#tex.

But, alas, that wasn't how the world worked. She had a job to do, no matter the cost.

"There you are, Tex," Came the all too familiar voice of Adler, his surprisingly quiet footsteps coming to a halt beside her, "I've been looking for you."

"What do you need?" Asked as she straightened, taking half a step to face him.

He was silent as he removed his cigarette carton from his pocket, offering the pack her way, "You disappeared. What're you doing all the way out here?"

She plucked a cigarette from him, sliding it between her lips, and waited for him to light it for her; the initial drag was taken as she moved to completely face the breathtaking view again, causing her friend to do the same.

"I've never seen the Eiffel Tower before," Tex swallowed the view for a moment more, "I heard it was gorgeous new year's, and fuck... they weren't lying."

As she spoke, Adler found himself admiring her instead. He reached up to remove his sunglasses so he could see her better, nodding in agreement despite not looking at the tower in question. His mind was comparing her words to her looks, and he couldn't help but smile.

"Adler?"

"Yeah?"

"You're smiling," Observed as she gave a smile of her own, warm and so familiar that Adler felt a warming nostalgia and adoration spread through his chest.

"It's been a good year," He began, pausing to take a drag of his cigarette and exhale a thick cloud of smoke, "And now I get to end it with one of my favourite people. What's not to smile about?"

"And here I thought I was your most favourite person," She quipped, holding his gaze for a beat too long before eyeing the Eiffel Tower once more. A pause. Silence. "I wish I was down there."

"Hm?" He hummed in curiosity, taking a drag of his cigarette.

"Celebrating. Drinking. Partaking in the tradition of kissing someone," The last part made her laugh softly, and Adler arched a brow playfully, "Being a civilian is a simpler life, I mean."

"We're needed to make sure those traditions remain, Jess," Adler paused as she sharply turned to look his way, the use of her real name catching her off guard, "But I know how you feel. It's a rough job sometimes, isolating," He took a small step towards her, one she didn't even notice, "But right now, let's make the most of it...at least now won't be ringing in the new year alone."

His words made her head briefly duck, a flush assaulting her cheeks that she quickly shoved aside. She took the final drag of her cigarette and dropped it, gently stomping it out, "Can we do this as traditionally as we can?"

"I don't see why not," He agreed, brows arching as she gingerly extended a hand his way.

He gave an amused exhale at her uncharacteristic lack of confidence before accepting the hand, interlacing their fingers before allowing their hands to drop between them.

"Is your watch still synced with mine?" Adler asked, left hand raising so he could gaze at the underside of his wrist and to his watch face (he made a mental note to put his watch on his right wrist after every op).

"I believe so," She gazed at her wrist, at her watch, and then glanced to his.

"We can count down together," He offered, though clearly meant it as a factual statement she had no decision in.

"Roger that, sir."

The grip on her hand tightened slightly when she spoke, and Tex, for a moment, thought that she had ruined the moment. But instead his blue eyes surveyed the distance as she had, cigarette being dropped so he could stomp it out.

Premature fireworks popped in the distance, a dazzling display of colour, and the pair found themselves drawn to it. Tex took a step closer to Adler, so she could rest her head lightly against his arm, and then eyed her watch as the hands ticked down.

Once more, Adler found himself admiring her; a swell of pride in his chest at the sight of her all but huddled into him, and the sudden pounding of his chest was telling. He wasn't stupid, he knew exactly what that meant, and yet he chose to ignore it. His smile grew and warmed. He'd keep this in long term memory.

"Fifteen seconds!" She gasped, nudging him with her elbow.

He looked to his watch, watching until it hit the ten second mark. Together, they chanted: "Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!"

Their declaration was met with a miriad of fireworks in the distance, and a collective cheer they swore they could hear on the wind. An excited cheer was given by Tex, though Adler remained quiet and merely watched.

His free hand moved to cup her cheek, lightly forcing her to face him so they could kiss. It was an eager exchange, bold and brave, and one he smiled into when he felt her reciprocate; they stood there for a while, kiss turning tender with time, and they eventually pulled away for air.

Resting his forehead against hers, Adler drew in a deep breath, "Happy New Year, Jess."

He smiled warmly, however, and the silence between them was comfortable. Adler felt himself leaning ever so slightly into her touch, savouring it.

"I miss Vietnam."

Her words made him pause and lightly squint, "You miss Vietnam?"

"Aside from the smell of napalm," She began jokingly, the hand upon his shoulder snaking up to rest on the crook of his neck, that charming, shit eating grin he had grown to adore gracing her features, "I miss the fact you smiled a whole lot more back then. Every time I saw you, even during a firefight with Charley, you smiled. When we argued, you smiled. When Sims and I argued, you smiled. I miss your smile."

"Jess," He whispered, leaning down to place a needy kiss to her lips, which she happily returned. He pulled away ever so slightly, "You make me smile," He revealed, physically cringing as he realised how that sounded, "As cliché as that sounds."

"Like a sitcom," She agreed, laughing a breathy laugh, "I'll tell you what: I'll give you a reason to smile tonight."

Tex removed her shoes and placed them neatly by the front door, shrugging off her jacket to hang up before making her way across the open planned kitchen and living room, heading to her bedroom.

The door was ajar, making her pause in thought (how should she enter?), before her hand grasped the handle and she stepped inside, ready to crack a joke. What she saw took her entirely off guard and ripped the words from her mouth.

Sat on the edge of her bed, a drink in one hand and cigarette in the other, was Adler; his hair was slightly disheveled, shoulders dropped, and he was hunched over as his gaze, hidden behind his sunglasses, looked up to her in silent recognition.

"Adler?" She asked after a moment of silence, brows tightly furrowing, "What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you," He replied in the usual matter of fact way he tended to speak, glass raising to his lips so he could take a sip. Yet, despite his bravado, Tex felt something was incredibly off.

"How long?"

"If I'm honest with you, I'm not sure," He raised his cigarette next, taking one last drag before stubbing it out into the ashtray that was propped on the bed beside him, "Where have you been?"

"Hudson," Spoken as she moved to pick up the ashtray and sit in its place, setting the item onto her bedside table, "Why were you waiting?"

"Well-"

"Have you been drinking?" She cut him off, suddenly smelling the familiar scent. It wasn't intense by any means, which was a good sign. Her eyes glanced to the glass in his hand.

"A little," He nodded, taking a quick sip to prove his point, just in case there was any doubt, "How was it? As riveting as usual?"

"Yeah," Tex worked on removing her watch, setting it aside as he closely watched, "It was the same-old shit. A little argument, we came to an agreement, I'll be getting a call in a few days - - that doesn't answer why you were waiting for me."

Adler was quiet for a long moment, as he sometimes did mid-conversation when in thought, and merely watched as she slid off her mustard yellow turtleneck. Behind tinted lenses he observed the jagged scar that traced her neck, the one she hid daily and so adamantly wanted to keep concealed.

He recalled when she had confided in him how she had acquired it; a calm night, much like this one, and her somewhat drunken hands had unbuttoned the top few buttons of the shirt she had been wearing.

He knew of her injury, after all he did visit her while she was hospitalised, but he had never actually seen it until that point. She felt ashamed, weak, that it broadcast her failure... everything he thought about himself, though tried so forcefully to keep down.

The same man who had to be held back when she (trying not to hit a nerve) jokingly asked about his fresh facial scars, was the one she so willingly trusted to keep her story and the night to himself.

It was a resonating moment, one that had filled him with a slowly mounting guilt.

Was he a bad guy?

"I've been thinking," He began, waiting until she placed her turtleneck aside. "About the past... about us."

Her movements stilled, brown eyes fluttering from his tinted lenses to his glass of alcohol; a sudden shift in her demeanour accompanied her slow, knowing exhale and stiff posture.

He was thinking of the past, about them, about the hard times, the bad times, the times he so vehemently dismissed as simply having happened: he did all of this whilst drinking. A deadly combination that Tex knew all too personally.

"You've had enough," She finally stated matter of factually, hand reaching across to take the glass from him.

His hand reached out and abruptly gripped her wrist to still her attempt to take his drink; it wasn't a harsh, painful grab by any means, and served only to firmly stop her.

"I'm fine, Tex."

Fingers, which had curled into a fist involuntarily upon his grabbing, stretched back out, and she ever so slightly pushed against his hold towards his glass.

"Hey," Her voice grew low, intimately tuned to him and him only, as if the furniture would be able to hear. "Friend to friend, alcoholic to non-alcoholic, Jessie Gibbons to Russell Adler... you do not need the drink. It won't help your thoughts. It won't help you. Let's just talk it through," A pause. Nothing. "Trust me, Russell."

Adler relented at her words after a silent few seconds, releasing her wrist and handing her the glass. He watched as she placed it out of reach and then returned to his side, placing a supportive hand atop his shoulder.

"What do you want to talk to me about?"

"Back when you asked me about my scar," His beginning was met with a tightening on his shoulder and speculating gaze. He moved his head to look at her eye to eye, "How I reacted... why haven't you asked since?"

Feeling very suddenly thrown in front of a firing squad, Tex waited for a punchline or anything to prove this was a joke. When that didn't come, she swallowed thickly.

"Considering how we left it? I figured it better not to ask. Clearly a touchy subject, no matter how much you may trust me. Or not trust me."

As she spoke, he placed his head into his hands, quickly putting a stop to that possibly telling behaviour to instead run a hand through his hair, "I--"

For the first time since they had met, Tex found herself witnessing Adler being genuinely speechless. There was an aura of something unidentifiable about him. If she had to guess, it would be shame or dispair.

"I'm sorry about what I did and said back then. No matter the risks I was facing, you didn't deserve that from me."

"It's exactly the issues you were facing that make it okay, Russell. I overstepped my boundaries. I'm sorry for that."

"That's another thing I've been thinking about. You told me how you got that," He gestured to her neck, "When you had every right to do the same thing I did to you. Why?"

"Oh, well, because I-" Cutting herself off before anything regrettable could be uttered, she drew in a breath, "-because I trust you. You may be a wooden bastard sometimes, but you're alright."

The smile and chuckle that left her made Adler's heart sting. The guilt he was already feeling from years of thought and consideration grew tenfold. Before he knew it, the familiar sting hit his eye; it wasn't because of a punch this time, so he decided to do his best and hold it back for as long as he could.

To top it off, he felt the distancing and dissociative feeling that came with remembering vivid details of such events.

"We were in Saigon investigating rumours concerning Perseus in the area. Our deployment there was to be short, which meant that we were strapped for time following the lead."

His words were a strange mixture of hollow and heavy, defeated, even. Tex had seen it all too often, had even had it herself; reliving such a traumatic event was rough on even the most iron willed of men.

Her hand slid from one shoulder to the other, effectively side hugging him, as the other came to rest on his forearm, "You don't need to tell me."

"I know," He confirmed, tearing his eyes from her to stare ahead. He reached up to remove his sunglasses, resting his elbows on his knees, and then allowed his revealed blue eyes to focus onto her again, "We followed a path that had regular patrols, and found ourselves in the middle of a Vietcong ambush a few miles in. With no other option, we called for support; men had already died, so we saved who we could and loaded them onto two choppers."

Oh. She could see where this was going. The familiar knot formed in her stomach. She too had lived through similar situations, and she too had to live with the knowledge that she lived when others were more deserving.

"What we didn't see was that Charley had an RPG. He hit the other chopper, and it collided with us. There's the usual spinning and bracing, and then it goes blank for a while. I remember pain, but they kept me out of it until I was taken back to America. That's when I was told about my eye among other damages. I truly believed I... I wouldn't be here and that my life was over."

"Adler," She whispered with a frown, watching a stray tear escape his glazed over eyes. Her hand left his bicep to wipe it away, "It's okay to cry in front of me. To be sad. I know how you feel, and I'm so fucking sorry that, for however long, you've felt like you owe this to me. You don't. You owe me jack shit. But... I hope you feel more complete, telling someone."

Another tear fell, one that Adler acknowledged this time around; he reached up to gently grab her hand as she went for the fresh tear, leading it away from his face so he could lean in and rest his head in the crook of her neck.

Eyes behind his glasses surveyed every passing soldier, finally homing in onto the familiar medic patch he had become accustomed to. Knelt on the floor, doing something or other with their back to him, was a medic... and the deciding factor between if his man lived or died.

"Hey!" He barked, an urgency and gruffness to his voice that had even the wounded man behind him staring. "Medic! Get your ass over here!"

"I'm doing something," Dismissive words were met with a taken back stare, as if he was struggling to process such a thing.

"I don't give a fuck if you're busy!" He approached, shoulders stiff, "Get your ass up!"

He reached down and placed a hand to their shoulder, grabbing a fistful of their fatigues to give a rough yank and walk a good few steps - - a hand harshly shoved his away, another planting to his chest to give a hearty push.

"What the fuck is your problem, asshole?!"

To say that Adler was metaphorically winded would be an understatement; stood before him was a rather short woman, who's accent was strange, in full uniform. A medic uniform. A uniform that appeared to have seen some form of active duty. A uniform that came accompanied with a standard issue M16.

He could easily say that this was the most curious thing he had ever seen serving in Vietnam. Thus far, of course.

"What the fuck do you want, other than to stare at me?"

"I want you to do your fucking job and not to talk back to me!"

The brief silence was accompanied by a stare off before she relented, his urgent and harsh tone not something she wanted to argue with, "What do you need, sir?"

"I have a wounded man," He gestured to the groaning man on the floor some feet behind him, "He'll die if he doesn't get medical attention now."

Upon spotting the man, the woman eased considerably, feeling the abrupt urgency she earlier lacked. She hurried for the man, practically sliding to a knee beside him.

"Joker!" She yelled as she placed a hand to the wounded soldier's cheek, "Joker!"

"What, Tex?! Christ!"

"Get my kit!"

"Why?!"

"Do it!" Adler ordered, prepared to square up to the soldier should he continue to have an attitude.

Instead, however, Joker hurried to retrieve her kit, tossing it to her as soon as he was close enough to do so.

"Hey, buddy, my name is Tex. I'm going to be saving your life today," She began, voice low and steady so that the wounded man could follow.

"Where'd you-" The wounded man began, pausing to give a pained breath, "-get this asshole, Adler?"

"She was the first medic I saw, Connor. I wasn't exactly spoiled for choice."

"Who the fuck lets a woman in the war?"

"Do you want to fix yourself up, Connor?" Tex asked, stilling for emphasis, "No? Then keep your fucking mouth shut and tell your CO to give me a smoke!"

"I was kiddin'," Connor defended, suddenly very concerned with being left to bleed out.

Satisfied, she continued cleaning the wound as quickly and efficiently as she could, offering the odd conversation to Connor and the surrounding soldiers. Tensions lowered, until they were eventually null. All past offenses were temporarily forgiven.

Yet, despite that, Adler round himself being Somewhat cautious of their new found calmness. She could be an important ally while they were stationed at this base, especially if she was able to patch Connor up and show reliability.

"Hey," Adler called, much softer now, as he would in a friendly manner. In his extended hand was a cigarette, one that Tex plucked and placed between her lips with a thankful nod.

It was a solid ten minutes later before Tex cut the sewing thread and sat back on her haunches, digging the bandages and a flask from her kit to offer to the nearest soldier of Adler's unit.

"It'll be more comfortable if he knows you," She explained in response to the man's confused stare. "And for the pain."

"No painkillers?" The soldier, who she'd come to know was Sims, asked skeptically.

"We're waiting for a resupply, if you have any complaints, go to Uncle Sam."

A low groan below them made Sims finally comply, taking the bandages from her to begin wrapping securely around the sutured wound. As he did so, Tex stood, rolled her feet at the ankles to fight off the growing numbness, and then took a few steps away to stop at some crates.

Adler glanced between his men and the medic, waiting until the bandages were on and, presumably, hard liquor to be successfully drunken before approaching her. He came to a stop in front of her, watching briefly as she cleaned off her hands and packed her needle and thread away.

"Will he be alright?"

"Yes, he'll live," She nodded in validation, "I'll make sure the bandages are changed daily and it stays clean. He should be up and talking in a week. Maybe over if he's a particularly weak bastard."

A small smile crossed Adler's face as she spoke. It wasn't just because she confirmed that she'd look after Connor, but because she didn't seem to be all too pissed about earlier.

"Thanks," He began, followed by a pause. "I'm Captain Russell Adler, with the MACV-SOG unit," He extended a hand in formal introduction.

"Third Sergeant Jessie Gibbs, currently stationed with the 2nd Field Force regiment. Everyone around calls me Tex," She accepted his hand, giving it a surprisingly firm shake.

"I'm sorry about earlier-"

"-don't be. You were actually quite kind compared to others I've met," A hand was placed to his arm in assurance, removed as quickly as it came as she slid her kit onto her belt, "I'd hate to inconvenience you and your men, Captain, so I'll show myself off."

"'inconvenience'?" Adler repeated, as if the notion was far fetched. "You saved Connor's life, that deserves a beer at least."

She peered at his men for a moment, considering them before smiling up at Adler. Clearly, she was hesitant to do so.