Jessica has been so busy with her work the past few weeks that her and Taeyeon hardly spent any time together. It was strange that she became the busy one once Taeyeon broke her leg while Taeyeon was wandering around the walls of the Resistance doing various things to keep herself busy. She never told Taeyeon that she would see her outside of her work looking in but every time she spotted Taeyeon, it made her heart flutter. For someone so tough and strong-minded, Jessica truly found Taeyeon’s romantic side overwhelmingly sweet.

Having a day off, Jessica didn’t hesitate to use the time to spend it with Taeyeon who was also happy to have company for the whole day. “Isn’t it 2 more weeks and the cast comes off?”

Taeyeon was smiling broadly, “I am counting down the days! Then rehab for a while until I can get back into the field.”

Jessica cuddled into Taeyeon as they relaxed in Taeyeon’s room whist her roommates were out doing various things for the Resistance. They didn’t need all the frills of a proper date, just time talking and catching up with things going on in their lives, “don’t push yourself.”

“My girlfriend doesn’t know me too well,” Taeyeon leaned in and kissed Jessica on the lips for a quick peck.

Jessica blushed from the kiss but was quick to change topics, “I umm heard Junho was released yesterday.”

Taeyeon nodded, “You are coming to the party with me tonight.”

“I didn’t forget. I am yours for the whole day.”

Taeyeon smiled happily as she pulled her girlfriend in closer, “it is rare that we can take a whole day to ourselves like this.”

Jessica snuggled into Taeyeon’s neck, “you are going to be busy after your leg recovers too. If only we didn’t have to worry about the Party or the Resistance. I wonder what a life without either would be like.”

Taeyeon couldn’t help herself from showing Jessica with random kisses, “hopefully we will know the answer to that in our lifetime.”

“I can hardly imagine it. Living a life not looking over our shoulder…having a day to day job. What would you want to do outside of the Resistance?” Jessica looked up at Taeyeon who seemed confused.

“I wouldn’t know. I lived my whole life here. Suddenly not having the Resistance doesn’t even sound like home.”

“You would rather we keep this war going on between the Party forever?”

“I never said that. Of course I want it to end and save the lives of more people that are going to get killed by the Party, but after rebuilding the united world, I feel like my family would disappear. Everyone would find their peace in life and move on…move away and here I am with nothing. I can’t keep doing my jobs as there is no use for them anymore and I have little skill in running a business. I just feel like without the Resistance, I am of no use to society.”

It pained Jessica to hear Taeyeon bear her soul like this. The prospect of a future with a united nation might actually scare Taeyeon, “you have many useful skills. For one, you have amazing fighting and strategic skills. Somewhere in the new government, I am positive you would be valued. If that kind of job doesn’t appeal to you, I will be the breadwinner and your job is to attend to me.”

Taeyeon laughed as she looked down at Jessica, “What are your useful skills?”

“I worked at a bakery…I know something about running a business.”

Taeyeon let out a loud laugh as Jessica let go of Taeyeon to glare at her, “when I first saw you, you were a lost lamb.”

Jessica went to lightly smack Taeyeon, “Hey! I am a fast learner. It may have not been my bakery, but I learned a lot from Mr. Ok.”

Taeyeon reached out to ruffle Jessica’s hair, “sure sure you can have a bakery. I wouldn’t let you run it alone for fear of you burning all the bread.”

“You should be supportive of me!” Jessica pouted as Taeyeon continued to tease the other woman.

“I am! But I need to think of the customers.”

Jessica tried pushing Taeyeon away but Taeyeon held on tightly, “Let me go if you don’t believe in me.”

Taeyeon pulled her grumpy girlfriend closer, “I trust you with my life. Shouldn’t that be enough?”

“But not my cooking?”

Taeyeon felt Jessica’s resistance fading as she pulled her back into her embrace, “maybe after a few lessons.”

Jessica couldn’t stay mad at Taeyeon when the warmth of her body relaxed both her mind and body, “I expect lessons then.”

Giggling Taeyeon kissed the top of her girlfriend’s head, “anything for you.”

Yawning, Jessica snuggled in closer, “it is a promise.”

Taeyeon heard soft snores coming from Jessica and smiled slowly closing her eyes too. Nothing felt better than the thought of knowing Jessica was going to wake up next to her. It really was Taeyeon’s peace in the time of war.

*knock knock*

Taeyeon jolted awake hearing the banging on the door. Careful to not wake up Jessica, Taeyeon slipped out of the other girl’s embrace to open the door, “finally! I was looking all over for you.”

Taeyeon looked back at Jessica who was sleeping, “what’s up?”

“Really you forgot about the party? Siwon sent me over when he didn’t see you helping us set up. You never are late to anything.”

“Shoot sorry…I was umm just tired.” Taeyeon quickly went back to the room to wake up Jessica, “Hey we are late to the party.”

Jessica was a bit groggy but she spotted Yoona in the doorway, “how late?”

“They are setting up right now. We need to go or we will ruin the surprise.”

Jessica took a quick look in the mirror patting down some loose ends of her hair before the trio made their way to the training rooms. Jessica normally doesn’t get the privilege of seeing the Level 2 training facilities but dating Taeyeon had their perks.

By the time they got there, the food was laid out and a few other friends other than those in Taeyeon’s unit gathered around waiting for Junho to arrive.

“Yo Taeyeon we thought you ditched us!”

Taeyeon laughed as her senior officer nearly tackled her into a chokehold but the injured woman still managed to evade the larger man, “I would never.”

“When you and Junho get better, we can go back out into the field. I don’t think they trust me to be out there without you.”

“I heard you guys going out often since I got hurt?”

“Well we did the search and rescue but there haven’t been any alerts that bombs were being set. Since the one you and Junho got hurt, the Party has been eerily quiet. We went out for intel because things were too docile but none of our contacts knew anything.”

“Ya ya! No work talk we are here for fun,” Yoona came around to sweep her arm around Taeyeon, “Anyway who is bringing Junho over?”

“Wooyoung? They were buddies during training.” Siwon went around eating some of the food.

Taeyeon went to lean against Jessica who just smiled back at her, “I am glad that everyone recovered since that night.”

“Not everyone…” Taeyeon looked down disappointed that they all failed to find their leader.

Jessica rubbed her girlfriend’s arm, “Hey we are here for Junho. It is a happy day okay?”

Taeyeon forced out a smile as she continued to use Jessica for support, “you are right.”

A few moments later, the door turned open to the training room, “Surprise!”

If Junho wasn’t using Wooyoung for support, he would have fell over in shock of all his colleagues waiting for him, “damn that scared me!”

Everyone laughed as they found a seat for Junho and Jessica found another for Taeyeon to rest.

Siwon stepped up with a drink in his hand, “Now gather around. I have a few things to say.” Everyone turned their attention to the man, “I know the past few months have been disheartening for our unit but despite the hardships, we are still here and getting stronger each day. Nothing the Party will do will ever break our will because we are stronger, we are more resilient because we are the Resistance!”

Everyone cheered as they felt the strength of Siwon’s words fill them with exhilaration. The chants of defiance against the Party and the fortitude of the Resistance echoed in the room giving a while new surge of energy to those that were hurt both physically and mentally from the past few months.  As long as they stood together with the same goal of taking down the Party, they knew they could never be stopped. Passion for their cause was the strongest asset the Resistance had and it was something the Party would never understand.

Eventually the crowd died down and the room was left with only the level 2 bomb unit, Jessica and Yoona. They all found themselves sitting comfortably around one another laughing and enjoying the company of one another. Jessica was glad she stayed because the boys started dishing out random stories about Taeyeon she never knew before. In addition, they were stories Taeyeon never wanted repeated in front of her girlfriend, “I did not! Why are you all ganging up on me!”

Jessica tried pacifying her girlfriend but couldn’t stop herself from laughing, “Come on Tae it was funny.”

Taeyeon continued to pout, “It was an accident and they make it all seem like I was a hopeless trainee.”

Siwon was laughing, “Taeyeon you came into our unit with a huge reputation and mad skills so can’t we have one thing to make you seem more human?”

Taeyeon glared at her senior, “you make fun of my height all the time! I clearly don’t have it all so can’t we just forget about the incident?”

Jessica snorted in laughter, “No way. If I ever need blackmail I am bringing this up again.”

“What? How could you? You should have my back!”

Jessica quickly squeezed Taeyeon’s cheeks, “Aww don’t be embarrassed that you confused your chemistry class for a cooking class. Not everyone knows dangerous bombs could be made out of chemicals.”

“She went on to ace the class so no problems there.” Siwon defended his teammate eventually.

Everyone laughed a bit before Junho spoke up about a more serious topic most of the people were trying to avoid, “Yunho thought I was hopeless when I was training…” The whole room went silent, “…he constantly praises me for how fast I came into level 2 but it was only because I didn’t want to disappoint him. Every night I would study and train in new techniques so he would praise me the next day. Even after making it into his unit, I feel like I need to prove myself valuable.”

Taeyeon patted Junho on the back, “you are. Everyone here trusts your abilities.”

“Honestly…how can I compete when everyone in this unit are legendary. Yunho, Siwon and Taeyeon…the whole Resistance knows of your accomplishments and then here I come into level 2 with rumors that I only got picked because of Yunho. I started believing it too.”

“It was never that way,” Siwon spoke up, “we didn’t pick you because of Yunho. In fact, Yunho wouldn’t use himself as your sponsor to plead your case into level 2.”

Junho was surprised, “who was my sponsor then?”

“You know when you spent those late nights training, there were some other people here that saw you. Taeyeon and I saw you there at night trying your best to get into the bomb unit so we talked to Yunho.”

“You both sponsored me?” Junho was on the brink of tears as he thought of his teammates having his back for much longer than he thought.

Siwon came up and gave his teammate a light noogy, “Of course you fool. Yunho didn’t tell you to train past midnight. That was all you. If you were that determined to get in, who were we to stop you? Better to let you in then before losing you to some lesser unit and lose all that passion and talent.”

Taeyeon laughed as her teammates played around, “Yunho does have something about him. I never wanted to disappoint him either. I am not sure what it is either, but Yunho never directly said he wanted us to do our best, but we always had to show him we were going to go out and do 110%”

“I have to admit taking on his role as team leader is strange,” Siwon added, “I expect him to come through the door and know we will be all okay cause he always has our back. I fear that I never could take care of you all as much as he did.”

“You are a great leader…actually all of level 2 could be leading their own teams but we choose to do this job instead.”

Jessica patted Taeyeon’s leg proud of her girlfriend’s wise words, “I think you all are very critical of yourselves which allow you to push yourself. Yunho may have been your team leader but he never had to tell you what to do because you knew what had to be done. Level 2 agents are truly amazing.”

Just then Yuri burst through the doors of the training room startling everyone, “Siwon come quick. Level 1 wants to meet now.”

The group looked around wondering what could be happening that needed Siwon to go up to the highest level, “do you know why?”

Yuri looked around the room wondering if she should tell the others what was going on. Knowing it would be a matter of time before they found out, “Yunho was found.”

Taeyeon sprung to her feet, “I am going too.”

Yuri bit her lip, “I have instructions to take Siwon with me.”

Jessica never before saw the face Taeyeon made at that moment, “Yuri I am not asking your permission. Take me and Siwon to level 1 right now.”

Knowing not to defy Taeyeon, Yuri nodded, “Siwon it would be faster to carry Taeyeon on your back. We need to hurry to the meeting room.”

Siwon grabbed Taeyeon’s crutches and bent down, “Come on.” Yoona helped Taeyeon get onto Siwon’s back as the others watched Yuri leave with Siwon and Taeyeon leaving the others to speculate what could have happened. Three months have passed with no word of Yunho and now he suddenly appears. What did their leader endure for that period of time?

Author's Note

Hello readers :) Feel free to comment. This story is more fun when you readers get involved with the mysteries that are in the Resistance.