Title: Shades of Callister
Pairing: past Jo/Callister
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Warnings: Spoilers for 309: Welcome Back, Carter,
Summary: Tag for 309. Set during/after Jo's storming out of the station.
Her fingers were unlatching her badge the moment the word "artificial" left Fargo's mouth. Every nerve in her body was screaming in protest. More words were pouring out of Fargo's mouth, but they were getting lost in a haze of memory.
Something snapped. "That's it! Passed over again? I don't think so." She thumped the badge into Allison's hand with a little more force than she meant to use.
"Jo?"
"Hey you," she greeted Callister, rising from her desk to greet him with a warm kiss. He brushed a stray bit of hair from her face, touch so gentle it made her shiver.
It was insulting enough to be passed over a second time. But to be passed over by a machine! She slammed the gun belt on the counter, ignoring Carter trying to call her back. "I quit. I'm not working for that…" Person… machine… notCallisternotagain! screamed her mind. "Thing," she concluded, though the word stabbed at her; in her mind's eye, Callister's too human eyes looked betrayed.
"It's about Callister," Carter interrupted her mid-rant, eyes too kind, too soft. Even Stark looked… oddly sympathetic, which was freaking her out.
"Worse than running off with your daughter?" she asked, her own voice choking on the sarcasm.
"It's… he's not a real…"
"Of course he's real," Jo scoffed, trying not to smile as she remembered the feeling of waking up in bed next to him, always so much warmer than her, his arms curled protectively around her waist.
"He's AI," Stark put in, shifting uncomfortably. "I… created him."
The world dropped out from under Jo's feet.
Jo stopped short when she realized she'd walked all the way to the burnt building that had once housed Stark's AI laboratory. She entered the code that she wasn't supposed to know and made her way to the concealed staircase, slipping down to the subbasement.
The lights flickered slightly as she turned them on, the generator diverting just enough power, but after a moment, she turned them back off, leaving the room only bathed in the soft blue glow of the stasis pod in the center of the room, submerged just below the surface of the floor.
Jo laid down in the dust, pressing her cheek against the cool glass, her face next to the icy, impassive face of Callister Raines. "Hi," she murmured, relaxing against the case. "So, I quit my job today…"
