A/N: A very, very random assortment of J/O moments for my buddy authenticflirt's birthday! We'll start in pre-series, move through a bit of True or False, and onward into the I've Been Dreaming of a Future canon. This thing's quite long, so I've done my best to chop it up into (hopefully) easy-to-digest chapters. To everyone reading, I hope you like this. And C—happy birthday, girl! :)

It was amazing how the reality of her never quite managed to level with his imaginings. Even when he cooked up the most outlandish stories and the craziest scenarios, the real thing—the real her—always went above and beyond anything he could dream up. Today proved to be no exception.

He had just started to get used to their routine: her signaling him that she wanted to meet (to which one of his bunkmates muttered, Christ, Brenton, is she literally throwing rocks at your window?), him slipping out of bed, meeting her at the prescribed place, and them going over whatever part of the Plan that was on the docket for that evening. Sometimes it meant he was giving her updates on the goings-on in the Marines; more recently, she'd been opening up about what had been happening in the Army. Things were moving forward quickly now that they knew what they were looking for, and they were doing well together in their respective spheres, and even better in their common middle ground. They were uncovering more every time they met up, and they were learning how to settle in for the long haul. It wouldn't be easy—not by a long shot—and their lives were still very much in danger at every turn, but Oscar was actually starting to believe that they might be able to pull this off.

That is, until she changed the rules once more, and everything was up in the air again.

He had been on his way to the cafeteria for lunch when a hand suddenly shot out of a nearby supply closet and dragged him inside. The door slammed shut immediately, and it was so dark in there that he couldn't see anything at first, let alone tell who had taken him. The first thing he felt was panic: they'd finally found him out; they knew about the late-night meetings; they knew about the information he'd amassed on the Marines. They were going to kill him. Well, probably torture him first. Then they were going to kill him.

And even though he knew it was pointless, he thought of running, or of fighting his way out, and he braced himself as if for battle. But before he could even make a move, his eyes adjusted and he saw her standing there in front of him, and his mind took a sharp left away from panic. Her face was mere inches from his; she was holding him up against the shelving unit, her hand still on his collar, and he'd be lying through his damn teeth if he said he hadn't had fantasies of this. How many times had he dreamed of her appearing out of nowhere onto the base, dragging him off to some dark corner, the both of them suddenly without clothes…

"Are you listening to me, Marine?" she demanded, slapping his cheek hard with her free hand as she clutched his collar tighter with the other. "Hey! Anyone in that thick head of yours?"

"Ow," he muttered, ducking from the next blow as he knocked her hand away. "Jesus, Army, don't hit. I'm here. What do you want, psycho?"

She stepped back, and glanced away to the door, as if expecting intruders. He had to ask her again before she confessed.

"We've… met a hiccup in the Plan."

"A hiccup?" he demanded. "What kind of hiccup?" When she started to turn away, he grabbed her shoulders hard, forcing her to look at him. That familiar fear was back, and rushing in quick. They'd be coming for him soon. He was a dead man. He always had been. Why had he ever trusted her? "What happened? Who knows what we're—"

"I don't know," she whispered, and in the dark, he could see his own fear reflected, magnified, in her wide eyes. It froze him for a second. In all the months he'd known her, in all they'd been through, this was only the second time that he'd ever seen her truly scared. And it absolutely terrified him.

"I—I don't know what happened," she stammered. He could feel her starting to shake uncontrollably under his hands. "I just—I had some documents, hidden in my bunk for safekeeping before I moved them somewhere more secure, but now they're gone, and I don't know who took them. I don't know what they did with them, or who they gave them to, or what's going to happen. And I didn't—I didn't know what to do or where to go or, or—Oh, God—"

She broke off then, and buried her face in her hands with a noise so strangled and hopeless it made a shiver run up his spine. For a moment, he thought she was going to start weeping. And maybe she was.

So he didn't think—he just reached out for her. He wrapped his arms around her back and she gave off a gasp—of surprise? Of relief?—as he crushed her thin body to his. For a solid minute, all she did was shake in his arms, hands at her sides, her whole body trapped within his. He held her tight, and hooked his chin over her shoulder, digging it in tight to hold her still. She was in uniform, he noticed. She'd never come to him in uniform before; she must've come straight from her base to his when she'd noticed the theft. According to regulation, her hair was done up in a low bun, but it was coming loose, like the rest of her, under the stress. The fallen strands brushed against the side of his face as he held her. The touch of her hair was so light and gentle he hardly even felt it. He closed his eyes.

"We'll figure this out," he whispered to her. "Okay? You and me, we're in this together. So we'll get out of this together. I promise."

"Or we'll die for it together."

Her words were muffled against his chest, but that didn't take the truth out of them. And he had no refutation to it. So he simply held her tighter.

After a moment, he agreed quietly, "Yes. Or we'll die for it together."

And somehow, for the first time ever, that future didn't seem so horrifying to him, not so long as she was by his side when it came to pass. He bent closer to her, and when he felt her hands come up to cup his back, he closed his eyes and gave in to the small comfort. For a while, they stood like that, holding each other, and neither said anything. There was nothing to be said—if this was the end, there were no more plans to make, no strategies to discuss, no exit routes to take. They'd be hunted and they'd be killed, and that was reality. But they had both known that from the start, hadn't they? She'd even introduced herself to him with a knife at his throat. It had been fitting, he thought, looking back now: like a harbinger of things to come. Meet in death, end in death.

He was so lost in accepting this, in telling himself that it was right and just and to be expected, that he didn't hear the footsteps outside the supply closet door until the key was put into the lock.

"Shit," he hissed, pulling away from her automatically. His eyes darted around in vain for a place to hide—if not himself, at least her. He could make up a reason for being here—some CO had sent him on an errand—but her? There was no reason for an Army private to be on a Marine base. Especially not in a supply closet. Especially not when she had no official authorization or documentation of her whereabouts or purpose on this closed base. She was trespassing and he would be accused of harboring a trespasser. "Fuck," he swore, looking around wildly. The room was about five by ten feet, and surrounded entirely in shelving, as per its purpose. There was nowhere to hide her. There was nothing to do. They'd be caught now, and then caught later once the documents were traced back—

He watched the door start to open, watched a sliver of golden light from the hallway cut through their darkness—and then he watched nothing else. Because before the door had even fully opened, her hands had taken ahold of his face, brought it down to her level, and she was kissing him.

Her kiss was like nothing he'd ever felt, but everything he'd imagined from her: fierce and determined and passionate. Relentless, just like the rest of her.

For a split-second, he was frozen beneath the touch of her lips, utterly disbelieving that this was actually happening. How many times had he dreamed of this, fantasized about it? How many times had she dragged him out of bed to discuss the Plan, and all that had been on his mind while they'd strategized had been this: how her mouth would feel against his, the way her hands would reach for him, the close press of their bodies as they met in the middle.

But he didn't have to imagine anymore; he didn't have to dream. She was right here, with him, wanting him, and he didn't care why. He didn't care that his own painfully obvious attraction to her was being used as a distraction from their real purpose; he didn't care that she'd probably shove him off the second their intruder was gone. For now, she was here, kissing him, and he was going to take advantage of what little time they had and kiss her back.

One of his hands met her cheek, curling around the side of her jaw to pull her close, as the other went to her hair. He preferred it down—the way it usually was when she met him at night—and so he tugged insistently on her tightly wound bun until it came loose. Her hair tumbled down past her shoulders, and with it came the release of the smell of her shampoo; it was simple, standard-issue, but it hit him like some kind of rare perfume, and he wanted more. He stepped forward, wrapping one hand around her back to hold her to him while the other buried itself in her soft hair. If they had had more time, he would've stopped there, would've savored the feel of her hair, the taste of her lips, the strength of her hands as they held onto him—he would've taken a moment for everything. But they had no time; they had nothing anymore, and so he simply kept kissing her, kept stepping forward, until eventually her back hit the far shelves and there was nowhere else to go.

Then he took her face in both his hands and kissed her harder, pressing himself right up against her, trapping her between him and the shelf behind her, because he could feel her now: through the haze of fear and confusion turned to blind want, he could feel her hands running through his cropped hair, grabbing at the back of his neck, yanking on the collar of his jacket, and he found himself grinning as he kissed her, with even more enthusiasm now, because although he'd always suspected, always hoped, he'd never really known that she'd wanted him too. And who cared if they were about to be court-martialed or killed, at least he'd have this one perfect moment with her to look back on; at least he'd have the memory of her hands on him, her lips on his, her—

The sound of a man's throat clearing finally broke them apart, and made them both jump, panting as their mouths ripped away from each other's and their eyes went to the door.

A janitor was standing there by the door, mop in hand, bucket at his feet. In the dim light, Oscar could just barely make out the name stitched onto his chest, and the familiar features of his face. Federman. He felt the color rise in his cheeks, lighting a fire from his neck up to the tops of his ears as the recognition flooded through him. Of all the people who could've been at that door to witness this diversion… Oscar would've rather it had been the colonel in charge of this base than the part-time janitor that had connected the two of them at the beginning of all this. He would have rather it had been the president of the United States. He would have rather it had been his parents. Anyone else. Anyone.

"Call me crazy, but I don't think the supplies you two seem to need will be found in here."

After a moment of complete silence, broken only by their labored breathing, they both started spouting explanations simultaneously:

"No, you don't understand, we thought you were a CO, we just wanted to avoid suspicion—"

"It was just a cover, you know, to hide why she was really here, and—"

"Sure, whatever lie you kids want to stick to," Federman interrupted, laughing as he turned to the door. "I'll give you both a chance to draw up a solid story—and clean up a little, too. Here I thought we were out to save the world, but turns out you two just want to get laid…"

Before either of them could protest further, he'd stepped back outside, and yanked the door shut behind him.

Oscar was the one to bury his face in his hands this time, partially out of defeat, but mostly out of embarrassment. He didn't care if it was dark; she could always sense the red in his cheeks, and was drawn to it with taunts like a moth to a flame—except she was never the one that got burned. If he had to physically hide his face to keep her snark at bay, he would.

"Well."

He lifted his head only when he heard the flat affect of her voice. In the dark, he could see her tying her hair back up. Despite everything, he was sad to see it go. He liked it long and down around her shoulders. He liked the way it framed her pale face; it softened the fierce determination in her eyes, gentled the sharp angles of her cheeks and chin and nose. And he had very much liked how soft it had felt between his fingers when he'd been holding her. Kissing her.

Had they really just kissed?

"I should go," she said, finishing up with her hair and heading to the door. "All I came to say was I lost those documents; I fucked up. I'm sorry. I'll try and figure it out, and I'll be back once I find out something about who took them and why. But if I'm not back…"

She trailed off, and he nodded at her silence, following in her wake to the exit. He knew what she wasn't saying: If I'm not back, presume I'm dead, and that you'll be next. For a second, she hesitated beside the door with her hand on the knob, and looked up at him, and he actually thought she might kiss him for real before she left. If this was potentially the last time they'd ever see each other, maybe they'd even do more than kiss…

But then she grinned that cutting grin of hers, and he knew he was finished; he knew she'd seen the thought on his face. She pulled open the door.

"Don't flatter yourself, Marine," she whispered. And then she stepped out, pulled the door shut behind her, and was gone.