Vincit Qui Patitur

"Damn, Jack, you still wear those things?!" Jimmy shook his head.

"Childhood dreams are hard to give up, Jimmy. Especially when now I can afford to buy them."

Jimmy chuckled good-naturedly as Jack sat back in his chair and sipped his water, the DJ initiated the black lights in the club and suddenly the white trim on Jack's shoes, the entirety of his light blue shirt and his teeth began to glow fluorescently in the club. Jimmy noticed the contrast in their appearances, noting that he and his clothes were almost completely unaffected by the black light's effect, while Jack was so demonstrably compromised by it.

"So, what's her name and when did you toss Jenny out on her ass?" Jack asked.

"Her name is Grace, and we've worked together for two years-"

"At the call center you started working at after your ETS?" Jack interrupted, referring to Jimmy's "expiration - term of service," which was the date at which Jimmy had completed his contractual obligation to serve on active duty with the United States Army. Like Jack, Jimmy still presently owed the US Government two more years of service in the Reserves, which in both of their cases meant membership in the Inactive Ready Reserve, the IRR, which realistically required very little of them beyond occasional musters to show-up and confirm their continued existence, physical readiness to serve if called upon, and annual physical exams for the same reason.

"Yup, that's the one. We worked together for two years, and I foolishly never picked up on her crush-" he said, smiling, but then caught himself, looked disappointed, and continued. "No, wait, that's not fair to Grace; I never picked up on the fact that she'd fallen in love with me during that time." Jimmy said, casting his eyes down at his hands before him on their table.

"Well, you know that now, right?" Jack prompted.

"Yes, Friday night after we finished work, I took her to dinner, and had too much to drink, she drove me to her place so I could sober up, and that's when I realized how beautiful she was and how badly I wanted to be with a woman just like her."

"And you've been together ever since?" Jack asked, arching his left eyebrow.

Jimmy nodded unabashedly. "That's right, for the entirety of the weekend, and I plan to be with her for as long as possible. She's everything I've ever dreamed of in a woman, and honestly, she's the kind of woman I never thought I'd be lucky enough to date, let alone know the privilege that is a woman like Grace loving me. Fact is, I'm in love with her, too."

LaChyna brought Jimmy his beer, and Jack signaled a toast. "Then here's to you and Grace." He said, tapping his bottle of water to Jimmy's freshly opened beer bottle.

They each took a drink and then Jimmy continued the toast. "And here's to Ramirez, Jackson and Van Der Walle; God rest their souls, and let's never forget how thankful we are for their sacrifice." Jack and Jimmy tapped their bottles again, but both of them paused in a moment of genuine melancholy, still embarrassed and angry at how things worked out, the twist of fate that led the five of them to so recklessly designate one another as sole beneficiaries to their individual Service member's Group Life Insurance (SGLI) policies.

Then-Sergeant Jack Northcutt had designated PFC (Private First Class) Tyrone Jackson as his beneficiary, Corporal Jimmy O'Neal had designated Specialist Jorge Ramirez, PFC Ezekiel Van Der Walle had designated Jimmy, Jackson designated Van Der Walle, and Ramirez had designated Jack. All five of them had thusly frozen out their families from any recompense in the event of their deaths while in service to the United States Army; for three of them, it was because they'd joined the Army at least as much to get away from their families as for the opportunity to serve their country. For Jimmy and Ramirez, it had been youthful foolishness, wanting to follow Jack and the other two members of their fire team's lead. Neither Jimmy nor Jorge had really thought of the potential consequences. But they'd all had to face the outcome of this decision, on that awful day in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, when some shifty asshole with, quite likely less than two years of formal education, detonated a massive IED under their up-armored HMMWV.

From what the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) wizards could determine after the fact, the insurgent, whether Haqqani Network or Taliban (but likely not Islamic State in the Khorason Province (ISKP)), had "daisy-chained" together two Russian, 152mm HE (high explosive) and one Russian 152mm HEAT (high explosive anti-tank) projectiles and detonated them as the team's HMMWV had almost cleared the IED. Jack, as the (then) fire team leader, had been in the front passenger seat, and Jimmy had been driving. The explosion had obliterated most of the rear half of the HMMWV, and sent the front half of the vehicle flying ten meters through the air, spiraling ridiculously before landing point down in a wet patch of ditch-muck; this soft landing in Afghan road offal had likely saved their lives.

Jack had been able to remain alert enough through the explosion to ride out being tossed like so much detritus through the air, and after the wet thud of their impact, had been able to clumsily unbutton his seatbelt and fall out of his seat and land ass-first into the mud. Jack stood up and unbuckled Jimmy's seat belt, letting him drop, spread eagled onto the mud, and after ensuring he wouldn't drown, left Jimmy stunned and breathing, and staggered to the remnants of his fire team. While the other vehicles of his platoon stopped after the explosion and were now laying down fire, his platoon-mates beginning to un-ass from their own vehicles and setup a perimeter, two medics came jogging cautiously toward the impact site.

Jackson had been on the M2, .50 caliber machine gun in the top-mounted turret, and Ramirez and Van Der Walle had been in the back seats. The explosion had been terrific, but was in fact only a 'partial impact' with their HMMWV, as they'd nearly cleared the IED when the booger-eater had blown it. What detonation they did take had exploded with enough force underneath Ramirez to essentially vaporize him, leaving little of him to identify beyond a primer coat of brown organic material, sprayed across what remained of the interior armored shell of the HMMWV, Jackson's lower half and Van Der Walle's identifiable body parts.

PFC Van Der Walle lived for three weeks in a coma after the explosion took all of his limbs and left terrible disfigurement to his face and torso; in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, he'd looked like little more than a breathing, slowly bleeding hind quarter of beef wrapped in the burned, torn and gore-stained remnants of his multi-cam uniform. Jackson had lost his left leg, which had been the closest of his legs to Ramirez, and almost bled out before the medics got him out of the remnants of the turret's cupola; Jack had staggered over in time to help them restrain Jackson long enough to get a tourniquet on the ragged, spurting stump that had been his left mid-thigh. Jackson survived the explosion, the MEDEVAC flight to Bagram for further stabilization, and even made it out of theater to Landstuhl, but then died of a pulmonary embolism when a blood clot formed in one of his arteries while he was in Germany, 48 hours after the explosion. Jimmy had suffered a serious concussion (what the US military would later term 'traumatic brain injuries' or TBIs) and bled slowly from his ears and nose for three days. During that time, he'd not been able to hear or speak properly; he'd been left with chronic, untreatable headaches. Jack had escaped unscathed, seemingly.

When the dust settled, during his final three weeks of absolute indignity, Van Der Walle had inherited to his estate, all $400,000 of Jackson's policy; Jack had inherited all $400,000 from Ramirez's policy, and when Van Der Walle finally died without regaining consciousness to learn how revolting his life might have continued, Jimmy inherited $800,000. Half came from Van Der Walle's SGLI policy, the other half from his estate, as Van Der Walle had met with the division's JAG officer before deploying to setup a will, leaving his entire estate to Jimmy. Ever since Van Der Walle had joined their unit, Jimmy had been the only one he'd known in the Army who'd been kind to him, and never recoiled from Van Der Walle's ever-present body odor or hideous breath. He'd confided to Jimmy before they deployed that he hated his family and had fantasized several times about burning down their house while they slept, as revenge for the terribly strict and fundamentalist Christian upbringing they'd forced onto him. Jimmy was never positive, but suspected that Van Der Walle had been gay, and perhaps had formed a bit of a crush on Jimmy, but later reconciled with being friends and Jimmy's subordinate.

Ramirez's family had attempted to sue the Army and Jack for his SGLI payment, but after the family's lawyers investigated further, they concluded that the insurance policy's beneficiary designation had been properly executed, that Jack had not contributed to Ramirez's death, and that his family was unlikely to prevail in court. The family backed down and settled with the Army for a ten percent death gratuity, while leaving Jack unscathed. As a result, both Jack and Jimmy had come from Afghanistan with promotions, purple hearts (and a bronze star for Jack), and more money than they'd ever known; they had known one another well in their first deployment to Iraq, and had been tight through Ranger School, attending and passing in the year after Iraq and before Afghanistan. When Jack, due to his aggressiveness and aptitude for infantry unit tactics and leadership, had been promoted to Sergeant and made a fire team Leader, he was glad to have Jimmy on his team. Jimmy had been very young, enlisting shortly after turning 17, but was very smart and physically nearly as capable as Jack. In the aftermath of surviving the IED, each had thought long and hard, and talked frequently about how they would spend the rest of their lives.

As neither of them had grown up with anything like the money they now had, when they left Afghanistan they'd sought out the advice of Captain (CPT) Wagner, an officer with whom they'd attended Ranger School, and talked with briefly in Afghanistan in a chance meeting at the Hamid Karzai International Airport military air field. They both respected and trusted CPT Wagner, and knew that he served on the special operations side of the army, but had always treated Jack and Jimmy like colleagues, and not with arrogance, despite their purely conventional status within the Army's pecking order. They knew he came from a wealthy family, and was familiar with the ways by which the wealthy grow their fortunes. In leaving the US Army shortly after rotating out of Afghanistan, they'd both setup investment accounts with a reputable wealth management company from whom CPT Wagner negotiated for them, a discounted fee schedule based on their initial $1.2 million investments, and thus they had invested almost the entirety of their fortunes. (Save for one indulgent week in Bangkok).

In the intervening two years, they had both seen their principle investments grow an average of seven percent a year, and this interest alone represented cash income neither of them ever dared to dream of earning in their earlier years. While Jimmy had started with twice the amount as had Jack, Jack had been actively contributing to his investment, while Jimmy had been content to let the principle accrue under its own exponential growth and largely live his life as though it wasn't there.

Jack, after completing his active duty service requirement, had quickly found work as a private security contractor (though he much preferred the older and more romantic term of 'mercenary,'), working his way up from largely menial though armed positions to establishing his credentials as a solid fighter and reliable, "second-tier" man. While Jack was a combat veteran and 'double tabbed' as Ranger and Airborne qualified, he had not been a true "operator," from a tier-one, special operations unit when he left the Army. Nonetheless, his tenacity, physical conditioning, bravery and proficiency with weapons and tactics had earned him a solid reputation. The only threat to which came from his increasingly volatile temper. Jack had accumulated hatred and anger all his life, and when he was unable, exhausted or just unwilling to hold it in check, he would get into arguments and fights with overly arrogant and similarly aggressive colleagues. Jack had in the first two months of his most recent deployment, lost control and fought with two of his fellow contractors. His company had reprimanded him and threatened to fire him if he did so one more time. For the last four months, he'd done well in either controlling his anger or diverting its release to his workouts and authorized combat missions. As a result, he'd been able to finish his most recent contract under good graces, earning yet again a performance bonus from client feedback, and had resumed his focus on living well from the dangerous work he loved. He was finding it harder to find anything about his life enjoyable enough to keep his anger in check. At least, until he'd met Veronica.

Jimmy had taken a different tack, deciding that as he left active duty, he was supposed to rejoin society, learn new skills, reconnect with his family and friends from his pre-Army life and become a civically minded and virtuous civilian. He intended to put his service behind him. He'd even used that phrasing, and had made Jack laugh at what he'd considered the absurdity of Jimmy's intent. Jack suspected Jimmy's clinging desperately to the idea of a 'normal life' was his way of living in denial of the gore and merciless violence through which they'd passed, in Iraq but most principally during their second deployment, to Afghanistan. Jack also suspected that Jimmy's headaches were as much a result of his fervent need to deny the day he almost died, and the horror and resulting inescapable memory of Jackson, Ramirez and Van Der Walle's violent deaths. Jimmy would never choose to go back to the Army or combat, save in self-defense. And yet, his affinity for short, high-and-tight haircuts, his propensity to continue wearing his "dog tags," and to walk with squared shoulders and ram-rod straight posture spoke loudly to his own deep-seated pull toward his military identity.

"Once you've served as an NCO, Jimmy," he remembered Jack saying to him, using the nearly ubiquitous abbreviation for 'noncommissioned officer,' "you can't just walk away from that life, that way of thinking. It's part of your soul." Jack had told him this while they were on leave in Bangkok, enjoying Cuban Cohiba cigars and drinking premium whiskey with their expensive, high class prostitutes at a chic, rooftop bar, shortly before they formally left active duty. Though Jimmy had been newly promoted to the rank of Sergeant, even as a Corporal, he'd served as an ideal, junior NCO, professionally competent in his craft, always concerned for the welfare of his junior soldiers, but friendly and encouraging in maintaining the standards of their platoon. He'd always talked like a college boy, but he had been a great soldier.

Coming back to the present, Jack cleared his throat and took a long pull of his water, draining his bottle and then feeling the need for something stronger. He signaled to LaChyna he wanted another gin and tonic. Jimmy followed him and drained his beer. They both remained quiet and lost in thought for some time afterward, as the lights swirled, the music blared, and dancers tagged out on stage.

Jack looked up at Jimmy, noticing him holding a hand to his forehead and right temple. "How are the headaches these days, Jimmy?" Jack was morose but his tone was not unkind.

Jimmy looked over at him, let out a deep exhalation and shook his head. "The same, at least, until I'm with Grace; she makes me forget about the pain. When she touches me, or kisses me or tells me she loves me, the headaches largely subside." Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise, and pursed his lips to show he was impressed. Jimmy then addressed the lingering elephant in the room that was their friendship. "Have you changed your conclusion about our fates?"

Jack shook his head slowly from side to side, looking back down at the table.

"You still think this is all some weird coma dream, and that we are either trapped in it, or that we did in fact die in that IED explosion, and are caught in some kind of limboid fantasy?" Jimmy asked.

Jack nodded, looking back up at Jimmy. "I wouldn't use those words, but yeah, I still think it's either that, or we're zombies, and we died that day, but just can't accept it. We shamble along, thinking we're still alive, slowly decaying until we fall apart." He said with a mischievous smile, the only trace of the old Jack, the sometimes jolly friend Jimmy had first known. "There's no way we could have survived... Ah, hell... Fuck it." He said the last part dismissively, swallowing and giving up any further attempt to try and make sense of the idiot chaos that forever defines combat outcomes. Some live, some die, and no one can ever fully know why.

Jimmy smiled ruefully but refused to take the bait. He'd argued with Jack about this so many times, and neither of them were going to change their minds. Jack simply couldn't accept their continued survival (especially his own), nor the absolute miracle that they'd walked away physically unscathed. Since that explosion, Jack had become reckless and dark, and unable to readjust to civilian life. Before the explosion Jimmy had known him to occasionally experience dark moods or melancholy, and Jack had never liked talking about his parents or his past, but after the explosion, Jimmy knew no other way to describe his personality than to conclude Jack had a death wish. He constantly sought out combat or deployments likely to see combat. In their last few months together in the Army, while they were stateside and waiting on their honorable discharges from active duty, Jimmy had pulled Jack out of several fights, whereas before that explosion, Jack had been a model soldier and NCO, and would never lose his temper in public. Jimmy had seen Jack's temper only worsen over time and knew that at one point, he'd had to enroll in and undergo anger management training, though he didn't know if it was court-ordered or job-directed. He had little hope his friend would live to see another five years before his fearlessness and eagerness for battle tempted karma once too often.

"That was two and a half years ago now..." Jack mused distractedly, looking down into his now empty glass, twisting it left and right and watching the remaining and unnecessary ice cube sliding around. He hated Jimmy's desire to bring that fucking explosion back up each time they drank, and now felt like getting into a fight, wanted to hit some surly, overly loud man, preferably one whom resembled Jack's father, and who Jack would see mistreating a woman. But he remembered, dully at first, then more clearly, that he'd invited Jimmy to this club for a reason, that he had work to do, that he needed to help Ronnie, and that there was always another fight on the horizon that paid well and came with few legal consequences.

Jimmy signaled LaChyna for another round for both of them, then leaned forward on the table, ignoring his headache and focusing his attention on Jack. "What's going on, Jack? Why'd you want to meet tonight, and why here, of all places?"

"Well," began Jack, "do you remember our first month in Iraq? The first thing we did while we were supporting those SOF guys?" he asked, referring to US Special Operations Forces. He posed this question to Jimmy while keeping his hands steepled in front of him, just below his chin, which signaled to Jimmy that Jack didn't want to describe the reference in detail.