Everything had changed.
Okay, so he knew that nothing had really changed. A relationship between them was still completely out of the question, even supposing she wanted one, army regulations still forbade it, the age gap between them still made it a non-starter, he was still her boss, the difference in their ranks still made it a virtual joke, the list went on… But, for some reason the knowledge that at least some of his feelings for her were reciprocated made him feel a hell of a lot better. Yes, he had a massive crush on her, yes maybe he was even a little bit in love with her, well, maybe a lot actually, so he would have thought that that spark of mutual attraction that they had just experienced would have made the self control he had been struggling with for weeks even more difficult, but it didn't. Of course, her reaction may have been just that, a reaction to the extreme danger she had been in being over, but he was pretty sure that that wasn't the case. Looking back over the past couple of weeks there had been other occasions when their eyes had met and the look on her face, in her eyes, had softened. The thing was that he no longer felt like a deranged stalker or, even worse, a dirty old man lusting after a young girl, he was just very attracted to a beautiful young woman who, unbelievably, seemed to be attracted to him and he was sure he was going to be able to weather the storm and get back his balance.
Rehearsing for the duet bought him the most fun he could remember having for a very long time. She told them she couldn't sing, and there was no getting away from it, she was absolutely right! But she seemed to find the whole thing pretty bloody hilarious, which led to him finding it pretty bloody hilarious as well, and their gales of laughter, even Dangles was in hysterics, led to him shedding enormous loads of tension he didn't know he was carrying. He was worried for a minute that he might have hurt her feelings so he apologised to her, but she didn't seem to care, just carried on laughing. He decided at that point to spend a lot more time just enjoying her company, in a friendly way, and to try not to be so intense about her, to be more relaxed. The relief was overwhelming.
The performance itself was something else entirely. For a start she had tarted herself up so that, even allowing for the fact that he was totally biased, she was stunning. To him she was beautiful all the time, in her fatigues or her oversized football top, whatever, but in a skin tight black T shirt which showed off every inch of her body and with her glossy hair swinging around her face and wearing lipstick, she took his breath away and when he was standing close to her, he could smell some light flowery scent which, after the usual smells of the FOB, was absolutely gorgeous. His first thought was that If this is what she looks like when she goes out at home, she must be beating them off with a stick! And the joke with that was that he'd thought he was in with a chance! The lads were all hollering her name, especially Smurf, well he would be, wouldn't he? But she wasn't taking any notice of them at all, she was just beaming at him as they sang to each other and he winked at her a couple of times which made her beam even brighter, and no-one, least of all him, gave a flying fuck that she couldn't sing. When it was over he longed to hug her, maybe even kiss her. He didn't think she would mind, wishful thinking visiting once more, but he knew he couldn't without all sorts of questions being asked, questions for which he didn't have any appropriate answers.
He was just sitting and chatting with her a couple of evenings later, as part of his 'let's keep this friendly' resolution, when he saw the ideal opportunity to find out what the problem was at home. He had just told her about it being her turn for R&R and she looked less than thrilled at the prospect of two weeks at home, and had changed the subject pretty smartly. She asked him where home was for him and he said that he lived in Bath with mum and dad, and he had totally ignored the glaring opportunity to talk about Rebecca, his divorce and Sam. He told himself it was not something that would matter to her, why on earth would she be interested, there was no need to spoil the happy rapport they had built up and so on and so on. He was getting very, very good at lying to himself and he knew it! The long and the short of it was that he wanted to tell her but was afraid of her reaction, he was a coward who didn't want to spoil the happy bubble he was living in.
Their discussion about boarding schools and him missing his parents gave him the opening he was looking for as he asked about her dad. He was right, her dad is the problem. She froze him off immediately and was obviously not about to share any detail with him, and to be fair, why should she? He couldn't change anything, he couldn't 'fix ' whatever it was, regardless of how much he would like to, it was really none of his business which, for some reason, hurt.
So he changed the subject again and they began to talk about the Herrick Olympics. It was at this point he noticed Smurf was constantly criss-crossing the compound walking fairly aimlessly but checking them out with each pass. He would really love to ask her about her relationship with Smurf but, and he could be wrong, he actually didn't think there was one, but once again, that could have just been some more of that wonderful wishful thinking. He just didn't know and it was another thing that wasn't any of his business, mores the pity. He had begun to wonder, however, whether allowing her R&R to coincide with Smurf's had been one of his better decisions
The Herrick Olympics were a blast. Watching the section act as a team, supporting and encouraging each other and winning, albeit with a slight bending of the rules, was a huge amount of fun for everyone. It was hard to remember that it was only a short time ago that they had all ruthlessly excluded her and for him to face the fact that he had been one of the chief protagonists in what had been a very miserable start to her tour. He still cringed with shame when he thought about it. Today, everyone was cheering for her, except maybe the losing sections, but even some of them were yelling Molly on as she won the obstacle race. He was doing his fair share of yelling and got rewarded by a huge smile and the sight of his girl being held shoulder high wearing a pair of seriously cute Minnie Mouse ears. He wasn't sure when he had started thinking of her as his girl, she just was!
The day he had been dreading had arrived. She was going on R&R and he could not for the life of him imagine what had possessed him to put her down for 2 weeks away and with Smurf of all people! Okay, at the time he had wanted to give her a break from the dust, heat and tension of the FOB, but in reality he had been selfishly wanting some time without her being around so that he could get himself under control. Now he was going to have to live with that decision. She was sitting eating her coco pops, day dreaming as she stared into space, so he leaned over and stole a spoonful . "Oi" she was obviously startled. "Oh sorry boss I thought you was Sohail" He knew that Molly had a real problem with Sohail in that she detested him, so he teased her a bit about whether 'putting his spoon in your bowl' was a euphemism but she said she didn't know what a euphemism was and he realised that he was flirting with her. He wondered whether he should speak to Azizi and get him to warn the soldier off and decided that he probably should, when Azizi called out to him to tell him that there was a problem at the mountain CP and they were going to have to investigate…
Authors notes: Thanks for your lovely reviews and thanks to all the people who messaged me to tell me that there was a problem with Chap.2 uploading. I did try to rectify it myself, that's a joke in itself!, but as I hadn't a clue what I had done wrong it was not the easiest exercise. Had to wait for a 9 year old to come home who managed to shame me by fixing it immediately. I keep telling everyone that I am seriously challenged by technology, but that you can't be good at everything and I am world class at ironing.
Hope you are still enjoying Captain James struggles, love him as we do, please let me know.
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