She was scared, it was written all over her face and she even admitted it to him, which was very unusual for Dawes, she hated to admit weakness of any kind, but even though she was terrified she still said she could manage without him! Well, she might have thought she could manage, and she may have been right, but he was bloody sure that he couldn't let her go on her own, there was no way he was letting her out of his sight. He needed to keep her safe and he didn't trust anyone else to do it. He wasn't sure why she was avoiding eye contact with him in the carrier, he was willing her to look at him so that he could try and give her some reassurance by a look or a smile, but she was studiously avoiding looking at him so it was obvious that she had misinterpreted their exchange outside the mess hall, God, he was losing count of the number of times they had misunderstood each other. The ASF were their usual incompetent selves, no Badrai, of course not, and one of the insurgents was allowed to get close enough to wallop Molly in the face, sending her flying and cutting her lip. Her face was plastered with blood and he couldn't comfort her or do the thing he most wanted to do, which was to smack the guy in the face, not the insurgent who had hit her, but the ASF cretin who had allowed it to happen. Not for the first time he had to restrict himself to a glare!
He told Morley that 2 section needed to be part of a joint exercise if Dawes was going to carry on with this madness, God, how difficult was he finding it to think of her as Dawes? but he had to if he was going to maintain his control over himself, and it was going to be over his dead body that she was put in danger again. The lads would help protect her. Morley had them return to the detention centre because the insurgent who had hurt her was mouthing off about it all being her fault and they couldn't get him to identify himself or give them any information on Badrai although it was obvious he knew him and not for the first time he was blown away by the fact that Dawes really was something else! He had tried to tell her not to confront the insurgent but she was having none of it, she was determined to sit opposite him and find out why he was blaming her, mainly because she had heard him mention Bashira's name and he knew she would never be able to resist her need to know about Bashira! Turns out he knows all about Badrai and Bashira, he is Badrai's son and Bashira's brother and then he had the bloody nerve to sit there and blame Dawes for all the problems in that family, problems that were caused by his father belonging to the Taliban and involving his kid in a suicide bomb bid and some medieval tradition of avenging honour by killing his daughter, and, horrendous as that was, his son was going along with the idea as a reasonable and acceptable action, bloody hell! He seemed to think that his father was going to find Bashira and kill her and that it was all Dawes' fault for befriending the kid, unbelievable!
Morley reckoned Badrai was in the mountains but had a cache of explosives and would be making his way to Kabul, so 2 section would help the ASF grab him and put a stop to his nonsense once and for all. Poor Dawes was in bits, of course she was, she was absolutely distraught because she blamed herself for all of it, and he knew that that was just what that bloody little insurgent intended to happen. She had convinced herself that it was her fault that Bashira has been in so much danger ever since she made friends with her. It's wasn't, of course it's wasn't, if anything it was his fault for allowing Dawes to get so close to her. All Dawes did was her best to give the kid a chance at a better life and to stop her father killing her for some warped ideology! He was horrified to realise that she not only blamed herself for Bashira, but for Badrai and his son, for Sohail, and for the fact that 2 section would be going on a dangerous mission, so he bundled her into his quarters, he couldn't bear for her to go on feeling that way, especially as it wasn't true. He knew now that her compassionate way of looking at things had acted as a wake-up call for him, had changed his assessment of what they should have been looking to achieve , had made him engage the brain that had been in cold storage as he had blindly followed orders without questioning them. As he began to get through to her, to show her he was proud of her, that she should be proud of herself, his feelings got the better of him and she became Molly again in his head, not Dawes. He hadn't been alone with her for weeks, and he forgot all the crap about keeping things professional and began to think and talk about what would happen when they got home, about Bath and his parent's home and Christmas and about him not being her boss anymore, a day that couldn't come quickly enough for him. He was desperately fighting the urge to kiss away the tears that were still on her face, he knew he still needed to keep his wits about him for this sodding mission, when someone started knocking at the door and calling him. Smurf, it bloody would be!
It was probably crazy to hide Molly in his wardrobe while he got rid of Smurf, but she didn't want Smurf to see her tear-stained face and he wanted to carry on talking to her, making her feel better, but he had to find out what Smurf wanted first. At first he hadn't a clue what Smurf was rambling on about, his mum and some letter and some ring and getting things sorted before the mission, and then Smurf dropped his bombshell, that he was planning on asking Molly to marry him, that he actually believed that there was a definite possibility that she would say 'yes'. Of course she wasn't going to say 'yes', she didn't have that kind of relationship with Smurf, she didn't love Smurf, she loved him, didn't she? To make it worse she was listening and he couldn't say what he wanted to say, so he turned himself into a complete hypocrite of a senior officer and told him to stop thinking and talking like that, it was inappropriate and dangerous and he would have to send him home if he kept on, while all the time he was yelling inside "Sorry Smurf, you can't have her, Molly's mine".
Smurf was almost out of the door when he holed him beneath the water line.
"Sorry Boss, I only wanted some advice, how did you propose to your wife?"
Oh fuck, and Molly was listening! This had always been a disaster waiting to happen, and he couldn't blame Smurf, this was all of his own making, he had been telling himself for months to tell her about Rebecca and Sam, why had he been such a fucking coward? Look where it had got him, no matter what he said now it was always going to look as though he had kept his marriage a secret, which he had, but what were his motives going to look like now? What was Molly going to think was the reason he hadn't told her? Well, it didn't take a genius to work that one out! He got shot of Smurf and 30 seconds later Molly barrelled out of his wardrobe, out of his quarters and, probably, out of his life, she didn't speak to him, she didn't look at him, she didn't need to, she just left him, of course she did, and he couldn't have stopped her if he'd tried, as far as she knew, he'd lied, lied and lied again.
He pulled himself together and followed her trying to find a way of explaining and of course, he ended up sounding all wrong as though he was blaming her in some way for allowing personal to be involved with professional, what was he saying? None of this was her fault, it was his! She accused him of lying to her in a hard, brittle, and hurt voice and he told her he hadn't lied, he was separated, but even that wasn't true, he was divorced, had been for months, so why say separated? Was he trying to make things better or worse? She said that even if he hadn't lied he had been pretty economical with the truth, and she was right, he had, much as he regretted it now! The next knife wound was inevitable, she sort of asked about kids and he couldn't answer, so there was her answer. She marched away from him looking as though she was fighting back tears and his world fell apart.
He knew he had a briefing shortly and would have to face her in a crowded room when all he wanted to do was to find some private spot, which were pretty thin on the ground at Bastion, and to tell her everything, tell her how he feels about her, why he didn't tell her about Rebecca and Sam, what he wants in the future, but even if that were possible, he was sure that she more than likely wouldn't listen and they had a mission to carry out, a dangerous mission, before he could relax and tell her what was in his heart.
Authors notes: Thanks for all your lovely reviews, please keep them coming, they reassure me that people are still reading this!