She's broken and frayed already. It's only been two weeks, and it already hurts. The killing. The constant, unbelievable amount of killing. It aches in Jenna's heart, and she's having trouble sleeping again. Faces and screams have started to appear in her dreams again, bloodied and mutilated and ghostly.

Everyday, she sits down and writes. To Jonah, to Noah, to Two-bit, to Alexis and Johnny and Dally, to Soda and Pony and even Steve. Everyday, and attempts to write a letter to Darry.

'I miss you.'

She scratches that out.

'I'm going insane, I wish I was home with you.'

She erases that one so hard she rips a whole in the paper. She doesn't like to think about exactly what that means, but deep down, as she lies in her cot late at night, she knows with out a doubt what exactly it means.

'God, Darry, I know I'm going to die here.'

Jenna stares at that one a long time and realizes how different it is this time around. It's no longer recon ad maybe a kill, its 'get in, kill, kill, get out'. And she doesn't she the point anymore. She's tired. Giving up. That's the worse thing that can happen to soldier.

The steady and constant tck tck of machine gun fire never seems to stop. It brings a pounding to her head, just at the base of her skull. The planes that fly overhead set her skin on fire. It's lonely here, because she may fight with them, but she doesn't know them. Doesn't think she wants to know them, because most of them probably won't come back on day.

Hal, looking older than he should, bags under his eyes more pronounced. He's even more quiet then he was when she first met him, as he hunted for a killer, and carried his elephant-sized metaphorical baggage everywhere. They serve side by side, friends.

Jenna thinks of Hal's brother, who she met only once. He was nice and sweet and kind, and he blew his brains out one month later after a mission in Poland that went FUBAR.

She finally writes to Darry. She doesn't say any of it. She doesn't tell him about the ache in her chest when she thinks of back home. She doesn't tell him how she lies terrified in her bed at night. She doesn't tell him the things she wants to tell him, and doesn't tell him all the things she knows she can trust him with.

Jenna doesn't tell him how, on Jonah's birthday, she slit the throat of a boy who couldn't have been more than 16. She doesn't tell him how she fell to her knees that night and cried, tears and blood and dirt, covered in filth.

'Dear Darry,' she wrote in precise, careful letters.

'The mosquitos here come in here come in swarms, like a flock of birds. I've gotten bitten more in the past month then all other times combined. I haven't shaved my legs for that long (that's a very attractive idea, I know).

Mostly I've been catching up on training.'

That would be a true statement if strategically hunting down and killing people was training.

'The food is horrible. So is the quality of the roofing out here. Would you like to come over for tea and check it out? They'd probably pay you at least a little for the roofing.

I finished

Gone with the Wind. After that, I cried. For a while.

You must read it.

The sky here is almost as pretty as the sky back home.

The picture I included is of Hal and I. I think I mentioned him to you in passing. He's the one who recruited me for REFI. Good guy. He's not doing the best, but I've never seen any sort of best out here.

How is everything at home? I can't thank you enough for looking after Jonah and Noah all this time. I miss all of you. I can't wait to come home. Five months and 26 days to go until my leave.

Yours,

Jenna'

She lingers for a long time on the closing. The rest of the letter was friendly, but the ending hurt a little, raw and terrifyingly, to write. God, she hates it there.

Darry sees the crisply folded envelope with neat, articulate handwriting, and smiles. He reads it over that night, and its dated for twenty days previous. He hears her voice in his head, and he knows that she's writing the tiniest things, the least important.

He writes her back the next day, after having a tense argument with Pony about him coming home late. Darry is positive there's a girl involved, and it freaks him the fuck out to realize that his little brother needs to start shaving and he hasn't even had 'The Talk'. He includes all the little details when he writes to Jenna, and tells her how Johnny is crashing on her couch, and he doesn't go home anymore, and that he is smiling more often the Darry has ever seen him do. He writes to her about Dally and Alexis's latest fight, after which they had almost done it on the hood of his truck.

Darry doesn't ask how she is. He wants to know that more than anything else. But she wouldn't tell him. Not the truth anyway. He knows that deep in his gut. He knows he wouldn't be able to do what she's doing, whatever it is. God, he wishes she were there.

The weather is finally nice again, and the sun is glowing on the eastern horizon, but Jenna knows that in Tulsa it's blisteringly hot, even at five pm.

For the first time, Jenna gets to call them. It's four months and 28 days in. She doesn't get to call them because she fucking deserves it and she's been doing the best work of her career(despite her occasional mental breakdowns), but because of the huge mission Hal and her are leaving for on the next day. The intel is sketchy, and it's likely a suicide mission. 96.437% likely' according to all calculations. She doesn't feel afraid, not yet anyway, just empty and aching, and she wonders if that's worse.

Jenna calls Darry's house, since she had had her telephone disabled before she left.

"Hello, Curtis residence, Darrel speaking." Darry answers, voice warm and low and it bathes over her like sunshine.

"Howdy muscleman." She grins.

"Jenna!" There's something raw in his voice, in the way it catches in his throat, and she gets that feeling in her gut again. Its like drinking brandy. Warm and burning and fiery in her stomach and down her throat.

In the background, there's a clattering sound of a glass falling on the floor, and a drunk Two-bit yells incoherently towards the phone. She can almost hear Darry's smile when he says, "The boys are all here. I figure you want to talk to Jonah and Noah first."

"Sure, long as I get to talk to ya again Darry." It's strange, saying that, and she doesn't know why she does, just knows that hearing his voice has made everything better.

His voice is softer and raw when he responds, "Of course."

Jonah's voice then comes over the line, as familiar as her own body. "Nice of you to finally call," he says sarcastically, but she knows he was worried because they are siblings and they known each other longer than any other living person has.

"Oh, whatever little brother. Talk quick, don't use up all my time, I wanna talk to others besides you." She teases.

Jonah laughs on the other end.

Noah talks to her next, chattering about the volunteer program at the library that Alexis had helped him into. Johnny comes over the phone next, talking quietly and briefly, but sounding happier then when she last saw him. Twobit comes on, and he slurs something about Elvis Presley being into beastility before being kicked off by Pony.

Pony and her go through the usual greetings and she says, "So, Darry says he thinks ya gotta girl."

Pony laughs awkwardly. "No..uhh...she's not my girl, she's uummm...we study together."

"Is that what ya kids are callin' it nowadays?"

Jenna can almost hear Pony blushing. "Shut up, or I'll tell Darry you have a shrine built to him over there."

She laughs again, and remembers how good all those boys over there are. "Actually, it's more of a monument. There's a statue of him made of marble and everythin'."

Pony gives a brief snort, and then replies, in a softer voice, "He misses you. Actually, we all do. And I wanna..", he clears his throat, "wanna thank you for what you're doing. Darry let it slip about Gredent threatening all us earlier."

"Thanks Pony." she whispers, and a lump comes to her throat.

"Darry's here, he wants to talk to you." Pony says after a moment of silence.

"Bye Pony."

Darry's voice comes over the receiver, and she almost doesn't like how dependent she feels on the very sound of him breathing.

"You good on your end?" He asks.

"Yeah." She says hoarsely. "The food's still not very good though, and I'm dying for some of your chocolate cake."

His laugh is warm and familiar, and her chest feels so tight that it might burst at any moment.

"Well, then I promise to make you some as soon as you get home."

The ache in her chest expands. God, she wants to go home. God, she hopes she gets to go home.

"Jenna...you are going to get home. All in one piece. I know it. If you don't, I'll-", his voice catches, and Jenna can feel tears welling in her eyes.

"Darry, there's a mission tomorrow, they're only letting me call 'cause of it." Jenna lets the implication hang in the air.

"Jenna...I wish things were different."

A knock sounds on the door of the telephone booth. "30 seconds, Corporal Kelly."

Jenna turns back to the phone.

"M-my time is up. I promise to do my best, but god, I'm fuckin' scared. Tell Jonah and Noah I love 'em and that I'm sorry. So incredibly sorry all that I've taken from 'em." She takes a deep breath, thinking of the sound of gunfire and the way she can't sleep at night, can't feel any ease at all unless she thinks of home; of Darry. "And I suppose, if it's my last chance to say it: Darrel Curtis, I-"

The line cuts off.

SHUT UP DOCTOR WHO IS AWESOME AND ITS TOTALLY NOT A CLICHE UGGGGHHHHH IT TOTALLY IS I HATE MYSELF AND IM GOING TO BED NOW.