Jane was currently sitting at her desk in her office. The Normandy had arrived back on the Citadel yesterday, and with current events, there was no time to ease back into things. She had been expected back on the job asap, and she was fine with that, wanting to get the matter dealt with just as much as anyone else. Kaidan's situation was no different. With the recent attacks, there was a heightened need for security for the council.
Hackett had promised to make it to the Citadel today to give everyone a debrief personally, which Jane was expecting at any moment now that the day was already more than half over. In the meantime she had been catching up on the investigation, and intelligence reports surrounding the incidents. There had already been two more attacks just within the week and a half it had taken them to get back home. This was a growing concern that needed to be dealt with.
Jane looked up as she heard her door open, only to be disappointed that it still wasn't Hackett. She had been eager to get the ball rolling on this just as much as everyone else was.
"Mom," Jane greeted, with her face still buried in some datapads.
"Steven sent me a message. He's finally on his way over. Apparently they've opened the beam up for transport to and from Earth now, so it shouldn't take him long. He was just about to go through."
"Ugh. I sure hope they've tinkered with the landing. It was far from graceful when I had to use it."
Hannah scrunched up her face, not particularly liking the memory of those days, as she sat down in one of the chairs across from her daughter.
"Yes, well, one would certainly hope so."
Jane just gave a slightly dismissive nod, still focusing on her work. "So, how have you been enjoying your first day? You like your new posting?"
"I certainly can't complain. It will be a bit of a change from constantly being on tour before this, but a welcome one I think. These offices sure are something, aren't they? I see you've been putting yours to good use."
Jane finally looked up from her datapad to her mother questioningly. Hannah nodded to the wall behind Jane to show her what she was looking at. As Jane turned her chair around, she was mortified to find the matching sets of handprints freshly adorning the shiny metal surface from her earlier tryst with Kaidan, where he had pressed her against the wall.
Jane just slumped back in her chair, looking at the ceiling, silently cursing the Alliances choice in construction materials.
"Besides, I'd recognize that glow anywhere, and it's not from the pregnancy. Really, Jane? It's barely past one in the afternoon."
Jane got up to grab some paper towels from her private bathroom. On her way out, she simply said, "What? We're just trying to heed your advice."
"I didn't tell you that to imply that you should be having sex at work, Jane," Hannah said, somewhat seriously, though still clearly amused with the situation.
"Maybe not, but these second trimester hormones are real. I made the mistake of inviting Kaidan over for lunch today."
"Well at least you were on your break. I'll just make a mental note to not come here for lunch then."
"Oh, don't worry. That's not the only thing I learned from that conversation. We locked the door," Jane said with a laugh, as she finished cleaning off the last of the evidence.
"Ah, well that's good at least," Hannah laughed.
That's when Admiral Hackett finally decided to join them. Hannah stood, wanting to say hi properly, and give him a hug. It was the first time they were seeing each other since Hannah had left for Terra Nova, and even though Hackett had talked to her plenty since the attack, it was different being able to see someone in person after something like that.
What Hannah hadn't been expecting, was for him to cup the back of her head gently and pull her into a deep and passionate kiss right in front of her daughter.
Jane just averted her gaze for a minute, completely understanding the need to get reacquainted, though she really wished her mother had decided to wait to come over here together with Hackett after having had the chance to do this privately. Though she probably would have been far more mortified if Hackett had been around for her mother's little revelation.
Jane cleared her throat very obviously. "Alright, you two, if you really want to continue down this path, might I suggest going back to my mother's office?"
Hackett finally parted, slightly surprised with himself. He and Hannah both promptly straightened themselves out.
"Right. Sorry, Jane."
"You might want to be careful about doing that here anyway, Steven. Not unless you want to be accused of favouritism," Hannah said.
"Hardly. Besides, if I was really guilty of favouritism, I would have stationed you on Earth. Unfortunately you're needed here more, especially with your daughter about to be needing some time off," Hackett said, with a smile towards Jane. "But anyway, I think it would be best if we just moved right on to business if it's all the same to you two."
"Please," Jane said, pointing to the chairs, in front of her desk, signalling for them to have a seat.
"It is really good to see you though, Hannah," He said, patting her hand on the arm rest after sitting down. He didn't even offer her a smile. All Jane saw was a man in love, looking like he never wanted to experience anything like that again. Jane figured she could easily forgive him for his temporary lack of humility if this was the type of treatment her mother would receive. She couldn't help but notice Hannah's look of lament, likely feeling guilt over potentially being the one to put someone through that. Hackett clearly wasn't the only one who had it bad.
"So, what have you learned, Hackett?," Jane asked after they got settled.
"Quite a lot, and somehow also a lot of nothing all at once. First and foremost, there have officially been four attacks now that we believe are all connected. We've managed to gather a lot of facts, but we're still trying to work on how they're all connected. The one thing we've come to agree on is with how disorganized they are, we've come to the conclusion that they seem to be terroristic in nature."
"You're not thinking Cerberus are you?"
"Probably not. All of the assailants that both your mother, and her security detail witnessed were krogan. Even though Cerberus is a terrorist organization, they're so pro-human, they wouldn't typically bring alien forces in to do their dirty work."
"Hmm. Krogans usually jump at the chance to be the brute force too, but always with a purpose they can stand behind. Definitely not for someone like Cerberus," Jane said.
"Not unless whoever's pulling the strings is trying to use them as some kind of political ploy, or trying to take advantage of them somehow," Hannah added.
"Entirely possible. We've been in contact with Clan Urdnot. Wrex is trying to keep an eye out for anything suspicious, as well as any recruitment requests. He hasn't found anything yet, but he's also trying to backtrack on anything that may have happened while he wasn't on Tuchanka."
"Okay," Shepard said, leaning back in her chair trying to take in all the information so far.
"Another reason why this just doesn't fit though, is one of the last targets was on the Aralakh Relay. Even if someone else was behind this, we wouldn't think the krogans would be willing to sabotage progress on their own relay, no matter what the cause."
"Hmm. No, that doesn't really make sense. So two attacks associated with the relays, and one with the Orizaba. What was the other?," Hannah asked.
"You may as well say three associated with the relays. The last one was on one of the Flotilla vessels helping with the tech, and not the actual rebuilding."
"So what do those have in common with the Orizaba?," Jane asked.
"Well, if your previous theory is correct in that they were targeting you, it's entirely possible to think that they're trying to impede progress in general. You're largely responsible for strategizing Alliance needs in the rebuilding effort, and every other attack was to prevent real progress being made on the relays."
"So you think someone has something to gain by everyone being more or less stranded?"
"Possibly, yes. It's just with how reckless everything has been, it's hard to say for sure. There's been a blatant disregard for lives lost on either sides of the attack. They clearly don't care about victims, but they also don't care about their own casualties either. All of the ship signatures we've managed to pick up during the attacks are all modified junkers. Nothing substantial of note, no registration that's easily traceable. It's really somewhat bizarre," Hackett said.
"So what do we do now?," Jane asked, more or less just speaking out loud as she tried to think.
"Honestly, there's not much to be done yet without more information. Until we have more to go on, all we can do is increase defense and security, especially around the relays. Try to prevent another attack. Without knowing who's behind anything, it's not like we can go after anyone. We're kind of just playing the waiting game until we get more evidence or theories to go by."
"Well that just doesn't sound like enough," Jane said.
"No, it doesn't. But unfortunately, with their suicidal nature, there hasn't been anyone leftover to even question. Luckily the Flotilla vessel managed to get out before they were destroyed, but they were more concerned with preservation of life than trying to find out who was attacking them."
"I can't say that I blame them," Hannah said. "I'm glad they managed to escape that. They were relentless with the Orizaba."
They all nodded in agreement to that. It was awful to think that so soon after such a large victory there was already needless death going on. Was it too much to ask for even a year of peace. Or at the very least, very heated debates in council chambers rather than useless loss of life with no one even taking blame for a cause for such actions. What exactly were they trying to prove or accomplish?
"Hackett, could I get you to put in a request? I don't really care if it's favouritism at this point, I just want to make sure that my people are safe," Jane asked.
"Sure. What is it?"
"I want any of my people that were working on the relays to be relocated. Especially Gabriella Daniels, and Kenneth Donnelly."
"Of course, Shepard. There's really no reason that they need to be on location anymore anyway, with the Comm's back up and running. We have space here in the engineering department if I'm not mistaken."
"That would be perfect. Thank you, sir."
He nodded in acceptance of her appreciation.
"Well, as far as everything else is concerned, I'll just have to keep you informed as we get new intel. So unless either of you have any questions, I'd say we're about done for now."
"I'm good for now. I'll probably just go through the rest of these reports, and let you know if I think of anything," Jane said.
"Same goes for me," Hannah said as she stood to leave, looking back at Hackett to see if he was following. He wasn't.
"I'd like to have a moment alone with Jane, if that's alright," He said, seeing that Hannah was waiting for him.
"Okay," she said, slightly confused. "Come see me in my office as soon as you're done." She had said it innocently enough, but Jane knew full well the implications of the request.
"Ugh, mom. You're going to make my nausea come back," Jane said, as she received a teasing wink from Hannah as she left the room.
Hackett just looked confused as he moved his gaze back to Jane, clearly knowing that something had gone over his head. He loved witnessing the close and teasing relationship between the pair. It was a privilege to see these two powerful women having a normal life.
"Do I even want to know?"
"I'm sure you do, but I'm not going to be the one elaborating on that."
Hackett just grumbled, realising that he figured he knew exactly what Hannah meant now, suddenly not sure how he felt about being the subject of their teasing relationship.
Jane just looked at him expectantly. He had been the one who asked to have a word with her.
"Right. So, how have you been feeling, Jane?"
Jane looked at him, unsure. She could feel that there was more meaning behind the question than he was letting on.
"I've been good, Hackett. But something tells me, that's not what you really wanted to talk about."
"That's not actually true, Jane. To be honest, that was my attempt to show a bit of interest on more of a personal level."
"And why's that?," Jane honestly didn't have a problem with that in the least, especially with how close her mother was getting to him, she was just curious to see where this was going.
"Well, I was actually hoping that you might become my step-daughter in the near future."
Jane's eyes flew open to that tidbit of information. "I'm sorry, but if that was your way of proposing to my mother, that was quite possibly the worst way I could think of for you to do it."
Hackett laughed. "Hardly. I've already got my own plan for that. I'm hoping you won't breathe a word of this conversation to her, by the way."
"Okay."
"I know it's only been about eight months since your mother and I have started seeing each other, but I love her, Jane. I've been considering this for a little while already, but with what just transpired, I don't want to wait anymore. You're the only family that she has left. I certainly have none to offer. Even friends have been in short supply for me over the past decade, and even more so since the war. You're everything to her, which makes you important to me. It would just mean a lot to know that you would approve."
"Wow. To be honest, sir, I never thought I'd see the day that my mom would ever find someone else that made her happy again, but ever since she's been with you, she's been happier than I've really seen her before. At least since my dad died. As long as it's what she wants too, then of course I approve."
Hackett got up from his seat, and walked over to the other side of her desk, signalling that he wanted to give her a hug. Jane stood, a little more slowly, and with a little more effort than she was accustomed to, and gladly reciprocated his offer.
"Now you listen here, I'm not going to force you to call me dad by any means, but you better at least stop calling me sir."
Jane laughed. "Alright, Steven," she said with a nod.
"My goodness, you sure have changed, haven't you. How far along are you now?"
"26 weeks. Only 14 more to go. Are you sure you're ready for this? You know my mom's going to come as a package deal. You're going to go from barely more than a bachelor, straight to husband, father and grandfather. Not that I really need you to be a father figure or anything," she said, moving the hand over her rather pronounced bump.
"Ha. Oh, you've no idea, Jane. My career has always been everything to me before this. I've always put off having a family of my own in lieu of advancing to where I am now. I wouldn't say I regret it, but it's something I would be lying about if I said I hadn't wanted it someday. I love Hannah more than I've ever loved anyone, so the fact that she comes with a family is only a bonus."
"Well good, because if you're going to be the grandfather, then I fully expect babysitting duty form you from time to time."
Hackett laughed. "Well, I have precisely zero experience with babies, but I'm sure with Hannah's help, we'll manage just fine."
Jane smiled. "Well, in that case, good luck, Steven. Though, I'm sure you won't be needing it."
"Thank you, Jane."
"No problem. You probably shouldn't be keeping my mother waiting though."
"Right. Of course not. Alright. I'll be off then," he said as he turned to leave Jane's office.
Jane smiled at what had just transpired. Her mom deserved to be happy. Jane allowed herself a few minutes to be elated for her mother, but the fact remained that there was a lot of work to be done, and important work at that. It was at least good to see that no matter what was going on, happiness could still prevail.