Jesse

- September, 2185

"This one time I was double crossed by a Spectre looking into the Shadow Broker's funding of Binary Helix on Noveria. Long story short, turns out the Spectre was in pay of the Shadow Broker, fishing out a local investigator and had her eliminated. Turned on the rest of us, trying to cover up his tracks. Took out five of my guys and tried to shoot me in the back. Ran an ice pick through his eyes for that. Set him loose to find his way back to his beloved Shadow Broker. Good times."

Messalina watched in morbid fascination as Zaeed compacted another piece of Eezo residue and dumped it out into space.

"Some day, one of these buggers might crash into your windshield. That's karma." Zaeed lit a cigar, inhaling deeply, savoring the scent. The fire alarms in Zaeed's room had been disabled. Messalina remembered EDI complaining about it in the elevator. Despite being an omnipotent AI that nagged her wherever she was on the ship, EDI was helpless to repair the fire alarm if someone physically removed the smoke sensors with a twelve inch serrated blade. "All this havoc I've caused in the Galaxy... well let's just say that someday it'll come to bite me in the back. I know it. And when it does..."

Zaeed hefted his rifle. "Jessie will be waiting."

"Don't you get tired of all that senseless violence, Zaeed?" Messalina finally found her voice, that seemed to have ran off and hidden in a dark place where Zaeed could find her.

Zaeed laughed heartily. He liked Shepard, which worried Shepard more than he knew. He enjoyed being on the Normandy, it had been a change from what Messalina had "cutely" termed senseless violence. There were often too many people who criticized his killing, but few who criticized him having had a head count as high as Shepard. Besides, he had lost too many men in his life, and Messalina here was tightly clinging on to a dozen whom she seemed so desperate to protect. It was adorable.

"Life is senseless, baby." Zaeed carefully put the damaged Lancer rifle down. "You're contradicting yourself when you think that life has some goddamn meaning. It's all a big jumbled mess, anyway."

"You seem pretty happy now." Zaeed had changed significantly since their little trip. Zaeed had laughed heartily as he watched Vido burn in anguish. Since then Zaeed laughed more, hung out with other people more and even started decorating his cabin. It was jarring.

"I'm fitting in nicely. Better crew than any I've worked with before." Zaeed counted off through his head. "Like the bald girl. Subject Zero? Really messed up bitch. We could have used someone like her back when. And the hatchling Krogan. I've killed a few Krogan in my time, but he's one of the strongest I've seen yet. I could use a team like that. Say, when this is over, maybe I'll borrow the two of them off you."

The more Zaeed talked, the more horrible ideas started popping into her head. A team consisting of Jack, Zaeed and Grunt would probably either kill everyone in the Galaxy until they started picking off each other. Messalina had been sick for a few days after the incident at the Eldfell-Ashland Energy refinery. Chakwas had told her it wasn't because of the fumes.

"I'd set up a nice operation." Zaeed began taking Jesse apart again, his unending quest to make his lucky weapon function one last time. "Maybe I think I'd need that Quarian chick as well. She'd be useful. Or the tin man. You can't seem to find a good technical expert who's also friggin blood-thirsty these days. I won't be needing a sharpshooter, so you and chicken legs can take a breather. But with the biotic girl, the Krogan and me, I'd bet we'd be able to run through a standard Stanford type station in twenty four hours flat. Forty eight hours to crash the thing into a planet. Heh."

Zaeed looked down the barrel of Jesse before pulling out a vein of rusted metal. It looked like a branch, but crumbled to red dust between his fingers.

"They don't make 'em like they used to." Zaeed sighed. "Now they come with omni blades attached like bayonets. Never can compare a good old steel blade to an omni tool. It's a pity that we're becoming so much more reliant on contraptions that end up stuttering when an angry Krogan is charging your way. Nearly tore me apart….. Never had much use for those things since. You begin to rely on things like that, you'll end up like those Quarians. Trapped in their suits."

Zaeed was talkative. But with all his talk he was persistent in skating only on the surface, never opening up. Would she be able to trust Zaeed Massani with her life? There were some depths to which you never explored with some individuals. She left Zaeed as he put down Jesse again, frustrated but patiently.

"I know what you're trying to do, Shepard." Zaeed tapped his cigar, letting the ashed drift to the floor. "My first mission with Jesse, I carved right through a Turian brigade. It was like magic. I couldn't believe the response this gun was giving me. I felt invincible, like magic. Sure, I had guns before Jesse. But Jesse opened my eyes to a new world of might."

"I'm not sure you-" Messalina interrupted, frustrated, but was cut off immediately.

"Next mission, not so good. I had gathered a team to drop in blind in the middle of the Krogan DMZ. We were looting an old Krogan fortress fabled to hold the riches of some old Krogan warlord. Things didn't go as planned. The maps sputtered and died from the caustic sand. Thresher maw took care of the fire support team. Then every Krogan in the vicinity started homing in on us. Barely got out of that one alone. Thanks to Jesse. But it was a total flop, never the less."

Messalina waited patiently this time, toying around with the Turian cruiser model on Zaeed's counter.

"Funny thing is, Shepard, I had planned the second one so carefully. Wanting it to succeed. I wasn't much of a fighter in my youth. Got through most battles by the skin of my teeth. My first battle taking Jesse in had been a big success, and I was trying to duplicate that success."

Zaeed finally finished his cigar and tossed it into the refuge. Opening the small airlock, the cigar butt shot out of the ship like a small leaf wrapped torpedo.

"The universe is a senseless place, Shepard. You can't really prepare yourself for what's coming. I see everything on these surveillance monitors. I see you checking up on the crew, talking to them, trying to make them stick with you like your famous crew that took down Saren. But that's bullshit. You can't talk your crew into loving you. You think that was the secret to your success with Saren, but where are all your former teammates? There's only chicken legs and astro girl, and they're not exactly the cheerful bunch with you, now, are they?"

Messalina stared at Zaeed balefully.

"I already got my money's worth following you into this mess." Zaeed flashed a rare smile, it seemed to tear at his face, his zygomatic muscles in spasms from disuse. He quit trying to smile. "Well, you know what I'm saying. You can throw a million platitudes my way, but killing Vido was what made my day. I'll follow you to hell and back, now. Maybe you should stop worrying about these kiddies and let them do their job. You've done enough for them already. And you ain't their mother."

Kelly Chambers knocked at the glass, scattering the Thessian sunfish. Messalina took meticulous care of the fish tank, and the hamster, but Kelly felt obliged to check in once in a while. The Commander's schedule was hellish to put it mildly. Despite Miranda's micromanaging, Shepard still had to plan every facet of every operation. Miranda, as Shepard put it, chickened out when it came to the larger decisions. Kelly knew it was the Illusive Man's orders to place every major decision on Shepard, wanting to get his money's worth out of ditching the clone project. Miranda paced about, briefing Shepard on the gains, which were few, following the Zorya mission.

"I hope Zaeed feels satisfied that we've destroyed an entire facility run by the de facto head of the Blue Suns." Miranda complained. "This will not bode well for Cerberus. We have outsourced them from time to time running operations in the Terminus systems. You'll have to ask Zaeed to vouch for us when the time comes. And I hope his word is enough."

Shepard had sprawled on the bed, tired, exhausted.

"Do you think we can trust Zaeed, Kelly?" Messalina managed to groan. That had been their primary objective: Keeping Zaeed in full combat readiness. It seemed wasteful to the lengths Cerberus would go to achieve its goals. But Messalina was growing accustomed by now.

"Zaeed talks big." Kelly said simply.

Miranda rolled her eyes. "I am so please you shared your insight with us, Yeoman Chambers."

Kelly tapped the fish tank once more, finding the Paddlefish hiding in the reef. Satisfied that all fish were accounted for, she turned around cheerfully.

"Zaeed talks big," Kelly elaborated. "because he has impotence."

Miranda gave Kelly a slow and disgusted glare.

"Oh, I don't mean physiologically, Miss Lawson." Kelly laughed. "He's androgynous as hell, but he has a gun he hasn't used in several years. No manner of bright technology will replace that. He may seem layered with years and wisdom, but he's a simple man with a simple desire. All the chaos in his life distilled his experience into one simple rule: there is no rule... as long as he can shoot something."

Shepard rolled over, burying her head. "So we can trust him?" she spoke muffled through the pillow.

"He's effusive in his loyalty, now, Shepard." Kelly assured her. "You may think it's strange, but you're the one who's bonded with an alien before. What's so difficult to understand the extremes in humanity?"

Messalina shook her head. Something in Zaeed's word had left her haunted, but she couldn't pinpoint it until now. Now, with Kelly's insight she finally grasped it. Zaeed had said, 'Jesse will be waiting'. She had discarded his words as another anxious blood thirsty boast.

But know it settled into context. Jesse was broken, she reminded herself. Zaeed was waiting for the one moment he envisioned his death. When all his sins would return, and he would be hanging in the wind with a non-functioning rifle in his hand. He had been so vicious because he was already at peace with how he would die, almost smiling at his imagination fondly, as if it were a good memory.

Zaeed, through his endless trails of parables, had in fact been asking her: "Have you prepared your grave, too, Shepard? Death is easier after that."