A Haunted Past

Chanhassen, MN – Beginning of Reaper War:

"Sir! You heard the orders! We need to fall back!"

Lt. Commander Jackson Carver disregarded the chief's protests in his ear as he stormed down the ruined street. It was night, but the street lamps that were still left provided what light they could for the beleaguered neighborhood.

I guess the giant robot squids find it irrelevant if we have power. Almost kinda wish the power was out. Would make sneaking by a little easier.

Jackson braced himself against a charred skycar as the ground shook; a click away one of the giant monsters stomped. Rounds peppered his shields, nearly draining them. He took cover, huddling behind the skycar to let his shields recharge. Burning metal and flesh assaulted his nose.

"Commander!" his chief called over the radio. "Are you alright?"

Jackson glanced back at their pitiful defenses. The chief huddled behind a berm. Several other berms and a couple Makos were the extent of their pitiful defenses.

"I'm fine, Paulson," he assured her. He heard the tell-tale buzz of his shields restoring.

A young woman dressed in a yellow sundress ran by his cover, screaming. Before he could grab her, several rounds punched through her body, spraying blood into the air as she fell to the ground.

"Dammit!" Jackson scanned the neighborhood, trying to determine the shooter amongst the chaos. Too many of those damned batarian things and techno-zombies running around.

A cannibal ran past his cover and started mutilating the corpse of the woman. Jackson activated his omni-blade, electricity sparking from the orange blade, and he lunged at the cannibal, shoving the omni-blade deep into the back of the monster. Its body twitched from the electricity coursing through it and several bulbous sores on its back exploded from the power.

"Son of a bitch!" he cursed as he got back behind cover trying to wipe the goo off. The sickly brown fluid smelled like rotten eggs and vinegar. He retched from the stench but did his best to keep from puking. Get your shit together, Jackson! Your family's house is just down the street!

He peeked over his cover as Service Chief Paulson joined him. Her blue and silver armor was stained with different colors of blood, red and purple the most prominent.

"Are we here for the rest of the civilians, sir, or just for your family?" Paulson asked.

She sounds pissed. Probably for good reason.

He growled at her. "We save anyone we can before we bug out. I need to go to the house, though. They're not responding to my messages." I hope it's just dad's old bomb shelter interfering with the signal.

He peered over his cover again, desperate to see his parents' house.

Still no movement. I gotta get over there now! It's only a block away.

"Paulson, cover me!" he commanded.

The service chief fired at the assembled reaper forces, along with the rest of his squad. He rolled around the back of the charred skycar making sure he didn't cross their line of fire. He ran behind a nearby burning house to stay out of sight.

This may be the long way around, but won't be as bad as trying to go through the enemy.

"Help us!"

Jackson heard the desperate cries from a child nearby, and gazed in the direction of the voice to see an asari and human child hiding in some nearby bushes. The only thing visible were their faces staring at him. He peered back at the house, close to just bolting for it.

Save anyone you can. he scolded himself. He checked to make sure none of the reapers were heading towards them. Fortunately, most of them were still distracted by his squad and a second squad that joined them. He smiled at the precision they were taking down the reaper troops with. So far he'd lost no one, but reaper corpses piled on top of each other in the streets. He ran over to the children and coaxed them out of the bush. They can't be older than six, he thought once they left the bush. At least the human is. Still not sure about asari.

He held a hand out to them while keeping his weapon ready with the other. "Stay low and hold on to each other and my hand," he told the scared children. They nodded and he led them back the way he came, around the house, and to a toppled tree. The reaper ground forces were slimmer now thanks to his squad. That won't last. We need to get out of here soon!

A car exploded nearby in a bright blue ball of flame. He felt searing heat pour over him as he protected the two girls behind the massive trunk off the old oak tree. The girls screamed, which gained the attention of two marauders nearby.

"Stay down behind this tree!" Jackson told the girls while motioning for them to stay down. He propped his Avenger on the tree and fired at the marauders. Their shields flared as rounds hit them. They weren't phased, however, and kept charging straight for them. They opened fire as they got closer, forcing him back under cover. Fortunately. Paulson noticed the marauders heading towards them as well, and soon one of them was down before they even reached him. The second one took cover behind a steel shed before its shields went down. Unfortunately, it was still intent on him and the girls, making it so they couldn't leave their cover.

Suck on this, you bastard! He tossed a frag grenade with a precision he learned in high school football, just wanting to get the marauder out of cover so he could kill it. Instead, the marauder leaned out of its cover to shoot and got pegged in the head by the grenade. It staggering a second before it disappeared in a short-lived ball of flame that destroyed the small shed as well.

"Nice throw, sir!" he heard one of the privates from his squad say over the radio. He could hear laughing over the radio before it cut out.

"Yeah, yeah! Stow it, Bradley!" He held a hand out to the girls. The asari grabbed his hand and pulled the other girl with them. "Let's go!" They weren't far and there was a lull in the firefight so he led them the rest of the way to safety.

Safety. Ha! he thought. "Come on, girls. The Mako over here will keep you safe."

He took them to the armored vehicle and helped them get inside with a couple of Marines. With all the chaos and fighting happening, he realized he never really looked at them. Blood and dirt covered their little faces, streaked from tears that continued to stream down their cheeks. The little human girl held a doll, an N7 Marine judging by the armor stitched onto it. He pointed to the doll.

"Who is that?" he asked, hoping to give them something else to think about, if just for a few moments.

"Commander Shepard," the little girl said.

Jackson laughed at the mention of the commander's name.

How ironic. I wish we'd all listened to you now.

The asari pointed to his own armor.

"You wear the same clothes as him. Do you know Commander Shepard?" she asked.

He gave them a weak smile, and then realized they probably couldn't see his face under his helmet. He took it off. "I've met him once or twice."

The two girls looked at each other.

Do I even want to ask where their parents are?

"Will Commander Shepard kill the monsters?" the human girl asked. Her brown eyes looked hopeful, asking for any sort of comfort that could be given.

I don't know.

"He's going to do everything within his power to do so," he said, looking toward Minneapolis at the giant machine that strode across the city a kilometer or so away. "We all are." He took a deep breath and looked at the girls. "What are your names?" He wiped the tears and cleaned their faces with his gloved hands. The sounds of battle started up again and he could hear voices coming from the comm unit in his helmet. He still needed to get his family before they left.

"I'm Lydia," the asari girl answered. She pointed at her sister and said, "And this is my sister, Lucy." She looked at Lucy and hugged her. "I'm 'dopted."

"And where are your parents?" he asked.

I'm pretty sure I already know the answer.

Lucy buried her face in her doll and closed her eyes while she started sobbing. Lydia sobbed as well, but he could tell she was trying her best to keep from breaking down. She pointed behind him. He followed her pointing finger to the corpse of a husk lying a few meters away from them.

Yeah. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. I'm sorry I asked.

He looked at the two girls.

You need to go.

"These Marines will take you somewhere safe," he told them. "I need to go and find more people before we leave."

"Nowhere's safe," Lucy stated.

He nearly sobbed at the despair in her voice.

I know.

"The Alliance will have someplace for you to go. If I don't see you again, listen to the nice Marines. They're going to help you the best they can."

They nodded as he put his helmet back on and climbed back out of the Mako's belly. Paulson's voice greeted him the moment his helmet sealed with his armor.

"Welcome back, sir! We've been trying to get a hold of you."

She sounds angry.

"What's going on?" he asked, needing a quick situation report before he made his way to his parents' house.

"I was trying to tell you that several cannibals left your parents' house just a short moment ago. We killed them but … sir!"

Jackson ignored his chief's protests. He jumped over a couple of small, downed trees, as he ran up the street. His childhood home sat at the head of the cul-de-sac. Three cannibal corpses lay on the lawn in his path. Their bodies leaked sickly red fluid onto the green grass. He leapt over one of the corpses and stormed through the ruined doorway. Furniture lay in pieces all over the living room.

I hope the vault held!

"Daddy!"

He heard his nephew, Simon, scream from the basement of the house, where the bomb shelter was, followed by the sound of metal scraping against metal. He also heard the tell-tale growl of a marauder.

God, no!

Jackson ran through the ruined living room, leaping over broken furniture, to get to the stairs just down a short hallway. He heard the cries of his nephew and leapt down the stairs. When he reached the bottom he came face to face with a marauder. Pure reflex and instinct worked together, and he bashed the butt of his rifle across the head of the marauder, sending it sprawling. He aimed the rifle at its head and fired. The back of its head exploded after three shots and he ran past before the corpse even hit the floor.

"Help!" the eight-year old boy screamed through mangled door of the vault.

No no no!

He forced his way through the wreckage, barely noticing his armor scraping against the mangled metal.

"Oh. Oh god," he cried.

He stared at four of the dragonsteeth already deployed around the room. Most of his immediate family was impaled on them; their bodies being mutilated into husks. A fifth dragons tooth waited as a marauder fought against the struggling boy. Jackson was so focused on the scene he missed the cannibal just to the side of the door that opened fire on him.

"Gah!" he cried in pain. His shields stopped most of the rounds, but one got through and hit him in the leg. He rolled and fired back, letting the recoil of his rifle walk his aim up the cannibal's body until it collapsed, dead.

"Uncle Jack! Help!" the boy cried out, trying to struggle against the stronger marauder that held him on top of the dragon's tooth.

"Simon! Hold on, little buddy!" He charged the marauder, not wanting to risk a stray bullet hitting the boy. He barreled into the marauder shoulder first, and fell to the floor on top of it. He pulled his Carnifex, jabbed it under the marauder's chin so and fired. The top of the marauder's head exploded at the same time he heard his nephew scream. The screeching rasp of metal against metal echoed through his head.

Oh god! No! Please no!

Silence filled the room, all noise ceasing as he turned to look at the dragon's tooth while his body shook from fear of seeing the unthinkable.

"Simon?" he asked, a tiny sliver of hope holding on by a thread. Please answer me, little buddy.

His rifle hit the blood stained floor with a crack as he fell to his knees before the steel-colored death machine. He watched crimson lines stream down the metal shaft.

Don't look up. You already know what's waiting up there.

His eyes defied his wishes and followed the shaft up till they stopped on the little body at the top. He reached his hand up toward the small corpse, vacant, sunken eyes looking down on him from the tip of the monstrous machine.

"Simon," he whispered. He watched the corpse's skin turn a sickly gray while wires and hoses opened fissures in the skin. "Simon. I'm sorry."

Illium – Jackson's Cabin – Day of TPS Mission:

Simon.

The black wooden nightstand next to the bed came into focus through tear-blurred eyes as Jackson woke up from his latest nightmare. His blanket lay on the floor where he tossed it in his sleep, and his sheets were soaked from the cold sweat that still covered his body.

You need to let them go or else you'll never be rid of these dreams that haunt you. He remembered the doctor's words from the last time he visited the psychologist before he was abducted. "How do you forget something like that?" Jackson whispered.

He rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom on the other end of the sparse bedroom. He looked at his image in the mirror over the sink. His eyes were sunken and red. The two-day old brown stubble on his face was moist and matted from tears.

All the doctors, meds, and time couldn't make that go away.

"I'm not the only one who suffered during the war," he told the broken man in the mirror. "It's been nine years. How do the others cope?"

He splashed cool water on his face, trying to feel refreshed. He looked in the mirror again and touched the old scar on his chin from childhood. He'd wrestled with his brother outside their parents house and his brother accidentally smashed Jackson's chin into an edge of their concrete sidewalk.

He left the bathroom and walked into the main area of the house where his gaze fell upon the weapons vault at the back of the house. The carpet felt good under his bare feet and he flexed his toes in the thick blue pile.

I almost did that 4 years ago. Almost.

His gaze fell back to the blue carpeted floor and he headed for the kitchen across the room. Neptune waited for him in the kitchen near the fridge in anticipation for the bacon that had become a morning ritual for the two.

"Hey, little buddy." He choked up a little when he said those words, an image of his nephew flashed quickly through his memory followed by the rest of his family.

Not anymore. I've had enough for today.

He looked at the crillion that now stared at him with all three eye stalks. "I should probably do some research, eh? For all I know, bacon is going to make you fat, if you can get fat, of course."

He grabbed the package of bacon, handing a strip to the chittering crillion. Neptune grabbed it with one of its triangular claws. The creature didn't scurry to its tub like it usually did, instead staring at Jackson as he got a pan from one of the cupboards to cook some bacon for himself.

"What?" he asked the crillion. "Do I have something on my face?" And now you're talking to an animal. You need a girlfriend.

He thought of his first mission on Illium, where he met Lia, and how, despite his predicament, he actually had fun with her that night.

Maybe tonight's mission could be considered a second date. The thought made him smirk. Sounds like something she'd propose.

He heard some scurrying and watched Neptune leave the kitchen.

I wonder what it wanted. Attention?

He put it out of his mind and finished cooking his bacon strips.

This stuff smells kinda weird.

He took a bite out of one of the strips.

"Gah!" He ran to the garbage disposal and spit out the chunk of meat. "What the hell kind of bacon is this?" He pulled the package of bacon out of the fridge and read the label a little more intently. "Varren bacon? What the hell, Lia?" He heard the sound of little hard objects tapping along the metal floor. He looked down to see Neptune returning with a half eaten bacon strip. "You like this shit? It tastes like vomit and marshmallows." Neptune just stared at him and took another bite from its bacon. "Oh! Now you're just being an ass!" He laughed and grabbed the plate of cooked bacon off the counter and put it on the floor. "If you like this crap so much you can have the rest." I'll just order some delivery of something or other. I wonder what kind of delivery they even have out here.

He walked to the office, which Lia left a working extranet terminal in for him and started looking up food delivery. Neptune followed him into the office and sat next to the desk, tucking its legs into its shell like a turtle.

"Huh! You're just full of all sorts of neat tricks. Let's see what we have here. Waters of T'Lasia has delivery. Smoked crillion and svilly fish are the special." He looked down at Neptune who stared at him from his space on the floor. "Yeah, no. That would be weird. Plus, take the 'v' out of 'svilly' and it just sounds like silly fish. Who wants to eat silly fish?"

He chuckled and continued browsing through delivery options until he found something that sounded palateable.

"Pizza!? They have pizza? Even if I don't recognize all the ingredients there's at least got to be something tastier than varren bacon."

He placed an order for a pizza that sounded edible and went to the entertainment center to watch the vid screen while he waited. He flipped through the various channels of cartoons, overdramatic shows, and even some so-called "reality vids" before he finally made it to a galactic news channel. For thirty minutes he watched news about Aria's expansion out from Omega into the surrounding Terminus Systems, the last known relay repairs being finished, and Admiral Shepard's new command at Arcturus Station. He looked at Neptune sitting on the floor next to the couch.

"Things have changed a lot in the last nine years, eh?" The animal regarded him with one of its eyestalks. "Who am I kidding? You're probably not even that old."

The buzzer rang indicating that someone was at his door.

"Pizza's here," he whispered to Neptune. He knocked on its shell before he got up, causing it to chitter excitedly. When he opened the door he was greeted by a turian that looked at him weird. The turian then shrugged and handed him a data-pad.

"Sign here please," he said, his high, modulated voice sounding slightly annoyed.

Jackson signed where indicated and took the pizza to the kitchen. "This stuff smells weird as well, but not as bad as the bacon at least." He opened the box and saw a number of vaguely recognizable ingredients on the pizza. "Well, at least it looks like there's some sort of meat and cheese on it. I guess it's time to try new things." He'd just put a couple of slices on a plate when he heard the door tone again.

Who could that be?

He took his plate of pizza and headed to the door. When he opened it, Lia, wearing her black enviro-suit, walked in and grabbed the plate of pizza out of his hands.

"Hey! That's mine! I'm hungry!" he called after her.

She turned and regarded him, placing a hand on her cocked hip while the other held his pizza.

"Is this from the Darius's Pizza delivery car I saw speeding away?" she asked.

He nodded and patted his rumbling stomach.

"Remind me to give you a list of places not to order from. In the meantime, we'll give this to Tullius when he gets here. He likes Darius's Pizza." Lia shook her head and laughed while heading to the kitchen.

He gave her a confused look before he realized what she was implying.

"Oh. You'd think they'd mention that on their ordering service," he said while following her into the kitchen.

"They probably did and you just missed it." She looked at the plate of bacon on the floor. "Why is there bacon on the floor?"

"Because it's gross varren bacon, but Neptune seems to like it," he answered, smiling.

"Oh. I thought you liked bacon. I'm sorry," she apologized while looking at the plate.

He put an arm around her shoulders and said, "I do like bacon, just not varren bacon. It tastes … off."

She shook her head and tugged on his arm.

"I wouldn't know," she whispered, leaning her head on his shoulder. She turned her head a little toward his chest and then pulled away from him. "Wait. Did you answer the door in your underwear?"

He looked down at his black boxer-briefs and shrugged. "Maybe?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Not that I mind, but I'm sure that made it a little awkward with the pizza delivery guy."

"Hey, all the important bits are covered, that's what really matters."

She laughed and turned him around to push him out the door and slapped his ass.

"Go get dressed. I'll order you some pizza you can actually eat and we can hash out some last details on the mission tonight."

"I thought you didn't mind," he teased, grinning back at her as he walked to the bedroom.

"I don't. But Tullius and Cyana are coming over and they might."

"Fine." He opened his closet and picked out a black t-shirt and jeans. He turned to put them on his bed but froze when he saw Lia sitting on it. "Jesus, you're spooky!"

She didn't answer, didn't even laugh. She looked at the bed and gripped one of the sheets in her hand, rubbing it between her fingers.

"Jackson," she said, her voice sounding a little worried. "Your sheets are soaked with what I hope is sweat. Was it another bad dream?"

He sighed and nodded, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He leaned his elbows on his knees and gazed at the carpeted floor.

I really don't want to think about this again, he thought and closed his eyes.

He felt the bed shift shortly before enviro-suit covered arms wrapped around his waist. Her legs straddled him and he felt her helmeted head lay against his back. He relaxed from her touch, despite the cold metal of her helmet against his back.

"Want to talk about it?" she asked in a voice just above a whisper.

Not really.

"How about I tell you some good things about my family instead," he suggested, not wanting to think about the awful events of his dream again. "Also, call me Jack. I like it." He smiled at her as he glanced over his shoulder. He could only see himself in the mirrored mask of her helmet.

"Okay, Jack. If just talking about your family will help, we can do that." She pulled some of the sheets away from the mattress and pulled him back to the dry area she uncovered. "I'll call off the others. We have time till the mission."

She laid his head on her chest and ran her fingers through his brown hair. He could feel the subdued belt just under her breasts press against the back of his neck.

"Tell me everything," she said while rubbing one of his arms.

He smiled before he started. Maybe I will tell her everything. I should talk about it with someone. Besides, this is about as close to a happy place as I've been in a long time.

She poked his bare belly, making him gasp.

"You know, I think I will tell you about my dream, I'm feeling a lot better now," he said laughing and removing her hand.

"Good."