A/N: I recently played through the pre-sequel and enjoyed the hell out of it in general but one thing that just kind of made me smile over the course of the game's story were the cute bits of dialogue Athena had with Janey Springs, the charismatic moon-lesbian who saves your ass from suffocating to death at the start of the game. Seriously, it's a little worrying, I've never found myself shipping two characters so quickly before (is it even still called "shipping" when Tiny Tina drops the canon bomb on it?). Since then I've been on the lookout for anything on the internet involving the two but it's still pretty soon after the game's release so there's really only one thing to do.

Basically I thought that, in the absence of actually talented writers, I would give it a shot myself. This will be my first attempt at any sort of fanfiction so it'll be interesting to see where it goes at least.

Oh yeah and, for those that last sentence didn't immediately scare away, keep in mind I started writing this thing before Borderlands: The Pre-sequel had any kind of extra content beyond the doppelganger pack. I'm willing to bet if these two have any further interaction in DLC it'll just be more of Janey flirting and Athena getting all tongue-tied but if I'm wrong and there turns out to be a "Help protect Janey and Athena's wedding from scavs" DLC (which I would not put past Gearbox Software for even a moment) then I dun goofed. Anyway, let's get rolling.

Pandora. Sometime between the events of Borderlands: The Pre-sequel and Borderlands 2.

[ECHO DEVICE ONLINE]

[BEGIN ECHOLOG RECORDING 001 – 21:27PM]Athena here. I'm under orders from my colleague… Agh no, she wouldn't like that. Dammit, hold on I'm starting over.[END ECHOLOG RECORDING 001 – 21:28PM]

[BEGIN ECHOLOG RECORDING 002 – 21:32PM]-eally thought I was getting better at this. Ahem. Ok, Athena here. I'm under orders from my…partner…to record my thoughts and, in her words, "just anything that pops into my pretty head while I'm gone". I can't say I understand it but this is the first time I've been away from Elpis for long since the Zarpedon incident and she believes the sound of me talking will help her sleep in my absence so uh, here I go. I don't really know what I'm supposed to say but that's nothing new so I guess I'll simply ramble for a while like I normally do.

Pandora is…well…Pandora. It seems even a full-scale Hyperion invasion hasn't done as much to change this place as Jack likes to think. I landed the ship Janey fixed up for me in the closest thing I could find to a safe place and hid it as well as possible but literally within ten minutes of being here I was attacked by a roaming group of psychos. Welcome to paradise, right?

I managed to deal with my assailants easily enough but once I was done putting them down I walked over the next hill and saw what appeared to be a great many more of them fighting, or rather trying to fight against another much larger, much…shoutier psycho. The strangest thing was he seemed to be accompanied by a girl with blue hair wielding some kind of supernatural powers. Another siren on Pandora. Only six can exist in the galaxy at a time and, as far as I know, this planet has seen three of them in the last few years. What are the chances? I was concerned they may have been working with Roland and Lilith's "Crimson Raiders" so I quickly made myself scarce. Honestly, if those two are recruiting those masked madmen into their little band now I wouldn't be surprised.

Speaking of which, despite my…history with them I made a promise to Janey I wouldn't go after Roland, Lilith or Moxxi for what happened on Helios. It was the only way I could get her to stay behind on Elpis. Apparently knowing I'm fighting one army by myself was enough worry for her to deal with. She didn't understand why I had to come down here again in the first place but I couldn't just hide and watch while the man I could have…should have killed years ago slaughters innocent people like cattle down here.

This whole thing is my fault. Partially at least. This "warrior" he invaded Pandora for? This thing he thinks will allow him to destroy anything that stands against him? He wouldn't have known about it if we hadn't found the vault on Elpis for him. We watched Jack sink into madness and then we handed him the location of a possible alien super weapon as he raved about bathing Pandora in fire. Not exactly my best days work.

I was pissed about Moxxi trying to kill us and I can't say thinking about it doesn't still make my sword hand twitchy but…the more I've seen what Jack is capable of the more I think she may have been onto something back then. I'm not quite a big enough woman to just live and let live but I understand what she must have been thinking. I hear Nisha and Wilhelm are still working for Jack. Helping him "clean this place up". I'll stay away from Sanctuary and the Crimson Raiders, at least their goals are more or less the same as mine, but if I run into the good sheriff or Jack's mechanized attack dog down here I can't promise anything. They may have once been my teammates but we all chose our own paths after Eleseer. If either of them tries to prevent me from stopping Jack I will not hesitate.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll be heading to New Haven for a few things and then I'll look into what I can do to weaken Hyperion's grip on this place. If I know Jack I'll be able to draw him out if I disrupt his operations in the area enough. If I cause him enough trouble perhaps he will assume I'm Lilith or Roland, his hatred for them will get the better of him and he'll show himself long enough for me to cut him down. Even if that doesn't happen I'll at least be making the job easier for Sanctuary. I don't particularly care who deals the killing blow here as long as he's stopped.

So yeah, I have a lot of work to do but, in the meantime I've found what I think is a mostly safe place for me to spend the night. Terrain is favourable in case of an ambush, nearby water source that doesn't appear to be contaminated and I shouldn't have to deal with getting rained on while I sleep because the sky is completely…

…clear…

…

You know, it's funny.

The galaxy is filled with romantic types. Even out here in what I feel like I'm qualified to say is one of the darkest, most violent corners of known space where you're lucky to make it through any given day without some bandit running you down with his truck for the fun of it. Before all the vault-hunting business on Elpis I kept hearing people talking about how pretty the sight of the moon was on Pandora. Even some other Atlas personnel would talk about it like it was some kind of magical, glowing orb of smiles or something. I remember looking up at it while I was doing weapons maintenance one night and thinking it was just another big rock in space. Nothing special about it. Now, five years later, I find myself here staring at that big rock again and things are different. Now it makes me feel like there's a place in this galaxy where I just might…belong.

The Crimson Lance picked us young. I'd been with them for as long as I can remember. When Jess…died…all I wanted was to hit back at them any way I could. Make them pay. I had no idea what I would do or where I would go after Fort Knoxx and its general went up in smoke but when someone raises you from childhood to be a soldier it turns out you can't just lay down and die. I kept fighting like I always have because that was all I knew how to do and eventually I found myself up there. With her.

…

My…home.

…

I'm going to get some sleep. I don't know how long this is going to take but I'll deal with it and get back when I can, Janey. Remember our deal. I keep an eye out for any interesting junk to bring back while I'm here and in return you finish that new story book you've been procrastinating on for the last month. I'll be expecting to hear it once I'm finished here. Stay safe, I'll see you soon.

Oh and…good night, hun. Athena, out.

[END ECHOLOG RECORDING 002 – 22:03PM]

[SEND ECHOLOG RECORDING 002 TO CONTACT: Janey Springs? Y/N]

[ECHOLOG SENT]

A few years ago on Elpis in the city of Concordia. Shortly after Jack's acquisition of the moon's vault and rise to power in Hyperion.

"Ow! Bloody hell!"

Janey Springs cried out in frustration as she accidentally brought the heavy barrier to the front of her store crashing down onto her foot. She'd been meaning to fix the thing for weeks knowing it was broken and something like this would happen eventually but a giant space station arriving and bombarding your back garden with laser fire had a way of making you forget about most other things going on in your life.

She looked up at where Helios had been less than a day ago. A few hours after the laser had stopped firing the station had simply upped sticks and left. Janey had been down in her workshop digging through piles of junk when it happened but she had heard some people around the city talking about how it headed in the direction of Pandora, the planet they were orbiting that slightly exploded a while back. She hadn't heard anything from the team of vault hunters Hyperion had hired to poke around Elpis since they shut the laser down so she assumed they had also left.

Athena too.

Janey sighed. That was a real shame. If she had known that ridiculously sexy gladiator was just going to leave without coming to say goodbye she would probably have gone to see her off. Tell her how crazy hot those boots looked on her. Maybe make one last ditch effort to get a date while she was at it. She kneeled down to secure the bottom of the barrier grumbling quietly to herself as she fiddled with the padlock.

"Stupid, sexy vault hunter…literally falling from the stars…being all kinds of pretty …doing badass things all over the place…pointing that perfect butt at my eyeballs…" She continued grumpily muttering for another minute until a voice spoke up behind her.

"Janey"

The blonde girl barely stopped herself from yelping in surprise having gotten thoroughly lost in her dark-haired, blue-eyed, sword-swinging daydream. Her attempt to whirl around from her kneeling position quickly failed and she ended up ungracefully tumbling over onto her behind instead. She was about to berate whoever had snuck up on her before she noticed those familiar weathered red greaves and almost leapt out of the Elpis gravitational pull with excitement.

"Athena!" she exclaimed as she sprung to her feet, the throbbing pain in her foot suddenly a distant memory. "H-how long have you been standing there? I was…just thinking about you! What are you doing here? I thought you'd gone with…"

She pointed to the empty space in the sky previously inhabited by the Hyperion station. Athena's eyes followed her gesture and Janey saw something dark in the gladiator's face. She hadn't known Athena for longer than a couple of days but one thing she liked to think she did know was the look of a person who was hurting but determined not to show it. She had worn that particular look herself more than a few times. She imagined most people on the border planets had at some point. Except the scavs probably, they seemed a little too happy most of the time.

"What…happened out there? Did you find the vault?" Janey asked apprehensively. She knew Athena was tough and all but whatever had gone down in Vorago Solitude was clearly weighing on her pretty heavily.

A slight grimace made its way through the cracks in Athena's emotional blockade. She continued to gaze, or rather glare, at the Elpis sky and then at the distant Pandora for a few seconds before her expression softened somewhat and she looked back to Janey.

"Are you free? Now?" she asked flatly.

"Uh…y-yeah sure!" Janey replied. "You just caught me closing up shop over here. What do you need? If you're looking to use the grinder I can…let ya'll in for a minute."

Athena managed to pull something that almost resembled a smile to her face.

"Not what I had in mind. That drink you offered me earlier? Now would be a really good time for it…"