Ink

'Okay, I'll bite. What's with the tattoos?'

Jack pushed forward from the wall. 'Some are for prisons I've been in. Some are for kills. You know. Good ones. Some are for things I've lost. Those aren't your business. They're nobody's business. And some are because – Hey, why the fuck not?'

She wandered over to her cot, and dropped down heavily.

'Hey, you're a Marine, right? You must have a tramp stamp somewhere.' Spreading her arms wide, she snickered 'I've shown you mine.'

Shepard rolled her eyes. 'I guess you have.'

'What, I don't get to see, or you not got any?'

Despite herself, Shepard chuckled. 'I've never met a Marine without ink,' she said, shaking her head. Without ceremony, she pulled her Cerberus top off, revealing tattoos all over her body. Jack pushed up from the cot again, and walked over to trace a line of text on her arm.

'So what's that, the first guy you fucked?' Jack was looking at a pair of gothic initials and a date, twining around Shepard's bicep.

'Yeah, I guess you could say that,' Shepard responded. Her voice had gone cold, and anyone who had served on her last crew would almost certainly have backed down at that. Jack just snorted, and stayed up in Shepard's personal space.

'So spill. Must've been good. You don't get ink for nothing'.

Shepard's hand flashed across the intervening gap, and grabbed Jack's wrist. Without any emotion, she said 'I was 12. He raped me. So I killed him. Like you said, some are for kills. Good ones.'

Jack raised an eyebrow, but didn't move. 'Funny, I figured you for some rich cheerleader. Something go wrong at the mansion?'

At that, Shepard laughed, pulling her top back on. 'What mansion, Jack? Haven't you read my files yet? I'm Earthborn.'

A nod. Shepard remembered the conversation she'd had with Thane about Rakhana. It hadn't seemed appropriate to tell him that it sounded much like Earth after the First Contact War. All refugees and criminals, fighting to survive, whilst anyone with any money ran to the relative safety of a colony or the Citadel.

'Well, shit, Shepard,' Jack grinned. 'Sounds like you might have some stories worth listening to after all'.

'Maybe,' Shepard nodded, fiddling in her pocket until she found what she was looking for. She held out the packet to Jack, eyebrow raised quizzically. Jack took a cigarette, and the two women sat next to each other on the cot, backs against the wall like two old soldiers.

Taking a drag, Shepard closed her eyes. 'So, first thing I remember is being hungry. I was a street rat, but I was lucky. There was this girl I ran with. Red. She must've been about 14 when I was a baby. She had this long red hair, and a big scar where she'd lost her eye. When I was hungry she'd go without so I could eat. She knew where most of the good hiding spots were, the warm ones that didn't get trashed too much.' She looked across at Jack. 'I always wondered if she was my mother. Never asked.'

Jack nodded, and shifted, a silent invitation to continue.

'When I hit about 12, I started noticing the men looking at me differently. After the rape Red helped me hunt him down. She was going to kill him, but… I needed to do it, you know? Anyway, after that, we joined up with this gang. The Tenth-Street Reds. The leader had wanted Red for a while, said she was made for the gang. When we were running with them I was safe, but I had to earn my way. That's why I started off doing some wetwork. I was damn good at it, too. Eventually I tried to kill the wrong person, and the Alliance found me. I got offered prison or military. No offence, but I'd go crazy 5 minutes into prison.' She blew out a cloud of smoke. 'So, here I am'.

Jack had pulled her knees up to her chin. Sometimes she reminded Shepard of a 5-year old kid, and at the moment she looked like Storytime had finished early.

'Wait,' she frowned. 'So what happened to Red?'

Shepard shrugged. 'Fucked if I know. She's probably dead.' There was more to it than that, but she didn't really feel like sharing everything with Jack right now. Pushing herself off the bed, she stretched, popping the kinks out of her spine.

'Anyway, enough of that shit.' She glanced down at Jack. 'We should have a girl's night some time'.

Jack wrinkled her nose. 'I'm not into the girls club. What do you want to do?'

'Eh, I was thinking we could get hammered, watch war films with loads of explosions and talk about sex?'

Jack thought for a minute, and then nodded. 'Deal. As long as you don't invite Chambers'.

Shepard's rich laughter trailed behind her as she walked up the stairs.