All those years ago, those dreadful long years, during a certain detectives time in the rangers, he was accompanied by mouse and another teammate. The trio were inseparable until the time come when they needed to part their own ways, what happened...
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It was a typical Tuesday afternoon for the rangers of a small platoon deployed in east Afghanistan, it wasn't too chaotic, not yet anyways.
"Are you gonna eat that? Because I will..." mouse pointed to a particular brown haired ranger's cookie.
"Fire away" she threw the cookie over to Greg with a small smirk on her face, eyeing up a sorry set of eyes next to her.
"Uh, excuse me..." jay gasped and held his hands out in a desperate attempt to salvage his loss.
"You snooze you lose tough guy" she laughed and stood up to go put her empty food packages in the garbage nearby.
As she walked towards the trash she was weary of the space around her; the platoon was situated on the front line of the battle field, meaning the enemy team was surrounding them at every angle, it was a game of 'Where's Wally' to say the least.
Just as she was about to throw the plastic wrappers into the trash can, a series of bullets came flying in her direction causing them to ricochet off of the wall.
She ducked down to the floor and backed up towards the wall until she was out of sight, oh shoot, she nearly just died. There goes another one of her nine lives...
"El?!" Jay yelled at the top of his lungs as the dust from the ground eventually dissipated, the gust of wind revealed at least 20 shell casings on the floor.
"I'm good!" Ella called out, her luck saving her life once again.
Jay looked at mouse with a sigh of relief, gosh, that gave them a heart attack and a half.
"C'mon we gotta' move, soldiers!" The Sargent yelled as Ella shuffled her way back over to them, her heart rate elevated and loud.
Jay helped her off the floor and took a look over her, his mind wandering to the worst scenario possible.
"You sure you're okay?" He held his breath in hesitation.
"All good, I promise" she smiled weakly and tapped his shoulder, almost instantly recovering from the event.
"You sure know how to scare the life out of us, Crawford" the Sargent shot her a thankful look.
"I do try" she laughed it off, but all she could focus on was the burning hot question flying through her mind at an immeasurable speed.
How many more close calls is she going to have before her luck runs out...?
~
"Jay!" Mouse nudged jays arm for the third time.
"What? Oh, yeah sorry" he accepted the paperwork from his long-time best friend, Greg, aka mouse.
"Where'd you go this time man? I called your name like 5 times..." mouse huffed, standing with his hand on his right hip.
"Just... daydreaming" Jay waved him off. Mouse shot him a worrisome glare but shrugged inevitably and walked away to return back to his desk.
Jay opened the files to see all of the painfully long reports he had to fill out, could this get any worse for an early morning break?
He let out a deep sigh after remembering what he was just daydreaming about, how could he forget?
Ella Crawford and mouse were in his battalion back in the rangers, they share many good memories together but they also hold burdens only they could know about.
Burdens only they would understand...
The trio became inseparable after their first tour in Afghanistan; they soon learned they had much more in common than the desire to serve their country, ever since that first day... they became good friends, very good friends to say the least.
Mouse would always tease the pair by saying how much of a third wheel he was being when the trio were together, that was just their way of having a laugh in times of despair, they were extremely close and they still are to this day...
Even though Ella was prone to daily near death experiences, both boys never really got used to the sinking feeling that would rumble in their stomachs when they witnessed it all happen with their own eyes.
If they lost Ella they would lose themselves, it's simple...
Ella Crawford was the light of their battalion, she would always lift the mood and make sure morale was high, even if it was just through her confident personality. She was one of the few girls amongst them all so she pretty much became 'one of the guys' instantly.
She didn't have much of a choice...
Most of the guys in the battalion had a huge incline towards her, wether it was because of her breathtaking looks or just because they hadn't been with a woman in so long, they mostly wanted her for themselves.
All apart from jay and mouse of course, those two were just protective over her. She's a sight for sorry eyes, and that didn't always go down well in the battalion...
She stands at roughly 5'7" tall and is full of brawn muscles, all thanks to her job of course. She has long, straight, brown hair with turquoise-like blue eyes, only a few freckles too, but she was stunning.
"Staring at your work won't do you any good" a female voice emerged from behind him, scaring him once again from his sorrows of paperwork.
Jay looked up to see Ella smirking at him, he shook his head and sighed, longing for the memories to stay fresh in his head.
"Shut up" he smirked back as she sat down opposite him.
Oh yeah, she's jays current partner too.
After the trio came to the end of their duty contract things got a little rocky, but in the end they were all reunited with each other through the intelligence unit.
At first hank was hesitant to have three war vets working in his unit, he was afraid that their past would affect too many cases and bring up their PTSD, but he has been shown on many occasions that letting Ella into his unit will forever work in his favour.
"Need me to take a few?" she pointed to the pile of files next to his arm, the pile that's about to topple onto the floor...
"Wow, how very kind of you" he laughed but nodded thankfully, blushing at even the simplest of gestures from the woman.
"I know, I'm simply the best" she shrugged teasingly and took the files from him.
Jay smiled, he's ever so lucky. Having his two best friends working with him and seeing them everyday has helped him through a lot. They all kind of rely on each other when things gets bad again, and trust... they do get bad.
Mouse flashed jay a quick eyebrow wriggle from across the room, jay pulled a face and rolled his eyes in response. Mouse always teases jay about Ella, it's so obvious that the two have something more than just friendship between them, but jay never wants to admit it.
"Will you two stop flirting and get together already?" Ella shook her head in amusement without even looking up from her writing, sensing the tension in the room.
Jay smiled a little, he finds it funny how she can sense things, she's quite the remarkable bunny Ella Crawford is.
"My bad, I'll arrange our dinner date for 7 sharp" mouse replied sarcastically, aggressively tapping his keyboard.
Ella looked over her shoulder and smiled at mouse, she let out a small chuckle before getting on with her work again.
Jay sat back and sighed contently, he really is living the best life, most of the time...
*TW: contains mention of ptsd, blood, gore, SA, strong language. This will be the only TW as topics will be consistent*
