AN: So here's the second chapter! I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for their comments and, perhaps most interestingly, for their concern. Several of you wrote me asking for clarification on Kaiden's age and expressing concern about what is a near 30 year age difference. That is OK! Actually, I love that there is such worry - because age really is the central issue of this fic.

How important is age to a couple? Shepard and Garrus had a relationship marked by difficulties because of their different species...Jane and Kaiden will find that being human doesn't mean the road to a proper relationship will be any easier.

PLEASE, continue to write me with your concerns, I am always willing to talk about it - and I'd love to get some feedback. Also, if you have suggestions or things you'd like to see more of I'd be happy to oblige. My job with this fic is to show the evolution of a relationship, with all of it's difficulties. I hope we're all up for it :)

Thank you all for your interest - and if ever you decide you cannot read any more, then I bid you happy reading elsewhere.

As always, I own nothing you recognize (the characters, planets, etc. belong to Bioware).

~Voi


He doesn't know how long he's been there, a few days, maybe weeks. Not more than a month, he figures, at least not yet.

Kaiden knows he's never liked crowds, always felt on edge surrounded by people he didn't know, people he couldn't trust. And yet, he found himself on Omega easily enough, wandering the gritty cramped corridors, sliding between the ever-fluctuating population made of half-bit mercenaries and kingpins.

He's been frequenting this bar more often then he'd like, but where else is there information so readily available? Everyone talks with enough alcohol; even the most loyal mob grunt will spill just about anything with proper application of spirits. And he needs information enough to deal with the constant pounding music, the too-loud patrons and moody bartenders.

But today's been a bad day, a bad night, and there are the crowds again, annoying even though his head is buzzing oh-so-faintly from the drinks he's been imbibing with increasing regularity.

"Hey there sweet thing, buy a girl a drink?"

It's not the first time a woman's come on to him, but it's been long enough that he doesn't reject her outright. The hand on his arm is small, feminine; it takes him a moment to realize it's human despite the brilliant red and blue lights that dance across it. And though he knows better, there's no helping the way his eyes slowly travel from fingertips, up her arm to the exposed crest of her shoulder, the smooth curve of her neck and the curls at her temples.

And when, at last, he finally focuses on her face, there is an awful second of silence as he realizes that he knows this girl, he's helped raise this girl.

"Janeway?"

He all but chokes on his beer as he says her name, his mind frantically grasping for answers in a way that, for a moment at least, leaves him startlingly aware of the present. And though he had thought girl, his mind is quick enough to remind him that he called her a woman many times in the past.

"You know Kaiden…you're still the only one to call me that." There's a grin on her lips, a sharp glint in her eye as she cocks her head in a mockingly coquettish pose, "Even my parents call me 'Jane.'"

"What are you doing here?"

It's a struggle not to look around, to act calm though his thoughts are racing a mile a minute. But the woman in front of him seems the very epitome of calm, her body relaxed. Indeed, she seems almost flirtatious as runs a hand along the side of his neck, down the front of his shirt until she reaches her shirt pocket and plucks the badge from its cloth confines.

"Would you believe me if I said there's a medical conference here?" Jane grins at she examines her trophy, eying the man over the card's crisp edge, "Then again…isn't that the same conference you're going to? Dr.-" She looks again at the badge and raises one elegant eyebrow, "-Allen? Dr. Kaiden Allen."

She exhales slowly as she sizes him up, notices the hundred small changes in the man she's known for nearly her whole life. He's older now, worn around the edges by time and a string of unfortunate events.

"What's that phrase again? The best lies are often tied in truths."

Her comment is more like the woman knew before he disappeared, there's a seriousness, a sharpness that has nothing to do with this flirt who introduced herself at the bar. And perhaps this is the only hint she can give him, the only way she can clue him into the game she is playing.

Behind her he can see the glances from a dozen different men, and wonders how deliberate she's been with her coquettish comments, how careful she's been to reveal nothing of the real truth in this meeting.

And so he plays the game with her as they sit together, fighting his memories of this woman as a child and forcing himself to act as if seeing her acting so adult doesn't completely shake him. She looks more like her mother now though, she's certainly taller than Commander Nora Shepard could ever hope to be. Their attitudes are similar too, Janeway's flirtatious grin a sharper, sexier, version of her mother's trademark soft smile but familiar nonetheless.

And that, Kaiden realizes is the real difference. Where Nora strove for honesty, sometimes without success, Janeway played the part of unrepentant chameleon. Thinking back to the days spent with the Shepard-Vakarian family on Nevos, he supposed he should have expected it. Janeway had always had a flare for roles, for play-acting, and being anyone from admiral to asari researcher.

Feeling her hand on his leg, Kaiden jerks and looks the young woman in the eye and still can't quite believe she's seated across from him.

"I'm surprised they let you in the bar." The words are out of his mouth before he realizes he's spoken.

"This is Omega," Jane says with a quirked smile, "Why? Do I look old enough to be your kid?"

The comment is enough to make his choke on his drink again, because it's too close to the truth for his liking. And though he sends her a mutinous look as he tried to regain use of his lungs, she merely grins all the wider as she takes one very decadent sip of wine. Batarian shard wine, Kaiden doesn't know how she's managed to stay sober for so long.

Then again, as she runs one heel-clad foot against his leg, maybe the wine has done its work already.

"Why don't we go to your place, hmm, handsome?" Her lips are curved into that teasing grin, her eyes dark with promise as she looks at him from under heavy lashes. Hand straying to brush his jaw, she leans close enough to whisper in his ear, "What do you say?"

And as he leads her away from the bar, there is not a doubt in his mind that Janeway has fooled their audience, he's just damn near scared she's fooled him too.

The moment they find themselves in the privacy of his room, Jane drops all pretense of flirtation, leaning against the door with a deep sigh, her eyes closing in pain as she slips her heels off. The change is subtle, but she doesn't whine quite the way she had at the bar, her voice dropping in register as she relaxes back into herself.

"Remind me that I'm incapable of acting the flirtatious airhead for more than a few hours." Her voice is rough from use, she inhales ever more deeply to try and clear her throat, "And I can't walk in heels…remind me not to walk in heels."

And once again Kaiden finds himself at a loss, finding her shift from seductive femme fatal to casual, familiar Janeway Shepard-Vakarian entirely jarring.

She cracks open an eye to look at him when she doesn't get a response, "You still here, Kaiden?"

And it's a tense, painful moment that follows, filled with all sorts of questions and the awareness that not all of them will be answered.

"Yeah, I'm here."

He's sitting on the edge of the couch, hands braced at his sides, his dark eyes glittering in the darkness. "Want to tell me just why the hell you're here, Janeway?"

She pulls his ID card from her garter, ignoring the daring cut of her dress as she snatches the single most important piece she has in explaining her situation. And though he's been surrounded by enough of Omega's brand of sex appeal Kaiden find his eyes lingering a moment longer than he'd like. The realization makes him uncomfortable.

"You were supposed to check in with the Brass nearly a week ago, Kaiden." Her expression is serene, but her eyes are steel blue and uncompromising as she looks him in the eye.

"So they sent you." It's not a question, but Kaiden sounds more than a little disbelieving, "What's it going to be? Medicate me and bring me back home."

There's a beat of silence before the woman sighs, passing a hand through her hair.

"I can't say the idea never occurred to me." Jane responds with a frown, but seems completely honest in her response, "Still I wasn't about to drug you in a place like this."

And because she didn't like the way he continues to look at her, Jane straightens to her full height, dress rippling around her as she moved across the room.

"I may not be a soldier, but neither am I child," Jane looked at him, really looked at him and dared him to say otherwise. "The Alliance needs this done, and they sent me. You can either choose to help me, and we do this together without getting killed."

"Otherwise," Jane takes another step closer, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath as she leans over and presses a small hand to his chest, over his heart, "I'll send you somewhere nice, and once there I'll stick you with the nicest little compound that you'll sleep through the next week. Then we can both get out of this alive."

"Threatening me?" Kaiden's voice is low, raspy and dangerous.

"I'm a doctor." Jane says as if that's answer enough "I don't make threats, I just prescribe solutions."

"Then you're abusing your position," Kaiden snaps, "I was sent on this mission, not you."

"They sent me after you when you failed to check-in." Jane scowled at him, "That makes me mission leader."

And because she can't stand to let his accusation hang there, Jane stabs him with her finger this time, "Don't talk to me about abuse Kaiden. Not when you've been doing it to every single person who cares about you. My whole damn family, your mother and Liara have been trying to find you for the better part of five years. And it hurt when you didn't care enough to tell any of us where you were."

"You saw me not three years ago, Janeway." His voice is steady, in control as he looks up at her, "Or didn't you tell them about that?"

She goes still, instantly freezes as he mentions it.

"Don't."

She shakes her head, looking notable more pale than before. The hand that had poked him only moments before now lays open upon his chest once more.

"You didn't, did you?"

There's something in the dark rumble of his voice that has her glancing at his lips for a second, has her cheeks flushing. And as he slowly straightens, there is a smoldering darkness in his eyes that forces her back a step.

"I thought we agreed not to talk about that," Jane's tone is different; stripped of confidence, she looks at him with wounded eyes, "Don't do this, Kaiden."

"Was it so easy for you to wipe it from your memory?" Kaiden wants to know, moving until he's backed her against the edge of the small kitchen table, "Because it sure as hell didn't work that way with me."

"It had to be that easy," Jane looks furiously at him, her eyes flashing in anger and something else that neither one wants to mention, "You said it yourself. It shouldn't have happened. And for all intents and purposes it never did."

Bracing her other hand against him, Jane looks him in the eye, "We have a mission to do, an important one. I don't care what happened between us before, but if you can't deal with it then I will do what I have to."

And before the anger drives her to punch him, she jerks herself away from the table, away from him. But she still has his attention and so she explains herself slowly, turning until he can see how serious she is, how unforgiving she will be in this, her mission.

"I don't care if you have a death wish, but you're not going to die on my watch. So you deal with it, follow my rules, and get this mission done… or I can make the call now and you'll be on the next shuttle out of here."

Kaiden doesn't respond either way, merely watches her with those dark eyes as she moves around the apartment gathering her things. Arms crossed, he simmers in an anger equal to her own, his guilt near stifling as he tries not to think about when they had last met. Three years was a long time, but it seemed perhaps not enough.

"I'll see you in the morning. Meet me at ten, outside of Len's Diner."

And then she's gone, lost amidst the chaos of Omega's streets, leaving Kaiden to wonder just how they are both going to survive what stands against them when so much lays unsaid between them.