Jade moved across the Port Observation lounge with the slow and deliberate steps of a practiced drunk. Her goal: the bar at the far end and the, as yet, unopened bottle of green stuff she was sure had to be more potent than the bottle of bourbon she'd already emptied. It had been old, but not as old as she was. She'd reached her goal and was just beginning to pour a generous helping when the doors swished open and Javik stalked into the room.
"Ah! Frogman!"Jade threw her arms into the air in celebration, nearly losing her grip on the bottle."You're just in time for the party! Lemme pour ya somma this green shit. I dunno what it is but it's bound to be potent, the fumes alone are making my eyes water."
"I believe 'frogman' is a better title for the deceased doctor," Javik rumbled while ducking Jade's fumbled and flailing attempts to reach over and under the bar for a second glass. He put a hand on her calf as she began to slither on her belly over the impediment. "Salarians did used to eat flies, after all."
He pulled her gently back over the bar until she collapsed onto a stool with that sort of boneless grace only professional dancers and the truly drunk were capable of.
"Did they?" Jade asked as she regarded the prothean with alcohol-bright eyes.
"Yes," he replied. "And humans used to live in caves."
"Oh psssht," she waved her free hand and spat unintentionally all over the glass she was cradling. "Everybody knows that." She took a sip of the liquor, the burn made her gasp and choke on her next words.
"Whew," she croaked once the coughing fit had passed. "That's definitely the good stuff. But back to what I was saying, everybody comes from primitive roots. The salarians ate flies, humans lived in caves, I bet the asari used to paint on walls and the turians would mount the heads of their kills on spears. Hell, I imagine even the mighty protheans had their humble beginnings."
He shot her a quick unamused glance but was saved from having to answer questions about his people's history by the changeability of Jade's drunken wonderings.
"So what brought your worship up here amongst us lesser beings anyway?" She laid her head on her folded arms and rolled it to look up at him. "You almost never come up here. Not even to eat, if some of the stupider crewmembers are to be believed."
"You were late," he said simply. Since their first all out brawl in the hangar bay, the pair had taken to sparring after the dayshift ended. Jade snorted then rolled her face back down into the hollow of her arms.
"It was kinda a rough day," she mumbled. "I figured if Shepard could stand down for a bit, then so could I."
"And you chose this disgraceful display to 'stand down'?" Javik's disgust at Jade's inebriated state was clear in both his tone and posture. "If you were one of my soldiers, I'd have you publicly flogged then placed on the nearest Reaper infested planet to relearn your duty to the Prothean Empire."
"Well then, it's a good thing I'm not under you," Jade shot the alien a crooked grin. "Well not under your command, anyway. Wait that came out wrong. I don't want that! To be under you, I mean, in any sense of the word. Or over you! Not really feeling the over you thing either. Next to is good, next to is perfect! I like next to! No unfortunate connotations there!"
Javik simply gave the woman a look of mixed annoyance and confusion.
"Anyway, you should loosen up a little, like me!" She stood to demonstrate how loose she was, managing a couple of staggering steps before collapsing on the sofa. "Oof. I mean, we earned it down there today. We helped forge a peace that everyone, literally everyone in the galaxy, 'cept Commander Shepard of course, thought was impossible. We deserve a celebration! Besides, that damn brave, brilliant, crazy lizard-man deserves more than just a goddamn plaque, so I'm fucking celebratin'! Even if nobody else is."
Javik stared at her for what seemed like an eternity until, finally, he made a frustrated noise and turned on his heel.
"I never thought I'd see Shepard that angry," Jade said, lolling her head against the back of the couch. "I swear her eyes were glowing orange when she gave me that 'get your ass back in line' speech."
Javik stopped short of the door. "She was hurting very badly." He turned back and leveled his baleful yellow glare on the smaller woman. "She did not wish to leave the salarian. Your insubordination did not help matters."
"I know," she squinched her eyes shut. "I just …"
She leaned forward and finally met his eyes. "You ever have to watch a teammate die and know, know, that if you were just a little faster, a little smarter a little more they wouldn't have had to die?"
"Yes," he said simply.
The silence stretched taut between them, until he sighed and moved to the bar to pour a glass of water. He carried it over to Jade and handed it to her, moving the vile green concoction further away.
"I was the commander of a team very similar to this," he began. "It was our responsibility to measure the boundaries of the Reaper invasion and provide support to key areas as necessary. The battle had raged for centuries at this point. This was is all I've ever known. We were on a planet in what your people call the Hades Nebula when we found it; one of the massive monuments the Reapers leave behind them to indoctrinate the unwary. The tunnel system it was in was unstable and our weapons fire against the husks there triggered a partial collapse. They were stuck on the side with the monument. I was on the outside, along with all of the explosives necessary to destroy the thing. By the time I returned with reinforcements and equipment, it was too late."
"They were overrun?" Jade asked gently.
"No," he replied, scrubbing a hand over his face. "They had been indoctrinated. But I didn't know that then. It wasn't until later that the full extent of my folly was revealed."
"Fuck," Jade breathed, watching the emotions chase each other across his alien face.
"In time, they indoctrinated the others, until I was the only one left," he opened his eyes to give Jade an even look. "I was forced to kill them myself."
"Fuck," Jade sipped the water in front of her and cleared her throat. "Suddenly I feel like the rich kid at Halloween bitching about getting Tootsie Rolls instead of Reese's Cups when all anyone around him got was candy corn."
She shifted under Javik's even, yellow glare and cleared her throat again.
"Never mind, um …"
Tit for tat, Harmon. You started this little sharing circle and he's sure as shit not going to let you out of it. I don't think he'll even buy the "drunk person abruptly changes the topic" gambit.
"I, uh," she sipped her water again then sighed in defeat. "My, well, we were never actually married, but we may as well have been. Let's call him a partner then, for lack of a better word."
You're rambling Harmon, get your head out of your ass and tell the damn story!
She took a deep breath, centering herself and reaching for the calm, still place where killing was easy and she could talk about Joe without completely breaking down.
"My partner died because of me," she began. "I left the safe house after a mission, but before we were back home. I was trying to maintain our cover, but really I was just bored waiting for the extract plans to fall into place. So I went to the market, couldn't have been more than three or four blocks away, but when I got back …"
She sighed and scrubbed her hand over her eyes, disguising the tears that sprang up as she thought of her lover. Damnit, this is the last time I go swimming in Mnemosyne's pool while plastered. Plays merry hell with my control.
"They, uh, damn," she cleared her throat and swallowed hard around the lump in her throat to get her voice back under control. "He was attacked while I was out. I made it back just in time to see them put a bullet in his head. If I hadn't left that day, or if I'd spent even five minutes less at the market, I could have saved him, could have tilted the odds in our favor. There were only six of them. We'd faced worse odds before."
They sat in silence for a moment, both of them staring at the bulkhead a while, lost in their own thoughts and memories, before Jade stood quietly and made her way to the door. As she palmed the lock, Javik finally broke the silence.
"Did you avenge him?" His voice had taken on a smoother, more lyrical quality, like spring water over a bed of gravel. "Did you kill the ones who stole your mate? Did they pay?"
Jade paused a moment, staring at the green hologram on the door, before turning eyes gone cold and hard as the vacuum of space on the prothean.
"In spades," she said, the banked fire of her rage flaring bright for a moment and finding its echo in the cold, alien eyes that regarded her. "Every one of them paid. With interest."
They stayed that way a moment, sharing the rage of people who knew what it was to have absolutely nothing to lose. Javik nodded, once, in recognition and Jade returned it before leaving him alone in the gathering darkness.