The evening light gave the kitchen the quality of a Thomas Kinkade painting as Jade paused by the sink to slip her underwear off. It drove Joe wild when she went commando, especially under a sun dress. Her brow furrowed as she caught the sound of voices floating to her down the hallway. Check-in wasn't for another four hours.
Jade.
Joe was probably watching television. She caught another wisp of conversation, in English. That wasn't right. She retrieved the Beretta from its hiding place in the hall table.
Jade
She cautiously eased around the corner and glanced into the living room. Joe was at the desk, along with four other people. She made a small, startled noise in the back of her throat. Joe's head snapped up and his bright blue eyes locked with hers
"JADE!"
She opened her eyes and swiveled her head around, looking for what had woken her. She immediately wished she hadn't as a vicious headache sprang to life in her temples. She let out a low groan and winced as the noise seemed to bounce around inside her skull and intensify the throbbing in her head.
"Good, you are awake."
A soft blue light flickered to life to her right, catching the hard planes of Javik's face and glinting off the tips of his predatory teeth as he spoke. It made him seem even more alien, if that was possible. The eerie glow highlighted all of the features, so different from the humans she knew, that could have made him look like a B-movie monster if they hadn't been contorted with worry, pain and the edge of panic.
He set the miniscule singularity to hover above them with a tiny gesture then reached to press Jade back down when she attempted to sit up.
"Do not try to move. You are badly injured."
She gratefully sank back down, nearly overwhelmed by pain and nausea. She closed her eyes against the room's sudden desire to whirl about like a demented carousel.
"What happened?" She whispered, trying to avoid making her head pound any worse.
"The cavern collapsed."
She nearly chuckled at his succinct response, but winced away before giving it voice.
"Clearly, but why aren't we dead?"
"Your explosives threw us into the entrance tunnel, along with that." Jade looked to where he pointed. A twenty-foot piece of exquisitely carved wall panel loomed over them, wedged at a sloping angle against the tunnel's ceiling and wall. They rested at its base, near where it met the floor. The far end was a mass of broken and scorched rock.
"Fuck."
"Liara was far enough ahead of the blast she made it to the entrance; she is calling the Normandy for help."
"That's a relief."
They sat in silence a moment, listening to rocks shift and grind above their makeshift shelter. A trickle of dust slithered through a crack and fell onto the Jade's face sending her into a paroxysm of coughing. In an instant, Javik was at her side, lifting her upper body and easing her into a sitting position. Gently, he leaned her back against the firm, armored wall of his chest. Her coughs slowed, and eventually stopped.
"I really screwed the pooch on this one, didn't I?" She took a cautious sip from the water tube he offered and cleared her throat.
"I do not understand that reference."
"I messed up, big time." She sighed and scrubbed a hand over her face. "The time on that last mine was wrong and I should have caught it. I went into the mission distracted and it nearly killed us. It was just sheer, dumb luck that saved us this cubby."
He was quiet a moment.
"Yes. You did 'screw the pooch' then. But you are not the only one at fault. I could sense your distraction and turmoil. It colored the air around you in muddy greens and yellows. I should have suggested to the commander that you stay. But I did not wish to seem to lend any weight to the Major's arguments and there was no indication this area would be so heavily infested. I did not see the harm in allowing you to, as the turian put it, 'blow off steam'."
Jade snorted then winced as her legs reminded her they were broken.
"Would you tell me what has you so deeply distracted you do not notice an eight-minute difference when setting a timer?"
"God, when you put it like that!" Her weak chuckle died in her throat and she twisted as much as she could to look into his face. It was no more readable than usual, but Jade had more practice than most. Finally, she sighed and turned back. It was easier to say if she couldn't see the pity and disgust in his eyes.
"I told you about my daughter, Ana, right?" He rumbled an assent. "Well, I came across some information about her life. She was a fighter and a peacemaker. I know that doesn't mean much to you, but to me, it's huge. She brokered a peace between two enemies where the hostilities had been brewing since before she was born. She stood up for the underprivileged. And she won! She was on her way to great things. Things I could never have dreamed of achieving, no matter how long I stayed with Typhon."
"Your daughter sounds like a remarkable woman."
"She was. The most remarkable. But -" A sob momentarily choked off the flow of words and Jade looked down, fighting the tears that threatened to spill over her cheeks. She stared at Javik's hand and watched his thumb trace meaningless patterns over his forefinger until she regained control of herself again. "But she never got to realize her full potential. She was muh-murdered, to start a war, by a man she would have trusted. A man I trusted with my life."
The silence stretched between them, heavy with the weight of all the things she'd left unsaid. The things she couldn't say.
"Will you share a memory of your daughter with me?"
"What?"
He held up a hand.
"My people have – had – the ability to share memories. It was something we would do with our family or people we trust. This ability made ours an unusually open society. Lies were not unknown, only rare." He sighed, clearly remembering the deception of his crew. "It is not something we did lightly or without permission. It is something … intimate. I trust you, Jade. Will you share a memory of your daughter with me?"
Jade looked up into his amber eyes and searched them for a moment. "If I agree to this is it like giving you a free pass to my brain?" She squirmed uncomfortably under his regard. "I warn you, it's a dark and scary place in here."
The corner of his mouth twitched in a semblance of a smile. "I doubt it is darker than some of the minds I have been forced to commune with in my time. But no, I will not violate your mind that way."
"What do I need to do?"
"Give me your hand." She placed her hand in his odd, three-fingered one. "All you need do is think of the memory you wish to share, and I will see it through your eyes."
Jade closed her eyes and thought back to one of her favorite memories. Ana's fifth birthday. Her own grey eyes looking up at her from a heart shaped face that was topped with Joe's curly black hair shining in the candle light from the birthday cake.
She felt a tingle where their hands were linked and she saw a sort of flash. Then she was there in the room watching her little girl play with her new toys and blow out the candles on her cake. Another flash and …
Jasnik laughed as he raised his weapon and turned, five moving practice targets left a smoking ruin three hundred feet down the range.
"I wager a month's supply of entertainment chits that you cannot do better!"
"If you include the new rifle sighting modification you purchased it might be worth my time."
"Ha! If you can do what I just did, I'll gladly give you the mod." He reset the range, generating five more targets that swooped and flew above the range in a fast-moving and seemingly random pattern.
I raised my own rifle to my shoulder and carefully took aim.
She came to herself with a deep gasping breath and craned her neck to look up at Javik.
"That was-"
He didn't look at her when he answered. "My brother. It is the last happy memory I have of him before I was given command of the Drazinau, my ship."
"Thank you for sharing it with me."
"I-"
A scraping noise came from the wall of rubble. Then Javik's comm crackled to life. "-er here. Javik? Can you hear me?"