He'd sat for another 10 seconds or so before he'd felt the bench depress slightly as someone barely sat at the edge, tensed for immediate flight. Taking a moment to glance at her, he was stabbed by a pain in his chest at seeing the hurt expression obvious in her eyes, her face a cold mask set to hide all expression, and failing at the moment. Seeing the blood streaking her forehead had him slowly raise his hands in a placating manner, like he had milliseconds before being flung into the weight machine, before slowly reaching into his pocket for a pocket size ampule of medigel for small incidental first aid. Taking it out and dotting a small globule of the clear gel on his index finger, he almost started talking as he slowly reached his finger to her scalp, her eyes darting back and forth between his hands and eyes looking for any tension indicating he was preparing to attack.
Seeing her fear had him pause his ministrations before he slowly started to reach for her again. "Jack, when was the first time they betrayed you, took you, whatever started this whole affair of hunting and torture?" The incisive nature of his question cut to the core of her, while his banal tone made the question itself seem almost casual in nature. Not waiting for a answer he'd smeared a trail of the gel across her forehead the contact with her blood instantly hardening it and allowing him to wipe off the excess. Slowly he lowered his hands from her head, the wound's ache no longer throbbing or feeling thoughts of having to strike quick before blood flow interfered with her vision tapering off the needle in her mind.
"Don't remember. Always." She'd barely voiced the answer, the only way he was sure of her response was from reading her lips as she'd looked at him with hints of fear and appraisal.
"So you know what they're like and have a damn good idea to expect betrayal from every angle. Hell, I get that better than just about anyone else in this galaxy," the look of absurd amusement flashed across her face, making him amend," the trusting the wrong people part, Jack. Hell, I can't imagine anyone dealing with this shit for their whole life, my first real experience being when we became grounded during the hunt for Saren."
At this Jack couldn't help but angle her head in confusion, "Grounded you?" "Yeah, they made a pretty big effort to hush it up after the whole Citadel battle thing, but prior to my attempt to reach Ilos, we'd been called back to the Citadel being told that the Council was finally seeing the threat and about to marshal a fleet to hunt down Saren. Wasn't until we'd arrived that we found out that they'd just wanted the whole thing quietly muted, imagining a large enough stationing of warships would put a wrench in any plans he had."
Against her better judgement, she'd begun to follow along the story and relax, no longer anticipating a sudden attack from her bench companion. "So if you hadn't done something, we'd essentially be fighting a onslaught of Reapers, having already lost the Citadel and the majority of the Citadel fleets?" "Yep!" Shepard replied glibly, his face showing the fear and hatred of such minuscule thinking almost damning the galaxy to defeat. "So how did you fix things? I mean we're still here and the Council, fuck them all with a scouring pad, are still here, so what happened?"
"Stole the ship." It was obvious it was the last thing she'd expected to hear and she sat dazed for a moment before a small chuckle began to bubble lose. Hearing it, Shepard found it contagious and he started snort and hum with amusement about the paragon for humanity basically carjacking the hottest ride in the Citadel for a three hour tour. The sheer absurdity of it began to make him really laugh, the redness of his face becoming intense as he experienced his first true moment of humanity since being resurrected.
Seeing his need for the laugh, Jack had played it up, laughing along with him until they'd both petered out some seconds later. "So anyways, I'm not saying that you should trust them, or even begin to, just trust that I'll do what needs to be done, and that includes keep my crew at their best. Fair enough?"
"Fair enough, but I see one thing that looks out of place and I'll-" "You'll get in contact with me before unloading on them, got it?" His eyes hardened from their earlier joviality. Seeing her eyes begin to narrow, he held up a placating hand like he had done earlier, and this time she let him have his moment.
"I don't need to have to worry about them fucking you over because I'll be watching for it and, in truth, kinda hoping for a good opportunity to rip 'em apart, but what I won't have is one of mine not trusting me. You don't, that's fine as anyone else, walk off. I'll drop you anywhere and you be free to run and hide like those dumbass politicians hiding behind probability calculations and threat assessments until Reapers literally fry whatever world you trench yourself in."
She'd stop and started a few times through his moment, before finally stopping herself to think about the statement in it's entirety. He'd said she was one of his, that he'd needed her trust. She could see it now, the weariness and apathy, it was taking a tole to expect the world to keep shitting on him, a feeling she'd become so accustomed to as to become her whole world. So what did she want, to run? Hell, even if she did, she'd still be afraid, afraid of Cerberus hunting her down or the Reapers finally dropping out of the sky and her being completely useless against the building sized devils.
On the other hand, staying meant she'd have to trust someone, even if that someone was Shepard, well...even Jesus or some other deity of the month would've found her a pretty tough customer to convince of their benign intentions Still, even after having flung him like a rag doll and probably done enough damage to kill any other being in the universe, he sat quietly beside her, eyes on the floor as he just waited for her decision. Strangely enough, even though the idea of taking the opportunity to smear the walls with his internals didn't give her the usual blissful rush like it always did, just a cold little nub of hurt as seeing his lifeless eyes staring at her with compassion as he died.
-.
They'd sat there after Shepard's admission for a few minutes, Shepard not really expecting a verbal response as he watching for a violent physical response. Try as he might, he couldn't keep the occasion twitches coming from his fingers as he remembered being flung into the lift machine. Playing it off as though he'd been merely winded seemed to have been the right call, the look of shock and a little fear crossing her face as he's stood had been the main reason he'd so quickly let her loose, but he had no intentions of being assaulted again, so kept notice of the slight pulsing of her biotics as she flicked a finger, straightening the bent overhead and moving the whole weight room assembly, which had been thrust 4 feet off it's pegs by the impact, back into position.
He decided, as he watched her move the equivalent mass of two full size krogan by twitching her finger, that he'd never, ever challenge her straight up, as it'd quickly end with her chuckling over a two foot crater of his liquid remains, the solids having been pulverized into oatmeal. Seeing her eyes take a sudden increase in their flurry of glances between the rest of the cargo hold, him, the weight machine, him, and the overhead window, he figured she was approaching a decision.
"So why'd you save them?"
"The council? Mostly because while I still think the universe would be a sight better with their vaporized corpses still lingering in the Widow Nebula, but I'd never have heard the end of it from Anderson."
"Saw flashes of him during the awards ceremonies, the dark dude?" "Probably not the best way to describe him, but I imagine you only saw him in a video off the omni tool of some guard?" A short nod from her showed her assent, while her odd habit of sitting on her palms showed a obvious interest in hearing about the life while she'd been locked away, a small part of her wall letting itself down around him.
"He's my dad of another life, at least that's what I like to tell people. Love the guy, despite the occasional headbutting about not threatening the 'innocent'. " Seeing the famed spectre talking about a obviously treasured ally made Jack feel a little off, the feeling of not being completely able to understand the undercurrent of emotions in his voice made her resentful of lost chances and she felt a small nova of rage as she thought of the years taken from her. On the other hand, she wanted to know about the one man she'd ever seen him give praise about.
"Bitch, you can't say 'innocent' like that, sterling silver poster boy like you would have to save a Batarian terrorist if he ran out of ammo and begged forgiveness."
"Ran out of ammo?" His face went from slightly pensive to almost mocking. "Shut up, thermal clips, ammo, same difference."
"Yeah, I get that, but two things, one, I figured since you were in lockup when they really come around you'd put it another way, and two, stupidest fucking idea ever to replace nigh infinite ammo with freaking heat sinks."
The elevator was heard just as Shepard began his sentence, opening up just in time for the rider to catch Shepard's last words. "Seriously, still bitching about the new tech that came out while you were vacationing?" came a warbling call as his Turian brother walked off the lift.
"You still defending that piece of shit hackery of engineering?" called back Shepard, knowing Jack would hardly care to take either side of the argument she'd only bothered to pack a shotgun on their missions as he'd insisted on a backup; she'd not even bothered to pick up a gun as she'd walked through her path of destruction through the prison ship, preferring to lift terrified enemies before a rapid twist would fold her opponents in half and slam them back into the pavement. Only one opponent had thus far survived her initial attacks, but had been so crippled with pain that she'd found it more amusing to let him moan. Shepard had cued Garrus to put him out of his misery as he'd continued to trail the convict's wake.
"Your just still pissed that they tried to market the first models as "Shepard's" and the various issues and bugs made it one of the most lamented guns in the universe. Even thugs on Omega turn their noses up that the useless piece of shit," was relied back, his talons pitching up to resemble a merc firing a couple of rounds before looking once over his cover, back at the gun in his hands, and dropping it on the floor to take a piss on it. Jack laughed it up.
"Don't encourage him, he found a bulk buy of the things on omni-Buy, apparently he left the lot on a warehouse pad overseen by eclipse mercs, let them disseminate them among the troops, and launched a essentially bloodless raid as the mercs couldn't even get three shots off before they'd overheat, and what with having the punch of a pistol and the recoil of a Claymore, things were pretty much in the bag." Turning back to his mandible wagging companion, "You should be thanking me for somehow inspiring that piece of shit, any other way you would've gotten away with no losses?"
"Yea, a big fucking bomb, but you're right, the guns did kinda make things simple. Almost felt bad for the last few guys who rather than continuing to use them decided they made much better weapons when thrown than when fired." Looking up as he pretended to consider for a moment, curled talons just under his chin, he turned back and added," I gotta see if we can get one of those for Jacob, either he'll turn it into a decent weapon, or his head will explode, win-win."
At this, Jack burst out with chuckles that made Garrus raise a eyebrow before raising his arms and beginning to strut around the cargo hold; having made Jack laugh was strut worth, but verbally wailing on Shepard at the same time made it epic stuff. If only Tali were there to record the experience. Stopping at the thought, Garrus reconsidered as Tali being there would've made things so much more awesome to watch as Shepard was pulled like a planet caught between two black holes.
Finding himself on assault from two fronts, Shepard did the smart, honorable thing, beating feet while planning revenge. Seeing him mumble about "fucking scar faced ass holes" make Garrus cackle as he turned about and made his way to the elevator to ride up with Shepard, giving a tip of the hat gesture to Jack as he left.
Jack felt good and twisted up at the same time. She hadn't by any measure forgotten the fear she'd just felt from Shepard's easy disabling of her, but the quick give and take, the normalcy of the moment where she hadn't once felt the urge to smash either Shepard's or the Turian's faces was unexpectedly nice. The automatic itch to feel depressed was nonexistent, and though she still had a voice in the back of her mind chanting that things would end badly, she could for a moment quiet it with flashes of Shepard's acting at though he couldn't slide his weight back onto the rack and Garrus kicking his heels like a proud chicken as Shepard laughed red faced.
AN: So, ch.9, awesome to be getting there. Hope people are liking thing so far, let me know if you do, and thanks for reading.
AAN: Finally was doing a revision to a bunch of chapters and realized that changing the doc manager story wasn't enough to update the stories, so you might go back and maybe review my chapters as some have almost doubled in size and had several large revisions that were basically waiting on the back burner to be updated for a while. Sorry for my carelessness.