SSV NORMANDY
OMEGA NEBULA
LATE 2185
IT HAD BEEN PASSIONATE in a way that had nothing to do with bodies meeting, not sexual but purely sensual, of the senses, the step onto the path where feelings dominate over thought, where primal senses take over and our deepest and most basic instincts tell us this is the one.
Deception is impossible at such a moment, there can be no lies. There are no truths spoken that are not spoken through the flesh, through lips and fingertips, through warmth of skin, and depths of eyes and kisses and space between bodies.
We know ourselves then. Some it enlightens and uplifts. Some it terrifies and damages, but all are changed. For some it is the effortless merging of two into one and one they stay, so bonded and meshed that life can go by in a happy blur and they remain together.
For some it is only a heartfelt kiss through the bars of a prison cell, sweet and kind and promising; but not possible – without a key that door would never open.
So it was for Zero and the Butcher.
ONE NIGHT, not even a real night, not even more than a few hours, really.
Then into combat and the Collector base and the Reaper abomination. Shepard had treated her no differently in combat, and for a moment, she had resented it, the old doubts and fears resurfacing to film her happiness over with opalescent mistrust and doubt. Samara held the bubble, and Jack killed anything that moaned and shambled, while he and Zaeed blasted anything with wings. In the moments, though, in those seconds between horrors and roaring violence, those eyes would seek her out and they'd linger, and he'd take her to his side and they'd terrify the monsters.
Jack was alive then, and it was more than conditioning and inherited violence. It was new, so new. Too new.
It was, she realized sitting in the Normandy's Mess, watching the specialists and techs scramble over repairs like worker ants - as he pulled her from the rubble after they'd killed the Reaper, saw the real concern and the real feeling in those normally-cold orbs, that it had been only …respect. Respect because he knew her abilities – he trusted her to stay alive.
Respect and affection, and he still hadn't asked for a damn thing. It had frightened her to come to him before the base, it scared the living hell out of her to still be here.
Here be dragons, she thought. I've crossed a line and can never go back, no matter what happens now. But I chose, didn't I? I chose. Me.
When he stepped onto the deck, still in his night-dark armor, still the 'grim figure of war' as Vakarian had once called him, she stood, and noticed the others noticing. He went to Chakwas and she followed him. The doctor reported on losses and injuries and he listened and she waited.
The crew watched. The Psycho and the Spectre. She'd heard their labels. The mission was over, she thought. Who would turn now? How many would she kill to keep him safe?, she asked herself.
She watched them watch her, felt that hot ball in her stomach, the electric heat in her limbs and nerves. She popped little biotic balls, like bubbles from her hand, watched them pop, her control perfect. One, two, three, this crewman, that crewman, all Cerberus.
For him?
Pop, pop, pop.
She'd be watching.
He stepped from the doctor's office, eyes seeking her.
"Dead and done," he told her quietly, and she nodded. Thousands dead. No colonists saved. Couldn't be helped. The destruction of the Collector Base burned the filth away and gave their victims to the clean emptiness of space, the true final oblivion. Jack understood. Death, she knew well.
A hand on her shoulder - not for comfort, almost for support - a smile that ghosted his lips and only she saw, and he walked away, to the elevator and his loft and she followed. The crew nodded and smiled and murmured among themselves and didn't know a thing.
In his cabin, Jack halted in the door, it closing behind her, and she put her back to it. He kept going, pulling off pieces of his armor, it splashed with blood, scored, burnt, ash flaking from it as it hit the floor. As his flesh became exposed, she saw it black with bruises, purple-red with burns, abraded and bloody.
"The soldier's tally," Zaeed had called it.
Is it wrong of me, she asked herself, to find him …beautiful, even like this?
He gets it all off, uncaring that he is almost naked with her in the room, stands with his broad back to her, head down, just breathing. She finds herself holding her breath at the door, lets it out in a soft sigh.
Shepard turns at it, says, "Helluva day, huh?", and even though he doesn't smile, his voice – ragged with fatigue – does, and it prompts her to, as well. He comes close, leans on the wall by the bathroom door. He smells of heat and metal, sweat and leather – and …male. A smell that spikes straight into her, turns her on ferociously and scares her ferociously, but despite what people think, Jack knows herself, she knows her impulses, and she can, when she feels like it, control herself passing well.
Most never see it because she simply doesn't care – most of the time. She almost laughed at that thought. She agreed that she was a sociopath – and damned proud of it – but a psycho? She wouldn't be much good to anyone – let alone herself and whatever ambitions she may have had in the past - if she had just gone straight to psychosis, now would she? You don't build crazy biotic supersoldiers. Not even Cerberus was that wasteful.
Jack wasn't psychotic, she simply lacked the restraint taught the 'civilized'; the tact and lies and faces one needed to survive in society.
Jack was not subtle, but she wasn't certainly wasn't crazy.
"Helluva day", she agreed, her full lips arcing in a smile. "You look like hammered shit, Shepard."
"Thanks. You've got a good eye." She can see the fatigue on him.
"I should go," she tells him, not wanting to go.
"That's my line," he stares at her for a long moment. "I don't want you to," he says and she almost swears with relief.
"I don't want to, either, but you need to rest and… you know what they think we're doing…" she starts. He waves a dismissing hand.
"Don't care what they think. Commander's prerogative."
"Is this fucked, Shepard? Where do we go from here? You know they're gonna be coming after you."
"Don't care." He's tired, god-fuck is he tired. "Let 'em."
"What about that dick on Horizon? He'll go squealing, right?"
"Kaiden?" A shrug. He sits on his couch. "Long since done. That was why he was there. Mostly."
Jack perches on the bed opposite. She looks at her shoes, at his form, his face, finally.
"You picked him over her, right?" Soft.
"Circumstances forced that choice on me, Jack. She was a soldier. She understood."
"You liked her?" Jealous of the dead? The fuck, Jack?
"Did I like her a lot, maybe love her - is that what you're really asking?" He knew that word hurt Jack the most, even to say. She didn't believe it. Not yet.
A small nod. Jealous of everything close to him. It was a position only a selected few ever managed.
"No. Looking back on it, I thought I could have at the time, but it was heat of the moment, I think. Someone I thought understood – or would." He shook his head at the memories, smiled ruefully. "I don't even know what that means. 'Love'. It's just chemicals. It sounds like nonsense." He said it like it was a new thing, something he turned in his hands, studied, but never understood. "We would not have worked."
Jack coughs, the words she tries to say next getting stuck.
"How the hell could we then?" She breathes. "I'm not…"
"You and me, Jack, we've survived some serious shit." He begins and she can sense a speech coming on. But that's okay, she likes to hear him talk. She wouldn't think she would, Madame -Infinitesimal-Patience, but him? He can talk all he likes. She gets scared, sometimes, when he talks, but she listens anyway.
He raises his right hand, palm up, as if for inspection, a crooked smile on his face.
"This?" She cocks her head, slightly. "It's not even mine." She looks skeptical, wondering what he's on about. "It looks like mine, my brain says it is, but it's not. I had a V-shaped scar between my middle knuckles." He mused. "On Virmire, a krogan bit down. Thought I was gonna lose my fingers." His voice sounded drained. He glanced up at her. "Meat and tubes. That's what Taylor called me. Meat and fucking tubes." He slowly came back to the bed, lay down. "'Dead as dead can be'."
"Not anymore," she told him, shifting to sit beside him. He watched her look him over. "I say fuck 'em forever, but they build pretty damn well – for assholes."
"Thanks," he smiled with his voice again. "You and me both."
She looks a little sour for a moment, softens.
"Yeah, you and me both, but I'm the…"
"Don't start, Jack. You're not crazy or psychotic or any of the stupid bullshit they call you. You're a …patchwork, like me. We're the bungled and the botched made good, you and me."
"'I the poor in spirit and body, I the mean, despicable and ugly, want my kind to be all-important, paramount and on the top — I the least desirable wish to prevail'." She quoted easily, a line she knew well, and he smiled with his lips, this time.
Of course she'd read Nietzsche. She gazed at him with a glint in her eye.
"I think you're right."
"If I am, it's entirely ironic."
Jack chuckled, kicked off her boots. That told him something right there.
"We've been busted up, Jack - you by Pragia, me by Mindoir, Torfan. We're walking crates of broken glass, and we built them to hold ourselves in, so we can get through another day, and maybe glue another piece together as we go – on the off chance someday we might be a whole person again."
"Were we ever? I think we're missing a few pieces."
He nodded and she was inexplicably pleased.
"More than likely. You?" He stuck out a finger, lightly traced a tattoo on her hip. "You're this lovely stained glass box, and I'm a big ugly metal one and we both rattle when we walk. We have that in common."
Jack lay down next to him, pillowed head on hands, fascinated, eyes interested and frank. He had a hard time looking away.
"They just see the boxes." She squinted at him. "I've heard this stuff from prison shrinks, Shepard. Not as well-put, but…."
"The truth is the truth, m'dear," he chuckled softly. "I've heard it from Alliance psyches. But it is true." He closed his eyes, exhaled.
"Shepard… you really should sleep." She made to roll away, get up, but he stopped her.
"No. I hate sleeping." She rolls her eyes, turns back to him. "I hate dreaming."
"So do I, but we need it anyway."
Shepard was silent for a few moments.
"You need to run?" he asks quietly, releases her wrist.
Jack glares at him, relents. She's done doing that.
"Goddammit. No. Shepard, I don't know what to feel around you, I don't know what we are, or what…"
"We could be? Me, either." Another moment. "Do you wanna try?"
"I don't, I can't… you said busted, but…" She looks at the ceiling, sees the stars stream past.
"It's hard to believe." She laughed, a laugh heavy with irony.
"No shit. I'm a fucking criminal. In every sense of the word."
She took a moment, let out a ragged breath. … and you could do better without even trying.
Shepard sat back up, put his back against the shelf behind his bed.
"Listen. Are you listening?"
A nod. He knows she is.
"You're Subject Zero - the biotic powerhouse psycho killer. Your criminal record stretches from here to the Charon Relay. I know, I've seen it." He stops, breathes for a short moment. "You're a biotic force of nature with an angel's face."
She jerks her head down at that, to see a faint smile, but he isn't really looking at her.
"Me? I'm Commander Shepard, Spectre, Hero of the Citadel, the Butcher of Torfan. You think you've killed a lot, Jack? How's half-a-million? That's my body count. Torfan and Aratoht and everywhere in-between. They call me a hero, Jack."
Jack nodded slightly, more a jerk of her head. Her chest hurt.
"You are a hero. That's why I don't think we won't…"
As if he didn't hear her, he continued.
"Be quiet. This is important." She stopped. "You know why? Because it keeps me killing for them, keeps me risking my life and yours and everyone's on this ship so they can go to bed at night and work and fill their lives with useless junk and breed and get fat and sleep without nightmares."
He laughed then, made her shiver.
"I'm no fucking hero. I'm just a sanctioned mass killer with good PR. You saw how quick they turned on me after Cerberus brought me back. Their monster with a conscience. Their best killer out of their control." His voice was low and cruel. "As if I was ever under their control to start with…"
Something hardened in Jack at that.
"You're not a monster!"
"I am. I'm the Butcher. Of Torfan. Of Aratoht. Of Horizon."
She shook her head.
"No. There's a difference. You're Shepard. You're a hero. You earned it!"
"The only difference between a hero and a criminal is who we kill for, Jack. That's it. You and me. There in a nutshell."
She glared at him, hurt in her eyes, hurt for him, he realized. He sees it with a kind of …awe. From her, for him.
"Oh, fuck – don't think like that. If you think like that, I won't…"
"Won't what?"
She set her jaw. Her eyes dared him to say something after.
"I won't stay." He smiled at her, put his head back down, slid back to prone.
"On Mindoir, my mother threw me into a pit of dead bodies with my older sister – to hide us. My sister was lying on top of me when a batarian came and threw a slow-burn incendiary into the pit." The story was told emotionlessly. "My sister's name was Anne." He smiled a grim smile. "She saved my life. She told me to dig, and she burned, used her body as a shield." His eyes glimmered. "'You have to bear witness', she told me. That's all I owe anybody."
"Shepard… I'm…" He reached over, touched her face.
"Don't be sorry, Jack. I'm… I'm just tired. I don't know what I'm trying to say."
"I know, I know - we do things, okay? We're fucked, I get it."
"No, Jack. We're busted, fractured. We're not fucked. Some think I'm trying to 'fix' you – they all do with their gossip and speculation. I'm not." She simply looked at him. "I'm not doing anything except offering you choice. I can't help you, only you can do that. I can't change your life, I can only offer you passing opportunities. I can't give you anything but the time and space to make choices you may not have considered otherwise." He pulled away from her, moved up the bed, laid back. "It's the only real power I have, if it's anything at all. All I know is how I feel about you. That's it. If you're fucked, I'm worse."
Jack just stared at him for what seemed like a very long time, then tucked herself back in with him, slid close, wrapped him in her arms. He sighed, his body relaxed, and it made her feel better.
"Sleep, Shepard. Just sleep."
"Yes, ma'am."
It took him no time at all.
JACK AWOKE, bleary-eyed and stiff, stretched like a cat, listening to things pop. The chronometer next to the bed said '02:31'. Holy shit. Fifteen hours. She hadn't slept this long before without chemical aid in quite some time – if ever. Shepard, however, was nowhere to be found.
Soft music played. She didn't recognize the tune, but it sounded like one of those ancient ones he liked. Emma Fitzzy-something.
Before her on his table was food, a big tray of high-carb stuff – a biotic's breakfast. She heard the faint sound of running water, nodded to herself, thanked him in her head, got up and began eating. It was still warm, but she would have eaten it cold. She was almost finished when he stepped from the bathroom, wrapped in a black robe with his N7 emblazoned on it.
N7. The Elite. The Few. In a class by themselves and justly so – and he was the best of the lot.
He looked refreshed and awake.
How much - she felt those old doubts sneaking up on her - of what they'd said last night was simple fatigue? How much had actually been true? She stood.
"I need one of those." She said nothing else, marched past him into the bathroom. He heard belts and clothes hit the floor. A moment later, the water began again.
Twenty minutes later, sipping a cup of Garrus' coffee – and he made a damn fine cup for someone who had never drank any – Jack emerged. She too was wearing one of his robes, rolled up where needed.
Damn, but she was beautiful, even in that silly thing.
She came to him on the couch, took his coffee, took a sip.
"This isn't Gardner's black piss."
"Garrus-made."
She grunted, took another swig, handed it back, sat next to him.
"You're outta hot water." He knew. She fidgeted.
"Should I go? Are we done?"
Shepard just looked at her, sipped his coffee.
"That's not my choice to make."
There was a long silence between them.
"Can I stay?" She asked the silence softly.
She looked at him, almost shyly.
"I… I feel like a real person." She blurted, looked almost embarrassed.
"Are you making a choice?"
"I think so."
"You are a real person. Realer than real… and we are what we are." He told her.
She slid next to him, leaned on him.
"I think I get it now. We carry those places and people we lost around in our boxes. Some of our pieces are in those places, with those people. It's why they're missing. We keep looking in them, and 'cause we do, we never leave, we never let 'em rest. I've been doing that since Pragia. You've been doing it since Torfan. But …it's just a slow suicide… we know death so damn well, 'cept it's living we don't quite get."
"You're a sharp lady. What exactly are you saying, Jack?"
She rubbed her head on his arm, as if it helped her think, scrunched up her face.
"I don't know what I really am, and I don't know how I really feel – I fuckin' hate that by the way - and I'm goin' to get mad at you an' hate you an' make you pissed at me and frustrate the living shit outta you."
She sucked in a breath, blew it out.
"You don't have to make any promises. I don't expect any."
He set his coffee down, got up, went to his chronometer, tuned it around a bit, raised the volume, came back to her. It was a slow jazzy tune, the woman's voice rich and deep.
"Come here." She took the proffered hand, and he tugged her to him, pulled her close. He started to move and she moved with him.
Chasing after the ring, on the merry-go-round
Just taking my fun, where it could be found
And yet what else could I do
I didn't know about you…
It was a perfect voice, velvety smooth and emotional.
"Shepard," she laughed softly, stepping back. "You can't dance!"
"I can when I'm with you." He said simply. "…and I only make promises I keep."
She looked up at him, into his smile, her eyes shining, and they moved slowly, just slow-dancing in a circle. Jack pulled herself back into him, just going with it.
Had a good time, every time I went out
Romance was a thing, I kidded about
How could I know about love
I didn't know about you…
"I'll stay as long as you want." She told his chest, his heart.
"Then you'd never leave." His voice husky.
This was how they said it, without saying it.
A key to that door?
Maybe.
Darling, now I know
I had the loneliest yesterday, everyday
In your arms
I know for once in my life, I'm living…
Yeah. All the rest of it was meaningless, she realized. All that mattered was the space she occupied, the realer-than-real of her when he was near.
Jack could, she realized, do one hell of a lot with that. She could go far.
She could.
She would.
They kept dancing long after the song ended.
So it was for Jack and Shepard.