Charles had stopped it.

"You stopped them raping her by giving yourself up." She wasn't sure if her tone sounded more like a statement or a question, but he pressed her lips together in thought, as he looked down.

"I had to try. I couldn't just sit and watch––."

"Of course not!"

"So why do I feel so guilty?" His Adam's apple bobbed as he briefly looked away. "I was able to help her, while I couldn't help my own wife? I knew me giving myself up for her, if it resulted in being executed in a god-forsaken desert, it would destroy you, because if it were the other way round…" He made a wheezing sound, clearly tormented by the hypothetical idea of her being in his place.

"You can't always save everyone, Charles," she whispered, touching his brow where it furrowed with a soft touch of her thumb. Her own words reminded her of the lectures he used to give her, back on their first tour. "Ain't that what you always used to say to me?"

He sighed, suddenly more resigned, touching his head to hers. "You are too wise, wife of mine."

She smirked. "I dun'know about that."

He nudged her nose with his before pulling back. "Watching them grabbing at her…pulling at her clothes…and now, in my dreams, it's you I see, not her. They're grabbing at you while I'm tied up, or worse, and all I can do is scream and scream. The memories are all messed up." He said the words in a croaking low voice, clearly reluctant to share it. Molly felt her pulse surge, finally connecting the dots about the nightmares in his recent past.

"The nightmares…have been about me?"

"I thought you knew that," he replied, his voice back to its usual volume as he gave her a conscious glance through his lashes. "They almost always have been, even since that dreaded day on the bridge."

"Ditto," she whispered, relating very much to that. All her nightmares up until what Lawrence did to her had been about two very distinct things: Smurf dying… and Charles being shot. In some very twisted variations, both happen and her hands are tied, unable to help them.

Charles takes a sip of his wine, finally continuing: "When they lined me up with a bag over my head, I could hear their rifles and I had this…moment, this sickening moment where I realised it was a firing squad and that that might be it… I––" He halted himself, his hands clasped at her face with a sudden tightness, as though the tension of his memories flowed all the way through him. "I thought that was the moment and that I would break our promise and I was…" By now, she had hold of his wrists, looking up at him with round, questioning and empathetic eyes. "I was terrified for myself, then. I tried all I could to think of you but I couldn't picture you clearly enough and it made the panic worse."

She gulped down the lump in her throat, but a heavy tear escaped anyway, an expression of the profound sick feeling in her gut, unable to keep from imagining the scene and terror that he must have felt. His thumb extended immediately to capture the tear as it fell, pulling her face to his as he lowered himself to press his a kiss to her face and his cheek to hers.

"Don't cry for me: I'm here. I didn't break our promise. Lady Luck performed yet another bloody miracle for me. I came out alive with all my limbs and even my ring." He exhaled softly against her ear, a soft, weak attempt at a laugh. She had tilted her face against his and moved his hands to hold him around his back. "I mean, fuck, I didn't even get any fingernails pulled––"

She had to close her eyes, clearly visualising the horrible things they both knew terror cells could do to soldiers. Inside her chest, her heart had begun racing. "Don't," she pleaded, pressing her face to the soft cotton of his top.

His hand fell on the back of her head to hold her tight. "Sorry, that wasn't funny."

"I can't––," She felt a fool, hiding her face form the very thing that she had asked him to be honest about, but apparently she was not as brave in matters of Charles in danger as she was in her own. "I can't bear to think––"

"I know," he spoke, his voice suddenly soft again as he spoke into her hair, against the crown of her head. "I feel the same way about today, listening to all the fucking torture you've been through."

He held her firmly in place for a moment before she raised her eyes to him, a hand smoothing over the firmness of his chest, drawing nonsense patterns over his heart in a tender gesture. She felt her heart thump again hearing him say those words, because, yes, she did understand. The panic and jittery feeling that such mental images conjured up were potent and made her nauseous. Suddenly, she had some insight into how he must have felt, having to keep himself regimentally still and silent in the gallery.

"It must have been so hard for you to sit through all that today," she whispered, her voice suddenly dry and cracked enough that she retreated to reclaim her wine glass. Turning toward him, it was her turn to reach for his face, smooth from a fresh shave. "I never wanted you to have to hear all of that."

"You did try to warn me," he agreed, leaning back to reach for his own wine. "But I'm also not sorry about it." He held his glass in both hands, looking down at it as he rested it between them. "For better or for worse, remember? We'll face the sentencing appeal –– whatever comes." Reaching for her glass, he clinked them together in a satisfyingly sweet sound of a toast.

She rubbed her eye, the tears gone, but the intensity remaining. "You don't have to suffer just because I do," she whispered suddenly, trying to implore him to hear her but also trying to understand.

"What, and you wouldn't for me? Didn't?"

Flashes of her knees in wet sand were the first to hit her, memories of staring blankly as she desolately prayed to nothing for Charles to live and screamed for him to come back just to enjoy the beach with her just one more time. Her sleepless torment when he had first been taken and the near-blackout when she had seen the hostage video and realised what it could mean. The way she knelt on that beach, knowing in some frighteningly dark corner of her mind that if Charles were to die that way, suffering and terrified and alone, that she would never, ever live in peace again… Her deepest, most private secret had been something she had barely had chance to process herself, but it had been there, like the glint of some hideous weapon buried deep under the ground: if they had killed him, she may not have managed to outlive him long.

She dashed another tear as it appeared and hurried to gulp some wine, but he had pulled her into him fully before she could.

"You're right," she mumbled, sniffing her tears away. "I ain't ever been in my agony than when I thought you were about to be taken from me –– again." It had been different when he had been dying the first time, when she barely knew him but for being her boss. She had loved him, but in an unknowing, yearning, naive kind of way. She hadn't really known him, then, though her agony had still felt acute as can be, or so she had thought, all the same.

He made a sound against her shoulder, one she couldn't place, and tightened his hold, stroking his hand through the ends of her hair that were loose at her back in the way he often did to soothe himself. She pulled him closer as she sat above him in his lap, allowing him to burrow his face into her chest as she combed over and over through his hair. She could feel the tension in his shoulder; his arms around her middle were so tight suddenly that they made her breathless. It was as though, just for a moment, he was back there: pleading for his life and imagining himself somewhere far away, desperate for her to his arms and he in hers.

"You know… I sat on that beach and shouted to the sky promising I'd let you sing your bloody old tunes to me whenever you bloody wanted an' all, if it meant you'd come back alive –– even 'Golly Miss Molly'!"

She said the words to make him laugh… and she couldn't help but sigh and rock them both a little when he did. The sound was tired… but it was hearty enough that he threw back his head and looked up at her.

"You might regret promising that, Dawes." He craned his neck to kiss her, soft and smiling. "I love you." He is voice suddenly low and cracked with the true kind of intense huskiness she felt so privileged to hear. He tilted his head and squinted, making a show of a false deliberation, "Even when you complain about my singing."

She kissed his face, before dipping her head to kiss the curve of his throat.

"You have a beautiful voice," she whispered shyly, sorry to think he may think she thought otherwise. She felt his reaction beneath her lips, an intimate low vibration of a dark chuckle.

"My choirboy repertoire was indeed extensive."

She lifted her face to look him in the eyes again, his tone delightfully dry and telling of his humour before she even looked at him. It was her turn to laugh before she dropped her voice to something of a teenage sulk under her breath –– though of course, she knew he would hear. "I just wish it weren't used to tease me with that damn song quite so bloody much."

He grinned, the expression especially intimate in the dim light of the fire. He had forgotten what was left of his food, but she didn't remind him, enjoying watching him in a moment of bizarre serenity after all the months of tensions.

"I wouldn't have survived today without you," she confessed, barely vocalising the words. "I wouldn't get through any of this without you."

The expression he gave back was neutral, questioning. "Yes, you would."

"Charles, stop it, I mean it. I'm try'na' say…!" Suddenly, it felt like her throat was closing as she recalled the earlier part of their conversation. Immediately, she retreated from hiding from his eye contact, during her face into where his shoulder met the curve of his neck. Into the exposed skin there, she offered her own confession. "A part of me would have died that day," The words felt like they were sticking to her throat as she had to force them out throat the fierce ache of unshed tears, "If you had died out there." This time, he didn't try to silence her with words of plication, but raised his around her back and held her there. "I thought a part of me died the day he…did what he did to me, but then, when I found out about you, it felt like even that didn't matter when you were…" She gulped, pulled herself very suddenly from her hiding place. "I would have gone through it over and over if it would've meant you come back safe."

It was hard for him to hear as he flexed his hands around her back in a protective reflex. He opened his mouth to immediately tell her to take it back; the idea she would put herself through such trauma and agony for him, or anyone, was unthinkable to him… but then, he considered, why must her most private, blind expressions of devotion have to be so different from his? If he would willingly jump in front of a bullet for her, which he quite literally would have done even long before he knew her outside of the Army, why did he not allow himself to receive that same sentiment now, even when it was hypothetical?

"I wish you wouldn't say that." His whisper was tight and his gaze teary, all of a sudden, almost confused. "No one deserves that, Molly, no one. Not at that price."

"You do, to me." Suddenly, she was smiling again. "I know it's a stupid thing to say and it ain't never actually gonna have happened, but… a big love, big gestures and expressions of words, they ain't just yours to give, you know." Pressing her lips for a prolonged kiss on the apple of his cheek, before moving to the other. "You deserve to get given that love, all the shit that goes with it, just as much as anyone else." She squinted at him for a moment. "Sometimes, I'm not sure you know that."

As she pressed a kiss to his forehead in the same manner, a heavy tear fell from one of his eyes, racing half way down his cheek from just one blink. He held onto her tighter as she held his face and kept her lips against his head, his breath a little shaky.

"God, you…really do see the good in everything, everyone," he choked out, trying to chuckle. She wiped away the sign of tears from his face and ever-so-gently rocked them both again. He pulled her close enough so he could kiss her if he wanted, but instead they just looked at each other, so close they were almost cross-eyed. "That's why I like it when you look at me… and I'm ever so lucky that you do."