A/N: I do not use epithets, but since the euphemisms to which I must ofttimes resort can make for a distracting read in this case, asterisks will be used instead and the reader may imagine his or her own profanity as they so desire.
A Lesson In Self-Respect
The loud crash of something large and heavy smashing into the bulkhead in Miranda's office made Shepard wince, but it was the tinny, unmistakable sound of glass splintering that made him want to sprint. Instead, he walked calmly and coolly, the better to maintain the illusion that he was in control for the benefit of the crew. In reality, he was about as far from in control as could be. And judging by the voices he was hearing, if he didn't regain control, people were going to die.
The door snapped open. Something flew past his head.
"Touch me and I'll smear the walls with you, bitch!"
Much as he expected, Jack was tearing up the place. Paint had been peeled off the walls, floor and ceiling panels ripped out from the rivets, Miranda's desk lay upside down atop her bunk, the protective shutters had closed over the viewport which had been violently cracked. Miranda stood impassively in the of the wrecked office surrounded by a shimmering biotic field, her face seething with exasperation while Jack's projectiles ricocheted off her barrier.
"Enough!" Shepard bellowed. "Not on my ship! Both of you, stand down!"
Jack twitched at the interruption and nearly threw something at him. Impetuously naked, she was wearing nothing but a blue sheen of furious biotics and a scathing glare. "The cheerleader won't admit what Cerberus did to me was wrong!" she snarled.
Miranda's lip curled with scorn. "It wasn't Cerberus, not really. Clearly you were a mistake," she retorted.
"Screw you!" Jack tore a light fixture out of the ceiling and hurled it Miranda. It popped against the wall with a noise like a flashbang grenade. "You've got no idea what they put me through!" she hissed. "Maybe I'll show you!"
"I said enough!" Shepard shouted, biotics lighting up his arms as he shoved Jack and Miranda away from each other. "I will not tolerate this from either of you. Our fight is with the Collectors—not each other! So save your anger and put your motherf***ing vendettas on hold, and don't even think about touching my ship again! Am I entirely clear?"
"Perfectly," Miranda said icily. "I can put aside my differences."
Jack's biotics spluttered with rage. "Sure, I'll do my part," she fumed, sneering at Miranda. "I'd hate for her to die before I get a chance to flay her myself!"
She turned abruptly, cutting off any further conversation as she shoved past Shepard on her way out the door. "Get the f*** out of my way!" she howled at an unfortunate Cerberus crewman out of sight.
Miranda sighed and pushed some hair from her face. "Thanks for stepping in, Commander." It was obvious she was about as far from pleased as could be, but she shrugged and let down her biotic barrier. "That wouldn't have ended well for her," she said in a last flash of venom.
"I can't have you two at each other's throats like this," Shepard said flatly. "Is this going to be a problem?"
Miranda rolled her desk back onto the floor. "Not from my part, Shepard. Maybe you should ask Jack that question."
He found Jack in the engine, as usual, down on the lower level with most of the lights turned off. She heard him the instant he started coming down the stairs.
"Leave me the f*** alone, Shepard!" Jack snapped.
She still hadn't put any clothes on, but with every inch of her body covered with tattoos it almost made no difference. Sitting on the edge of her spare cot, Jack was twisting the tough leather cords which comprised her top over and over on her callused hands, wound them so tightly her knuckles were white.
"Jack, if you have a problem with one of my crew, you have a problem with me," Shepard said carefully.
"'Your crew'," Jack taunted him viciously. "They're still Cerberus. Yeah, I've got a f***ing problem."
"Pragia's dead, for years it's been dead. Teltin's a smoking crater. The guards, the doctors who tortured you, the kids who hated you—they're all dead now," he reminded her patiently.
"You just don't get it, Shepard," Jack crowed from her cave. "Everything I ever did was because of them, it's their fault for torturing me for years and years. Cerberus is to blame for who I am, and I'm going to kill every last one of them, just to remind them who they screwed with. So tell your little cheerleader just because I have your back doesn't mean I'm looking out for hers. If she gets her cute little ass vaporized by a Collector I'm not gonna be crying about it."
"So everything is just Cerberus's fault?"
"I was wrong about you, Shepard, you're just as dumb as the rest. Of course it's their f***ing fault!" Biotics flashed from her hand, denting a pipe somewhere which then began to leak.
"Jack!" Shepard barked. "For once in your life, take some responsibility for yourself!
She gave him a bored look. "Take your crap somewhere else, Shepard."
"Jack, you're everything Cerberus wanted you to be, don't you see that? They won! Everything they put you through, all the tests, all the torture, it all worked—because you let them win."
At that, Jack shot to her feet, the glow of deadly biotics outlining her lean body in the darkened engine room. Murder was on her face. "I should f***ing kill you for that, Shepard," she growled menacingly. "I was a scared little kid, they tortured me and tortured me and tortured me. How else was I gonna turn out, huh! You're so f***ing smart, Shepard, you tell me!"
"But you were always stronger than the rest of them," Shepard said calmly.
"Of course I was," she snapped. "I escaped, I survived!"
"If you were that strong, then you were strong enough not to let them win."
"I hate you!" Jack shrieked.
"You hate me, fine. Then why don't you kill me and get it over with. Go ahead!"
The fierce blue biotic glow silhouetting Jack intensified, growing to the point where it seemed she had mustered enough biotic force to rip the Normandy in two. She looked dead-set on using it to obliterate Shepard, but she did nothing.
"f*** you, how are you doing that?" Jack cursed.
"Doing what?"
"Why won't you let me f***ing kill you!" she screamed.
"I'm not doing anything to you, Jack," he explained. "You are."
"F*** it all! You're not making sense!" The biotic field had begun to weaken.
"You don't really want to kill me."
"The f*** I f***ing do!" Jack howled, but still the blue glow lessened.
"You're starting to understand something about yourself. Cerberus may have given you the tools, and they gave you a good start, but you're the one who made you who you are."
"They tortured me, it's their fault!" Jack hissed defensively.
Shepard clenched his fist. "Yes! Yes they tortured you! Yes they did unfathomable horrors to you and the other children! You might have been just a kid, but you were strong enough to make it out of there alive. You were strong enough to put it behind you, to leave Teltin rotting in its grave, but you didn't. There's only one thing worse than what Cerberus did to you, and that's what you're doing to yourself."
"What!"
His voice was hard. "Look at yourself, Jack. You are never going to amount to being more than just a psycho cooked up in a Cerberus lab, stuck in the rut you let them put you in. People will never respect you because you don't respect yourself."
"I got respect," Jack retorted.
"Wrong. You intimidate people and mistake that for respect," Shepard corrected her. "You can't get self-respect from other people. You have to earn it."
"I don't know what you're expecting from me, Shepard. They didn't exactly teach me to be nice and courteous to others while they were busy sticking me full of drugs and shocking me when I didn't fight hard enough," Jack snapped.
Shepard tossed her a shiny black shirt. "You can start by wearing a shirt out of respect for the rest of the crew."
She eyed it with suspicion. "What kind of a trick is this?"
"You're not a savage, Jack, you're a human being. Just wearing a shirt isn't going to take you all the way there, but it's a step toward showing Cerberus that they couldn't break you down into exactly what they wanted. Think about it."
Jack mused in silence for several minutes. "Fine," she said finally, dropping the shirt on the cot beside her. "But I'm still not watching the cheerleader's back."
Shepard grunted. One thing at a time. "Miranda never stormed your fortress, please stay out of hers and don't break any more windows," he requested. "I'd like to have a ship left to fight the Collectors with."
"Yeah, right, whatever." Jack clicked the lights on and glared at him impatiently, still as naked as ever. "So are you gonna, like, get lost or something and let me get dressed?"
Shepard started up the stairs. "I'm gone." Up above, Samara was waiting expectantly.
"Things went well, I take it?" the Justicar supposed aloud.
"Was it the no boom-boom or the lack of a mushroom cloud that gave it away?" Shepard chuckled. Samara answered him with a nonplussed stare. "Sorry, human jokes. Yes, I suppose it went as well as it could have. Were you really watching? Because I felt like you couldn't have possibly reacted in time if she'd wanted to-"
"If Jack had tried to harm you, kill you, she would have had no chance," Samara assured him. "Many suspects much more dangerous than her have tried, and all failed."
He laughed nervously. "Alright then. Well, I don't think she'll be an immediate problem, at least for a while. Thanks for the help."
"No thanks are required."
Shepard shook his head and started to leave. Just then, he heard Jack yelling a question up the stairwell at him. "Hey, Shepard? Who did you get this shirt from?"
Shepard smiled to himself. One thing at a time.
