He'd known it was going to be difficult to see her while they were at Bastion, but he hadn't appreciated just how difficult it was going to be, it was making the FOB look like paradise as far as that was concerned. Here, there were no opportunities to sit and chat, no med tent to go to for treatment for invented health problems, no possibility of walking next to her on a patrol, there were no patrols, there was no possibility of eating in the mess tent with her and the others, there were hordes of people around all the time and he had to eat with his fellow officers and socialise with them as well, and he missed her like hell.
The chat they had had about 'waiting out' had been almost totally unsatisfactory as far as he was concerned, he didn't think he had managed to tell her how he felt at all. Yes, they had parted happy with each other, well he was happy with her and he had thought she was happy with him at the time, but now he kept thinking of things he could have said to make it much clearer how he felt without breaking the regulations, but then he found that often happened to him, that he would think of the ideal answer or saying or whatever, hours after the conversation had finished. They also hadn't really touched on what they meant by 'waiting out' and judging by the expression on Molly's face just now, she wasn't too happy with him at all and he had no idea why. All he could think of was that he had upset her in some way, said or done something or not done something but he couldn't think what or how or when and he couldn't just go and ask her as he could have done at the FOB. This was not easy! He wondered if it could be because he hadn't managed to get her moved to the female quarters yet, he had mentioned it to Beck but the Major had quite rightly pointed out that she has shared with the lads at the FOB with no problems, so what was the issue now? He could hardly give the honest answer which was that he loved her and he wanted her away from the lads at night.
He had a couple of minutes to talk to her today and he was sure he was right that he hadn't explained himself very well in his office as the expression on her face had changed from sullen and sulky to a beam of joy when he told her his plans for Cyprus. He was actually surprised to see her pulling a sulky face, he'd never seen it before and he had thought he had a monopoly on sulking, or at least that was what Rebecca used to accuse him of and thinking about Rebecca gave him a cold sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. How the hell was he going to tell Molly about Rebecca? He had ignored so many suitable opportunities to drop it into the conversation so that it was now going to look as if he'd been keeping it a secret, which, to be fair, he had. When was he going to tell her? He couldn't do it now, because if she was upset he couldn't do anything about it, and he needed time alone with her when he told her, he didn't want to do it in Cyprus, he wanted that to be full of a different kind of emotion altogether and he couldn't wait to get to Brize to tell her, because if his mum brought Sam to meet him, it would be a disaster. He wasn't too worried about telling her about Sam, Molly loved kids, she loved her brothers and sisters and she loved Bashira, no, it was Rebecca that was the problem, a problem that he had created by being a coward and putting it off. What exactly he was going to say was a whole different matter or 'ball bag' as Molly would say.
There had been a worrying development that afternoon, the Americans had approached Beck about Molly helping the ASF to identify Badrai when they traced him and Beck had then discussed it with him. His immediate and instinctive response had been "Not a chance, over my dead body" and then had had to reign in his reaction as he realised that Beck wasn't stupid, so he told him that the section wasn't fit enough to do any kind of mission and that he couldn't single Molly out for fitness training without scaring her, maybe unnecessarily as the mission might never happen. He told Beck he would start immediately with the whole section upping their level of fitness just in case, but he was filled with an overwhelming sense of dread at the thought of Molly having anything whatsoever to do with this exercise. One thing he was absolutely determined about was that she was not doing this on her own, if she went then he was going as well.
!0 k run with a bunch of disgruntled squaddies was not the greatest way he could think of to spend an evening, especially as one of the most disgruntled was the girl he loved! He knew they were resenting every minute of it but that he had to keep it going and that they didn't understand for a second why he was making them do it, and he couldn't tell them. As far as they were concerned they were safe inside Bastion and they had no need to be doing something so bloody uncomfortable, especially Molly who kept shooting him glances of bewilderment as if she was not sure what he was on. He couldn't tell her what it was all about and why it was so important that she, especially, got as fit as possible in the short time remaining before a mission she knew nothing about, so he yelled encouragement and threatened to put the last one over the line on latrine clean, knowing that Molly would probably need to make an extra effort to avoid being last, and if looks could kill he would have died on the spot!
Worst possible news that morning, he had had a meeting with Beck and Major Morley, who was a typical yank, all gung ho, he thought sourly, and who was liaising with the ASF, and apparently they have traced Badrai and the ASF were getting ready to launch a mission to apprehend him. They don't want him dead because they want to extract as much information as possible from him, and they want to second Molly to help them. He swallowed his initial reaction and felt Beck look at him curiously when he insisted that he was going to accompany her, that she was not going on her own. He had asked Kinders to brief her, he didn't trust himself not to tell her that is was okay, she only had to say "no" and they could forget the whole bloody thing. Molly, being Molly, hadn't said no, of course she hadn't, so now he had to watch her put herself in incredible danger once again, although he was not going to let her out of his sight and he would focus all his efforts on her safety.
He was watching her finish her breakfast and chat with Quaseem when she caught sight of him and bounced across to talk to him, all full of smiles and happiness as she attempted to flirt with him. Her timing was dreadful, he would have loved to flirt with her but he had to get her ready for the mission he was not happy about, so he responded to her flirtatious comment with "ditto" which really didn't go down well at all, in fact she was horrified at his lack of a romantic response. He reminded her that they were 'waiting out' but he didn't think she understood what he was trying to say, which was that he couldn't afford to take his mind off the ball, that much as he loved her, he had to put his feelings to the back of his mind and concentrate on this mission. She obviously decided that he had changed his mind about them, that he thought that they were a mistake, and he couldn't answer her because of course he hadn't and of course they weren't, he just couldn't allow himself to be distracted by his personal feelings, to get sidetracked into talking about them, when it was vital that he controlled his emotions and concentrated on the matter in hand because he needed to focus 100% on keeping her safe.
As he sent her off to get ready he could see she was upset and he realised that he hadn't told her that he was going with her, maybe he could reassure her while they were on the mission, but if he was going to be able to do that he had to do it without losing sight of where his focus must be.
Authors notes: I know that there was not a lot of input from the Boss in these scenes in the show, but I wanted to set the scene for his reactions in the next scenes where he started to behave like a bit of a 'tit' again and I feel the need to defend him, can't for the life of me imagine why, can you? Thanks for all your lovely reviews, please keep me going !