About the broken happy ever afters

Disclaimer: Nope, if I was in charge, that would NOT have happened. Property of TG and the BBC.

Author's Note: Sorry this has taken me a while to update...I sort of fell out of love with Our Girl. Anyone wondering just what on earth CJ and Georgie are going to talk about? No no...they're too Twilight-esque for me.


He had not been in his right mind. He was off his model face on morphine and delirious with fever. He couldn't possibly have meant that…could he? She wasn't blind; she could appreciate that he was like the main character from a black and white aftershave advert as much as the next woman, but that was it. That whole tall, dashing save-the-day officer and Prince William accent vibe he had going on, well that was all very well but she had her own save-the-day hero.

She had already had her life's great love. Her very world spun for Elvis. Still spun for Elvis.

He was the last thing she thought of before she went to sleep; sometimes she was able to shut him out for hours on end, but he always seeped through at the end of the day, like the chinks of sunlight that always managed to stream through blackout curtains. Sometimes, she woke up in the middle of the night and it all felt like a nightmare; as if watching him falling from that building had all been a bad dream.

She would roll over in bed and find nothing but an empty space and then feel the familiar itch of tears behind her eyes and the painful lump in her throat as she realized that she was very awake and very alone. Breathing would physically hurt. Grief had made rice paper out of her lungs and diaphragm.

She still loved Elvis; loved him more than she knew what to do with and maybe…Captain James was the only one who had an inkling of what she was feeling. He had an Elvis-shaped piece of his soul missing, too.

If anything had happened to Captain James, he would have wanted Elvis to look after and protect Molly. Give her his lifetime's worth of brotherly love. To make sure the stars still shone for her, or whatever. Elvis would have put it much more eloquently. He could have made Ed Sheeran lyrics look like Penguin wrapper jokes.

This was just Charles doing the same thing for Elvis, wasn't it? He didn't and could not have romantic feelings for her, surely? He and Molly…they were iconic. They were the couple it hurt to look at because they were so sweet that it almost made your teeth ache.

She exhaled air through her nose and adjusted her beret, self-consciously as she walked through the grim corridors of the hospital, looking for the Intensive Care Unit. It reminded her of the hospitals that she saw from 70s TV programmes, where the ambulances were vans with bells rung by hand. It was all a bit Life on Mars. All the signs were in English and Kriol, but it still smelled comfortingly of bleach and airplane food.

Then, as she rounded a corner she came across a burly mountain of an armed security guard, who looked like he had come straight from a shift as a bouncer of a grotty nightclub.

"Corporal Georgie Lane," she said formally, raising her eyebrows expectantly at him. "Two Section. I'm here to see Captain James. He was medevaced in two days ago?"

The security guard looked her up and down and grunted, motioning her to continue.

"Thanks, Shrek," she muttered under her breath as soon as she had walked passed him. She passed a door marked Critical Care, where through the window she could see a handful of medics milling around in blue scrubs; ventilators beeping ominously. Then, she saw a wooden door marked Intensive Care and buzzed to be left in.

She let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. He had to be ok. She could not be the medic who lost Captain James; he had been in her care as much as she had been in his. He was Elvis' best friend. He had to be fine.

Georgie swallowed as she neared the last door, her footsteps squeaking on the linoleum floor. There was a small chalkboard outside bearing the words; C. JAMES. Male, 33 NBM written in white chalk. She peered through the window; it was gridded, made up of lots of little squares, like the windows from her primary school.

There, on the bed, the squares of the window distorting the scene, lay Charles. He was pale and grey, like an ashen puppet with cut strings and attached to tubes. There was a metal cage-like contraption encircling his right leg, like barbed wire, but he was at least, clean. All traces of blood and grime had gone and he was sleeping peacefully. He looked so much younger. But the torture instrument keeping his leg in place was not what had caught her eye. No; what she could not quite tear her eyes from, was the sight of a petite woman wearing a soldier's combat uniform identical to her own, curled up asleep on a splintered wooden chair, her head resting on Charles' good leg. She was gripping his hand like it was her lifeline. One of Charles' hands was resting, protectively on top of her head; her dark plait splayed out in stark contrast against the pristine white sheet.

Dawesy the Gob, now the frantic wife keeping vigil. She smiled, sadly. She did not belong here, not at the moment. Taking one last appraising look at Charles' monitors, she turned on her heel and left.

OG OG OG

He was finally stable enough to go home; they had managed to stop the infection from eating away at his leg and they had done an emergency clean out surgery, but he needed another one and extensive physiotherapy. For that, he needed to be back in Britain.

Georgie read through his medical notes; all immaculately ordered and added a photocopy of her own notes of everything she had done as his medic, whilst he had been under her care. She drummed her fingers indecisively against the desk, her eyes boring into a freshly sealed letter, with her own neat handwriting snaking across it. Sighing and feeling more drained than ever, she bundled them up in a pristine brown paper envelope, ready for transportation.

"If his medical team in the UK have any questions, they can contact me at any time," she told the waiting Private, smiling gravely.

"Thank you, Corporal," he said shortly.

Georgie stood, acknowledging the salute he gave with a nod. She was in the cramped staff room next to the ICU. It looked very basic and sparse; there was an ancient fridge that was buzzing quietly in the background and a set of patio table and chairs. Somewhere, just down the corridor they were preparing Charles for his transfer home and she had absolutely no idea when or if she would ever see him again. He was her last link to Elvis. The thought of that made flashes of Elvis' charred face float across her mind's eye and a painful lump form in her throat.

Bursting out of the staff room, she all but ran to Charles' room, her heart pounding.

He was surrounded by army and medical personnel; all masked and wired up and still unconscious. He looked ghostly pale; there was no trace of colour in his lips at all.

A dark head spun around at her intrusion, but on seeing her, Molly's eyes lit up in relief.

"He's sedated," she told her, croakily. "Away with the bloody fairies. Probably for the best, considering they're putting him on that piddly tin pot plane from Go Outside," she joked, weakly, turning back to glance at Charles.

But her smile did not reach her eyes; they were too full and pained. Georgie felt a small pressure on her arm as Molly pulled her to one side by her sleeve.

She looked a mess. A proper mess. She felt guilt squeeze at her chest as Charles' fever-laden words about his feelings for her came rushing back. It was clear that Molly hadn't slept or done her hair in days, but her eyes flashed with urgency.

"Did you write it?"

Georgie averted her gaze and looked instead at Charles, lying there like a corpse. She could feel her eyes burning, again.

"Yes," she muttered, quietly.

Molly let out a breath of what seemed like relief, with her eyes closed. "Thank you," she said, sniffing. But when she opened her eyes again, she looked just as strained.

"Don't thank me," Georgie protested, that now-familiar wave of guilt churning in his stomach.

"You saved his life," Molly began.

"Yeah," said Georgie, flatly. "But I've probably just ruined his career."