John was more than willing to follow Jenna's directions, starting with dragging two of the pig carcasses out of the freezer and ending with helping her set up volleyball nets. It all seemed so blindingly humdrum... peeling potatoes while Jenna handled laundry duty, making beds, doing the washing up and basic cleaning...cooking beside her. She tended to work in silence, which he normally found refreshing, except when he needed to get to know a person, and do it fairly quickly.

"What did you want to be when you grew up?" He was betting it wasn't bartender or waitress...

She gave him a sideways, wary look, then sighed in defeat. "Oh, hell. You'll find out eventually anyway... I was an ice skater. After that ended, I should have been smarter. I should have stood up for myself then, and gone on to college. I screwed up. I know it." She grimaced at the memory, her eyes shadowed for a moment before she shrugged. "I loved science in school. I was good at it. I could have, should have, done something with that. But I didn't. I let them win, I let them beat me."

"The people in the Kamloops brig with you." The snake, and the older, worn woman resigned to her predicament...

"Yup... that was my mom, and my sister...my half sister. That was part of the problem Hackett had with finding me, I have my father's last name. So we don't share surnames."

"And your father was not picked up in that?"

"He died when I was seven." If her eyes had shadowed before, they turned absolutely stormy at that sentence. Sore point, he filed that away for later.

"Sorry to hear it." He sighed, resting a hand on her shoulder. He might not understand letting people beat him, roll over him, giving up. But he understood raw loss. "Were you any good? Skating?" It was probably another sore point, he'd probably be better off just letting it go, but he was curious. It was so incomprehensible to him.

She paused, dishrag in hand, thinking for a long moment before she finally nodded. "I was, actually." She smiled, like sunlight finding a break in the clouds. "Looking back at it with a little distance. Does it matter now?"

"Yes."

"Why?" She began to wipe down the kitchen, and he stared at her, judging her responses. She wanted him to change the subject, but if that was what she wanted, she'd have to damn well do it herself.

"Why? You tell me you were good. But then you tell me you gave it up. I've run with you, gone to the gym with you. If you have a career ending injury, I sure haven't seen it. I want to know why you quit."

She whipped around, tilting her head, her color rising. "You want to know why I quit?" She hissed. "Really?"

"Yes." Yes, he did. He wanted to peel back the pretty package and see her for what she was. And he was beginning to see the first tears in the wrapping now...

"Because I went out there and I skated that day. I did better than I had ever done before. It was wonderful. It was fantastic, John. It clicked. It was just like I had dreamed it, and I did it at Sectionals. I could honestly do no better, that isn't a lie. It isn't faking. I put it out all out on the line. And I still simply wasn't good enough. I was nineteen, and it was over. I was done chasing what I couldn't have, getting older, getting farther away, watching girls five years my junior beat me. I knew when I stepped off of the ice that I was done, and that was the performance I wanted to end it with. And if you're going to judge that, then you can go fuck yourself in the corner!"

She took a deep breath, gripping the edge of the counter and bowing her head. "I've done things I regret. I've not done things I should have, which I regret. But that...that isn't one of them. That is one of the few things I know I got right. Sometimes...you're just not capable of something, and admitting to that yourself...after years and years of breathing for it... it's not easy, John. It's hard. It hurts. You call it quitting. I call it something else."

"And that something else would be?"

"Letting go. Coming face to face with the realization that it wasn't going to happen and I needed to grow up and face that fact. What I did afterward wasn't, but that decision was. Understanding that I was good. I was very, very good. But that I wasn't great. That I never would be great." She stared at him, weighing his response, and he nodded slowly. If that was so, then he could accept it. And she had enough of a backbone to stand up to him, to put him back in his place.

"Has Kaidan ever told you that you're beautiful?" He asked, and she gave him a long stare.

"Yes. He has." She said, shaking her head. "Why?"

"Because you are." He said, mildly. That statement was obviously not what she was expecting out of him, and she blushed in answer. He leaned in, giving her a kiss, lifting her up to sit on the counter in front of him. She smelled wonderful, and he thrilled to the feeling of her breasts pushed against his chest, the weight of her legs against his ass as she wound her knees around his hips. His hands fell to her rear, pulling her closer up against him, trailing kisses across her throat and the top of her breasts. He knew that they didn't have the time, the opportunity, to go far with this...but that was exactly what he was after. He wanted a little time alone with her, to touch her, to hold her...without pressure. To just share an intimate moment, to balm the emotions that he had dredged up and shaken out of her.

"What's this?" She asked, running her fingertips along his skull, against the grain of his shorn scalp. "Make up cuddle?"

"Something like that." He said. "I admit I pushed you. And I probably shouldn't have. I want this weekend to be good for all of us. It's our reunion, and your going away party. It's a time to hold on tight to what we still have. A celebration...and..." He tilted his head, more feeling than hearing the low growl of an engine. "That would be the Kodiak."

.`.``.``.`.`.`.`.

While she'd never consider herself a 'party girl', Jenna loved gatherings like this one. People she knew, people she felt safe amongst. A few of them were prickly, snarky, even insulting... but they'd never hurt her. They were all weird, it had been part of the job description for Normandy crew members. She'd had no experience with aliens before meeting Kaidan, but the one she'd thought she'd find the most terrifying was the one she felt the most secure around... even when Wrex was stalking amongst the apple trees, fixated by something she could only guess at.

And then there were the two crew members she felt the least secure around... Ironic, because ostensibly, they were both the same thing she was, human and female. However, she'd realized a long time ago that Jack and Miranda were hardly the same as she was, and would be highly offended to be labeled that way. So Jenna treated them much as she had treated the patrons at her bar, at her hotel, with unyielding politeness and a wide distance. They were not her friends, they never would be...they were simply women that her fiance worked with.

"What has you so fascinated?" Hannah asked from behind her, her voice low.

"Watching Wrex stalk the vicious Canadian apple tree in its natural orchard habitat." Jenna pointed to the orchard... "He's in there somewhere. Every once in a while I'll catch a glimpse of him. Did you need something?"

"No. Everything is good. Great. My compliments to the hosts. But I wanted to see how you were doing."

"I'm fine. I have successfully lived down my stupidity, and then gone on to add more stupidity to it, which I will undoubtedly successfully live down at a later date."

Hannah chuckled, but there was an unconvinced weight to her stare. "Jenna. If you need help, just let me know. I have a pretty good idea of what John's got in mind, and..."

"It will work out in the end." Jenna replied, amazed at the calm in her own voice. "And yes, I know exactly what John has in mind. No doubts at all. I go into this with my eyes wide open."

"And Danielle?"

"Not as much, no." Jenna admitted. It hurt, she loved Kaidan's mom, the woman had been incredibly decent and kind to her, and keeping something this big from her seemed wrong. But she had to follow Kaidan's lead with that, and Kaidan hadn't even been forthcoming with the fact that he'd even had a long term relationship with John. There was a gulf there, and Jenna wasn't certain just how much of it was her job to help bridge. But this weekend wasn't for that. All of that angst could just wait...until she got back. "And it's not something I want to deal with this weekend."

Hannah gave her a look eerily close to John's when Jenna didn't behave the way he'd been expecting her to. "Enough on your plate as it is? With your Basic report date coming up and all of this. Understood. As for that, I have no idea why the krogan warlord is stalking your orchard. But if you're in the mood for mindless entertainment, there's always the guys playing shirtless volleyball on the other side of the house. The side that can't be viewed from the kitchen, which is not a place you should be haunting like you're the hired help. Come on."

The tableau was just as amazing as Hannah had suggested it was, a fine, fine collection of testosterone oozing masculinity, rippling in the sunlight... "Jenna!" Kaidan greeted loudly, "You play?"

"I sure do." She grinned, taking the spot next to Vega, and facing down John and Kaidan. This was something she was good at, something she understood and something she was willing to let her innate competitiveness run with.

It was great. Fun. And it truly felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. If they could have times like this, in spite of everything that had happened, then they could pick themselves up and rebuild.