A/N: What if Bashira wasn't too lucky with the suicide vest?

Written solely because of the utterly, utterly dismal finale of S2, which capped off a disappointing series where James functioned only as a hovering figure, relegated to 'dad' status as he watched over Georgie and kept Elvis in line—both characters whom I didn't exactly like (the latter being the worst of the lot). I'm convinced that unless S3—I read this piece of renewal news with trepidation—stops with this soapish love triangle stuff and brings back M/CJ (in their full capacities, please and not as bit-part characters) together doing Army things with Two Section, it'll never quite reach the heights of S1.

Now, I think I'm going to go out on a limb here and ask...had this (what I've written) really happened in the series, how do you think M/CJ would have developed? What would you have liked to see happen?

{…}

In the choking heat of the day, the villagers scattered. Like flocks of headless chickens, they pushed past the sudden throng of soldiers, fleeing the makeshift marketplace and kicked up an enormous cloud of dust in their wake.

A daily routine, routinely disrupted.

From his position at the side of the Mastiff, James only kept his eyes on the Afghan Special Forces, unable to shrug away the prickly feeling that'd settled heavy on his neck whispering something was going to fuck up spectacularly today.

Plans had been made on intel gleaned from a source that may or may not have been reliable, blurted out almost inconsequentially to a medic convinced of its veracity because of her apparent closeness to the child. Too much depended on this girl's ability to eavesdrop, to put together the contextual clues and to relate it all in a short, cryptic warning that Major Beck had chosen to take seriously.

It could go as brilliantly as much as it could all go down the drain with a price that the lads and the ANA, as he suspected, couldn't pay.

"Steady!"

He tightened his grip on his rifle, scanning the familiar territory as the ASF raced through the villagers and closed in on the perimeter of the small, walled compound. Took in the hard, rectangular mud-brick buildings, built in neat rows, worn and peeling in the unrelenting environment. A quick glance backward assured him that Two Section had found their own positions, lined up behind him and on the other side of the patrol vehicle.

They were locked and loaded. Muscles tense, ready to spring. Hyper alert, sweating like pigs. Perched at the moment where painstaking hours of tactical strategy would coalesce into action that brought the op to the point of no return.

James hoped to hell they were all up for it.

He gave himself a hard, mental shake, depressing the button on his comm radio as he gauged the distance from vehicle to compound.

Ten metres.

A five second run straight, a turn left down the main alley and up against the back wall of Badrai's dwelling.

Twenty seconds, twenty-five at most.

And the time for bloody ruminating was over.

"Prepare to move…move!"

Unfolding from his crouched position, he sprinted down the same path as the ASF, splitting at the last moment to round the corner to the back of the house with the reassuring shuffle of boots on hard sand loud behind him.

"Go!"

Distant shouts in Pashto signalled that the ASF had breached the front.

His cue to move.

A sharp signal to the lads and they burst in through the back, guns raised, barrels pointing into empty air and the dust motes floating in the shafts of sunlight that slanted through the dirty windows.

No Bashira, no Badrai. No rational answer to Dawes's panicked question about this potentially buggered op.

Fucking nothing.

Dawes's clear agitation matched the unfamiliar tightness in his chest, a growing sign of unease he just couldn't shake, not until the crackle of a voice over the radio broke the confusion.

"I have eyes on the girl!"

"Something's not right, Sir. The locals are anxious," Kinders reported.

"Outside! Now!"

Dawes needed no second invitation, taking off through the front and straight into the perimeter that the lads have formed. He followed on her heels, only to come to an abrupt stop when the girl in question emerged out of a back alley, her hands clasped under her hijab, walking the walk of the condemned.

Around her, the handful of villagers pointed and gestured, stepping over themselves to get away from her like she was a threat.

That heavy, prickly feeling morphed into a loud buzz in his ears that he couldn't shake off, honed sharp after three tours in Afghan and all the shit he couldn't unpluck from his own head.

So what the hell was it th—

Fuck.

In that same second, it came to him, his legs instinctively retreating to a safe distance as he frantically motioned to the lads to stay back. He dropped to a knee, already looking through the scope, ready to fire.

"Bashira, stop! Stop! Do not move! Lift your arms up!"

The order, repeated in Pashto by Qaseem, finally seemed to register with the girl.

Fucking hell.

The suicide vest emerged as she raised her arms and stayed put where she stood—the worst kind of nightmare that could afflict any soldier for eternity.

"Kinders," James yelled, making sure that the lads were in position. "I want all mobile signals blocked! The rest of you, take cover!"

"Copy, Sir!"

"Yes, Sir!"

Only that bloody medic of his froze and took a step forward while shucking the med Bergen, apparently impervious to anything else but the terrified girl.

"Dawes, move! Fucking move, now!"

Contrary to his orders and the rest of Two Section's horrified shouts, he saw Dawes tentatively inching nearer to Bashira instead, her plea soft and desperate.

"Please, Sir! I need to do this. I have to keep her calm, Sir."

No fucking way—no fucking way was she doing this.

Panic and fury, both strange and unknown emotions in a time like this, made him see red. Hazed his vision, blurred the focus.

Had she no bleedin' sense of preservation? No regard for the damn troop but herself and the locals?

His medic, too full of pluck and determination, was convinced it was going to end well for all of them. But he knew better than to tempt fate, or at least, the Taliban whose tactics were crudely more effective than all their late-night strategy sessions combined.

Acting on instinct, James sprang from his crouch and closed the distance to Dawes in two strides. With a hard yank around her waist, he threw his weight over her and hurled them both the other way before she could say anything else, relying on momentum to throw them where he—

The blast of the IED shattered the air and his eardrums, the impact sending them both sprawling into the side of the mastiff. He skidded into its protective front guard with Dawes still awkwardly halfway under him and clutched tightly to his chest, the pain of the hard hit guaranteeing massive bruises that he'd be suffering for the next week.

It took a few seconds for the world to right itself and he scrambled off her, hands already moving quickly over her body to check for injuries.

"Dawes! Dawes, talk to me!"

"Sir—"

That was good enough for him.

She was talking, awake, alive and kicking. As bruised as he was going to be and massively sore after the bollocking she was going to get, but miraculously fine.

Relief, like a cold shower, flooded his chest, making his hands shake. Fast on its heels, however, was a blinding anger that he knew better than to let loose right now.

With a grimace, he scrambled to his feet, mentally steeling himself for what he was going to see. Already the acrid stink of burning flesh permeated the air, the blood spatter and viscera staining the mud-brick houses a deep, dull red that only many cycles of rain will wash away.

Yet another loss today, for the Army and the ASF, but one that Dawes was going to take far too personally.

{…}

It wasn't quite evening when Dawes entered his tent and stood at parade rest, looking as fatigued as the lads and as puffy-eyed as he'd ever seen her.

"You wanted to see me, Sir?"

James stood slowly, deliberately taking a step in her personal space, and let the heavy silence speak before he did. Intimidation was exactly what he strove for—not a tactic he employed ever—but it seemed justification enough after today's harrowing events that had him scraped raw on all sides.

From the way she stiffened, he knew he'd succeeded.

The first question was mild. "So what was that today, Dawes?"

"A suicide bomb, Sir." Her answer was sombre without a flinch, the cocksure attitude now a gaping hole in that feisty personality of which he'd unexpectedly grown fond.

But the memory of Dawes walking toward danger so deliberately was burned permanently on his retinas, that particular scar so fresh that the conflicting surge of anger and panic returned in an instant, loosening his already tenacious grip on the emotional detachment he thought he'd mastered.

"I told you I need you a hundred percent by my side," he told her flatly, the censure already thick in his voice. "I didn't see that today. When I give you an order, I expect you to listen. And there's bloody good reason for that, Dawes. I can't have another replacement medic flown out here because my current one's a reckless idiot taking the piss for a local girl in her sights than her own platoon mates who wouldn't even have a medic if you were red-misted today."

If anything, she stood straighter and tilted her chin upwards. "I understand, Sir. I fucked up. And I'm sorry."

The speed at which she apologised startled him into momentary speechlessness. Of all the responses he'd envisioned, none of it included this sad, defeated version of the impulsive but dedicated medic who'd foolishly crossed a minefield and saved the best recruit in Catterick from bleeding out.

He pushed her further, needing to see what lurked beneath that stiff apology. "Are you, Dawes?"

She shifted a little, finally averting her eyes, her choked whisper now paper-thin. "I can't make sense of it, boss. Can't stop seeing the blood and all."

"It's war," he told her curtly. "You know that."

Everything else was left unspoken. The deaths and the bodies, the endless patrols, the regimented routines that demanded the horrors to be buried deep down before the day ended…all the things she hadn't yet gotten used to.

And he, as it seemed, was incapable of offering more. Not the comforting shoulder of a friend to cry on nor some useless platitudes to alleviate how gutted she felt without venturing into territory he didn't want to go into. Not when it was never more painfully obvious that a yawning gap of experience—and with it, the hard-won cynicism of three full tours—separated them.

A small spark returned to those watery eyes, flashing a challenge. "A pointless one at that too."

His throat was suddenly dry, as though her succinct counterargument had frazzled him. In some way, it had. His absolute trust in those higher up to do the best thing for all involved hadn't wavered until this small, seemingly-innocent question threatened to dislodge the beautiful jigsaw he'd assembled of his place in the Army and his clearly-delineated duties each time he deployed.

"Not yours to question why." His shut down was quick and succinct. "So tell me, what the fuck were you thinking, Dawes?"

Again, he saw the hesitation that had her eyes shifting towards his and downwards again.

"I was thinking of you, Boss."

His breath left him in a rush, the sudden awareness of her nearness crushing enough to push him a voluntary step back. Whatever his reasons had been for calling her into the tent, whatever answers he was expecting to hear from her, it wasn't this bluntly honest one that had him as off balance as when he'd tackled her forcefully off and past the suicide bomb's blast radius.

"What the hell are you saying, Dawes?"

"On the first night at Bastion," she rushed on, oblivious to the sudden roil of emotions he felt, "when I had to stay in the all females' tent, I met Jackie, who told me all about Geraint and what you did. And I knew I wanted to make that difference. Wanting to be brave and all. And I thought if I could stop the—"

Exquisite agony. At least he thought that was the painful burn rushing through him was what he felt. If she only knew how often he tried to blink away the constant ghost of Geraint Smith that still sat and laughed at him at inopportune moments, or about the marriage that he'd managed to bugger up because of his love of military life—

"That's enough, Dawes."

"Sir?" Wary confusion lined her face.

"It was remotely detonated." His interruption was swift, mostly to stop her from going down the never-ending path of regret and guilt. "There was nothing you could have done but get out of the way."

Her shoulders dropped, the tension inherently required of parade rest ebbing away as the implications of his statement sunk in.

"Things could have been so different. Still, I wish—"

He had no intention of going into the argument where altruism shared the very thin side of a coin with stupidity.

It was the lesson Dawes had probably learnt too well today, even if it was the hardest and the most painful way of doing so. The steepest of steepest learning curves that she'd had to climb as yet and a particularly bitter lesson that could only be ingrained in one's memory after it was written in blood.

"Nothing you could have done," he repeated in a softer tone. "Yes, things could have been different. You would have been red misted, along with her. And I…I wouldn't have forgiven myself if you hadn't."

And that, he realised belatedly, was exactly the core of the entire conundrum.

The answers to several 'whys' when it came to Dawes were painfully lacking when they usually weren't, leaving him at the very end of this session, feeling trapped and as dissatisfied as he'd ever been when he was back on leave and itching to get back to the action where home really was.

"You aren't any less brave for getting out of the blast radius. You've proven yourself with Smurf when you risked your life to save his."

Dawes finally nodded, the conflict clearly still written on her face.

"Yes, Boss. And I…thank you for saving me, Sir."

Just there, that light in her eyes was what he didn't want to see. He swallowed hard and nodded once. Had that come from the lads, James would have brushed it off. But with Dawes, he didn't want the hero-worship. Not that uncomfortable, hallowed pedestal that Smurf seemed to have put him on since Geraint took a bullet to the neck.

That simple thank-you, had shaken him harder than the thought of them nearly losing their lives today when that bloody vest went off.

This was beyond difficult when it shouldn't have been.

"Pull yourself together, Dawes. Two Section need you watching their backs. I need you back. Fully loaded, completely operational. By morning."

"Sir."

She edged out quietly, leaving him with only thoughts that weren't quite words yet.