"So let me get this straight" the employee said, looking down at the receipt. "You want one hundred metric kilograms of plastic explosive, two kilometres of det-cord, six dozen grenades, five remote detonators, a single apple and a chocolate cake?"

Jax mentally calculated the order in his mind. "That's correct" he affirmed, "oh and some of those laser tripwires? Could I get a few of those thrown in too?"

"Three multi-spectrum, high powered, laser gridline emitters" the employee said, adding into the data pad he was holding. "And this is deliverable to?"

"Normandy SR-2, frigate class warship."

"You seriously think you're going to need that much ordinance?" Shepard asked, standing with him.

"To be fair, probably not" Jax admitted, "but I figure when this is all over and I can cut loose, I can take this all with me and save a few million credits."

"Right" Shepard said, unsure whether to take Jax seriously. "And the food?"

"Well I ordered an apple for while I was waiting, you know, trying to stay healthy."

"And where does chocolate cake figure into 'staying healthy'?"

Jax shrugged, "Figured we were on a suicide mission, why the fuck not? Besides, you should never be given a blank cheque at places like this when you're hungry, I almost forgot I needed ammunition."

"So while that's going to be processed, are you going back to the ship?" Shepard asked.

Jax shrugged. "I figure we could make more trouble here, put back a few more cups of ryncol in the Dark Star Lounge?"

Shepard smiled, "a tempting offer but no, I have to help Thane first, I need to track down a crook named Mouse?"

Jax wrinkled his brow, "Mouse?"

Shepard noted recognition in his voice. "You know him?"

"Yeah" Jax answered. "Sort of, he was the contact who put me on Fade's trail, I acted like I was interested in his services, I fit the bill of someone who would want to disappear very well so he didn't suspect a thing, he must see dozens of guys like me every day."

"Where is he?" Shepard asked.

"As luck would have it, towards the Dark Star Lounge" Jax replied as they rendezvoused with Thane at the C-Sec outpost and made a direction for the stairs. "He's the scavenger outside Rodam Expeditions, probably best he doesn't see me with you."

"If I'm correct, I think familiarity is going to be unavoidable" Thane said quietly.

"Well, good luck with your mission" Jax said, "I'm going to wrap up my affairs here and report back, meet you on board when this is all over."

"All right" Shepard said, "this should only require the two of us anyway, this shouldn't result in any firefights."

"I'm sure that's what you thought when you were coming to get me" Jax remarked over his shoulder as he left.

As Jax passed over a few shops, he couldn't help but overhear the conversation between two Asari, not their words explicitly but it was obvious to him that their tones were underlined by desperation. He purchased a better shielding regeneration program at Sirta Foundation and as he was making his way back, one of them approached him. "Excuse me," she asked, "I was hoping you could help me and my friend with a certain… problem."

"And what problem would that be?" Jax asked cautiously.

"We want to get off this station and head back to Thessia but C-Sec is denying us passage. They've overruled our IDs, labelled us 'Geth Infiltration Risks'."

"And what, you want me to talk to C-Sec?" Jax asked, "I'm just a civilian here."

"Well, we need different IDs" she said, looking around nervously. "And word is, you've had contact with Fade, you know where to find him."

Jax took a step back from her, looking around. A turian met his gaze briefly before looking away. Jax swivelled his head. A human was looking at him while talking on a communicator. A batarian looked at him from beside a rapid transit console. Jax pulled the asari back in, speaking through gritted teeth. "I'm no one, I don't know anyone here and I certainly wouldn't have anything to do with anything illicit, understood?"

"O-Of course," she stammered, clearly unprepared for the escalation in aggression. "I-I didn't mean anything by it!"

"I'm sure you didn't" Jax growled. He turned to leave only to find the Batarian up in front of him. Jax went to curse at him but fell silent as he felt the barrel of a pistol poking into his stomach.

"Human, you're a member of the crew of Commander Shepard, are you not?" He asked in a low growl.

"Yeah, what's she to you?" Jax asked.

"My name is Charn" the batarian told him.

Jax waited for Charn to continue but he did not, as if expecting a reaction. "Is that name supposed to mean something to me?"

"I was part of the squad to smash an asteroid into your 'Terra Nova' in our first step to take back the Traverse from your kind" Charn told him. "Only your Commander intervened, and I allowed her to save the colony if she would kill my leader for me, only then would my safety be guaranteed."

"Let me guess, she let him live" Jax said expectantly.

Charn nodded, "and ever since then, Balak has been hunting for my blood, killing my friends, destroying my hideouts, your 'Fade' was my only option of left." He pushed the pistol further into Jax's abdomen, the proximity between their bodies aiding to conceal it. "And then he smuggles me in, only for you to have him killed. Now I'm trapped here, with no way of escape, waiting for one of Balak's hitmen to shoot me down in the street like a dog! But I will not die alone" he snarled in Jax's face.

"Surely there's a smarter way of dealing with this" Jax protested, "shooting me right here will all but guarantee you getting put down, here you're kept in, correct, but Balak is kept out."

"Are you deaf?" Charn growled. "Balak may be kept out but the batarians aren't, it will only take one to be let in and my life will be forfeit."

"It's going to take only one hitman to bring you down" Jax asked, a sneer entering his voice. "You're pathetic."

"You would taunt the one holding a gun to your stomach?" Charn asked.

"I would" Jax said in reply, not blinking as he continued his bluff, "because you inspire no fear. You ran from Shepard, you ran from Balak, all you've ever done is run, you're a coward, and the real reason you're running is because there is no place fit for cowards in the Hegemony."

"You seem very well versed in our culture" Charn said.

"I grew up on Omega" Jax countered, "some of my best friends were batarians, real batarians, not the snivelling piece of shit you are."

Charn's lips pulled back in anger.

"This is what you're reduced to doing in order to feel like a man" Jax taunted, "ambushing a kid in the Citadel with a gun to his stomach for retribution to having to finally face the consequences for his actions. Is this how you end? Because I'm ready but with all this running, I can't seem to think that you are."

Charn began to shake, Jax could the pistol trembling against his stomach. His finger left the trigger. In that moment, Jax grabbed the gun and twisted, driving a knee into Charn's thigh as the gun was wrenched out of his grip. Charn grunted as Jax slammed an elbow in to his face before Jax kicked at his knee and he fell, only to look up to Jax holding his pistol and levelling it directly at his head.

"One thing about death though" Jax told him, his grip was unmoving. "It doesn't care whether you're ready or not" and he pulled the trigger. The pistol was not of high quality, coughing a huge amount of smoke after the shot and generating an awful lot more noise than power, but it did the job as Charn fell back, a hole leaking red between his top pair of eyes. Even with the completely black appearance of their eyes, Jax was able to discern the moment the lights left them. As the blood began to pool, suddenly three C-Sec officers were surrounding him, guns raised.

"Drop the pistol son" Captain Bailey ordered.

Jax carelessly discarded the pistol onto the ground and held his hands up in an easy surrender. "I was merely defending myself officer, he attacked me."

"Yeah? And why's that?" Bailey asked as one of his subordinates collected the pistol.

Jax gestured. "Check his record, I think you'll find he's a terrorist with a very anti-human agenda, him coming at me was a hate-crime."

"Well I never liked batarians anyway" Bailey grumbled as Jax was restrained. "Who are you anyway kid?"

"I was just on my way back to my ship, I work for Shepard" Jax answered truthfully.

"Shepard" Bailey echoed, rubbing his forehead, "and here I was thinking a woman was causing me enough stress in my wife. You'll be released soon, assuming she can vouch for you."

"She will" Jax promised.

"Sir!" One of Bailey's officers spoke. The pair turned to see her standing over Charn's body. "What shall we do with him."

Bailey shrugged. "Throw him in a keeper tunnel, they'll recycle him in a protein vat soon enough."

It was less than an hour before Bailey got bored of Jax's company enough to send him back to the Normandy, albeit with two armed guards. Miranda didn't look to thrilled at the sight of his export and Jax had to smother a smile, he wasn't doing a lot to endear himself to the XO, and he couldn't tell whether the glare in her eyes at him was either with ice or flames. "So, according to the reports I've just filed, you are almost our most expensive recruit, certainly the most troublesome to bring back alive considering you almost got Shepard killed, furthermore our most inexperienced and to top it all off, you seem to have qualms at jeopardising our mission with every reckless and arrogant action and breath in your body" she thundered at him.

"Sure" Jax replied, rolling his eyes. It wasn't as of he was intentionally trying to get on Miranda's bad side, nor did he harbour any resentment towards her. It was just that he simply became bored of her when she assumed her supremacist Cerberus leader persona, he respected people, not authority figures. That was something he had liked in the old Omega team, Garrus had never pretended to be above them, he would throw himself into the same fight as any of them. Miranda simply hadn't earned any respect in his eyes and yet walked the ship with an authoritarian strut.

As Jax made to move past her, she grabbed his shoulder. "Wait."

Jax stopped and turned. "You need something?"

Miranda looked irritated. "Usually crew salutes their superiors, or at least has a bit of special ceremony for them."

"I'm not crew" Jax told her, "I'm more of a consultant."

"That's a fancy word for 'mercenary'" Miranda noted.

Jax felt his jaw tighten. "If you're looking for someone to salute you, go talk to Jacob. If there's anything you need detonated, then you can come and talk to me." He turned and began to stalk down towards the CIC.

Miranda relented with a sigh. "Jax."

He turned.

"There's a uniform waiting for you in the crew quarters" Miranda told him. "Your current clothes neglect protection in favour of obscuring your identity, a trait that's unnecessary, so I took the liberty of ordering something more defensive."

"Cerberus threads?" Jax asked.

Miranda nodded. "I had EDI analyse your measurements, you'll find it to be of a significantly upgraded design, consider them a welcome-aboard gift."

Despite his reservations towards her, Jax nodded his appreciation, even allowing a smile to crack through. "Miss Lawson," he excused before leaving for the elevator.

Finding his way to the crew quarters easily enough, he found it to be vacated for him to change. Lifting off his hooded jacket to reveal his taut, muscular form underneath. He lifted the folded shirt off the bunk, Miranda was right when she had said it was an upgrade; Jax could feel it was light yet there was a a strong resistance to it that would harden under fire, yet not restrict his movements. Discovering a battery pack at the base of the spine, Jax realised that the entire material was woven through with nanocircuitry, something would give a heavy boost to his shields with almost no feedback whatsoever. He donned the pants first, finding them to be of a light material clearly designed to be an underliner for light armour. The pants were completely black and had comfortable looseness to them whereas the shirt was tight, and bore the Cerberus logo in its classic orange on the shoulders. As he was pulling it down, the door hissed open.

"Oh" was all Kelly Chambers could manage for a start as she looked at Jax's muscled back. While the muscles were more than certainly reasons for attention, Kelly couldn't take her eyes off the pale pink circles dotted all over his back. There was no doubt that they were bullet wounds, the colour and state of them indicating they were relatively recent; they had been sustained when Jax had been shot fleeing with Sensat. Jax pulled down his shirt hurriedly and looked at her. "I didn't mean to interrupt" she quickly said.

Jax silenced her with a wave of his hand. "It's fine, you're the ship's shrink right? Chambers?"

Kelly smiled at having her reputation precede her. "I'm the ship's yeoman technically, call me Kelly." She gestured to the table, "can we take a seat?"

"Is this the moment where you're supposed to look into my head doc?" Jax asked jokingly, "tell Shepard I have psychological issues making me dangerous in the field?"

"Something like that" Kelly smiled. "Although to be fair, it's already a bit of a zoo on board. Just stay clear of Jack and you'll survive."

"Jack? What's his deal?"

"Her" Kelly corrected, "and as a psychologist, I have dozens of different words to delegate and diagnose people but Jack? Jack's just crazy."

"I'll steer clear" Jax promised, "our names are going to make people get very confused though."

"It'll be easier to read them than talk about them" Kelly agreed. "But for now, let's get back to you, tell me about yourself."

Jax shrugged, "not much to tell, I got trained to blow shit up, I ran into Shepard, she seemed to like my talents."

"Well they're certainly impressive" Kelly agreed.

Jax caught her eyes flickering over him, the bodysuit didn't give much room for modesty. "Are you sure it's just my talents you're admiring?" He pressed, taking a more casual stance leaning back.

"Let's get to more than first names before we get to first base'" Kelly told him off, teasing.

"You mean you actually need to know more than a name to sleep with someone?" Jax asked, his tone was joking but held a shade of curiosity to it, Kelly seemed to be good at teasing and something about her made him determined not to give her the upper hand.

Kelly shrugged, "sex without romance is like wood without fire, sure the ingredients are there but it's not the main attraction."

"Romance on a suicide mission," Jax noted, "that's risky business."

"You don't seem at all rattled by the fact this is considered a suicide mission" Kelly said, narrowing her eyes at him, "that's not unique amongst the other members of this crew but what is is the fact you seem to almost seem to embrace it. Some are accepting of it, some are denying of it but you, you seem the relish the opportunity throw yourself into this."

Jax dropped his eyes. "I don't really have any other purpose. Everyone else out there, they all have lives, jobs, places to return to and friends to reunite with. I suppose it means they have baggage, like Garrus making Shepard delaying the mission to hunt down Sidonis. I have no such baggage, no distractions, this is all I have to do and it's all I aim to do."

Kelly didn't smile at his answer. "It's just that at twenty one I wanted to see the galaxy, meet every person I could, human or otherwise, that thirst still isn't quenched, it's why I joined Cerberus."

"You became a receptionist" Jax said, looking around, "I became a freedom fighter."

"Is that what you see yourself as?" Kelly asked, "A freedom fighter? Freedom from what, might I ask?"

"Fear" Jax answered instantly. "Fear was the worst thing about Omega. It wasn't harassment, or extortion rackets, fear was the ultimate constraint living in a place like that. The fear that just walking down the street, someone was going to not like the look of you and gun you down for a few dozen credits. The fear that the Blue Suns or whoever else were going to make your family the example to threaten the rest of neighbourhood to stay in line. The fear that you were going to lose everything, and that there was nothing you could do about it. Our group didn't just make Omega safer, we made it feel safer, people could actually spend more time outside than what was absolutely necessarily, they didn't need to look over their shoulder, or around corners before they continued walking. We did that on Omega, for what it was worth, but it failed, there was a disease on our team, it made us vulnerable and weak. Those colonists out in the Terminus, the ones still left, I know the fear that's in them, defence towers be damned, and that's what I want to help, by sending every single Collector bastard back to Hell."

"That's quite passionate of you" Kelly observed, "yet only yesterday you wanted nothing to do with this mission; what changed?"

"Your commander can be persuasive" Jax replied, acutely aware that the circle of people privy to his secrets was growing, something he was intent on stopping.

Kelly was unconvinced, "You have your own reasons for fighting this fight but you haven't answered my question. Why are you here? Everything you could do, have, anywhere in the galaxy and you choose here? Is the rest of the entire galaxy so empty to you?"

Jax felt a touch of anger flare inside his chest. "There is no one I can help better than by being here, all my affairs are in order, ending with this just seems… tidier. I've made enough messes as it is, this could be a chance to do some good, some actual lasting good, not like Omega."

Kelly pursed her lips. "There's nothing else you would give yourself to?"

"You need a spark to have a fire" Jax told her, "mine has gone out. May as well use the all the wood to beat someone to death with."

"That's not exactly what I'd call healthy" Kelly told him, "especially when you're talking to the person tasked with assessing your mental health."

"But your job isn't to make sure I'm mentally healthy" Jax told her, "your job is to ensure I'll be solid under fire, that I can be counted on to put the mission first, that I will do whatever it takes to ensure our success. So tell me," Jax said, leaning forward, "if you kept Jack on this crew and she's as crazy as you say, what would it take for me not to pass your test?"

Kelly sighed, she had been backed into a corner and he knew it. She stood up and looked at Jax, still so seemingly carefree slouched back in his chair. "I'll be writing a report for Shepard to review" she told him, "whether she chooses to take you out in the field is her call to make."

Jax shrugged. "I'll be waiting."

Kelly moved to leave but as the door opened, the urge to say one last word was too much to resist. "Jax", she said, stopping in her tracks. "There's a galaxy out there, it's never been a lonelier time to be an island."

"I'm part of this crew aren't I?" Jax challenged.

"Are you? I believe the word you used was 'consultant'" Kelly replied cooly. Their eyes met for a second, his green irises seemed to almost ripple with thought. They didn't speak, there was no words, no emotion, and then Kelly walked away.