I don't own any parts from Rambo, just the plot. Ummm, I know that a lot of this is historically incorrect, but that's the fun part *sarcasm*. Review and I'll love you forever. It's mushy at parts, and Rambo is how I think he is.

Oh, and Maggie has long brown hair that is constantly in a French braid. Blue eyes and tan skin. She has the body of a really good ballet dancer. (muscular, no fat almost, just muscle)

I was being forcefully pushed to the sheriff's car. I had thought that this was a stupid idea. Why would I turn around…? I didn't know why, but I hoped that the person in the upcoming car would step in; I could tell that this was adding up to something that I truly didn't want to be a part of. I watched as the car drove past, and I closed my eyes, just realizing that the officer was trying to tell me something, and when I was ignoring him, he wasn't exactly getting any happier.

Suddenly the car screeched to a halt and pulled back racing towards town. I could have swore that the face in the driver's seat was familiar, but I wasn't sure and I couldn't trust my eyesight anymore; especially when it came to my old mates; especially when it came to Ortega.

I vaguely registered that he was patting me down, and I almost smiled when he came to my knife. It was mine since the war, and I would probably be buried with it. As Ortega had been with hers, I sighed as I realized that the incompetent man was saying something to me.

"And why would you be carrying a knife like this" What would I use it for, did he think that I slaughtered people for a living?

"Hunting." He laughed at my answer, doubting it, though it was true.

"Don't be a wise guy, you don't hunt with a knife." I sighed, would he just put me in the cab already? I knew I was facing a hearing or fine of some sort. I wasn't going to rebel against it, at least not yet. But I certainly would later considering that any fine would be more than the ten dollars that I had in my pocket. I was shuffled into the police car and we were off, back towards town.

***

"Trautman, speaking." The voice I hadn't heard in years sounded over the phone. "Who is this?" I could barely speak, I knew I wasn't supposed to contact anyone from the war, it would be blowing the mission that was still operable, but Rambo was in trouble, and I would shoot myself in the eye if I let him go through it alone.

"This is…." I swallowed the lump in my throat. "It's me, Trautman. I'm alive and well."

"Maggie?!" His disdainful voice sent shivers down my back. I knew what he must be thinking; I knew what my death must have done to Johnny. "Why are you contacting me of all people? Shouldn't you be calling John?"

"John is who I'm calling about. I saw him today; he's been taken into custody by sheriff Teasle." There was a silence on the other end; he was expecting to know who exactly the troublesome sheriff was. "He's brutal with vagrants, and I have a bad feeling, I need you to come down from Brag, help him before he breaks."

"Why can't you do this Maggie?" His voice was tired and wary and I knew that this was putting a strain on him. I felt my heart break as I knew that he didn't understand that it had to be secret from Rambo. I so wanted to be the one to help him, I wanted him to go with me. But that would be too much to ask from anyone, especially someone that I had left in the dust years ago.

"I'm leaving for 'Nam in a few weeks, and I need to know that he'll be okay… I can't help him, and I wasn't supposed to contact anyone from the squad until after I got back." I had heard that several times before, each time to only be told to just 'Wait until the next mission is over.' Only to be given no chance at resignation, no chance to tell even the colonel that I was alive.

"There's going to be trouble." I could feel the tears in my eyes, I knew what his next question would be, it was as inevitable as death, but I didn't want to face it, I never wanted to face it, truth be told, I wanted to die on one of the missions and have him be told that way, let him know where exactly in Arlington he was going to be buried. I looked at the ring on my finger, I had promised forever, and I only gave a week. I shook my head, to get engaged in 'Nam… "Can I at least tell him that you're alive?" I shook my head again, only to realize I was talking on the telephone.

"No, I want to be the one to tell him, if I can find him when I get back… Colonels, I'm just asking you this one thing, get him out of this trouble. I'll have a nice reunion with the two of you when I get back just…" I watched as John zipped by my small farm house on a dirt bike, pursued by the idiot sheriff. "Too late, I have to go before this gets really bad…" I hung up the phone and suited up, jumping onto the dirt bike before following the trail leading into the mountains, near the creek I could see John farther up and Teasle just down the hill from him, apparently out of shape, as he was weazing, john disappeared into the shrubbery before I could be seen by either one of them.

"I know you can hear me! You're finished! You hear me? FINISHED!?" I was alarmed, what exactly had happened in that sheriff's office, I should have picked him up when I saw him being taken in. I looked behind me to see the shocked face of the sheriff, apparently not expecting 'backup', I laughed at the term, so soon.

"ORTEGA!!! DON'T BE STUPID, THIS MAN IS DANGEROUS, AND YOU DON'T KNOW HIM!" I snorted at this and continued up the hill, I wanted to get to him before Floyd's 'babies' did.

***

I almost turned and went back to the clearing before getting a vivid image of the mound that was her burial site, in the middle of a random forest. I fingered the plain ring that she had insisted that I get; I never had taken it off. I beat away the barbed-wire and grabbed the canvas cloth that was on the ground, rubbing my arms before fashioning tunic type clothing allowing me to move freely while still being warm.

"Johnny!" My loneliness and insanity had finally reached a maximum level. I still enjoyed it as she wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me with what I could assume was not her full strength. "Rejoin the services and go with me…. Please, after seeing you again I can't let you go. I won't. Never again, no matter what they tell me, no matter what the mission, I will not leave you." She was crying then and I realized that it really wasn't her, she never cried, not even when she was tortured and covered in infectious wounds. My hallucinations had never been this unrealistic, yet realistic at the same time, I was sure that if I blinked, she would disappear, and not be back for a few weeks, months if I was lucky.

I closed my eyes long and hard, relishing in the fact that the sensation of her touch, imagined it may be, was still felt, and I almost felt warmer wear the synthetic lining of her jacket had touched my arm. When I opened them, she was still there, and something in the back of my mind was telling me that, for once, somehow, she may be real. Maybe I had died… and the past few years had been hell, and I was now through with it, which was exactly it. I was now in some truly twisted form of heaven.

"John, Colonel Trautman is worried, as am I. We need to get you away from this hick town before they decide that you're worth going after. And when you've known Teasle as long as I have, you know that he won't give up." She searched my eyes. "John, are you okay?" I nodded, I truly was in heaven, no matter what they decided they would do to me, it didn't matter, Maggie was finally with me.

***

He thought that he had cracked, I could see it in his eyes, maybe I should've put off the sheriff. Maybe I should just go back and do just that. I'll ask for an early deployment and the colonel slowly introduce the idea that I wasn't dead, so that if I came back he would be prepared for it and I would be able to finally have some semblance of a real, normal life, though I knew that I would never really be able to have just that.

"John, I'm going to go back and talk some sense into Teasle, they may already be back, whatever you do, don't let them see you and if you see me, try to get to me, I'll contact Trautman, have him take us out of here." His eyes widened and he pulled me to him.

"I've been through Hell without you Maggie, you can't expect me to just let you go now." He pulled me to him. I started panicked, there were dogs barking in the distance.

"I promise you, I'll be back, just let me talk them out of the crazy manhunt they have going for you right now. Please John, I'll quit the forces, and we'll get a house, and we'll have a family together, just let me get them off your tracks." He looked me in the eye. And looked at the sky, It was almost dark.

"If you aren't back by sunrise tomorrow, I will search the whole town, until I find you, nothing will get in my way this time." He kissed the top of my head and I realized how much I would miss this in two weeks when I would be leaving… I would make good on my promise, when I got back.

I nodded and turned with tears in my eyes. If I didn't complete this mission I would have a dishonorable discharge, and never have any type of future. I took a deep breath; I would save him, get him help, and let any consequences happen when I got back. If I could come back at all, I had known for a while now that they'd decided that I knew too much and that I needed to be killed off.

"I love you, Rambo." I walked back toward the stream and saw the hunting party. "You have to get out of here for now." He nodded and soon I couldn't even tell that he had been there other than the cut cloth covering the ground.

"TEASLE!" He looked over to me and quickly ran to where I was, making sure that it was really me before putting down his rifle. "Call off the search, he's harmless. I knew him in 'Nam-"

"You mean to tell me that you served in Vietnam? That's a laugh. Now, why are you protecting this guy?" I decided to give him something that would throw him through a loop.

"He's my fiancée; he didn't realize that I had moved away from Portland until you dropped him off. You really have no charge against him, and he was only defending himself from the bruises I saw on his back." I heard a shot a while away and I realized that the search party was missing someone. "If he's dead… Colonel Trautman will have to put me in the psychiatric ward. I'll kill you all." And with that I left running, this was getting me no where any time soon, and Rambo needed help, now.

***

I held tightly to the cliff as the bullets flew past my head. I was very lucky that he was a terrible aim, though he may get lucky, very lucky, very soon, if I didn't get off the face of this cliff, and get off of it soon. Maggie said she was going to get them called off.

I realized again, that Maggie had only been a hallucination also, this realization made me let go of the cliff. I remembered my training and as I fell I grabbed onto branches, slowing the fall and softly hitting the ground. I should have let him kill me, I should have gotten myself killed in the war, but I didn't, and I couldn't seem to let myself die. No matter how many times I got into these so called 'dire' situations, I couldn't kill myself off.

The idiot in the helicopter found what was impossible for me, fairly easy as he fell out of the helicopter after firing shots that I easily dodged. Poor fool smashed himself on the rocks. I ran out to grab the gun and I checked his pockets for more ammo, there was almost none. I would have to work with what I had.

I was going to do what Maggie said, I was going to go to Trautman after this was over, I was going to ask him what I could do. I almost laughed; this was the closest to doing anything that I had since the war, which said something. I looked up the mountain face before realizing that one of the tree had injured my arm. I was once again glad for my training; anyone else would have been brought to their knees by the looks of the injury alone.

I had to keep telling myself that Maggie really was gone, that nothing could bring her back, and I wouldn't see her until my eventual death, and even then I seriously doubted that I was going to heaven.

***

The shots suddenly stopped, and for the town's sake, I hoped that that didn't mean that they had killed Rambo. I watched from the top of the cliff as John became a scavenger and quickly looted the dead deputy's body. He was injured, I could clearly see the blood that was thick in flowing down his arm, I watched until I could no longer see him, watched until he had taken the cover that he needed to stitch himself up. I almost sighed in relief.

"Jesus Christ." I heard Teasle curse a bit before noticing that John was standing at the bottom of the gorge, hands in the air.

"THERE'S ONE MAN DEAD! IT'S NOT MY FAULT; I DON'T WANT ANY MORE HURT!" Goddamn, what was he doing, Gulf was dead, and Teasle wasn't going to give him up no matter what.

"FREEZE! STAND RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE, GIVE YOURSELF UP!" I knew that this was the reaction that he would get from Teasle.

"BUT I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" I started climbing down into the gorge.

"I'M WARNING YOU BOY, YOU MAKE A MOVE AND I'LL BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF!" I saw that Mitch had noticed me, and was pointing me out to Teasle.

"BUT I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!" He started backing up and they started firing at him, John flinched as he ran and it really looked like he'd been hit.

"BOYS!" they all looked over to me, once again realizing that I had moved again and with a jump I was down into the gorge. "IF HE'S GOT MORE THAN A SCRATCH ON HIM…" They didn't cease fire and I drew the rifle from my back and fired at Teasle, knocking his hat off. "NEXT TIME I WON'T MISS!"

They cursed as I ran off in the direction that he was in, knowing that I was the only one that could track him without those damn dogs.

***

I was fully convinced now that she was real. I had been watching as they ran in fear after she shot at them. I wondered why they hadn't taken her seriously. That was one thing that no one had ever done with her, in all the time that I knew her. Hell, she had made it to the Green Beret's without having to lie about her gender.

Fury set in; I had been wandering about for years, thinking that I could possibly be the last of our squad, only to find out that she was still alive and well, and had just left me. Now she had some need to protect me? Why hadn't she been there when I needed her, when they were all dying? When I was recaptured by the Vietnamese? She was there for none of it, and I could bet my life that she would say that she still loved me.

I hardened my face, there had never truly been any love between us. I stopped and pulled the stupid plain band off my ring finger. I had worn this stupid thing for years for someone who I thought was dead; someone that I now realized never loved me. I dropped the rifle and subconsciously let out a yell of frustration and threw the stupid thing with all of my might.

I thought I heard a twig snap behind me and I realized that I had given my position out, not just to the policemen, but to Maggie, she would find me soon. I now realized that it wasn't the policemen that I needed to get away from or be afraid of, but Maggie. I didn't know how much of her I would be able to take before I snapped; And though I certainly didn't like her, that didn't mean that I want her to die.

I ran into the woods, this wouldn't end good for anyone in this, yet I was unwilling to let it die.

I was glad and sorry at the same time that I had been watching. I almost cried out when he threw the band. I knew that I had lost my chance, and it made since. I didn't deserve him anyways. I had lost him when I had been reassigned. It was foolish of me to keep the hope of anything ever being the same again.

I watched as the ring fell, and kept my eyes on it, picking it up when he had left, and slipping it onto my thumb, smiling as I knew that I would at least keep that part of him with me. I wouldn't let him know that I was here, probably never even fire, just usher him out any way that I could.

: ( that wasn't how I planned it…. Oh well, it makes for easy sequels…hehehe