Author's Note: All right everyone, I began writing the chapter yesterday, but I eventually discovered it would end up being longer than I wanted it to be, so I decided to split it up. What you see here is the shorter half of the chapter, which the longer half still not yet written. For those of you who had read "Next Steps" by Qwerty-Man, you might want to go there and compare the chapter 8 of his fic with this chapter. You'll find some similarities, as well as some differences.

Chapter 8

Medbay, Haven

Jim scowled in irritation as his comm-link went off. "Matt, did you have to call in now? Sarah just woke up, and I'm trying to comfort her."

"Trust me, I wouldn't have contacted you if it wasn't important," the captain replied. "I suggest you get to a communications console right away."

"What's going on?"

"It seems the news of our victory on Char has spread much faster than expected. Some of your Protoss buddies have caught a whiff, and they want to speak to you."

Sarah stiffened at the mention of the Protoss as she heard the conversation over the comm. All of the progress and comforting Jim had been doing for the last two hours suddenly seemed to have washed away as she resumed her frightened face.

Jim immediately noticed Sarah's change in expression and went over to her. "It's ok, I'll talk them out of it. If they choose the hostile response, my boys will protect you."

Kerrigan shook her head sadly. "There's no way you can talk them out of this one, Jim. They showed you leniency in letting the colonists get medical treatment for the Zerg virus, but they will not allow the same thing for me. I caused them enough pain and misery as it is. Don't deny them their justice."

"The Queen of Blades caused that pain," Jim countered. "They simply have to see you and her aren't the same, that's all. Let me speak to them first, we can go from there."

Sarah nodded gently, but she was not one bit convinced that Jim would have any success.

Jim slowly got up and headed towards the door, leaving Sarah to ponder in her own thoughts. As he left, he exchanged a few words with a blond woman standing outside, before walking away.

Sarah flinched slightly as the blond woman entered her room. She didn't need to see her silver hostile environment suit to know this woman was a ghost, she could tell right away by her high psionic signature.

"Don't be afraid, I'm not going to hurt you. Jim felt other people in his Raiders should try and get to know you," the blond ghost said softly. "I'm Nova Terra, former top assassin of the Dominion."

"Former?" Sarah asked.

"Jim told me about Tarsonis," Nova explained. "He told me about how you protested against Mengsk from using psi emitters to kill the Confederacy, as well as how he had abandoned you at New Gettysburg to the Zerg."

Sarah cringed at those memories. Despite Jim's insistence that it wasn't her fault for what had happened, being reminded of the events again remained painful to her. And then those feelings suddenly turned into anger. It was Mengsk who did this to her. All he had to do was send some dropships down there for evacuation and she would never have become the Queen of Blades to begin with.

"You may not know this, but Jim did try to save you," Nova continued. "After he had broken away from Mengsk, he went back down to New Gettysburg. But by then it had been too late, he claimed no trace of you was found there. He mourned for days for your loss, and jumped at the first sign that you might still be alive when he began experiencing the strange dreams."

Sarah looked down sadly. "And I shattered them completely when he saw what I had become."

Nova sat down by her bed. "Jim always said there is good in you. I may not know a damn thing about Zerg infestation, but I do know how it feels to be controlled against your own will. I had neural inhibitors implanted in my just like every other Dominion ghost. All it takes is a press of a button and I would become a mindless drone. I've done things I'm not quite proud of."

Sarah laughed bitterly, startling Nova. "I've murdered billions of people without even blinking. I'm sure your actions were nowhere near anything of that scale."

"And now you have the chance to make it right. There are plenty of those who still believe you're under the Zerg influence—"

"And I wouldn't blame them one bit for thinking that," Sarah finished.

"So prove them wrong," Nova insisted. "After I had seen Mengsk's atrocities of what he did, I turned away from the Dominion and joined the Raiders. None of them trusted me, but I still fought by their side and exposed Mengsk for what he really is. Jim freed me by removing the neural inhibitors shortly after that, but to the rest of his crew, all that did was allow them to give me somewhat of the benefit of the doubt. Even now, after I had fought by them during the Char invasion, not all of them fully trust me."

The blond ghost looked at Sarah in the eye and continued, "The atrocities committed while you were under the Zerg influence were obviously far greater in scale, but the concept remains exactly the same: fight alongside those with good intentions, and eventually they'll learn to trust you. That's what I'm doing and that is something you should do when you recover."

Sarah looked away, remembering that Jim had said similarly to her. Despite the fact she was not one bit convinced about forgiveness or trust, it's obvious there's nothing she wanted more. "Do you think they'll ever forgive me?"

"What's important is that you have to forgive yourself," Nova pointed out. "The only knowledge I have of you before you were taken by the Zerg was your legend in the ghost program. There's been some records of you I've seen during the days of the Sons of Korhal, but I've only really seen you as the Queen of Blades. It's only now that I finally get to know what you're really like, and I can already tell you're nothing like that Zerg monster."

"Tell that to everyone else," the red head said bitterly. "When you see how few of them believe you—"

"And that's why it is vital you fight alongside them," Nova explained. "Obviously in your case it's going to take a lot longer before you earn their trust, but it's still possible nonetheless. Do you think Jim would want you to wallow in your own pity forever?"

Seeing Sarah slowly shake her head, Nova continued, "If you won't do it for yourself, do it for him. During the weeks I had fought alongside him, I had noticed something different about him."

Sarah raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"During my time with the Dominion, the video records when Mengsk was still leader of the Sons of Korhal were never erased. I had seen footages of their actions against the Confederacy. The records also contained footage of Jim fighting alongside the Dominion emperor."

"Tell me something I don't know," Sarah folded her arms.

"The footages showed something in Jim's eyes, like some sort of fire in them that showed nothing could stop him from accomplishing his goal. Mengsk had been using that as the basis to broadcast his lies to the media for the last few years, insisting that he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted."

"That's partially true," Sarah replied. "Back then, he and I were fighting to get rid of the Confederacy and restore freedom to the Koprulu sector. It had been both our dreams."

"When I joined the Raiders and saw him up close, what I was seeing was the eyes of an animated corpse. He didn't look anything like the freedom fighter Matt Horner told me he is. All I saw was a broken man, his mentality shattered by something taken from him that he felt he would never get back. He even told me his sense of justice and freedom died out years ago, and all he had left to keep him going was his vengeance on Mengsk."

Sarah felt her eyes water up again. She had no idea just how badly Jim had suffered, and still is suffering, from the time she had been with the Zerg. She knew he had changed from when they first met on Antiga Prime, but she hadn't expected how much she meant to him.

"After his encounter with you on Tyrador VIII, his depression suddenly worsened. He began drinking more than his crew had experienced him do over the years. Even after Matt had told him the Raiders needed his leadership, there was little improvement to his mood. At that point, it confirmed exactly what I had been suspecting all along: that 'something' that had been taken from him was you."

Sarah felt like she had just been stabbed through the heart. Jim was the most decent man she had ever known, and had treated her with far greater kindness in a few minutes than anyone else has in her entire life. Now, after all these years she had spent with the Zerg, he was starting to turn into another one of those heartless people she had known during her days with the Confederacy.

"All that changed when Valerian came to us. When he explained that the Xel'Naga relic Jim had been collecting might be able to restore you, I immediately saw the fire in his eyes again. Even when everyone told him that this alliance with the Dominion is a trap and attacking Char is utter suicide, it did not sway him one bit. He may have told us that the Zerg was a greater threat than Mengsk, but just about everyone on the ship knew he wanted to return to Char because he wanted you back. Even when Valerian warned him the chances are just as high the artifact could end up killing you, he continued to insist it was worth the risk."

Nova looked away for a moment before continuing, "Just about all his crew members were glad the commander they had been waiting on was back, but unfortunately that's only for the Char invasion. The victory on Char may have been significant, but it's still just a step forward like any other. The Raiders need Jim's leadership, but I've been told he hasn't been the same man since when the Raiders were formed. Trying to get him to move on proved useless, and it was clear to most people that he could never let you go. Now that you're finally back, he needs you more than ever. If what people say about this destructive path he's taking is true, you're the only one who can pull him out of it."

Sarah nodded, finally understanding. When she was serving under the Confederacy, she saw humanity around her as selfish, arrogant, and despicable. It was little different when she joined the Sons of Korhal. During that time, she had much hatred buried in her for humanity for their characteristics.

Only when Jim entered her life did she see there was still good in humanity. Although she did accuse him of being a complete pig for his thoughts when first meeting her on Antiga Prime, those feelings eventually changed. She saw him who fought for everything that was dear to him, no matter what the cost. She saw he was willing to make sacrifices that others she had known wouldn't have even considered. When she told him shortly after arriving at New Gettysburg that she didn't need saving, that wasn't a lie. He had already saved her from falling into total cold heartedness after her brutal past. When she had been taken by the Zerg and prayed for rescue, while she would have welcomed any type, she knew only one man would be able to make that happen. She knew Jim would be that pillar of hope. And when she felt herself being carried out across the Char battlefield, finally free from the Zerg after so long, the joy of seeing Jim as her savior once again would have made her heart burst from her chest, had she not been so badly weakened by the Xel'Naga artifact.

But she had seen so many selfless acts by Jim that she had completely forgotten that he was human just like everyone else. He too had breaking points and endurance limits. She hadn't counted on Jim's love for her. Although she knew the feelings he had for her were much deeper than she had expected, she didn't expect it to reach the point where he couldn't imagine his life without her. While she did hope Jim would get her out of the nightmare as the Queen of Blades, it was under the assumption it was just another selfless decision he made so others would benefit from it.

If what Nova said is true, then Jim didn't come to Char to stop the Zerg invasion, or even to save lives. He put the lives of all of his Raiders at risk just for her. To Sarah, that is the greatest act in kindness she had ever known in human history. She knew each act of kindness came with a cost, but for Jim to lose hope, for him to become desensitized to war, for him to succumb to heartlessness, that was the one price she could not allow him to pay. She'd pull him out of cold reality that he had been drowning in all these years. This time, she'd be his savior.

"I'll bring the old Jim back," she said, at last regaining her determination. "I owe him everything."

Nova smiled. "Then I'm glad we have reached an understanding, Sarah. Our war with the Zerg is far from over, and we've got something far worse coming, something more powerful than the Zerg and Protoss combined together."

Seeing the expression on Sarah's face suddenly shift back into fear, Nova raised her eyebrow in confusion. "Was it something I said?"

Author's Note: With this chapter, it marks the beginning of the character relationship between Kerrigan and Nova. Unlike Qwerty-Man however, I felt it was wrong to have them start off by beating each other to death in the sparring room (there were times I always wondered if they really WOULD have killed each other if Raynor hadn't stepped in).

As always, please read and review!