So that's what it felt like to have a major haemorrhage!
This morning's mission to the CP had been horrendous, the deaths of four young ANA soldiers at the guard post had been horrible, the knowledge that these four kids, and that's what they were, young lads, had been killed to make a point, to show that the Taliban or the insurgency or whatever they were labelled, could just take lives whenever or wherever they wanted, regardless of the actions of the Under-Fives or any other Nato troop. He could not see any other reason for the raid, there was not much, if any, strategic value in the mountain pass or the village, as far as he could see, the only reason for such a brutal attack was that they had foiled a similar raid some weeks ago and the Taliban could not let that go unpunished as the deaths of five insurgents at their hands would appear as a sign of weakness if it was not avenged. His heart bled for Captain Azizi, he knew how he would feel if those had been his men, and much as he tried not to think about it, his heart bled for Molly. The look of total horror on her face when she had been asked to confirm their deaths and the bleakness of her expression as she pronounced them dead was gut wrenching. She was going on R&R today but first she had had to deal with this and with the fact that one of them had been her mate Rolex boy. What a way to start an R&R!
He had told her repeatedly not to get so involved, but she forged bonds with people wherever she went as a matter of course and Rolex Boy was one of them. It was part of her nature and it was part of what made her so very endearing, the fact that she cared, but the long and the short of it was that that's what leaves you wide open to hurt and he desperately didn't want her to be hurt! He just wanted her to be happy.
The long trudge back to the FOB was very quiet, no-one had much stomach for piss-taking or banter of any sort. He would have liked to have walked with Molly to see whether he could make her face a little less forlorn and to wipe some of that bleakness from her eyes, but he was beaten to it by Quaseem who, he knew, had an exceedingly soft spot for her and was now talking quietly to her as they walked along. There was nothing extra he could have done to make her feel any better, apart from maybe putting his arms round her and giving her a hug and then holding her hand as they walked along. He smiled to himself, he could just see the lads' faces now, not to mention hers! He wondered fleetingly if he should be concerned about her relationship with Quaseem, then told himself not to be ridiculous, Quaseem looked on her as some sort of substitute daughter. The fact that he himself had such a huge crush on her didn't mean that every bloke she came into contact with felt the same as he did.
He left it half an hour or so then went to the med tent, ostensibly to tell her when the relief medic was arriving, so how long it would be before she would be on her way home, but in reality to see if she was okay and to spend some 'alone' time with her before she left. What the hell had he been thinking when he had put her name down on the rota for one of the places on the schedule of R&R? He could have easily left her off the list, marking her as too integral to the smooth running of the section to be spared for two weeks, two whole weeks for fuck's sake! What the hell was he going to do without her for two weeks? He told himself that he would do the same as he did every other week, be the Captain, be the boss, be in charge, keep everything organised, keep everyone safe and that he was going to have to do it without her being there, and all because when he had prepared the rota some weeks ago, he had thought that if he could get her out of his sight then he could get her out of his mind! How stupid could he be especially as he knew full well that she didn't want to go?
His breath caught in his throat as he ducked under the flap to the med tent and saw her drying her hair, obviously miles away, with her back to him and not wearing much at all and she looked beautiful! He thought for a second about leaving and then making a big noise as he came back in to alert her to his presence, but suppose she saw him go out and then come back in, what would she think? He turned his head away before he spoke to her so that she wouldn't be embarrassed by her skimpy clothing, nor would she get any clue that he had been drooling over her, which he had been.
In actual fact she was far too upset and worried about what had happened at the CP and about Bashira to worry about what she was wearing or what he would think. He did his level best to wipe away some of her sadness, to get her to focus on what she was good at and how Bashira would be fine. He couldn't say much about Rolex boy, he had had his doubts about the lad's true age, but he did his best to make her feel better.
Then he did something incredibly stupid! He touched her!
He started by asking her to get him some of his nespresso coffee capsules while she was in London and she teased him about getting the taxpayers to pay to get his machine to him which lightened the atmosphere a bit. He had had every intention of writing the name of the coffee on a post-it note with an indelible marker, then, for some ridiculously impulsive reason, mainly due to him wanting her to think about him while she was away, he knelt down next to where she was sitting, took hold of her wrist, turned over her arm and did Sam's trick of writing the name up her inner arm with the marker. He then followed up this act of stupidity by saying he would adore her forever and watched as her expression softened, an expression that he was sure was mirrored on his own face, as she asked "Forever, Sir?
He knew he should let go of her hand but he could no more do that than he could get up and leave the tent. He started to caress her fingers with his thumb, his normal sense of self-preservation and self-control having vanished in the instant he touched her to be replaced by a flood of emotion and desire, as he asked her to come back to him and experienced the twinges of an arousal that was totally forbidden to him. They intertwined their fingers as she said she would and that he shouldn't worry. They gazed at each other for hours or seconds, he had no idea how long, before Kinders brought him back to the real world with a bump! He knew that he had wanted to kiss her so badly that he probably would have thrown any remaining caution to the winds and done it given a few more minutes and that could, or would if he was being honest, have led to a great deal more than kissing, so all in all, he should be grateful to Kinders for the interruption, but he wasn't, he wanted to shoot him. He dropped her arm as if it was red hot and left the tent as if he had been the one to be shot!
What the hell had he been thinking of? She was out of bounds, forbidden territory, he was her boss for fuck's sake, and he had spent months trying not to think and feel this way about her, he must pull himself together while she was away, but first he had to get through her leaving.
He watched her walk towards him with bloody Smurf, laughing and joking with the lads over their shopping lists and he tried hard to pull all his remaining strands of self-control together for a few more minutes until she left, he was hating every single minute of this and it was all his own fault! She noticed immediately that Sohail was missing, she bloody would! He didn't want to tell her that the ANA soldier was AWOL, he knew that it would worry her that something might happen while she was away, but he had no choice, there were far too many people within earshot for him to tell her a quiet lie to reassure her.
Smurf immediately went into 'the only good Afghan is a dead Afghan' mode. He was still considerably concerned with Smurf's lack of self-awareness and his attitude towards the Afghans. He knew that he might have to look more closely at Smurf's 'fitness to serve' when he returned. He didn't want to, but he knew he might have to, for everyone's sake, including Smurfs. Smurf went off to the chopper but Molly desperately didn't want to go, she wanted to stay with him, for all sorts of reasons, exactly what he had known would happen. He shouldn't have touched her today, he had made it even more difficult than it already was and that was saying something, and he knew that that, combined with her fear about what Sohail might do, had left her completely vulnerable. He could see it in her eyes when she told him she couldn't go but he managed to say something about needing bloody coffee and that he was ordering her to go. He couldn't let her stay, much as he wanted to, it would be far too difficult to explain and it would be good for her to have a break away from the heat and dust and tension, and the replacement medic was on site.
So she left and he watched the girl he loved get on a bloody helicopter and leave him and he now knew exactly what it felt like to have a major haemorrhage.
Authors notes: Don't you just love him? I want to hug him and tell him it'll all be fine and I'm the one writing it for goodness sake! Please tell me I'm not alone!
Hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it, please review for me, it keeps me going.
Many thanks to the member, you know who you are, who was lovely enough to tell me that it probably wasn't my finger trouble that caused the upload problems with chapter 2. My personal cockwomble always greets my cries for help with ""Why, what have you done wrong now?" so it was great to show him your e-mail, I love you to bits x