He felt worn out. Everything had gone to shit in the last couple of hours leaving him exhausted and the adrenalin of the mission hadn't yet kicked in so that even simple things had become a huge effort and he was asking himself how the hell it had come to this. He had been in the army for nearly ten years, he was experienced, he was a Captain with a massive responsibility for keeping a bunch of squaddies, most of them not much more than teenagers, safe in a fucking war zone and he had spent almost the whole of this tour with his head filled with need or desire or whatever it was, a crush, for one tiny, beautiful green-eyed teenager. Because that was what she was, however hard he tried to bend the facts in his head, she was too young for him. Smurf was a far better fit for her, he was the right age and from the right sort of background and he appeared to care for her, but the thought of the two of them together filled him with a mixture of horror and rage and desperate misery. He had been two people throughout this tour. On the outside he had been the same officer he'd always been, calm, controlled and reasonable, stern when he needed to be and with occasional flashes of sarcasm, but always with a sense of humour, but on the inside he had been in absolute turmoil, flipping between pure delight and total despair depending on this one girl, and he wasn't used to it. No-one had ever affected him like this before and now he had messed it up comprehensively because he had been a coward. He couldn't help thinking that it was lucky they didn't yet employ mind readers in the army, he'd be totally fucked!
The briefing went exactly as he had expected it to, she had a mask of cold indifference on her face and had made absolutely sure that she made no eye contact with him, concentrating all her attention on the American and then looking down or over his shoulder when he was speaking. He knew from her face that she had been crying, he could read her expressions like a book, he should be able to he had spent enough time studying her, so despite her attempt to look icily unconcerned, he knew she was hurting and it was all his fault and he was terrified it would send her into Smurf's arms, they were sitting together again.
Ingrained habit, training, experience and his professional mind-set all kicked in when the mission started and his focus became the effectiveness of the task and their safety as they began the trek through the drainage ditch to the CP. He knew she was scared so he tried to reassure her that his focus was still on getting her home in one piece whether she hated him or not. That hadn't changed. The explosion that scared everyone shitless came before they had completed more than a couple of hundred metres and his instant, instinctive response to danger had been to check that she was okay. Their eyes had met and he realised that her instant response had matched his, the fact that she couldn't switch it off completely, any more than he could, made him feel just a tiny glimmer of hope that once they got to Cyprus he would be able to talk to her and tell her all the things he hadn't been able to so far. The relief they had all felt when they realised that they were under attack from nothing worse than a thunderstorm had been enormous and he realised that he had just seen Molly smile for the first time in hours.
Sitting and waiting out for the moment when the action would start seemed, as usual, endless and, in a way, he was glad that Molly had chosen to sit on her own in the small room adjoining the main one, it would have been difficult to sit in close proximity to her while she was blanking him and he was trying to maintain focus, but all his instincts screamed 'NO' when he saw Smurf get up and go into the room where she was alone. He tried to ignore the impulse to get in there and stop them being alone together but he couldn't and he couldn't ignore the compulsion to try and put things right between them, this hurt way too much and rules and regulations suddenly seemed not nearly as important as he had always believed.
"Sod off, Smurf and leave us alone" wasn't exactly appropriate, even though that was what he wanted to say, so he waffled a bit and gestured with his head for Smurf to leave them then found himself at a loss as to how to start telling her what he wanted her to hear, especially as he was talking to the back of her head, so he told her about Sam and how he was part of his life and how he had always wanted to tell her but he hadn't found the right time to do it. Her voice was brittle and angry as she told him he had really hurt her, so he confessed what was in his heart, that he had only ever wanted to make her happy. Her accusation that he had fucked that up big time came as no surprise, he already knew that he had, so he stepped over the line he had drawn and was honest about how he had felt in that ditch when the thunder had frightened them and how she was the only thing that mattered to him. She was staring up at him with wide doe eyes swimming in tears as he spoke almost in a whisper that she was the last thing he wanted to see and he felt all his caution fly out of the window as she murmured "ditto", so he kissed her. It was a soft, gentle kiss, one that was full of promises and full of promise and one that filled his heart with a longing to get the rest of this mission finished, get the rest of the tour completed and get to Cyprus where he could spend time with her.
The search of the back of the lorry was under way when Smurf appeared to disintegrate, totally losing control of himself, shooting a farmer's goat then threatening to shoot the farmer, ranting about all manner of disjointed things, Geraint, him, how he had stolen Molly, and how Smurf had seen and how he'd let Smurf down, so that he had been desperately ordering him to put his gun down. Suddenly he had heard Molly panicking and shouting at him that it was Badrai as she ran towards him and that they had to take cover, but there was no cover and no time to do anything. The first bullet knocked him off his feet as it hit his stomach below his bullet proof vest, the pain was instant and immense and the second bullet shattered his lower leg in a burst of unbelievable agony and suddenly she was there bending over him trying to keep him with her, willing him to stay with her as she did her best to stop him bleeding to death from his stomach wound at the same time as she was treating Smurf for a wound to his arm. He knew he had to apologise to her for something, he didn't know what but he kept trying to say ""sorry" as she started to fade away from him and no matter how hard he tried to cling on, she disappeared.
Authors notes: I am glad I know what happens next otherwise I'd be in bits! Hope I've managed to capture some of the emotion of these scenes. Thanks for all the lovely reviews, please review to let me know if you are still reading this because it is what keeps me going.