James had always been safe and comfortable and familiar. That snuggly doofus that made a good pillow and source of body heat when they were stuck sleeping beneath the stars and neither thought anything of it. Jessie was comfortable with their partnership, the easy intimacy that was never stupidly awkward like things like that usually were.
One too many explosions and failed missions changed around on her.
He'd gotten spit on her face, she remembered that. She still picked on him for it. Somehow, she'd always figured she'd be the first one to snap and quit, despite her bullheaded personality. James was just too easygoing. Jessie'd never been able to picture James being the first to call it quits.
But he had, their uniforms torn, dirty and still slightly smoking, had grabbed her hands tightly and gave what was possibly the most passioned speech she'd ever heard, and given how many years the two of them had been working together, she'd heard a number that were rather over the top.
He talked about quitting. He talked about a real life. A beauty parlor, maybe. Or a clothing store. A home. No more constant failure, no more living on the road, with no roof over their heads and no food in their bellies.
Then he'd kissed her. Jessie's head was so spun around from it all- James, the more adorkable member of the team, acting exactly like she'd always imagined men were supposed to act, like those dime romance novels that bordered on trashy that had filled her head with ideas about how romance worked when she was too young to have been reading them. Reality, she'd found, never matched that.
Until James went and surprised her. Until he kissed her too stupid to protest.
She really didn't want to protest anyway. Team Rocket could go screw itself. Who wanted to get outsmarted by a barely-teenage brat all the time anyway? Not Jessie, that was for sure. Only the completely stupid or the completely crazy would've said 'no' to that.
Jessie was neither of those things.
She'd cut her hair the next day, chopping it so short it barely brushed against the back of her neck. Jessie was always a sucker for dramatic symbolism, and besides, it made her a bit less easily-recognized. A new life was easier to start without their previous 'career' botching up the works, after all. He'd kissed the back of her neck and declared the haircut acceptable.
She smacked him for that. Somethings had to stay the same, after all.