A month passes.
She simple ignores him most of the time. And when she does speak to him it's minimal and strictly functional. They settle into a predictable routine.
Most days she's…busy. Speeches, awards, committees, inquiry boards. Every few days she spends the night at Liara's apartment. He feels a strange mix of relief and loneliness on those nights. Her silent presence could be suffocating but being alone brought out his own demons especially when he tried to sleep.
Her influence got him a low end role in C-sec (a desk job, they weren't willing to put a gun in his hands) that occupies him a few days a week. He isn't entirely sure how that went over with the Alliance high heads, but he likes keeping busy and Bailey is grouchy but mostly fair. Rest of the time he mostly stays at her apartment, reading, exercising, wasting time online, devouring as much information as he can. Better than a cell, but he is still going stir-crazy. Once a week Liara picks him up in the morning and he spends the day with her, wandering the Citadel and talking about everything. She doesn't treat him like a descartable tool or a leper and she is the only one who makes him feel tolerably human.
She can also read him like an open book so it doesn't long for her to ask what's eating away at him.
"Look" she says, as they sit down next to the Krogan Memorial "I can't help you if you don't talk to me."
"It's just..." he tries, frustrated that the words lodge in his throat."It's just-"
"I know," Liara says. "She's takes a while to warm up. I warned you."
"Yes," he says, exasperated. "I didn't. I didn't realize it'd be so...so-"
"Hard? Frustrating? The worst?" she sounds amused.
"Yes," he palms his forehead, which is all sweaty with anxiety from talking about Jane to her lover of all people.
Also, was she?...
Oh god, she was. She was leaning on him. Part of him wants to shy away from her but he is too shocked to brush her off. He isn't used to touching people. Not like this.
When she speaks, he feels her breath on his ear. he can't supress his shiver this time.
"Some of it is defensiveness. You did cut her throat once upon a time. Some of it is confusion. She wants you alive and in her life but still isn't sure what place to give you. It'll take time, but she'll come around," she then hits him with that damn adorable smile of hers again.
He swallows guiltily, looking into the distance. She stirs something in him, he can't fully understand it but it feels dangerous. "Yeah," he says, feeling aimless and adrift. Nobody told him navigating through civilian life would be this hard. As bad as working under Cerberus was at least it was clear what was expected of him. If it wasn't for the lingering dread of getting farmed for organs in case the original clone needed them sooner or later he might even have missed it.
There where so many rules now he can't comprehend, he can only feel them as a blind man stumbling through a maze.
She takes a moment to gather her thoughts before she speaks
"Jane can be hard to like, with all her showy anger and filthy mouth, but all of that is wrapped around a center of… warmth. She is phenomenally generous, fiercely protective, and loyal to the point of madness. Just…give her time."
He wants to correct her. He would have preferred showy anger to being treated as a ghost but there was so much tenderness in the Asari's tone when she spoke of Jane that another question popped up, unbidden.
"Are you sure you're OK with me living with her?"
He tried to say it lightly, sardonic or dry, affable, a bit dim, any of the deflecting tactics he'd ever seen used getting tangled up and he landed on either mournful or suspicious, he wasn't sure which.
She shot him that gorgeous little smile. She was either more cruel than he figured or she really was oblivious to the effect it had on him
"Yes John. It will do you good." She looked into the distance. "It will do both of you good."