It was dark when Jenna arrived at the transport flight line, alone. Everybody had been more than willing to let her say her goodbyes the night before, Kaidan had taken her ring back for safe keeping, so here she stood. It was difficult to ignore Vega, he was pacing in the small terminal when she stepped inside, blinking against the lights. His gaze barely fell on her, and he gave no acknowledgment that he knew her, and she returned the same right back at him. He was in uniform. They were in public. Things changed, even she understood that. And this was part and parcel of that whole "Don't let them know who you are." thing they had going on here. It was time to simply be Rolfsmeyer... she grimaced at the idea. It wasn't the most graceful of surnames and had always lent itself too damned well to bad nicknames and general mockery.

She sat in one of the molded plastic seats, studying the view out of the window. What had she done? Whatever it was, it was too damned late to back out now. It was going to be a long couple of months...

By a half an hour later, there were a dozen of them sitting here, and Jenna sighed. They were all so damned young, and it was a disturbing memory of the last time she'd been the old one in a group of young'uns... and they'd whipped her ass then. Here she was, all over again. At least then, she'd felt like like an old warhorse, she'd known the drill and had been completely unfazed. Now she was just as clueless as they were. She sighed, leaning back... Kaidan had been pretty explicit in his last instructions, she was best off if she brought nothing at all with her. No changes of clothes, not even toiletries. She came with only the clothes on her back and some money, and that was only because there was something she was going to do during the short layover she was going to have in Rio before she reported. She'd never even been out of Canada in her life...

Again, too late now. The only way out was through the other side.

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

Kaidan was not expecting to find John asleep in the Normandy's captain's cabin, but that's where he was. He sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed next to him, and finally giving in to lie next to him. John felt worn now that he'd let his guard down and Kaidan was relieved that he was willing to stop and rest, if only for a little while.

"Wha'?" John muttered, opening his eyes and lifting his head slightly. "Kaidan. I must have fallen asleep. I was lying here thinking, and...yeah. Oh, shit. Jenna..."

"Left this morning at oh dark thirty. I didn't go either, didn't want to be recognized. It's better this way, she understands." She was on her own now, and she'd be just fine.

"True." John flipped over to his side, resting his head on Kaidan's shoulder, an arm slung over his hips. He seemed more than content to remain silent, his eyes closed, his breathing even. "You're alive." It should have been a stupid, mindless statement, but Kaidan understood exactly what John was trying to express.

"Yeah, I am." He sighed, turning over as well, resting his forehead against John's, letting their breaths meld. He could stay like this forever, grateful to the pit of his soul.

"I was sure you were gone. London..."

Kaidan snorted, reaching out to pull himself closer. "I was sure you were gone. London." He echoed, and John gave a rueful chuckle in reply. "You doing okay?"

"Yes. No. I feel like a kid who's gotten exactly what he wanted for Christmas, but then realizes he has no idea how to play with it, or even he even wants to."

"I'm sure there will be something else that needs killing soon enough, John. That's how it always is. Now is just a time to catch our breath. To live. Haven't we earned that?"

"If anybody has, you have."

"Bullshit." Kaidan sighed, wrapping his hand around the back of John's head and kissing him slowly. "We both have, John. All of us have. But it's okay. I'm here with you for this one, all of the way." And it was wonderful to just take this moment to breathe in his proximity, to be with him. To have the luxury of time, of peace, of intimacy.

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

Jenna had arrived at Rio with hair. A lot of it. She had not had a haircut since childhood, her hair was so much of how she saw herself. Her main identifier. One of her points of vanity. And now, the majority of it hung from her hand, tightly braided and rubber banded at both ends. She'd gone from 'long enough to sit on', a fall of blonde, to a mop top in less than an hour. She felt exactly the same as the moment she had decided it was all over, that night in Kelowna when she'd ditched the music picked out for her very carefully choreographed program and had decided to go with her favorite music, and the program she skated for herself when it had all become too much to take. The night she'd made a concrete decision as to her future and had set it all in stone.

The hair had to go. After Vega's crash course, she understood that it was so much more than simple uniformity, it was a glaring safety issue. There was too much of a risk that she could not get a perfect seal in a helmet with that much hair, and the idea of dying because of it...no. But she'd be damned if she was going to let the military simply toss it in the garbage...

She placed it in a box, sealed it up, and mailed it...back to herself in Vancouver. It was time to go reunite with the young'uns who were going to kick her ass, and to meet the coaches...er...RDCs... to get this mess all started.

A new day. A new life. A new place. She ran fingers through the awkward, springy mess on the top of her head... a new haircut.

Again, she arrived early. Only one of the young'uns was there before her, twisting her shirt nervously in her fingers. She had a small duffel bag leaned up against her leg, Jenna guessed she was barely eighteen, all wide eyes and dark hair.

"You cut your hair."

"Better me than them." Jenna grinned, sitting across from her. "I'm..." Apparently, it didn't make sense to even bother to give her first name. "Rolfsmeyer."

"Sorenson. You didn't bring anything at all?"

"Nope. Nothing at all." Just the clothes on her back, and those were left over from the occupation, ragged and worn. "Take nothing you want to get back, Jenna. Trust me. Because you won't be getting it back. They'll issue you everything you need, and I do mean everything."

The girl's eyes were now sad, like she was watching a stray puppy fight its way across traffic. Great, somehow, something that Jenna had said, or done, had made her think something that was probably wrong. Jenna, the unloved and wanted, eh? Hardly. But she'd figure it out soon enough, it wasn't Jenna's place to burst her bubble. The others began to filter in, and Jenna was content to go silent again, listening and absorbing. All young. All survivors, of course, filled with righteous indignation and a drive to go do something, anything. Most of them had been too young to have enlisted before the invasion, so they were free of that question. Jenna had been old enough, but the idea of enlisting back then had just seemed like a non path. Nothing for her.

"All right. Everybody in a line, everybody on the truck. Now." A woman, a few inches taller than Jenna, turned out in an effortlessly perfect uniform, barked. And, so it began.

Kaidan had been correct, those who had brought bags were soon parted from them and their contents and they were lined up in what looked all too much like a school corridor, institutional, clean, under the hawk gaze of the older woman. They were sorted by name, and then by some bizarre rationale that Jenna didn't even begin to comprehend...something that got her cut out of the main line, where she wanted to be, and placed in something called the HTF line, population, two. She didn't like standing out at all, and was certain that this was not good. No matter how she tried, she couldn't fit too damned old into that acronym at all. And the other woman in it wasn't old... she was another one of these barely eighteens, she'd probably still been in high school during the invasion.

I want to go home.

Yeah, well, probably wasn't going to be anywhere near the last time she thought that. And she wasn't going to get to go, so all she could do was suck it up and put a brave face on it all. So she led her line of two in the direction she was barked to go in, and ended in up a large storeroom, shelves filled with clear plastic bags, plastic boxes, occupied by a single, civilian clad woman with a tape measure resting around her neck.

"Only two today." She chuckled, "Welcome to the HTF storeroom."

"HTF?" The other young woman asked, freeing Jenna from the necessity of it.

"Hard to fit."

Yep. It was definitely going to be one of those days.

Jenna's turn came after the other young woman, having a surname that began with an R was turning out to be a handy thing indeed. She was ready to strip out of the clothes she'd been wearing when she was called, standing in her underwear while her first set of measurements were taken. Fittings were fittings, whether they ended with a beaded skate dress, or a military uniform.

The woman grunted, displeased and not bothering to hide it, and Jenna bit her lip. It wasn't as if she could lose weight, damn it. She'd gone through everything she had to make it to the end, and everything she'd gained recently had been muscle. There would only be more of that...during her high point, skating, she'd carried quite a bit of that. "Don't suppose you have a clothing allowance?"

"A what?" Everything was supposed to have been provided for. Kaidan had been blunt, but then...it had been years since he'd been through this. Had things changed without his realization?

"Sometimes we get recruits who know people already serving. People willing to give them some of their clothing allowance credits. You'd do so much better with your second set completely tailored. Otherwise..." The woman described a bounty over her own flat chest with her hands, dropping them straight down from their fullest point.

"I... don't know." Was this one of those damned "Don't let them know, whatever you do!" situations? There was a chance, but surely Kaidan would have mentioned it? He tended to be dreadfully conscientious.

"I'll check if you think there could be a chance. And..." She stepped back, folding her arms over her chest. "That answers that. So. Second set, fully tailored across the board. You owe somebody a really big thank you when you get out of here. I can get you turned out beautifully with this."

That was good. Or bad. Jenna wasn't quite certain.