"Hey."
"Hey."
She's standing in the doorway, staring at him. Her hands are shoved deep in her pockets, she's slouching, and she looks like she hasn't slept or bathed in weeks. He hasn't seen a more beautiful sight in all his life.
He waits for the span of a few seconds as they finish sizing each other up, and then finally manages to cock an eyebrow in her direction. "Aren't you gonna come in?"
The way she shifts and clears her throat awkwardly is endearing to him, but he would never tell her so – at least, not when she's awake and paying enough attention to hit him upside the head. Those are the kinds of words that he's always saved for when she's asleep and he can whisper what he wants into her heavily tattooed skin.
"Yeah." She takes a few steps inside and stops beside his bed, and he can see the hesitation plain on her face.
"You can touch me, you know. I'm not going to break."
"Um, yeah. Sorry." Slowly, she leans down, and he's suddenly swallowing back a knot in his throat when he sees the beginnings of tears. The moment's gone when she touches his hand at his side, and he makes a grand effort to turn it over and twine their fingers. She looks for a second like she's going to pull away, but he squeezes and she instead drops her head down onto his shoulder.
"You look like shit."
She snorts at that, but won't raise her head. When she speaks, her voice is a bit more rough than usual. "Look who's fucking talking."
"I just went through hell and back. I have an excuse. What's yours?"
"You—" There's a choking noise, and he has to fight back a little grin because she still won't raise her head and he knows she's attempting to compose herself. "You fucking asshole. You wouldn't fucking wake up. What took you so goddamned long?"
"I thought maybe if I didn't wake up, you'd get a shower."
She finally lifts her head then, a glare on her face, and he chuckles because he knows she's itching to hit him and she can't because he's bruised and cut and beaten across every inch of his body. Instead of replying, however, she shakes her head and huffs out a quiet breath, her other hand tracing random shapes on the back of his. It's quiet for a few minutes, and he finds himself encased in the silence and the feeling of her, near him, for the first time in forever.
He breaks the silence with a question that's been burning in the back of his mind since she walked into the room.
"How much has the doc told you?"
"Enough."
Suddenly, the air seems to grow thicker between them, and she's pointedly looking away from his lower half. He sighs and squeezes her hand once more to get her attention, and she speaks before he can scrape up the words he wants to say.
"Don't think this is an excuse for you to back out of taking me dancing."
"Wow. I never thought I'd say this, but he's actually worse than before."
"What, did you think he'd become a ballerina or something?"
"Heh. I don't know what that is."
"Human dancer. Really frilly and spin-y and shi—"
CRASH.
"No! I don't want to get back up!"
"Get your ass off the ground, Shepard. What are you, some pussy?"
Even through her harsh words, Jack's smile is so big it might very well crack her face. She reaches down and snags his arm, helping the man back to his feet. He's unbalanced for half a second, and leans into her so she can help catch him. Instead of straightening himself, however, he attempts a sneaky face-mush into her breasts. Nothing escapes the biotic – she curls her fingers into his short hair and gives a sharp tug.
"Ow! Jack, what the—"
"Come on! You've got fifteen more exercises to do. Snap to it, soldier!"
When he grumbles at her, she lands a well-placed smack on the back of his head, so he pouts and attempts to get into place. He's not himself. He won't be himself for a long time. There's an elephant in the room – one that everyone's addressed with him, but one that he hasn't reconciled with himself. If he's completely honest, he's not entirely sure if he can.
What do you say to yourself, when you've lost so much in the war of the ages? Friends. Family. The Reapers have even taken a physical piece of him, and even with the prosthetic, it feels wrong. He panics over it at night – is he selfish? Is it wrong of him to wake up in the middle of the night and grasp for something that's not there? Walking is a pain. Running is damn near impossible. Dancing?
He can't dance with his girl like he promised her he'd do.
Though, according to her, now that he's missing a leg he's better than he was before.
"Shepard! Are you even paying attention?"
"Huh? Oh. Yeah!"
"Fucking pay attention, or you're not getting laid tonight."
"I wanna dance with Garrus," he whines. Surely his brother-like turian would be nicer to him, wouldn't he?
"Not a fucking chance. Would you please lift that arm up? Stop with the fucking flailing. God, you're like a fucking ragdoll."
He pulls her into him and looks down at her with narrowed eyes. She's still grinning, the beautiful bitch, and he's suddenly struck with an idea. Leg, don't fail me now. He pushes her away from him with one arm, twisting her so she spins, and brings her back in to dive her down into a deep dip. He can faintly hear Joker and Garrus cheering from the other side of the room, but he's focusing too hard on not dropping her.
His arm tightens under her waist and he can feel her tugging on his lapel to pull herself back up as he attempts to lift her, but his leg has had enough and slips out from under him again.
CRASH.
The cheering suddenly stops.
He stares at the ceiling and takes a second to heave out a sigh. Jack lifts herself up off his chest and smiles widely, laughing, so he pulls her back down on top of him and kisses her to shut her up.
"He might not be a baller-thing, but he sure is a smooth bastard."
Hey there guys! This is just a short little fluffy/mildly angsty thing that I wrote out of a request prompt I got. I'm actually pretty proud of it, even if I haven't really read it over/edited it. I'm currently running on four hours of sleep and wrote it a little earlier in the day, so I have no idea how bad it may be. . If you've got a prompt for me, you can either PM it to me here or submit it through my tumblr, which is deny the savior . tumblr . com (minus all of the spaces). Thanks so much for reading, and I really do hope you leave a review!