Jade pinched the bridge of her nose and counted to ten mentally. Apparently, even in the future, you couldn't escape paperwork and the anal retentive pencil pushers that went with it. Ten wasn't high enough.
"Tell me again why I am in the War Room, Specialist Smith. The short version this time, if you please."
"You failed to appropriately complete item 3F in your mission report from yesterday's mission to the planet Watson."
"Looks filled in to me."
"Ma'am, with all due respect, 'motherfucking fetch quest' is not a proper explanation of the purpose of the mission."
"Smith?"
"Yes, Ma'am?"
"What would you call going planetside for a couple of hours to pick up some lost doodad some asshole on the Citadel left behind when they bugged out?"
The young man gawked at her for a moment, then made a visible effort to collect the wits Jade had scattered with her exasperation and her, apparently genuine, interest in how he would have filled the block.
"I'm just going to alter these to read something along the lines of 'requested recovery of item necessary for war effort'."
"Sounds good to me." Jade shrugged. "But did you really need me here for that?"
"Ah, not really."
"Great." She turned to go, massaging her aching temples. God save me from personnelists.
The door swished open and Jade stepped through, still cursing the literal mindedness of staff NCOs when raised voices cut through her internal dialogue. Shepard and Alenko were on opposite sides of the conference table staring each other down. Their own intense conversation had masked the opening and closing of the War Room door.
I wish EDI would warn me before I walk into shit like this. It's almost as awkward as the time I caught Donnelly and Daniels three quarters of the way to Funkytown on the drive core console.She crouched behind a stack of crates and prayed for it to be over soon.
"Look, I'm not asking to be your XO or anything. This is your ship and we run it your way." Alenko's voice was faintly bitter, as though he had hoped to be Shepard's executive officer. "I'm just asking for you to give me a chance."
Every line in the major's body strained toward the redheaded woman. It was like watching an object fall into a black hole, he was endlessly falling and, no matter how close he seemed to get, she was always just out of reach.
Yikes, I didn't realize those two used to be an item. Jade felt genuinely sorry for the man. It was clear from every move her body made that Shepard harbored nothing but friendly feelings for Alenko, and he was treading on dangerously thin ice there too, at the moment. Afraid that ship's sailed, buddy. She remembered the commander's comments in front of the memorial wall. Twice, if I'm not mistaken.
"I am giving you a chance, Kaidan. That's why you're on the Normandy at all. I could have left you on the Citadel." Shepard turned away from him and rubbed her temples. "I understand you want to go on more missions, but you're just not as well suited to all of them like you may think you are. And don't tell me you aren't still put down with migraines whenever you try to overclock your amp. I get Chakwas' medical reports, remember?"
"Alright, all of that's true, but you take that Cerberus-built freak with you on more missions than you do me."
Shepard whirled back to face Alenko, eyes blazing and a faint tracery of red lines pulsing under the skin of her face.
"That 'Cerberus-built freak' has never given me a single reason to doubt her. Since the moment she stepped on this ship, she's been nothing but straight with me. And trust me; I've had Liara check everything Jade's ever said." Her voice was low and intense as she stalked around the table to within touching distance of the major. "And in case you forgot? Cerberus used her as a lab rat for some of the same tech that has me standing here right now. I've had some of what they did to her explained to me. It's enough to give you a lifetime of nightmares. She's as much a victim as anyone else Cerberus has ever used."
Alenko jabbed a stiff forefinger at her. "This is about Horizon, isn't it? You're punishing me because I wouldn't join you back on Horizon."
"Damnit Kaidan!" Shepard threw her hands up in disgust and turned away from him briefly before spinning back to face him, hands at her temples. "This isn't about Horizon. This is about your attitude since you came aboard." She began ticking items off on her fingers. "You've been running roughshod over my crew, harassing my engineers, insulting my specialists, Garrus says he can't turn around in the Main Battery without tripping over you, and now you're refusing to work with Jade at all."
She pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger and closed her eyes. "You're creating more problems than you're fixing, Kaidan. And I don't have the time or the energy to follow you around cleaning up your messes."
"I'm just trying to cover all our bases, Shepard." He scrubbed a hand across his face. "Any one of them could be a spy. Hell, even the ship's computer is a Cerberus experiment and the mobile platform it's got running around did try to kill me not too long ago. You know as well as I do Cerberus likes to play the long game. Just look at what happened on the Citadel. Don't try to tell me that plan wasn't in place since before the Reapers even showed up. Or how about your buddy, Toombs? You think he'd be trusting one of those Cerberus lackeys?"
Jade had no idea what the significance of that name was, but a look crossed Shepard's face that was so black Jade thanked all the gods she didn't believe in that she wasn't on the receiving end.
"Get out." Shepard's voice was low, the growl of a junkyard dog scenting an interloper.
"What?"
"I said get out. You don't get to talk about Akuze. Now leave."
"Shepard I just –"
The redhead drew herself up to stiff attention, slipping from violent warrior to cool commander in an instant.
"Your concerns are noted and logged, Major." Her voice could have put a layer of frost over everything in the room. "You are dismissed."
Alenko recognized the order and the finality in her voice and snapped to attention, his face impassive as he rendered a salute. Once it was returned, he turned on his heel and marched out. Shepard waited until the door slid shut behind him before slumping against the glass wall of the conference room.
Well, that's done. Wonder if I should– no, she's got enough on her plate. I don't need to add guilt for getting caught in a screaming match with a subordinate to it.
Jade pulled out the datapad Smith had given her with the mission report templates and triggered the door behind her, looking intently at the text scrolling across it's surface. She looked up as Shepard rapidly composed herself.
"I guess paperwork is the same no matter the century, eh Boss?" Jade said gesturing with the pad. Shepard gave her a wan smile.
"You look like hell, Harmon."
"Look who's talking. You better be careful, otherwise next mission someone will mistake you for a husk and put a bullet through your head."
Shepard let out a soft snort, her lips twisted into a half smile. "Well, at least I'll get some sleep then."
"Ah, yes, this is true. I hear the sleep of the dead is so good you'll never need to sleep again."
They stood for a moment, watching the stars as they passed.
"Nightmares?" Jade asked softly, with no trace of her earlier humor.
Shepard raked a hand through her hair.
"Yeah," she sighed. "All the teammates and friends I couldn't save haunting me."
"It's always good people who get woken by the terrors of the night. While the wicked sleep the slumber of infants and animals."
/Commander?/
"Yes, EDI?"
/Your presence is required on the bridge./
"I'll be right there." She shrugged at Jade. "Duty calls."
Jade watched the other woman leave and turned back to the window. "I should really apologize to Javik, shouldn't I?" She asked the empty room. Wisely, EDI refrained from answering.
She didn't have the opportunity to find him until after dinner that evening. She collared him and dragged him into the lessedly empty Port Observation Lounge. The lights lowered as she rummaged in the cooler for a pair of beers, indicating the beginning of the crew's sleep cycle. She ignored it and handed the prothean a bottle.
"So you have a spouse? Kids?" She asked as she cracked her bottle open and took a swig.
Javik took a cautious sip of his beverage and made a face as Jade settled herself on the sofa facing the observation window.
"No," He placed the beer carefully on the side table. "My race was coming to its end. It was not the time to start a family."
Jade hummed, deep in her throat a sound of combined agreement and sympathy.
"Probably for the best." She took another deep pull of her drink. "Warriors like us don't make very good parents."
"You speak as though you know this from experience." Javik's tone was carefully neutral, as though he didn't want to let on that he was curious about his brash comrade's personal life. He rubbed his thumb over his forefinger as she spoke, a rhythmic gesture that seemed to be a self-soothing technique for the alien.
Jade snorted inelegantly.
"I do." She drank again, to fortify herself against the memories, then lolled her head against the back of the couch. "Had a daughter once. My sweet little Ana. Joe and I were both in the business. We were constantly gone – Russia, Korea, Iraq, Syria, Germany. Joe's sister, Mary Margaret, raised her more than either of us did. We were out 'protecting our country' more often than we were ever home." A note of bitterness crept into her voice. "And when we were home? God, it was like getting to know her all over again, every damn time."
She stood and rested one hand on the window, tracing meaningless patterns on the glass with her fingertips.
"She would have loved this." Jade's eyes were far away, in another time and place. "She was space crazy. Had a couple of telescopes and could name every American astronaut from Alan Shepard on. She used to recite the names of all the stars in a constellation and tell me 'One day, mom, I'm gonna go there.' She wanted to go to worlds no human had ever set foot on." She drew a shaky breath.
"Joe and I? We did our best by Ana, but I wasn't ever in the running for Mom of the Year."
She dropped her hand from the window and closed her eyes against the pitiless stare of the stars Ana had so loved. "After Beirut, well, I was in no shape to deal with a ten-year-old girl. I could barely manage to take care of myself and I practically drowned myself in my work. Wound up signing custody over to Mary Margaret a couple of years later. She was the closest thing to a mother Ana had ever had. After that, the decision to apply for Project Birdseye was pretty easy."
She felt a warm palm on her shoulder and looked up to meet his eyes in the reflection of the glass.
"She did not blame you." The words were low and rough. "I was a child of war. My parents were soldiers. They, like you, were gone more often than they were home. Protecting their people. But when they were with me …"
He sighed. "Even as a child, I knew their work was important. Jade, your daughter knew and she did not blame."
They stood like that for a long time, staring out at the stars as they passed and remembering what once was.