-Jane-
The question of 'where am I?' is all that Jane can think as she stands in a cloud of thick, white fog that blurs everything past a couple meters in either direction and anything beyond twenty feet was completely shrouded. Looking around, she frowns in confusion at the coarse asphalt under her boots and the tell-tale signs of storefronts and buildings just through the cloud of haze.
"What the…" She drifts off as she approaches the closest storefront. She passes some rusty, nameless vehicle that's clearly seen better days and is unable to read the signs, register the letters, as she approaches. Her mind can at least recognize this as something human, and probably some kind of toystore if the unkempt, dusty, and broken dolls in the window count for anything, but, other than that, she's as good as blind.
For her mind, that's enough of an explanation as her eyes move on to taking in the worn down, flaking paint and overall abandoned appearance of the building. Must have a concussion or something since everything seems…so unclear, she figures as she runs her gloved hand over the dingy, stained glass, the thick weave passing over the deep cracks in the glass that splinter under her slight touch.
Leaving the empty storefront, the doors chained and barred with heavy, metal bars, she starts to walk the street, looking around to see if she can see any sign of life. She feels almost as if she knows this place, this area of street she walks, but, again, her heavy head can't seem to place it. Where one face of building may spark her interest, pique her thoughts into trying to recall, her confusion returns with another, unplaceable even when she tries to look past the unreadable signs and decrepit appearance.
She sighs and closes her eyes, trying to focus her mind and make sense of where she is and try to remember how she got here, when she runs into something solid, making her grunt in both surprise and a bit of discomfort. "Who the fuck put-" she stops, eyes widening at the sight of a rusted car sitting directly in front of some worn down storefront with metal barred doors and a cracked front window that guards a set of broken dolls. "No fucking way."
She spins, looking back the way she came, but there's nothing but rolling fog behind her just past the pathetic excuse of visibility. Narrowing her eyes, she moves to the storefront and yanks her glove off. She can't possibly be in some strange Twilight Zone loop or something, that's insane. Perhaps there's just an odd coincidence of similar stores with shitty cars out front, she thinks as she wedges her glove on a piece of the broken glass, where someone – she – can see it from the street if she does happen to circle back, somehow.
Backing away, determined to show this fucking foggy shithole street who's boss, Jane turns towards the direction she had been walking in originally and has to do everything in her power not to burst into a sprint. Wouldn't want to walk into the one person in this creepy ass town – whatever the hell this place is.
As soon as her continuous checks over her shoulder show her the car faded into the white, she can't hold back any longer. Her curiosity to see this result through, she breaks into a sprint down through the constantly rolling fog, thick and as if able to grab at her boots. She is just to the point where she's starting to believe she may have just been being paranoid when a dark mass starts to take form, sapping her courageous triumph of the unexplainable and draining her little sense of clarity to cloud her mind again.
"No. Nonononono," she sputters as she comes upon that same rusted, beaten down vehicle and storefront, her face paling at the sight of her glove wedged into the panes of broken and grime stained glass. Her feet move to the window as if she's moving through high waters, her expression one of defeated and stunned shock as she tugs her glove from the glass.
"This can't be happening." Her voice is shaky in disbelief as she stares at the limp piece of material, its very existence here like an insult on the very idea of logic. She just sprinted at least a city block, it shouldn't be here, sitting in her hand.
She's starting to realize that this place - wherever 'this place' even is – is not a normal town and, though the most reasonable idea would be to think she's dreaming, she has never experienced a dream quite like this. Where her sleep is usually occupied by reliving parts of her past, though sometimes with little deviations, she can say, without any doubt, she's never been in the middle of a looping street with abandoned buildings and vehicles and no ability to distinguish anything but what she can deduce.
A moaning carrying over the fog snaps her out of her confusion and she spins, scanning the fog. She can't see anything in the damn fog, but the moan repeats, echoes off the walls of the dead buildings and back to the shuffle of feet. Slipping her glove on, she lowers herself, trying to limit the noise of her boots as she slowly sneaks around the vehicle because she doesn't want to be backed into the wall by her approaching company. What little that does considering anywhere I go brings me right back, fucking here to this stupid store with the creepy fucking toys.
The moan comes again, this time with friends in the form of more groans and wails from more speakers and more sets of scuffling footsteps. She inwardly curses just as the first sights of approaching figures start to take shape in the white, twitching and clearly disorganized. They seem human shaped, even if it's hard to tell with most hunched as they are, but something is blatantly different in everything about them.
Yet, Jane can almost tell herself she recognizes this odd, moaning figures from somewhere. Much like the storefronts in the street that leave small sparks of recognition before vanishing like glimpses in the ever shifting fog, she barely is able to register the fact that she may know these colorless humanoid shapes with dead voices before the thought is ripped out from under her, leaving her feeling lost and breathless.
Wait… 'breathless'? She blinks in confusion as the fog seems to close in, rolling over the toes in her boots and crawling up her legs. I really can't breathe.
She gasps, her eyes widening in panic as she feels like the cloud of fog seeps into her suit and suck the air from her lungs. Her hands snap to her throat in futile attempt to try and do something, anything, to stop the murderous mist from slipping down her throat to enter her lungs, drowning her further. It doesn't seem to help, however, as she tries to suck in air, finding nothing but stillness and silence that falls from her lips.
Then, her body starts to ache against the feeling of pressure against the inside of her suit. It feels almost as if her entire body has swelled from some injury, the bruised flesh pressing against the unforgiving metal and ceramic plate of her useless armor. Yet, with all this, she can't seem to come to the conclusion to remove her armor, to release the pressure on her every ache against her skin as her mind falls victim to the same disabling fog that has stolen her oxygen.
Her vision starts to fade as her body starts to burn under the chilling cold against her skin. It feels like a fire burns up her spine, licking across her organs and flicking across her tongue, boiling it on contact. It doesn't melt the ice that numbs her swollen limbs, doesn't burn away the icy fog stealing her breath, but it does melt away her only chance at screaming if she ever found the breath.
Screaming is the only thing she can think of doing as she collapses in unbearable agony, the shuffling figures getting closer. Their dead, yet brightly lit eyes, are unmoving as they surround her, crowding to the point that it almost seems like the blot out the last remaining light from the white canvas that is the unforgiving sky.
Then again, that darkness could just be in her head.
V.v.V.v.V.v.V
She wakes with a slight gasp of an inhale, her eyes snapping open. It takes her a moment to let the sights and sounds - her bubbling aquarium throwing a faint glow across the large loft and her bed and the rumbling thrum that has become her only means of getting any true sleep - come together in her mind to remind her where she is, the Captain's Loft on the Normandy.
Jane rolls over and smiles at seeing her mate sleeping, his free mandible relaxed against his pillow as he rests on his uninjured side. It's good to see him actually getting some rest because she usually wakes up to find him either awake and off to his stupid guns – calibrating, the insufferable bastard – or he's simply around the Loft.
She knows his pain topped with his newfound addiction to simulants makes it hard for him to ever truly wind down, but it still doesn't mean she worries about him getting proper sleep. Of course, he worries about her getting sleep with all the stresses of this mission, so she guesses their concern neutralizes each other. It seems we are quite the matching set, my Archangel.
She lets her eyes run over the surface of his plates and frowns at the jagged wounds that cut across the once smooth silvery surface, trailing down his neck and across his shoulder and chest. Still, he's the most welcoming sight in this entire damn galaxy, face half blown to hell and all, and she wouldn't risk wishing the fucking disaster that was his last stand had never happened because she couldn't imagine what that adverse effect would have been.
As horrible as it sounds, she'd rather have almost lost him to that fucking Tarak and his gunship and be left with the scars he has now than actually lose him to some other accident her shitty luck happened to cause to befall on them. She would sacrifice every last soul in this galaxy if it saved him without a second thought, so the powers that be – if there really are any – had better make sure to keep her husband around if they don't want to see the universe go to hell without her.
Garrus' breath stutters and his hand twitches and clenches against the sheets in reaction to something in his sleep. Her brows lower in concern as she covers his hand with hers, trying to soothe him, but when he doesn't calm, she lifts his arm and scoots closer to his warm body. His opposite arm, until now tucked under her pillow, curls over her back and tugs her closer in an unconscious effort to hold her tight as he purrs drowsily, but doesn't wake.
She huffs a silent breath of a laugh at him and figures it's better to be held against her will to a sleeping Turian than have that same Turian suffering in his sleep, so she doesn't struggle out of his hold. Besides, it's not an uncomfortable hold and that constant heat radiating off his plates helps to keep that unbearable icy feeling from her veins that not even an adjusted thermostat can alleviate.
As she sits in the low blue glow that fans over his back, she counts the moments between his breaths until they start to slow, almost to a dead stop, in his thrumming rhythm that marks him falling back into a deep sleep. Hearing the change makes her smile, her own strange nightmare that's already fading completely dissipating and forgotten, and she lays a hand on his expanding chest, feeling his steady heartbeat beating its slightly different rhythm beneath the plate. She lets her thumb idly caress over his keel as she lets her eyes scan over his wounds, still angry looking after only a little more than a month of supposed healing, and leans forward to place a soft kiss on the jut of his keel, just at the base of his neck.
The hand thrown over her waist moves, heavy from sleep, and tangles in her hair in an entirely controlled move that makes Jane chuckle softly. She looks up, pressing back into his palm, to see his usually bright eyes shadowed from the lack of light, but she knows he's awake when his subvocals shift and stop. "Hey," his sleep leaden voice says, his dual tones thick and her translator barely managing.
She smirks and scoots up a bit in the bed to be more level with his face. "Hey to you." He makes a soft rumble that she thinks his him clearing his throat, or something of the like since he always does it to knock his vocals back into balance. "Did I wake you?"
"No." His voice sounds so much clearer this soon after waking than hers ever could, for which she's slightly envious, and he rolls his head against the pillows, most likely working the stiffness left from his injuries. "It's not like I'm missing anything by waking up anyways."
"That bad, huh?" she asks with a lifted brow, though he might or might not see it in the low light – she still isn't exactly sure what his eyes can see in the dark or low light.
"It definitely wasn't good." He shifts and rolls on his back, pulling her against his side as he reaches to the side table and grabs his visor. Instead of slipping it on, however, he merely holds it in his hand, his thumb running over its surface.
Jane, knowing there is more to his visor than just a piece of tech like so long ago, stays quiet and lets him work through whatever he's feeling. If he needs her, she is here, pressed to his side with her head on his shoulder, but she will not push him to open up before he's ready. It's the least she can do, to offer her silent support and available ear, after all he has done and continues to do for her. Eventually, he sighs and slips the visor on, hooking it onto the plates at the back of his skull as it flickers to life.
She opens her mouth to speak, shutting it when she doesn't what to break the silent peace of his long breaths that lift and lower her head in a gradual climb and fall, and opens it again to ask him if he wants her to open the shutter to look out on Nos Astra when the AI's blue holographic interface surfaces across the room. "Commander, there is a Drell claiming to be a representative for Liara T'Soni at the airlock requesting entrance. She claims to go by the name Poe, but does not offer any further information. Shall I deny entry?"
"Shit," Jane curses, tensing up before slowing slipping out of her husband's grasp with an apologetic look. She had completely forgot that they had agreed to help Liara with some information hacking or something when they had first arrived on Illium a little more than three days ago. Now she was rushing to at least pull on pants – of at least something to cover the talon scratches along her thighs that are bound to distract the ever nosy crew – and a shirt to go meet with Poe and get the rundown of how this supposed hacking program works so that her horrible technological skills don't ruin it all. "Let her in, EDI, she's fine. Is there at least someone to show her to the Conference Room or something where she can debrief us?"
"Of course, Shepard. I believe Tali and Ilden are awake along with Thane and Samara in the Mess Hall." The blue image flickers a bit and Garrus climbs out of bed, grabbing his own clothes to pull on. "They are alerted. May I assist with anything else?"
"Yeah," her mate interjects as he pulls his pants up. "Don't tell the damn truth when someone asks why we're late. Especially not the Drell woman you're letting into the ship right now." Jane lifts a brow in silent question and he shakes his head in a silent 'tell you in a bit.'
"Of course, Officer Vakarian. Logging you out." The far corner goes dark once again.
Garrus sighs and his mandible jerks rigidly against his chin in frustration. "How many times do I have to tell that idiotic AI that I'm not an officer anymore."
She snorts and grabs his shirt off the back of the couch, bringing it to him. "You'd probably be better off having Tali reprogram it than you would be trying to tell it to call you otherwise." He shakes his head with a slight eye roll and she chuckles as she helps him tighten the catches of his shirt. "And I have a feeling that reprimand about truth telling is due to experience?"
"Grunt was asked aloud why, when he walked into the elevator, it smelled odd. EDI was as helpful as always in providing answers on the subject." Jane laughs and he mock glares down at her, a low growl in his voice. "And I'm the one that had to be lectured by Lawson for it."
She snorts and shakes her head, turning to head downstairs while he throws on his armor. "I bet you still would pin me to the wall and fuck my brains out again in full armor when you get the next chance." She doesn't hear his exact response, but she's sure it was something good if the growling tones of his harmonics that never fails to send shivers down her spine was anything to go by.