Her bathroom is filled with good, ancient-smelling things that remind him of aged herbs, petrichor, the ozone burn of a storm. Nothing fruity or too floral, no saccharine strawberry or peach, and he finds the scents suit her – clary sage, bitter oakwood, tobacco flower, oakmoss, galbanum, other things he couldn't even pronounce. She has set up two more racks in the bathroom so she can organize her bottles better, but they still seem to build up, and the mirrored cabinet fills up with little perfume bottles, jars of more creams than he would know what to do with. He teases her about it once, but only once – "Are you planning on running a perfumery out of our bathroom?" – and when her face gets stormy-looking he shuts up, wishing he had just told her he really likes it.
They cut wide paths around each other at bedtime. He feels like he should breach the wall between them and offer her a goodnight hug, like a brother would, or maybe just press his knuckles into her scalp so she yelps and laughs and pushes him away, but the wall she's built around her is even more tangible than the one between her room and his. So he leaves her alone, they take their turns in the amazing jacuzzi in the main bathroom, and he disappears into her small gym, so when he comes in sweating, his cheeks colored up from the exercise, she's in her room with the door shut.
Two days of mostly silence after this, Jane decides to spend an afternoon listening to her music collection. He's at a desk he set up, reading a book on Earth's history he raided from her collection, when he glances over to see her cross-legged on the floor, absently examining an old CD. Other albums fan out on the floor around her and he decides to join her.
She tenses a bit as she hears him scooting his chair back across the floorboards and he comes up softly, getting down on his knees beside her, though not too close. "You like Successful Flea?" he says, nodding to indicate the album in her hands.
She shrugs. "In my teens."
He examines the other albums scattered around here. "Looks like you are quite an Unfaithful Sanctuary fan."
"My, uh." Her eyes flash up but stop short. "My mom was a big fan." She's almost managed to overcome the way her lower lip wobbles when she talks about her parents.
He's silent and goes through her collection piece by piece. He sweeps the Unfaithful Sanctuary aside and looks through the older CD's. They were impressively well taken care off. He knew these were considered valuable relics and that most people who owned them didn't actually play them to not wear them down. He finds one with a long haired, ghostly pale woman on the cover.
"Lilly Dimara?" says John, letting the disc slip out, catching it carefully by an index finger on the edge.
"Good choice," said Jane. "Put it in if you like."
He handles the disk delicately, slipping it down the tray and thumbing the switch and after a second the acoustic guitars float.
He listens for a while and Jane talks about Lilly (who was fairly well known 120 years ago), about her collection, apologetically explaining that her musical tastes ossified somewhere in the last century, but that he's welcome to play whatever he likes.
He finds himself rejoicing at how much she is saying. How much she is opening up to him. "I just love the fact the mighty Commander Shepard has a CD player. Do you also communicate with people through carrier pigeon?"
She huffs, the annoyed look in her face undermined by the hint of a smile that was creeping up.
"I'm not a medieval monk you ass. It's a family collection, I want to keep it going."
He grins, pleased at her teasing tone, pleased at the label of all things, and he flushes up all over, just enjoying being with her in the warmth of her living room, with the thick rug under their knees.
He brings his hand up with the intention of putting it on her shoulder, something easy that anyone would do, but she shies back sharply, her green eyes wide.
He sits back on his heels, his face suddenly slack as he regards her. He's done something wrong again, but he doesn't know why, and he doesn't know how to fix it. He sees her slipping away from him, the way her shoulders turn to block him and her hair slips down to hide her face.
She scoots back and scrambles up, careful of her feet and the albums still scattered around the floor. "Can you put those away? Thanks," she says, and then disappears into the kitchen, where he hears the water start running.
He sighs, gathers up the CDs and tucks them into the cabinet before returning to his desk. It bothers him much more than he cares to admit, the way he always botches any attempt to get closer to her.
He's not sure what he's doing wrong with Jane. He isn't sure what he felt from her. For her he wants to be all gentleness and brotherly concern and that worry he read is common to have for family, but the way she looks at him, sidelong, sighing, and the way she comes forward and then dances back over and over again – he just doesn't know. He will never replace her family, but he doesn't know what she wants him to be instead, or whether she does, in fact, want him to be anything.