I would appreciate Suggestions, Comments/Feedback on something I wrote that is MASS EFFECT-related
Jul 25, 2023 15:28:39 GMT
vella likes this
Post by Energizer Bunny 211 on Jul 25, 2023 15:28:39 GMT
IMorning all. I know I've posted this before somewhere....But I would appreciate some feedback/suggestions/comments.
The core of my idea is to use Jack's tattoos like a puzzle or map that leads the crew on an adventure.....and the antagonist doing the stringing along is someone from Jack's past though she doesn't know it yet.
*Loosely based around the premise of the tv show Blindspot* But my real focus is on a Post Breath scene relationship between Jack and Shepard.
Anyways....if you would like tor ead what I have so far....I would very much appreciate if you wrote me back with comments etc.
After a mission had gone particularly bad, Shepard storms into the med bay just as Miranda is asking Dr. Chakwas for Medi-gel, and before the doctor can respond Shepard forcefully says "No. No Medi-gel for you! You missed shooting that mech in the eye from point blank range and your 'biotic slam' was more like a biotic tickle! What were you planning to do? Tickle the mech to death? Suck it up, you Cerberus Cheerleader! And the next time you go into battle with only a Predator Pistol, if you run out of clips, don't come looking to me for spares because you won't get any. Y'know, you're supposed to be this genetically enhanced super-biotic, but without proper armour Biotics alone won't save you. I do wish The Illusive Man had requisitioned you some proper armour years back because I waste a lot of medi-gel on that perfectly engineered ass of yours. So, if you insist on coming into battle dressed in something that makes you look like an Asari stripper, next time make sure it's worth it and try showing Cerberus some of those enhanced Biotics. Got it? I mean, Kaiden is a human biotic but at least he has the sense to come dressed in proper body armour and combat boots, not those ridiculous thigh-high boots you insist on wearing. Those can’t be comfortable and they’re sure as hell not practical for running around a battlefield. But Ashley would certainly like a pair of those, I’m sure."
Shepard turns sharply from his waist to look over his right shoulder at Garrus and glares intently at the Turian.
"And you! ‘Archangel!’ Bah! So-called 'bad-ass mercenary' The only thing that was bad out there today was your armour!"
Shepard walks up to him and sticks his fingers through the bullet holes in Garrus’ armour, wiggling his fingers mockingly.
"Look at this, it's pathetic! Your armour looks like Swiss Cheese, almost as bad as your ugly face! I know body armour is meant to stop bullets, but c'mon! That doesn't mean you have to stand head-on in front of a fecking gunship! I'm really disappointed in you Garrus. We go back a long way you and I, and so when I say, 'cover me' I expect you to lay down some covering fire...Not run for cover and hide behind a stone wall, then spend time daydreaming about the calibrations you're going to do to the Normandy's main gun while half of Cerberus is on my ass and wasting enough bullets to take down Harbinger!"
Shepard huffs in frustration as he walks towards the doors and throws up his hands, then turns back to glare and point at Miranda and Garrus who are coddling their wounds and their wounded pride, while sharing glances of shame and embarrassment between them.
"Miranda, you look like I just shot your sister. Quit looking at Garrus, he's not going to save you. He's on my list to be thrown out the airlock as much as you are. Miranda, if you want me to confine you to your office just say the word and I can tell EDI to lock your doors. You can whine and complain to the Illusive Man over your private QEC channel and cry to him all you want about how Shepard is acting. Oh, no, wait—you can’t because he’s dead just like the Reapers. Look, I really don’t give a pyjack’s butt what you do, just keep your whining sessions limited to the confines of your own office when no one else is around. And Garrus, stop looking Miranda. You look like someone just melted your Mantis for scrap parts even though it is a shoddy gun in comparison to the N7 Valiant V. If you want to be confined to the Main Battery, just say one more word and I'll gladly make it happen. I can take Tali, Liara, Ashley or James or Javik on my next missions if you two don't want to come. Hell, I’m sure I could even call up Grunt and Arlakh Company if the mission was really hairy. Grunt is always looking for things to shoot with his shotgun."
Shepard begins to walk towards the med bay doors again, then stops in thought and turns as if reaching a conclusion.
"That's it, I've had it! You've both lost your Medi-gel privileges! The next mission we go on, if either of you get so much as a paper cut, I don't want to hear any bitching or whining about it. So don't come to me whining, "Shepard, I need the medi-gel. I have a paper cut and it hurts like hell," or "Shepard I need the medi-gel, I've been shot’-- because you're not gonna get any. Hell, for that last one- I might just shoot you again myself just for the hell of it. Might be fun."
The was a collective pause as a long moment of silence fell over the room.
"Are we clear?"
Shepard walks away before either of them can answer. As the doors close behind him he hears Garrus and Miranda bickering back and forth about whose fault it was that Shepard was so pissed off, throwing blame back and forth but he doesn't care anymore. He walks away, shaking his head thinking to himself. I need to go see Jack. She might be a psychotic biotic, but right now she is the only one who makes sense on this ship and doesn’t give excuses when she screws up on a mission. All I hear from Miranda is “I can’t get a lock” or “I’m blocked.” At least when Jack is angry, she fights better. She is focused and more dangerous. When Miranda gets all hot and bothered, she’s more worried about breaking the heels on those ridiculous thigh-high boots she insists on wearing during missions. Kaiden is a human biotic but at least he has the good sense to come suited up in full and proper body armour. Even Ashley, die-hard military soldier through-and-through that she is. But I’m sure Ash would like to talk to Miranda about where she could get a pair of those thigh-high boots she wears, though Ashley would want a tinfoil miniskirt to go along with them. she would also insist that her skirt be designed with Alliance colours and symbols, not the colours or symbols of a ‘pro-human/anti-alien extremist group’ like Cerberus. And then Ash would probably want dinner first. Bunch of divas, the pair of them. As much as Jack refers to Miranda as the “Cerberus Cheerleader”, a nickname that is quickly catching on amongst the crew, thanks to Jack, and will probably stick for Miranda’s duration aboard the Normandy, Ashley is equally the Alliance Cheerleader and somewhat of a sorority sister the way she’s always touting how great the Alliance is and fawning after me even though she knows I’m with Jack now since she walked away from me on Horizon. I need to go see Jack; I think I need another tattoo. Maybe she can design one for me, something that exemplifies my anger and sends the message to the crew and my enemies, ‘don’t fuck with Commander Shepard’.
Meanwhile in the Med Bay, Miranda and Garrus are consoling each other and complaining about the insults their commanding officer just heaped upon them. Garrus was the first to speak. “I can’t believe he called my armour ‘Swiss Cheese.’ I don’t even know what that is, but it sounds disgusting so I think I should be mad or insulted. I often hear Tali talking about ‘herb-dextro cheese this’ or ‘herb-dextro cheese that’, and then mentioning how it ‘gunk’s up the filters in her suit’ so I can’t help but think how disgusting it sounds. My armour has served me well over the years and it was the first set of armour that I bought when I joined C-Sec with credits I had earned myself. My first pay cheque. Even my father was proud when he saw me in it for the first time, he may not have agreed with my choice of occupation choosing C-Sec over the Turian Military, but he respected the good quality of my armour and the independence of my choices. And my gun, my Mantis- I can’t believe he insulted my Mantis. Say what you want about the grade of armour a man chooses to wear into battle…But don’t poke holes or crack jokes about his choice of firearms.”
Miranda raised her left eyebrow with a smirk as she sat on the edge of the bed with one knee raised and foot up.
Noticing this look of amusement on his colleague’s face, Garrus said “Yes, I know I said it. “Poke holes.” It’s ironic considering my armour is presently filled with holes. Nothing that a few hours of modding can’t fix. But back to preference of firearms: What was it that Ash called it, her ‘Boom Stick’ ? That’s just a low blow from Shepard, one that even a Krogan might not recover from.”
“I know, right?” Miranda chimed in. “My father may have been an egotistical, maniacal, cold-hearted bastard who was more concerned about his own damned legacy than caring for his family, but he spent a lot of good credits on my genetic enhancements and my enhanced biotics, and Shepard tosses insults in my face like a Krogan tosses Pyjacks.”
They both exchanged looks of consolation while sitting in silence.
Meanwhile Shepard arrives down in the hold where Jack makes herself at home. Jack looks up from her seated position on her cot. “Hey, Shepard. You look pissed. Did the mission go south? Want to blow off some steam at the Armax Arsenal Arena? I could stand to shoot some things myself. It’s been a while since I’ve shot some mechs or thrown an Atlas. Of course, there are other ways we could relieve stress. I could help you pop your thermal clip, if you gave me something to…….explode,” she said not wanting to sound too vulgar while standing up from the cot, walking over to stand in front of Shepard and putting her arms around his neck suggestively. I am trying to clean up my language upon Commander Saunders suggestion. Even my students have noticed my attempts to sound professional rather than spouting off expletives she thought to herself.
“And if we really want to cut loose and have some fun, we could kick Joker out of the cockpit and finally take this ship for the joyride I mentioned all those years ago. I know it was only four years ago, but it seems like a lifetime has passed.”
Shepard grunted in amusement as he traced his fingers along Jack’s tattooed forearms. “You’re always so cute when you talk dirty. And while that does sound funny, throwing Joker out of the cockpit and going full burn, it’s not what I had in mind. Come with me, back up to my cabin. I have an idea, one that I think you’ll like.”
Jack slowly lowered her arms from around Shepard’s neck as they interlaced their fingers and stepped apart though still faced each other.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked, curiously.
While still holding her hand, Shepard started up the stairs from the cargo hold and headed towards the elevator. “Please, just come with me to my cabin. I’ll explain everything there.”
“Shepard,” she groaned, but otherwise said nothing and proceeded to follow him up the stairs.
They stepped inside the elevator silently, though Shepard continued to hold Jack’s hand the whole way up to the top until they got off the lift and approached the doors to his cabin. Shepard touched the ID panel and they took a small step just inside the doors.
“EDI, lock the door to my cabin. Authorization, Shepard four six Alpha Charlie.”
“Affirmative, Commander. Authorization verified and accepted. The doors to your cabin are now locked and you have complete privacy.”
Taking two more steps through the doorway passing his computer console and his glass case of model ships, Shepard turns around to face Jack and walks backwards passing the fish tank that was mounted into the wall on his right, down the step to the sunken floor, holding her hand lightly by the tips of her fingers.
Shepard looks at Jack’s left arm up and down and then moves his gaze across her tattooed chest as she slowly steps down the stairs.
“Hey, my eyes are up here….Perv,” she said with a smile and a tone that recalled the morning after the party at Shepard’s apartment when she woke up next to him after a wild night of partying, drinking, displays of biotic prowess, table-dancing, and some fun between the sheets. I thought I was kinky, and I am. But I guess I am making more of an impression on him than I give myself credit for.
Shepard cracks a smile. “No, it’s not that. Though it didn’t bother you last time, and then there were other people in the apartment, and they were awake. The walls in my apartment are unusually thick, but you know chances are they heard you scream things like ‘I will destroy you!’ and ‘rough stuff! I like it!’ during that wild night--”
Jack interrupted, ‘but what you didn’t hear me say that night was “’Finally…..Quiet. Just how I like it’ after you had fallen asleep. You were too busy snoring—and no that wasn’t KEI-9 or Eezo,” she chided him playfully with a shot in the arm. “Varrens don’t snore. And dog mechs?” she shook her head in response to her own rhetorical question as if to definitively tell Shepard that the only possible explanation left was him.
“I’m gonna tell the whole crew over the comm system that “our great commander Shepard snores while sleeping especially after a night of great fun between the sheets!”
Shepard grunted in amusement, “don’t you dare!” he said as he playfully tackled Jack and momentarily wrestled with her.
Moments later they stopped as Jack called “no joy” and tapped out, indicating she’d had enough.
Shepard shifted his gaze again to the large tattoo in the center of Jack’s chest. Is that a compass? he thought. Then returned his sight to look her in the eyes, and sighed again, heavily, pausing in thought. “You never really told me the whole story of your tattoos. I mean, I know you told me, and I quote “some of for prisons I’ve been in, some are for kills, y’know, the good ones. Some of them are from trying to cover up the Cerberus crap. Some are for shit that I’ve done, while others are for the people I’ve cared about, but they’re my business and nobody else’s.’ I know you’re typically a very private person, Jack, and I get that…But I’d like to know more. I mean there’s so many of them, and they are all so beautiful and obviously they all have a history and meaning for you. I get that, I do. But you and I have been going steady now for a while and we’ve been through some scary stuff. It’s been the best ride of any life that a sole-surviving, battle-scared, war-weary human biotic Orphan-turned-war hero like me could ever dream of or deserve. But I’m with you till death.”
“Don’t say that John, please,” Jack pleaded with obvious pain in her voice.
It was one of the few times she had actually referred to him by his first name, John, and not as ‘Shepard’ or “the Commander’.
Fighting back tears Jack’s mind suddenly flashed back to the events following the Battle of Earth when after weeks of repairs to the Normandy on some strange alien world they crash-landed on, Joker, Ashley, Liara, Tali, Cortez, Traynor, Garrus, Miranda and the rest of the Normandy crew flew back to Earth and joined her in the search for Shepard. Even Wrex, Eve and Grunt assisted in the search for their old friend with all of Clan Urdnot following lead.
With limited FTL support due to the damaged Mass Relays it seemed to take eons to reach Earth, but they arrived just in time. A large Search and Rescue squad, including the Normandy crew were searching for Shepard, and then she saw it: the glare of a dog tag against the flashlight of an assault rifle, combined with the movement and sound of a chunk of rubble being displaced. After lifting the rubble, she still couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing so she asked Grunt to roll him over onto his stomach so she could get a look at the back of his right shoulder. What was it that I said to him again, that night at his apartment about the tattoo I gave him? That it was “good enough so that you’re ever hurt, barely breathing, injured, dying, lying under a pile of rubble at the ass-end of the War, that that tattoo would be good enough to identify you. You’re gonna have something that tells the whole galaxy that you belong to me.”
Jack felt a light yet reassuring touch and her mind suddenly snapped back to the present reality, as John had moved his hand from tracing her tattoos to wiping away a tear that was falling down her face.
“I was just admiring your tattoos. I still can’t believe you did them all yourself. That takes some serious skill and a helluva steady hand. I’ve been thinking about getting another one. Mind doing another one for me?” he asked.
Jack shook her head to clear the fog of memories and wiped her eyes and nose with her left forearm as she collected her thoughts. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, sure. What’d ya have in mind?” she asked. “You looked pretty pissed when you first came down here….so I’m thinking something angry, something bad-ass….something that is perhaps not Marine-sanctioned,” she said with a glint of creative spark in her eyes. She turned away, “just let me get my tools,” she said, still blinking away tears as she went to a drawer and pulled out a small rectangular box with a laser needle inside. “You know the drill: Get un-dressed, or at least take off your shirt.”
As Shepard removed his shirt and proceeded to lay down on the bed on his stomach, Jack asked, “you’ve been avoiding my question since you came down here. What’s got you so pissed?” she prodded.
“It’s just the crew. It’s like ever since you found me back on Earth things just haven’t been the same. I thought things would go back to normal, that we would be the crew of the Normandy again, but everyone is just so different. Take today for example: Miranda and Garrus and I are out on a mission, and what should be a cakewalk turned into a train wreck. Miranda missed shooting a mech in the eye from point-blank range- a shot she normally makes from fifty feet without batting an eyelash, and her famous biotic slam had about as much force as a feather. If I didn’t know any better, I’d’ve sworn she was meaning to tickle the mech into submission and overload its circuits from sheer sensation overload. Over stimulus of a sensation that they weren’t designed to process. I got so sick of her telling me “I can’t get a lock on my target” when I gave the order for a biotic strike, or ‘I’m blocked’ when I told her to fire at a group of enemies. And by the time the mission was finally over, I’d lost track how much medi-gel I had used up reviving her perfect, genetically engineered ass in the middle of a firefight. And Garrus? He’s one tough Turian, but every time I told him to cover me and lay down some covering fire, he would run for cover of his own….and get lost in thoughts of the list of calibrations he has to do on the main gun. I’m screaming at him at the top of my lungs from three or four meters away to return fire…But he’s lost in his fantasy world about ‘calibrations’. Then, you know what he does? He stands up and rushes out of cover just in time to be met squarely by a gunship and riddled with bullets that cut through his armour like Swiss Cheese.”
“Sounds rough, soldier boy,” Jack answered earnestly. “But everyone has their off days. Everyone needs some down time, that’s why the party at your apartment was such a massive hit.”
Shepard grunted in mild disagreement. “Don’t talk to me about ‘downtime’, please. The last thing I remember about one of my crew taking ‘down time’, it was just before the Battle for Earth after we had assaulted the Cerberus base, and I found Ashley completely passed right out on the floor of the starboard observation lounge, lying next to an empty bottle. I don’t know what is going on with Ash these days, but she’s been hitting the bottle pretty hard, and her uncharacteristic behaviour has only been increasing since that time I first met her after her unit was wiped out on Eden Prime back in ’83. I went down to the Cargo Bay of the original Normandy to get her insight about a mission we had just finished, and next thing I know she’s asking me to join her for a drink to celebrate Armistice Day and the legacy of her grandfather who lost the Battle of Shanxi. Not wanting to appear anti-social, I agreed to the drink during our next down time. Things started out friendly and all….But before I knew it she was hitting the bottle pretty hard and rambling on about “the Williams’ Curse”. I gathered that family issues can affect different people in different ways, and we all have baggage. I mean, take me for example: I’m the sole survivor of what is known as “The Akuze Incident” where a Thresher Maw decimated my entire unit. That was the first time that anyone in the Alliance had contact with the creature we came to know as Thresher Maws, and I am the only one left alive to talk about it. The planet was desolate, no water, barely any source of what humans might call food for days on end. No shelter, trapped in an extreme and hostile environment on my own for nearly two whole weeks until an Alliance vessel happened to be passing by the system while launching research probes. I reconfigured the Probe to send a signal back to the vessel and once they decoded it, they immediately sent down a rescue team. I was debriefed, given a day of rest, then given a medal, a promotion to Lieutenant-Commander, the position of Executive Officer aboard the Alliance’s newest cutting-edge ship, The Normandy, and sent on my way. I couldn’t believe it: My whole unit was wiped out and they not only awarded me for it, but they also promoted me and gave me second-in-command of their newest project. I never could understand the logic of the Alliance brass, sometimes I still can’t. But I accepted the position and did my best to move on. My point is, we all deal with things differently. But my previous interactions with Ash at that point had been very in-line with military conduct, and she even opened up about her faith in God. Which I happen to share, but the hard-nosed drinker is not a character label that I would have fit for Ash. Then there was that incident in the starboard lounge aboard the Normandy SR-2. An entire bottle all to herself, and she never spoke to me or anyone about anything that may have been bothering her, yet she told me that James told her that he had just the thing to help her take her mind of stuff and de-stress. So right there is more evidence that she was getting hot with Vega. And then there was that drinking contest she challenged me to at one of the bars on the Silver Sun Strip the afternoon before the big party. It’s like she wanted to prove to me that not only was she worthy of her rank and Spectre status—even it is done in name only- and awarded to her by a traitor who was later killed for attempting a coup- but it’s like she also wanted to prove to me that she could drink me under the table. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a drink every now and then to blow off steam and socialize as much as the next soldier…But there was definitely something more to this with Ash, and I can’t figure out what or why. So, I put a stop to it. Actually, I’m glad that Batarian and his Salarian friend started a fight. Gave me an out, an excuse to break it off while I was a head so that she could save face. But I think she may still be harboring resentment towards me for getting involved with you after she walked away from me on Horizon. She made it pretty damn clear that day that she was confused about who I was, unsure if she could trust me, and needed some space to figure things out. And then there was our meeting on Earth just before my supposed trial that never really happened because of the invasion by the Reapers. That was awkward. But she continuously questioned me during that whole mission on Mars, questioned my orders, second guessed my personhood and identity, while interrogating me about my relationship and work with Cerberus even though I made in crystal clear that I wasn’t working for Cerberus. I had worked with them, and only because the Alliance wasn’t getting off its ass and Cerberus at the time seemed to be the only ones who gave a damn about what was happening to humanity. They even gave me resources, a ship, a crew…how could I not fall in line? Yet after my arrest under the Alliance, I made it clear to Ash then that I had zero contact with Cerberus and I would stand against them even then and even Vega backed me up on that. She and I had been through hell together and more than anyone, save for you Jack, Ash should understand that I never do anything without a damn good reason and I’m still the same Commander Shepard that I’ve always been. I went to visit her in the hospital after she was injured on Mars, I came by regularly and we talked. We hashed things out, and I felt we had come to a mutual understanding. But still, she makes comments that lead me to believe she is holding on to….something. Then she goes after Vega and starts getting cuddly with him that night during the party especially, which is fine. I could care less who or my crew associate with or becomes involved with romantically. The personal lives of my crew aren’t any of my business unless they voluntarily choose to involve me. I mean, the way I see it the Normandy crew is very diverse. We have Alliance officers such as me or Ashley or James, we have former Cerberus defectors, former C-Sec officers, bounty hunters, humans and non-humans…and yet we all now live and work and fly under the same roof. Given enough time, people are going to find friends and….more than friends whom they develop an interest in and become romantically involved with. And that’s fine. But don’t quote Tennyson and Whitman to me, love me, leave me, say you want nothing to do with me, and then judge me based on whom I choose to move on with while you are obviously doing the same thing with someone else under my command. That’s just the vorcha calling the batarian ugly. I’m sorry, but that kind of double-standard doesn’t fly with me personally or professionally. And she was the one who initially wanted to become involved in the first place, then she goes all hardline on me quoting regs for this and that. I felt as though she was imposing a standard of military regulation and discipline upon our relationship that in the end, even she couldn’t live up to. Which is part of the reason why, after she left me on Horizon that day, it was so much easier and more freeing to walk away and happily pursue my relationship with you, Jack.”
Jack nodded silently, as she understood that Shepard was referring to Ashley’s hard feelings and disapproval of Shepard’s relationship with her even though she walked away first.
There was an extended moment of silence between Shepard and Jack, before he continued, “But I tell you, the next I find her in the floor of the lounge lying next to an empty bottle, I swear I am going to make good on my threat to have Joker sing to her over the comm as loudly as he can, while testing the fire alarms. If only Mordin were alive, he could join in. He could sing his Salarian Scientist version of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Modern Major-General”. That would really annoy her! She never did like Mordin’s singing. Ah, Mordin. He was a good friend and a damn good scientist. Wrex had it right when he’d said that Mordin ‘should’ve been a Krogan. Had the heart and the quads of a Krogan. An honour to call him friend,’ and it truly was. But I don’t give a Krogan’s quads if she and James want to hook up, personally I think they should. They’re the right kind of match for each other, and maybe just maybe, they’ll teach each other some humility and kick each other off the spaceports they put themselves so high up on. But you said it though, Jack,” John said amused, “You always refer to Miranda as the “Cerberus Cheerleader”, and she really is—or was. She left Cerberus after we destroyed the Collector Base. When The Illusive Man discovered that she’d help me on our Suicide Mission and then didn’t prevent me from blowing the Collector Base to hell, he’d felt she’d double-crossed him, so he put a death mark out on her. Sent his best agents and every other bounty hunter and merc in the galaxy out to look for her. Even activated other Cerberus sleeper cells and told people in those cells that she was a wanted fugitive. Told them it was their duty to hunt her down and bring her in, alive or dead, and if they didn’t, he would consider them traitors to be executed right along with her. So, when we met a few months ago and she’d warned me about Horizon, then helped me stop her father and saved her sister, she figured she’d owed me more than she could ever repay in credits or otherwise. So, I told her I would consider us even if she came back to join my crew on the Normandy permanently. She argued with me at first because she didn’t want to join the Alliance, figured that was just jumping ship and trading one organization for another. I told her she had a fair point. She didn’t have to join the Alliance, instead, I got her special permission from the very top of the Alliance brass to become a permanent member of my crew…as a civilian. She agreed to that quite readily,” Shepard continued. “Now she sort of does what Kelly Chambers used to do for me. I often think of Kelly Chambers, wonder what she’s up to, who she is now, where she is, what kind of life she has made for herself. Have even entertained the thought of tracking her down and asking her to rejoin us here on the Normandy now that Cerberus and the Reapers are gone for good. Hmm, maybe I still will someday. Anyways, about Miranda: She serves off-the-books in an officially unofficial capacity as my Yeoman, notifying me of messages, meetings, schedules, things-to-do etc. But with her degrees in Psychology, she is taking on the role of Ships’ Counselor; a position that she has gravitated towards quite readily. But you know, the more I interact with Ashley, I would say she is the Alliance equivalent. She’s become an “Alliance Cheerleader” and a bit of a sorority sister, the way she always hangs all over Vega- especially when she thinks there’s a chance I may be around or watching, and then when he’s not around, she tries to be my groupie. And she’s always on me about Military discipline. The poster child for the Alliance. Like I said, “Cheerleader.”
There was another pause of silence between Shepard and Jack before he concluded, “enough about my problems. Sorry for ranting. I guess I didn’t realize I was holding so much inside, but thanks for listening. I just want you to know what I am completely committed to you in every way. I don’t know how long I was buried for, or how long I was unconscious. When you found me under that rubble, I knew I meant something special to you, and I was glad it was you and nobody else who found me. It was then that I truly realized that you are my center, Jack. You are my motivation, inspiration, and the reason why I get up in the morning. I’ll go to the ends of universe for you. Fight a legion of Harbinger-Class Reapers for you, I hope you know that.”
“I do,” she said reassuringly, kissing him on the cheek. “But what I really want to know and have been waiting to hear from you about is what kind of tattoo you want.”
“Well, to finally answer your question….I was pissed off when I first came down here, and I was tempted to ask you to give me a tattoo that symbolized my anger and frustration and made a bold statement. And I still kind of do want that. But now, honestly, you know me as well if not better than anyone—Ashley included, so I want you to give me a tattoo that you think speaks to who I am and what I have experienced.
Jack paused for a moment in thought, then looked around the room, thoughtfully, for ideas and inspiration. Noticing his display case of medals, she moved her gaze to his desk where she took note of the Medal of Valor on the back-left corner and moving from left right the row continued, the Medal of Honour, the Medal of Distinguished Service, Medal of Heroism, Medal of Freedom, the list goes on….Damn, Shepard,” Jack said aloud, “I’m not a Military Historian but these are some of the Alliance’s highest honours,” as she surveyed the line of plaques on his desk. Then she looked back to the display case. “And I can see you keep the rest of your collection in there. I swear, you have the entire stock of Alliance medals. They won’t have any more to give out to future soldiers because you have them all. They’ve run out, thanks to you.” Then something drew her attention back to his desk and she suddenly noticed that front-and-center, amid all those amazing achievements of humanity, there was a picture of her.
Sensing her long pause and where her gaze was at this point in time, Shepard spoke up, “but more than any of those medals, you mean the most to me. You are what is and who is important to me in this life and the next. Don’t get me wrong, those medals have meaning for me especially since I lost a lot of friends along the road to getting those medals, and even the loss of friends are some of the reasons for those medals. But if a pirate hijacked my ship tomorrow, kidnapped you and held my entire medal collection for ransom, I would give him his ransom in exchange for your life without a second’s hesitation. Those medals have little value or meaning to me in comparison to you, Jack. I love you; I want you to know that.”
Jack leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I do.”
Looking at the row of medals on his desk again, she scanned them and downloaded them to her omni-tool. Then finding a heart-shaped medal in the display case on the second shelf from the bottom, this one is odd, it doesn’t seem like a military style medal. I mean, I’ve heard of the Purple Heart and Purple Heart with Clusters, denoting the rescue and survival of a wounded comrade when you yourself are wounded and taking fire. You risk your life to save theirs. But this heart….this is red, like the colour of love…..Wiping away another tear from her right eye as it formed in her tear ducts and before it could roll down her face and fall onto Shepard’s back—she didn’t want him to see that she was crying again—she took a breath and set to work creating different design layouts that combined images of the medals she scanned. When she found an arrangement she was satisfied with, Jack saved it to her omnitool, then leaned forward and paused before etching it into the back of Shepard’s left shoulder, opposite the skull she had drawn for him during the party.
“You still don’t have a license for this, do you? Remind me again where you were educated.” he asked jokingly.
“No, and I don’t plan on ever getting one. I’ll tell you now what I told you the night of the party: slinging ink is art. You don’t need a license to make art.’ And as for my so-called ‘education’, I was self-taught. It’s not like I went to some fancy University or Graphic Design School to learn this. I learned by doing, and I did them on myself. Besides, you’re the only person who has ever mattered enough to me that I would do one for you. I’ve never really done any for anyone but myself.” She paused.
“Okay, get ready because here it comes—” she said, leaning over.
“Oh no. No no, no no, no no- Ow! Ah!” Shepard blurted out in anticipation, as Jack activated the laser needle. “Ugh. I’d forgotten how much that first part stings. Can it at least be quick and painless this time?”
“Yeah, that first second or two when the laser needle pierces the skin for the first time is often the worst part, then you get used to it after a while and it feels kinda warm, maybe even tickles. Unless you’ve done so many all over your body like me that you desensitize yourself to the pain. Then you don’t even feel anything. But I’ve warned you before to hold still. It hurts more if you squirm. As for being quick—unless you want a botched job that would make you the laughingstock of the Marine Corps, it will take as long as it takes. I’m not one for making mistakes and doing shitty tattoos, I take pride in my work, so my advice is just to sit there and enjoy it.”
Jack made the first several etchings of the first medal design.
It was a cluster of the medals she saw on his desk in a tight four square shield formation, with the red heart in the center, and a banner across the bottom that reads Ego pro deperdito in Latin, an ancient language native to Earth of many millennia ago. In the common language of the modern galaxy, it reads “I Fight For The Lost”
“Okay, so I can’t call her the “Cerberus Cheerleader” anymore. Miranda, I mean. What if I just shortened it to “Cheerleader?” she asked aloud while still working on the tattoo, going back to a comment and line of conversation from several minutes ago, then digging the laser needle in a little deeper into the muscle of Shepard’s shoulder to ensure the etching would stay permanent.
“Ah—Ow,” Shepard stifled a groan of pain, burying his face in the mattress.
“Sorry, but next time hold still. I know we’re talking, but this is harder to do if you keep moving around. And it will take longer. So just keep your ass still,” she said as she continued to work.
“Yes, Boss Lady,” Shepard said almost mockingly. “Never argue with a woman holding a laser needle--Call her whatever you want,” Shepard said, answering her question, “just remember what happened last time in her office when the two of you had a ‘disagreement’ and a biotic-standoff. And try not to throw any furniture.
“That was fun,” Jack said with a smirk. “I remember that. Oh, don’t get me wrong. When Miranda confronted me in her office and tried to physically restrain me, then had the nerve to deny what Cerberus had done to me…I was fuming, so I threw a chair at her and called her “bitch” while threatening to smear the wall with her. Fortunately for her she is a biotic too, so she was able to slow down the chair coming at her head before she redirected it to hit the wall instead. And then you walked in and interrupted the fun,” Jack said, sarcastically.
“I’m just glad you’ve mended your differences and are at least on civil speaking terms with each other,” Shepard said, earnestly. “I need everyone on my crew to work together. You may not like each other, but you do have to work together so it’s best to be professional about it.”
“Ah,” Jack said, almost dismissively, “Miranda and I are good. She’s better now since she left Cerberus and now that The Illusive Man is dead and gone. Not so uptight, less by-the-book and ‘on this ship we follow orders,’ Jack said in mock tone. “Don’t get me wrong, we’re not best friends or anything, I wouldn’t buy her a birthday gift or anything. Hell, I probably wouldn’t even ask her to join me for a drink after a long day at work. But we’re okay. We cleared the airlock the night of the party- sure to an outsider that may have sounded like we still hated each other, but I think it was her way, our way, of settling our differences.”
After lasering the finishing touches, she nodded to herself and said confidently, “There. I’m done.”
She touched a few keys on her omnitool which flashed a still image of the final results up on the mirror for Shepard to approve. “Take a look. Tell me what you think, how you like it.”
Jack got up from her seated position on the small of shepard’s back and stood by the mirror, waiting for his reaction. “It reads…” she began, then stopped.
“I Fight for the Lost,” he said. “I know. It’s written in the ancient Earth language of Latin which is a staple of honour within the military community, and I think it encapsulates my struggle to win the War, my struggles for humanity, my sacrifices….and my relationship with you,” he said, pulling Jack towards him with his right arm and holding her closely, “perfectly. Thank you. This means, you mean so much to me and the gift of this new tattoo is an incredible representation of that.”
Shepard took Jack’s hand and walked back over to the bed where he lay down on his right side, propping his head up with his hand, leaning on his elbow. Jack lay beside him on her back, staring up through the glass viewport in the ceiling, looking out at the stars. Shepard gazed at her tattoos and began lightly tracing his left index finger over her tattooed stomach. Jack giggled but didn’t stop him from doing that.
Shepard lifted his head in surprise. “I never thought of you as the giggly type. I like it. Shows you have a soft side after all.”
“Yeah, I’m getting too soft from hanging around you, big guy,” she said, only half-joking.
“So now that I’ve rambled on for the past hour, I’m going to take a break and now I want to hear from you. As a former Yeoman I served with once remarked to me, “Jack’s tattoos are beautiful, as colourful as her past I’m sure’ And I know you’re a very private person…But I’ve always been curious about the meaning of each of your tattoos. They’re all so beautifully designed and impeccably arranged, but I’ve always been curious to know what they mean.”
Catching sight of two faces on Jack’s left forearm, he started there and pointed at them asking, “let’s start with these. They look like faces of….girls?” his voice trailed off in question. “Someone special, I take it. Who were they?”
Jack sighed heavily in contemplation and paused, wondering if she wanted to broach this subject with even the likes of Shepard. The one man in the whole galaxy whom she has learned she can count on no matter what. The one man in the galaxy whom she has learned to love and from whom she has learned what love is. She looked down on the angle at her arm and touched her arm with her right hand, pointing to each tattoo as she explained the meaning and history of each one.
“As you know, I grew up on Teltin and had to fight, both for scientific advancements and for my own survival. And as you know, I spent a lot of my teenaged years running with different gangs. Though many of the other kids at Teltin- the vast majority of them as a matter of fact- despised me because not only was I biotically stronger than them, I also hurt them and often pretty badly. They didn’t see or understand that I was forced to do it by Cerberus for the sake of their sick experiments- they just saw me. An angry, dangerous, aggressive, biotic bully who would do anything to ‘win’ the fight. And I get that. And I empathize with them. I can’t believe I’m saying that because it’s taken me a hell of a long time to learn what empathy is, but I do. And I even regret what I did and why I had to do it. You see, I always believed that I was singled out, that I was the target and the victim of Cerberus’ sick experiments and that I had it the worst. What makes it more important is what I learned while we were on Teltin together. But what I learned that day was that the other kids had it just as bad as I did, or worse. I wasn’t being singled out as the victim, instead I was being protected because I was their prized subject. They experimented on, tortured, and killed other kids as trial subjects for my benefit. What they learned through using those kids a guinea pigs, they claimed to make me ‘better’. As heinous and vile as it was, everything Cerberus did to them- everything they did to me as a result, was done for my benefit, because of the sacrifices of those other children’s lives. How screwed up is that? But that was my life then. Anyway, during the event that led to my escape…my escape was made possible because shit hit the fan, another routine day of tests went south real hard, real fast and before anyone knew it, there was utter chaos across the whole station. Once that cell door opened, I didn’t hesitate. I saw my chance to escape, and I took it. And I fought my way out the whole way, didn’t even stop to tie my boots. But there were a few select girls whom I grew close to and who saw me for me, who even liked me as a friend though I didn’t know what that was until much later. But the Blue Suns, including one Kai Leng, broke into Teltin and started shooting the place up. That’s what started the riot that I told you about. The faces of these two girls were two of my closest friends at the Facility, and this larger tattoo here,” she said, turning over slightly and exposing the back of her right shoulder…This is a tattoo of all the girls together. This was the first gang I ran with. There were nine of us all together. Their names are Joanna, Lineera, Heather, Abigail, Megan, Adeilita, Eydis and Perrine,” Jack said listing the names of each of the girls from memory as she moved her index finger over her shoulder to point at each face. “But in time we all came to consider each other as family. These girls were the closest thing I ever had to a family; they were my sisters. Some older than me, some younger. Then they were murdered in cold blood. You see, after I escaped Teltin I spent time on Omega and met this group of young human girls who had escaped Batarian slavers. We formed a gang. They became my sisters. We left Omega after a while and traveled around from system to system, but soon The Illusive Man’s goon, Kai Leng, caught up with us and murdered my sisters in cold blood in an effort to get to me. My escape from Teltin made the Illusive Man angry and so he’d sent Kai Leng to track me down and bring me back. Kai Leng murdered my sisters to hurt me and make me angry; he succeeded in at least one of those things. Making me angry. The bastard. I’d always hated him for what he’d done. Then after that day, only I was left. But when we’d discovered that he was hunting us and he was the one responsible for the destruction of Thessia, I’d wanted him dead even more. I was glad when you’d finally killed him during the mission on Cronos Station. Asshole got what he’d deserved. From what I can remember, I spent my very early childhood years on Eden Prime, but when I was maybe 3 or 4 Cerberus raided the outpost on Eden Prime and kidnapped a bunch of kids. I was among them, and I think at least two of these girls were with me, though I can’t remember. To this day I still think, feel and believe that they were my sisters. And these seemingly random sets of little numbers all over my arms in various places, these are the dates of their births and deaths, though scattered like much of their bodies were after the attack. No real meaning or order, like the Teltin Cerberus raid itself. They were the only ones who actually knew my true name, my birth name: Jennifer. Though after I escaped Teltin and left Omega behind, I buried my name along with my sisters and forged a new name, identity, and history for myself. These tattoos cover my scars in an attempt to write my own story, control my own destiny, erasing my past and burying my pain under layers of ink. If and when people looked at me, they would see layers of ink rather than layers of pain and anguish, and then I would be dismissed just as quickly. During my time with the gangs I told you about, I also went by the name Jacqueline Nought. That name crossed the former Shadow Broker’s desk at least once.”
Shepard’s expression changed momentarily as he remembered something.
“That reminds me….Yes, I remember now. Flying the skycar on the way to locate the Shadow Broker’s ship….I saw a huge billboard sized WANTED poster with your mug shot and the number 24601 on it. On the mug shot it had the name Jacqueline Nought on it.”
“An alias I used during my early gang years. When I hear the name Jennifer, my skin crawls. That’s why I only go by the name Jack now and why when Liara brought up the origin of my real name, Jennifer, when we ere back at Grissom Academy, I wanted to biotically throw her blue ass through the wall.” Damn her, why does she have to be so good at digging up dirt on people, sticking her nose into people’s pasts and digging up shit that should stay buried?
“Speaking of the Asari, this design here,” Jack said pointing to the lower-left side of her abdomen, “is my Asari family name. How I got that, and how I got involved with Asari, is a whole other story entirely and a very long one at that. But I suppose, it wouldn’t be far off to say that it is the reason why I am so indifferent towards Liara. My past and my experiences with the Asari family I was involved with, however long it may have been have left me detached, indifferent and not wanting to get too close to any other Asari.” Jack sighed heavily, “let’s just leave it at that and move on. These tear drop/raindrop shapes are the number of fellow gang members who have been killed on various missions we undertook over the years. Eighteen in total. Eighteen pointless, senseless deaths that could have been avoided if they hadn’t deviated from the plan.”
Shepard delicately rubbed his finger lightly between her cleavage. Jack jokingly swatted his hand away as she spontaneously burst out laughing. It was a genuine, all-out laugh. Then suddenly stopped and changed her tone to cover her surprise and insecurity with a more abrupt, annoyed tone “Ugh, hey! Perv!” emphasizing mock-disgust. Then after a moment of silent reconsideration she took his and replaced it where it was, resting on her breast.
“First, she giggles, now she laughs. What’s next?” Shepard asked rhetorically with a sense of playfulness. “I’ve never heard you laugh before. It was good to hear you laugh. You should laugh more often,” Shepard encouraged her affectionately. “I’m not trying to be nasty or anything, it’s not about that. I’m trying to point out another tattoo,” Shepard admitted. “These numbers, 6606,” he said still touching her, then looked at her throat and saw a different set of numbers, “and these one’s here on your throat… 6406? What are the meanings of these numbers?”
Jack lifted her right hand off his and unconsciously ran the fingers of her right hand her fingers over the right side of her throat where the numbers 6406 were tattooed and said in a tone that was almost vacant of expression, detached and rehearsed, “six-four-oh-six. Six thousand four hundred six. That was my cell number on Pragia. You remember when we went there to blow it up, and I showed you around my cell. Don’t know if you noticed this kinda thing with all the other crazy shit that was going on that day, but my cell number posted was posted above the door frame. The way I look at it, that cell was my home and the cell number was kind of like an apartment number. A way for me to identify that this cell, this house is mine. It’s one of the few actual possessions I had growing up. They didn’t intend for it to be seen that way, but I took whatever they gave me and claimed it. Made it mine.”
She moved her hand back to Shepard’s that was still resting gently on her right breast and repeated the same behaviour, though with slightly more emotion in her voice this time. “six-six-zero-six. Six thousand six hundred six. The total number of colonists on Eden Prime the day before the Cerberus raiders came to take me away to Teltin. I was only three or four when they took me, and I didn’t tattoo that number on myself until many years later, I think I may have been 18, maybe 20. It took some digging to find out that information—and to be honest, I’m not sure why I cared, why it mattered to me.”
“Because it’s part of what makes you who you are. Like it or not it’s where you came from, no matter how hard you may try to forget it. And it’s a way of remembering all the colonists who died that day. Not because of you of course, you are not responsible for their deaths, but you are just as affected as those others who may still be alive and somewhere in the galaxy and those who ultimately gave their lives. It is a way to remember those who died that day and who gave their life to prevent the raid and stop the attack. I think, as you got older whether you consciously realized it or not, some part of you wanted to keep their memory alive and as much as you could, stay rooted to where you come from.”
Jack sighed, then looked at Shepard affectionately. “I’ve never thought about it that way. Over the years, with so many tattoos that I’ve done trying to cover up my past, erase my past, run from, and even avoid my past I’ve done my best to make myself forget their meaning and instead think of them as simply tattoos, and nothing more. But you’re right. You’ve shown me I can’t do that. I inked myself with these specific tattoos for a reason and no matter where life takes me, I can’t ever forget that.”
Shepard looked on silently.
“And these numbers here and here,” she said, gesturing to her right bicep “8008- this is the registration number of the shuttle that belonged to that other guy I told you I was briefly involved with , Martok was his name, until he decided to play saviour and sacrifice himself in a vain effort to save me- even though I ended up making out on my own just fine.
Shepard propped himself up on his left elbow, then reached with his right hand to touch the front of Jack’s left shoulder. “And these? 427.11 This is a strange set of numbers; they have a decimal point in them.”
“Those numbers were the heading that Martok would have had to turn towards to save himself and get back to me. Idiot,” she added in a quiet yet dismissive tone, then paused and was silent for a moment.
“And these,” she added pointing to three paired columns of evenly matched circles; one extended the length of her back and her neck and two more, one on each arm, “these sets of circles are the injection sites of all the needles they stuck me with and filled me full of drugs for their experiments. They had me strapped into a chair of some sort and hooked up to a machine that would stick pairs of needles in me. All these circles up my arms, back and neck, serve as a permanent record and represent the areas I was injected and the number of times they injected me.” She paused in thought then said aloud, “I still get warm feelings during a fight, like my body is remembering being flooded with drugs. Though I have spent the last few years going clean. These tattoos are a reminder that I don’t ever want to get hooked on any kind of drug again.”
Jack shook her head and groaned in disgust with herself. “Ugh. Listen to me. I sound so pathetic. So boring. So….Weak. I have so many tattoos, all boring to me, and I could spend a lifetime just trying to tell you about all of them. You don't know what it's like to have garbage like that follow you around....It marks you in ways you can't imagine." She tilted her chin to look down at her stomach as she unconsciously traced the middle finger of her right hand over the large tattoo on her stomach. What happened to me in my past, I have to own that. I can’t change it, but I have to move forward. And my decision to cover myself in ink, I have to own that, too.
Shepard raised his left hand and stroke her chin with his index finger as he guided her view to match his so he could look her in the eye. “Hey. Stop, don’t talk like that. You’re not pathetic, it takes courage to face your past and with a past like you’ve had, I imagine it would be harder than most. That’s what you said to me after we returned from Pragia, remember? But you’ve grown so much in so many ways since then. And you’re certainly not weak. Jack, you’re the strongest person I know. Mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and heck- even physically, and I’m not just talking about Biotics. I’m simply going by pure physical human strength. More than that, it takes strength to admit you need help and courage enough to ask for it or accept it when someone offers. That you can’t do everything on your own, and that you don’t want to be alone. I remember the first night you came to me in my quarters, it was just before our Suicide Mission. You’d spent so much time previously pushing me away, putting up a wall, trying your damnedest to make me go away. But I didn’t, I persevered, and I was patient. I showed you in all the ways that I could that I was interested in you and that I wanted to be with you. Then I gave you space and time you needed to realize that. And when you did, you came up to me in my cabin here, and you said, “Shepard you’re right, I was thinking about you and you’re right…maybe I need…” I never did give you time to finish that sentence, because I wanted you to know that I wasn’t going to harass you with a laundry list of questions anymore. I simply wanted you to feel free, and to feel the security of the embrace of someone who loves you. I could happily spend another whole lifetime learning about all of your tattoos, and it would not be a boring or wasted life because I would be learning about the woman I love.”
Shepard paused, watching Jack with curiosity and intent, glancing from her face to her stomach periodically, as she continued to trace her finger over the tattoos on her stomach, silently lost in her own thoughts.
“I’ve noticed you paying more attention to your tattoos these past few minutes, since we started this conversation. You seem to be lost in thought about something, and your way of processing that is to trace your tattoos,” Shepard observed.
Jack stopped momentarily, as if feeling self-conscious about her behaviour, then looked at Shepard, “I’ve never really acknowledged my tattoos before, and talking about this…well, I guess it’s just my way of processing everything. By nature, I am a very physical person and I connect to people and things around me through touch. And you know I’m very open about my sexuality, so touching my own body in this way just makes sense to me and is oddly comforting and helpful.”
Just then the comm panel on Shepard’s computer terminal beeped. Ugh, what now? He thought. He slowly slid away from Jack, trying not to disturb her, not wanting to pull himself away from the most peaceful moment he’d had since that night of the party when he and Jack slept together for only the second time. But the comm panel continued to beep. He hurriedly jogged over to stand in front of his console and touched the button. “Yes? This is Shepard. Go ahead.”
Miranda’s voice filtered through the comm from down in the CIC. “Shepard, you have Fleet Admiral Hackett down here on Vid Comm down in the War Room. I know you’re spending time with Jack, so I can put it through to your cabin if you prefer. Audio only?” she suggested.
“No, that’s alright. Please tell the Admiral I apologize for keeping him waiting but I’ll be right down to conference with him in the Vid Comm. I just need to find my uniform,” Shepard added in a hushed tone of voice.
“What was that Shepard? Sorry I didn’t quite catch that,” Miranda answered.
“Nothing, nothing. Please just tell the Admiral I’ll be right down. Shepard out,”
“Understood, Shepard,” Miranda said, then closed the channel.
Jack sat up from her position on the bed, “what was that all about?”
Shepard shrugged as he walked down the single step to the lower floor then across the room to his locker where he pulled out a clean uniform and laid it across the bed. He lifted his left arm towards Jack and said, “I have to take a shower. Care to join me?”
Jack crawled across the bed and reached for his hand, “I thought you’d never ask. I’ve never used your shower before. Am I the first?” she asked playfully as she walked in front of him and then stopped abruptly and hip-checked him in a playful manner. Then she paused. “On second thought, I’ll let you shower alone—this time, as I know you need to rush down to talk to Admiral Hackett- and I would undoubtedly be a distraction. I’ll shower…alone once you leave.”
The core of my idea is to use Jack's tattoos like a puzzle or map that leads the crew on an adventure.....and the antagonist doing the stringing along is someone from Jack's past though she doesn't know it yet.
*Loosely based around the premise of the tv show Blindspot* But my real focus is on a Post Breath scene relationship between Jack and Shepard.
Anyways....if you would like tor ead what I have so far....I would very much appreciate if you wrote me back with comments etc.
After a mission had gone particularly bad, Shepard storms into the med bay just as Miranda is asking Dr. Chakwas for Medi-gel, and before the doctor can respond Shepard forcefully says "No. No Medi-gel for you! You missed shooting that mech in the eye from point blank range and your 'biotic slam' was more like a biotic tickle! What were you planning to do? Tickle the mech to death? Suck it up, you Cerberus Cheerleader! And the next time you go into battle with only a Predator Pistol, if you run out of clips, don't come looking to me for spares because you won't get any. Y'know, you're supposed to be this genetically enhanced super-biotic, but without proper armour Biotics alone won't save you. I do wish The Illusive Man had requisitioned you some proper armour years back because I waste a lot of medi-gel on that perfectly engineered ass of yours. So, if you insist on coming into battle dressed in something that makes you look like an Asari stripper, next time make sure it's worth it and try showing Cerberus some of those enhanced Biotics. Got it? I mean, Kaiden is a human biotic but at least he has the sense to come dressed in proper body armour and combat boots, not those ridiculous thigh-high boots you insist on wearing. Those can’t be comfortable and they’re sure as hell not practical for running around a battlefield. But Ashley would certainly like a pair of those, I’m sure."
Shepard turns sharply from his waist to look over his right shoulder at Garrus and glares intently at the Turian.
"And you! ‘Archangel!’ Bah! So-called 'bad-ass mercenary' The only thing that was bad out there today was your armour!"
Shepard walks up to him and sticks his fingers through the bullet holes in Garrus’ armour, wiggling his fingers mockingly.
"Look at this, it's pathetic! Your armour looks like Swiss Cheese, almost as bad as your ugly face! I know body armour is meant to stop bullets, but c'mon! That doesn't mean you have to stand head-on in front of a fecking gunship! I'm really disappointed in you Garrus. We go back a long way you and I, and so when I say, 'cover me' I expect you to lay down some covering fire...Not run for cover and hide behind a stone wall, then spend time daydreaming about the calibrations you're going to do to the Normandy's main gun while half of Cerberus is on my ass and wasting enough bullets to take down Harbinger!"
Shepard huffs in frustration as he walks towards the doors and throws up his hands, then turns back to glare and point at Miranda and Garrus who are coddling their wounds and their wounded pride, while sharing glances of shame and embarrassment between them.
"Miranda, you look like I just shot your sister. Quit looking at Garrus, he's not going to save you. He's on my list to be thrown out the airlock as much as you are. Miranda, if you want me to confine you to your office just say the word and I can tell EDI to lock your doors. You can whine and complain to the Illusive Man over your private QEC channel and cry to him all you want about how Shepard is acting. Oh, no, wait—you can’t because he’s dead just like the Reapers. Look, I really don’t give a pyjack’s butt what you do, just keep your whining sessions limited to the confines of your own office when no one else is around. And Garrus, stop looking Miranda. You look like someone just melted your Mantis for scrap parts even though it is a shoddy gun in comparison to the N7 Valiant V. If you want to be confined to the Main Battery, just say one more word and I'll gladly make it happen. I can take Tali, Liara, Ashley or James or Javik on my next missions if you two don't want to come. Hell, I’m sure I could even call up Grunt and Arlakh Company if the mission was really hairy. Grunt is always looking for things to shoot with his shotgun."
Shepard begins to walk towards the med bay doors again, then stops in thought and turns as if reaching a conclusion.
"That's it, I've had it! You've both lost your Medi-gel privileges! The next mission we go on, if either of you get so much as a paper cut, I don't want to hear any bitching or whining about it. So don't come to me whining, "Shepard, I need the medi-gel. I have a paper cut and it hurts like hell," or "Shepard I need the medi-gel, I've been shot’-- because you're not gonna get any. Hell, for that last one- I might just shoot you again myself just for the hell of it. Might be fun."
The was a collective pause as a long moment of silence fell over the room.
"Are we clear?"
Shepard walks away before either of them can answer. As the doors close behind him he hears Garrus and Miranda bickering back and forth about whose fault it was that Shepard was so pissed off, throwing blame back and forth but he doesn't care anymore. He walks away, shaking his head thinking to himself. I need to go see Jack. She might be a psychotic biotic, but right now she is the only one who makes sense on this ship and doesn’t give excuses when she screws up on a mission. All I hear from Miranda is “I can’t get a lock” or “I’m blocked.” At least when Jack is angry, she fights better. She is focused and more dangerous. When Miranda gets all hot and bothered, she’s more worried about breaking the heels on those ridiculous thigh-high boots she insists on wearing during missions. Kaiden is a human biotic but at least he has the good sense to come suited up in full and proper body armour. Even Ashley, die-hard military soldier through-and-through that she is. But I’m sure Ash would like to talk to Miranda about where she could get a pair of those thigh-high boots she wears, though Ashley would want a tinfoil miniskirt to go along with them. she would also insist that her skirt be designed with Alliance colours and symbols, not the colours or symbols of a ‘pro-human/anti-alien extremist group’ like Cerberus. And then Ash would probably want dinner first. Bunch of divas, the pair of them. As much as Jack refers to Miranda as the “Cerberus Cheerleader”, a nickname that is quickly catching on amongst the crew, thanks to Jack, and will probably stick for Miranda’s duration aboard the Normandy, Ashley is equally the Alliance Cheerleader and somewhat of a sorority sister the way she’s always touting how great the Alliance is and fawning after me even though she knows I’m with Jack now since she walked away from me on Horizon. I need to go see Jack; I think I need another tattoo. Maybe she can design one for me, something that exemplifies my anger and sends the message to the crew and my enemies, ‘don’t fuck with Commander Shepard’.
Meanwhile in the Med Bay, Miranda and Garrus are consoling each other and complaining about the insults their commanding officer just heaped upon them. Garrus was the first to speak. “I can’t believe he called my armour ‘Swiss Cheese.’ I don’t even know what that is, but it sounds disgusting so I think I should be mad or insulted. I often hear Tali talking about ‘herb-dextro cheese this’ or ‘herb-dextro cheese that’, and then mentioning how it ‘gunk’s up the filters in her suit’ so I can’t help but think how disgusting it sounds. My armour has served me well over the years and it was the first set of armour that I bought when I joined C-Sec with credits I had earned myself. My first pay cheque. Even my father was proud when he saw me in it for the first time, he may not have agreed with my choice of occupation choosing C-Sec over the Turian Military, but he respected the good quality of my armour and the independence of my choices. And my gun, my Mantis- I can’t believe he insulted my Mantis. Say what you want about the grade of armour a man chooses to wear into battle…But don’t poke holes or crack jokes about his choice of firearms.”
Miranda raised her left eyebrow with a smirk as she sat on the edge of the bed with one knee raised and foot up.
Noticing this look of amusement on his colleague’s face, Garrus said “Yes, I know I said it. “Poke holes.” It’s ironic considering my armour is presently filled with holes. Nothing that a few hours of modding can’t fix. But back to preference of firearms: What was it that Ash called it, her ‘Boom Stick’ ? That’s just a low blow from Shepard, one that even a Krogan might not recover from.”
“I know, right?” Miranda chimed in. “My father may have been an egotistical, maniacal, cold-hearted bastard who was more concerned about his own damned legacy than caring for his family, but he spent a lot of good credits on my genetic enhancements and my enhanced biotics, and Shepard tosses insults in my face like a Krogan tosses Pyjacks.”
They both exchanged looks of consolation while sitting in silence.
Meanwhile Shepard arrives down in the hold where Jack makes herself at home. Jack looks up from her seated position on her cot. “Hey, Shepard. You look pissed. Did the mission go south? Want to blow off some steam at the Armax Arsenal Arena? I could stand to shoot some things myself. It’s been a while since I’ve shot some mechs or thrown an Atlas. Of course, there are other ways we could relieve stress. I could help you pop your thermal clip, if you gave me something to…….explode,” she said not wanting to sound too vulgar while standing up from the cot, walking over to stand in front of Shepard and putting her arms around his neck suggestively. I am trying to clean up my language upon Commander Saunders suggestion. Even my students have noticed my attempts to sound professional rather than spouting off expletives she thought to herself.
“And if we really want to cut loose and have some fun, we could kick Joker out of the cockpit and finally take this ship for the joyride I mentioned all those years ago. I know it was only four years ago, but it seems like a lifetime has passed.”
Shepard grunted in amusement as he traced his fingers along Jack’s tattooed forearms. “You’re always so cute when you talk dirty. And while that does sound funny, throwing Joker out of the cockpit and going full burn, it’s not what I had in mind. Come with me, back up to my cabin. I have an idea, one that I think you’ll like.”
Jack slowly lowered her arms from around Shepard’s neck as they interlaced their fingers and stepped apart though still faced each other.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked, curiously.
While still holding her hand, Shepard started up the stairs from the cargo hold and headed towards the elevator. “Please, just come with me to my cabin. I’ll explain everything there.”
“Shepard,” she groaned, but otherwise said nothing and proceeded to follow him up the stairs.
They stepped inside the elevator silently, though Shepard continued to hold Jack’s hand the whole way up to the top until they got off the lift and approached the doors to his cabin. Shepard touched the ID panel and they took a small step just inside the doors.
“EDI, lock the door to my cabin. Authorization, Shepard four six Alpha Charlie.”
“Affirmative, Commander. Authorization verified and accepted. The doors to your cabin are now locked and you have complete privacy.”
Taking two more steps through the doorway passing his computer console and his glass case of model ships, Shepard turns around to face Jack and walks backwards passing the fish tank that was mounted into the wall on his right, down the step to the sunken floor, holding her hand lightly by the tips of her fingers.
Shepard looks at Jack’s left arm up and down and then moves his gaze across her tattooed chest as she slowly steps down the stairs.
“Hey, my eyes are up here….Perv,” she said with a smile and a tone that recalled the morning after the party at Shepard’s apartment when she woke up next to him after a wild night of partying, drinking, displays of biotic prowess, table-dancing, and some fun between the sheets. I thought I was kinky, and I am. But I guess I am making more of an impression on him than I give myself credit for.
Shepard cracks a smile. “No, it’s not that. Though it didn’t bother you last time, and then there were other people in the apartment, and they were awake. The walls in my apartment are unusually thick, but you know chances are they heard you scream things like ‘I will destroy you!’ and ‘rough stuff! I like it!’ during that wild night--”
Jack interrupted, ‘but what you didn’t hear me say that night was “’Finally…..Quiet. Just how I like it’ after you had fallen asleep. You were too busy snoring—and no that wasn’t KEI-9 or Eezo,” she chided him playfully with a shot in the arm. “Varrens don’t snore. And dog mechs?” she shook her head in response to her own rhetorical question as if to definitively tell Shepard that the only possible explanation left was him.
“I’m gonna tell the whole crew over the comm system that “our great commander Shepard snores while sleeping especially after a night of great fun between the sheets!”
Shepard grunted in amusement, “don’t you dare!” he said as he playfully tackled Jack and momentarily wrestled with her.
Moments later they stopped as Jack called “no joy” and tapped out, indicating she’d had enough.
Shepard shifted his gaze again to the large tattoo in the center of Jack’s chest. Is that a compass? he thought. Then returned his sight to look her in the eyes, and sighed again, heavily, pausing in thought. “You never really told me the whole story of your tattoos. I mean, I know you told me, and I quote “some of for prisons I’ve been in, some are for kills, y’know, the good ones. Some of them are from trying to cover up the Cerberus crap. Some are for shit that I’ve done, while others are for the people I’ve cared about, but they’re my business and nobody else’s.’ I know you’re typically a very private person, Jack, and I get that…But I’d like to know more. I mean there’s so many of them, and they are all so beautiful and obviously they all have a history and meaning for you. I get that, I do. But you and I have been going steady now for a while and we’ve been through some scary stuff. It’s been the best ride of any life that a sole-surviving, battle-scared, war-weary human biotic Orphan-turned-war hero like me could ever dream of or deserve. But I’m with you till death.”
“Don’t say that John, please,” Jack pleaded with obvious pain in her voice.
It was one of the few times she had actually referred to him by his first name, John, and not as ‘Shepard’ or “the Commander’.
Fighting back tears Jack’s mind suddenly flashed back to the events following the Battle of Earth when after weeks of repairs to the Normandy on some strange alien world they crash-landed on, Joker, Ashley, Liara, Tali, Cortez, Traynor, Garrus, Miranda and the rest of the Normandy crew flew back to Earth and joined her in the search for Shepard. Even Wrex, Eve and Grunt assisted in the search for their old friend with all of Clan Urdnot following lead.
With limited FTL support due to the damaged Mass Relays it seemed to take eons to reach Earth, but they arrived just in time. A large Search and Rescue squad, including the Normandy crew were searching for Shepard, and then she saw it: the glare of a dog tag against the flashlight of an assault rifle, combined with the movement and sound of a chunk of rubble being displaced. After lifting the rubble, she still couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing so she asked Grunt to roll him over onto his stomach so she could get a look at the back of his right shoulder. What was it that I said to him again, that night at his apartment about the tattoo I gave him? That it was “good enough so that you’re ever hurt, barely breathing, injured, dying, lying under a pile of rubble at the ass-end of the War, that that tattoo would be good enough to identify you. You’re gonna have something that tells the whole galaxy that you belong to me.”
Jack felt a light yet reassuring touch and her mind suddenly snapped back to the present reality, as John had moved his hand from tracing her tattoos to wiping away a tear that was falling down her face.
“I was just admiring your tattoos. I still can’t believe you did them all yourself. That takes some serious skill and a helluva steady hand. I’ve been thinking about getting another one. Mind doing another one for me?” he asked.
Jack shook her head to clear the fog of memories and wiped her eyes and nose with her left forearm as she collected her thoughts. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, sure. What’d ya have in mind?” she asked. “You looked pretty pissed when you first came down here….so I’m thinking something angry, something bad-ass….something that is perhaps not Marine-sanctioned,” she said with a glint of creative spark in her eyes. She turned away, “just let me get my tools,” she said, still blinking away tears as she went to a drawer and pulled out a small rectangular box with a laser needle inside. “You know the drill: Get un-dressed, or at least take off your shirt.”
As Shepard removed his shirt and proceeded to lay down on the bed on his stomach, Jack asked, “you’ve been avoiding my question since you came down here. What’s got you so pissed?” she prodded.
“It’s just the crew. It’s like ever since you found me back on Earth things just haven’t been the same. I thought things would go back to normal, that we would be the crew of the Normandy again, but everyone is just so different. Take today for example: Miranda and Garrus and I are out on a mission, and what should be a cakewalk turned into a train wreck. Miranda missed shooting a mech in the eye from point-blank range- a shot she normally makes from fifty feet without batting an eyelash, and her famous biotic slam had about as much force as a feather. If I didn’t know any better, I’d’ve sworn she was meaning to tickle the mech into submission and overload its circuits from sheer sensation overload. Over stimulus of a sensation that they weren’t designed to process. I got so sick of her telling me “I can’t get a lock on my target” when I gave the order for a biotic strike, or ‘I’m blocked’ when I told her to fire at a group of enemies. And by the time the mission was finally over, I’d lost track how much medi-gel I had used up reviving her perfect, genetically engineered ass in the middle of a firefight. And Garrus? He’s one tough Turian, but every time I told him to cover me and lay down some covering fire, he would run for cover of his own….and get lost in thoughts of the list of calibrations he has to do on the main gun. I’m screaming at him at the top of my lungs from three or four meters away to return fire…But he’s lost in his fantasy world about ‘calibrations’. Then, you know what he does? He stands up and rushes out of cover just in time to be met squarely by a gunship and riddled with bullets that cut through his armour like Swiss Cheese.”
“Sounds rough, soldier boy,” Jack answered earnestly. “But everyone has their off days. Everyone needs some down time, that’s why the party at your apartment was such a massive hit.”
Shepard grunted in mild disagreement. “Don’t talk to me about ‘downtime’, please. The last thing I remember about one of my crew taking ‘down time’, it was just before the Battle for Earth after we had assaulted the Cerberus base, and I found Ashley completely passed right out on the floor of the starboard observation lounge, lying next to an empty bottle. I don’t know what is going on with Ash these days, but she’s been hitting the bottle pretty hard, and her uncharacteristic behaviour has only been increasing since that time I first met her after her unit was wiped out on Eden Prime back in ’83. I went down to the Cargo Bay of the original Normandy to get her insight about a mission we had just finished, and next thing I know she’s asking me to join her for a drink to celebrate Armistice Day and the legacy of her grandfather who lost the Battle of Shanxi. Not wanting to appear anti-social, I agreed to the drink during our next down time. Things started out friendly and all….But before I knew it she was hitting the bottle pretty hard and rambling on about “the Williams’ Curse”. I gathered that family issues can affect different people in different ways, and we all have baggage. I mean, take me for example: I’m the sole survivor of what is known as “The Akuze Incident” where a Thresher Maw decimated my entire unit. That was the first time that anyone in the Alliance had contact with the creature we came to know as Thresher Maws, and I am the only one left alive to talk about it. The planet was desolate, no water, barely any source of what humans might call food for days on end. No shelter, trapped in an extreme and hostile environment on my own for nearly two whole weeks until an Alliance vessel happened to be passing by the system while launching research probes. I reconfigured the Probe to send a signal back to the vessel and once they decoded it, they immediately sent down a rescue team. I was debriefed, given a day of rest, then given a medal, a promotion to Lieutenant-Commander, the position of Executive Officer aboard the Alliance’s newest cutting-edge ship, The Normandy, and sent on my way. I couldn’t believe it: My whole unit was wiped out and they not only awarded me for it, but they also promoted me and gave me second-in-command of their newest project. I never could understand the logic of the Alliance brass, sometimes I still can’t. But I accepted the position and did my best to move on. My point is, we all deal with things differently. But my previous interactions with Ash at that point had been very in-line with military conduct, and she even opened up about her faith in God. Which I happen to share, but the hard-nosed drinker is not a character label that I would have fit for Ash. Then there was that incident in the starboard lounge aboard the Normandy SR-2. An entire bottle all to herself, and she never spoke to me or anyone about anything that may have been bothering her, yet she told me that James told her that he had just the thing to help her take her mind of stuff and de-stress. So right there is more evidence that she was getting hot with Vega. And then there was that drinking contest she challenged me to at one of the bars on the Silver Sun Strip the afternoon before the big party. It’s like she wanted to prove to me that not only was she worthy of her rank and Spectre status—even it is done in name only- and awarded to her by a traitor who was later killed for attempting a coup- but it’s like she also wanted to prove to me that she could drink me under the table. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a drink every now and then to blow off steam and socialize as much as the next soldier…But there was definitely something more to this with Ash, and I can’t figure out what or why. So, I put a stop to it. Actually, I’m glad that Batarian and his Salarian friend started a fight. Gave me an out, an excuse to break it off while I was a head so that she could save face. But I think she may still be harboring resentment towards me for getting involved with you after she walked away from me on Horizon. She made it pretty damn clear that day that she was confused about who I was, unsure if she could trust me, and needed some space to figure things out. And then there was our meeting on Earth just before my supposed trial that never really happened because of the invasion by the Reapers. That was awkward. But she continuously questioned me during that whole mission on Mars, questioned my orders, second guessed my personhood and identity, while interrogating me about my relationship and work with Cerberus even though I made in crystal clear that I wasn’t working for Cerberus. I had worked with them, and only because the Alliance wasn’t getting off its ass and Cerberus at the time seemed to be the only ones who gave a damn about what was happening to humanity. They even gave me resources, a ship, a crew…how could I not fall in line? Yet after my arrest under the Alliance, I made it clear to Ash then that I had zero contact with Cerberus and I would stand against them even then and even Vega backed me up on that. She and I had been through hell together and more than anyone, save for you Jack, Ash should understand that I never do anything without a damn good reason and I’m still the same Commander Shepard that I’ve always been. I went to visit her in the hospital after she was injured on Mars, I came by regularly and we talked. We hashed things out, and I felt we had come to a mutual understanding. But still, she makes comments that lead me to believe she is holding on to….something. Then she goes after Vega and starts getting cuddly with him that night during the party especially, which is fine. I could care less who or my crew associate with or becomes involved with romantically. The personal lives of my crew aren’t any of my business unless they voluntarily choose to involve me. I mean, the way I see it the Normandy crew is very diverse. We have Alliance officers such as me or Ashley or James, we have former Cerberus defectors, former C-Sec officers, bounty hunters, humans and non-humans…and yet we all now live and work and fly under the same roof. Given enough time, people are going to find friends and….more than friends whom they develop an interest in and become romantically involved with. And that’s fine. But don’t quote Tennyson and Whitman to me, love me, leave me, say you want nothing to do with me, and then judge me based on whom I choose to move on with while you are obviously doing the same thing with someone else under my command. That’s just the vorcha calling the batarian ugly. I’m sorry, but that kind of double-standard doesn’t fly with me personally or professionally. And she was the one who initially wanted to become involved in the first place, then she goes all hardline on me quoting regs for this and that. I felt as though she was imposing a standard of military regulation and discipline upon our relationship that in the end, even she couldn’t live up to. Which is part of the reason why, after she left me on Horizon that day, it was so much easier and more freeing to walk away and happily pursue my relationship with you, Jack.”
Jack nodded silently, as she understood that Shepard was referring to Ashley’s hard feelings and disapproval of Shepard’s relationship with her even though she walked away first.
There was an extended moment of silence between Shepard and Jack, before he continued, “But I tell you, the next I find her in the floor of the lounge lying next to an empty bottle, I swear I am going to make good on my threat to have Joker sing to her over the comm as loudly as he can, while testing the fire alarms. If only Mordin were alive, he could join in. He could sing his Salarian Scientist version of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Modern Major-General”. That would really annoy her! She never did like Mordin’s singing. Ah, Mordin. He was a good friend and a damn good scientist. Wrex had it right when he’d said that Mordin ‘should’ve been a Krogan. Had the heart and the quads of a Krogan. An honour to call him friend,’ and it truly was. But I don’t give a Krogan’s quads if she and James want to hook up, personally I think they should. They’re the right kind of match for each other, and maybe just maybe, they’ll teach each other some humility and kick each other off the spaceports they put themselves so high up on. But you said it though, Jack,” John said amused, “You always refer to Miranda as the “Cerberus Cheerleader”, and she really is—or was. She left Cerberus after we destroyed the Collector Base. When The Illusive Man discovered that she’d help me on our Suicide Mission and then didn’t prevent me from blowing the Collector Base to hell, he’d felt she’d double-crossed him, so he put a death mark out on her. Sent his best agents and every other bounty hunter and merc in the galaxy out to look for her. Even activated other Cerberus sleeper cells and told people in those cells that she was a wanted fugitive. Told them it was their duty to hunt her down and bring her in, alive or dead, and if they didn’t, he would consider them traitors to be executed right along with her. So, when we met a few months ago and she’d warned me about Horizon, then helped me stop her father and saved her sister, she figured she’d owed me more than she could ever repay in credits or otherwise. So, I told her I would consider us even if she came back to join my crew on the Normandy permanently. She argued with me at first because she didn’t want to join the Alliance, figured that was just jumping ship and trading one organization for another. I told her she had a fair point. She didn’t have to join the Alliance, instead, I got her special permission from the very top of the Alliance brass to become a permanent member of my crew…as a civilian. She agreed to that quite readily,” Shepard continued. “Now she sort of does what Kelly Chambers used to do for me. I often think of Kelly Chambers, wonder what she’s up to, who she is now, where she is, what kind of life she has made for herself. Have even entertained the thought of tracking her down and asking her to rejoin us here on the Normandy now that Cerberus and the Reapers are gone for good. Hmm, maybe I still will someday. Anyways, about Miranda: She serves off-the-books in an officially unofficial capacity as my Yeoman, notifying me of messages, meetings, schedules, things-to-do etc. But with her degrees in Psychology, she is taking on the role of Ships’ Counselor; a position that she has gravitated towards quite readily. But you know, the more I interact with Ashley, I would say she is the Alliance equivalent. She’s become an “Alliance Cheerleader” and a bit of a sorority sister, the way she always hangs all over Vega- especially when she thinks there’s a chance I may be around or watching, and then when he’s not around, she tries to be my groupie. And she’s always on me about Military discipline. The poster child for the Alliance. Like I said, “Cheerleader.”
There was another pause of silence between Shepard and Jack before he concluded, “enough about my problems. Sorry for ranting. I guess I didn’t realize I was holding so much inside, but thanks for listening. I just want you to know what I am completely committed to you in every way. I don’t know how long I was buried for, or how long I was unconscious. When you found me under that rubble, I knew I meant something special to you, and I was glad it was you and nobody else who found me. It was then that I truly realized that you are my center, Jack. You are my motivation, inspiration, and the reason why I get up in the morning. I’ll go to the ends of universe for you. Fight a legion of Harbinger-Class Reapers for you, I hope you know that.”
“I do,” she said reassuringly, kissing him on the cheek. “But what I really want to know and have been waiting to hear from you about is what kind of tattoo you want.”
“Well, to finally answer your question….I was pissed off when I first came down here, and I was tempted to ask you to give me a tattoo that symbolized my anger and frustration and made a bold statement. And I still kind of do want that. But now, honestly, you know me as well if not better than anyone—Ashley included, so I want you to give me a tattoo that you think speaks to who I am and what I have experienced.
Jack paused for a moment in thought, then looked around the room, thoughtfully, for ideas and inspiration. Noticing his display case of medals, she moved her gaze to his desk where she took note of the Medal of Valor on the back-left corner and moving from left right the row continued, the Medal of Honour, the Medal of Distinguished Service, Medal of Heroism, Medal of Freedom, the list goes on….Damn, Shepard,” Jack said aloud, “I’m not a Military Historian but these are some of the Alliance’s highest honours,” as she surveyed the line of plaques on his desk. Then she looked back to the display case. “And I can see you keep the rest of your collection in there. I swear, you have the entire stock of Alliance medals. They won’t have any more to give out to future soldiers because you have them all. They’ve run out, thanks to you.” Then something drew her attention back to his desk and she suddenly noticed that front-and-center, amid all those amazing achievements of humanity, there was a picture of her.
Sensing her long pause and where her gaze was at this point in time, Shepard spoke up, “but more than any of those medals, you mean the most to me. You are what is and who is important to me in this life and the next. Don’t get me wrong, those medals have meaning for me especially since I lost a lot of friends along the road to getting those medals, and even the loss of friends are some of the reasons for those medals. But if a pirate hijacked my ship tomorrow, kidnapped you and held my entire medal collection for ransom, I would give him his ransom in exchange for your life without a second’s hesitation. Those medals have little value or meaning to me in comparison to you, Jack. I love you; I want you to know that.”
Jack leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I do.”
Looking at the row of medals on his desk again, she scanned them and downloaded them to her omni-tool. Then finding a heart-shaped medal in the display case on the second shelf from the bottom, this one is odd, it doesn’t seem like a military style medal. I mean, I’ve heard of the Purple Heart and Purple Heart with Clusters, denoting the rescue and survival of a wounded comrade when you yourself are wounded and taking fire. You risk your life to save theirs. But this heart….this is red, like the colour of love…..Wiping away another tear from her right eye as it formed in her tear ducts and before it could roll down her face and fall onto Shepard’s back—she didn’t want him to see that she was crying again—she took a breath and set to work creating different design layouts that combined images of the medals she scanned. When she found an arrangement she was satisfied with, Jack saved it to her omnitool, then leaned forward and paused before etching it into the back of Shepard’s left shoulder, opposite the skull she had drawn for him during the party.
“You still don’t have a license for this, do you? Remind me again where you were educated.” he asked jokingly.
“No, and I don’t plan on ever getting one. I’ll tell you now what I told you the night of the party: slinging ink is art. You don’t need a license to make art.’ And as for my so-called ‘education’, I was self-taught. It’s not like I went to some fancy University or Graphic Design School to learn this. I learned by doing, and I did them on myself. Besides, you’re the only person who has ever mattered enough to me that I would do one for you. I’ve never really done any for anyone but myself.” She paused.
“Okay, get ready because here it comes—” she said, leaning over.
“Oh no. No no, no no, no no- Ow! Ah!” Shepard blurted out in anticipation, as Jack activated the laser needle. “Ugh. I’d forgotten how much that first part stings. Can it at least be quick and painless this time?”
“Yeah, that first second or two when the laser needle pierces the skin for the first time is often the worst part, then you get used to it after a while and it feels kinda warm, maybe even tickles. Unless you’ve done so many all over your body like me that you desensitize yourself to the pain. Then you don’t even feel anything. But I’ve warned you before to hold still. It hurts more if you squirm. As for being quick—unless you want a botched job that would make you the laughingstock of the Marine Corps, it will take as long as it takes. I’m not one for making mistakes and doing shitty tattoos, I take pride in my work, so my advice is just to sit there and enjoy it.”
Jack made the first several etchings of the first medal design.
It was a cluster of the medals she saw on his desk in a tight four square shield formation, with the red heart in the center, and a banner across the bottom that reads Ego pro deperdito in Latin, an ancient language native to Earth of many millennia ago. In the common language of the modern galaxy, it reads “I Fight For The Lost”
“Okay, so I can’t call her the “Cerberus Cheerleader” anymore. Miranda, I mean. What if I just shortened it to “Cheerleader?” she asked aloud while still working on the tattoo, going back to a comment and line of conversation from several minutes ago, then digging the laser needle in a little deeper into the muscle of Shepard’s shoulder to ensure the etching would stay permanent.
“Ah—Ow,” Shepard stifled a groan of pain, burying his face in the mattress.
“Sorry, but next time hold still. I know we’re talking, but this is harder to do if you keep moving around. And it will take longer. So just keep your ass still,” she said as she continued to work.
“Yes, Boss Lady,” Shepard said almost mockingly. “Never argue with a woman holding a laser needle--Call her whatever you want,” Shepard said, answering her question, “just remember what happened last time in her office when the two of you had a ‘disagreement’ and a biotic-standoff. And try not to throw any furniture.
“That was fun,” Jack said with a smirk. “I remember that. Oh, don’t get me wrong. When Miranda confronted me in her office and tried to physically restrain me, then had the nerve to deny what Cerberus had done to me…I was fuming, so I threw a chair at her and called her “bitch” while threatening to smear the wall with her. Fortunately for her she is a biotic too, so she was able to slow down the chair coming at her head before she redirected it to hit the wall instead. And then you walked in and interrupted the fun,” Jack said, sarcastically.
“I’m just glad you’ve mended your differences and are at least on civil speaking terms with each other,” Shepard said, earnestly. “I need everyone on my crew to work together. You may not like each other, but you do have to work together so it’s best to be professional about it.”
“Ah,” Jack said, almost dismissively, “Miranda and I are good. She’s better now since she left Cerberus and now that The Illusive Man is dead and gone. Not so uptight, less by-the-book and ‘on this ship we follow orders,’ Jack said in mock tone. “Don’t get me wrong, we’re not best friends or anything, I wouldn’t buy her a birthday gift or anything. Hell, I probably wouldn’t even ask her to join me for a drink after a long day at work. But we’re okay. We cleared the airlock the night of the party- sure to an outsider that may have sounded like we still hated each other, but I think it was her way, our way, of settling our differences.”
After lasering the finishing touches, she nodded to herself and said confidently, “There. I’m done.”
She touched a few keys on her omnitool which flashed a still image of the final results up on the mirror for Shepard to approve. “Take a look. Tell me what you think, how you like it.”
Jack got up from her seated position on the small of shepard’s back and stood by the mirror, waiting for his reaction. “It reads…” she began, then stopped.
“I Fight for the Lost,” he said. “I know. It’s written in the ancient Earth language of Latin which is a staple of honour within the military community, and I think it encapsulates my struggle to win the War, my struggles for humanity, my sacrifices….and my relationship with you,” he said, pulling Jack towards him with his right arm and holding her closely, “perfectly. Thank you. This means, you mean so much to me and the gift of this new tattoo is an incredible representation of that.”
Shepard took Jack’s hand and walked back over to the bed where he lay down on his right side, propping his head up with his hand, leaning on his elbow. Jack lay beside him on her back, staring up through the glass viewport in the ceiling, looking out at the stars. Shepard gazed at her tattoos and began lightly tracing his left index finger over her tattooed stomach. Jack giggled but didn’t stop him from doing that.
Shepard lifted his head in surprise. “I never thought of you as the giggly type. I like it. Shows you have a soft side after all.”
“Yeah, I’m getting too soft from hanging around you, big guy,” she said, only half-joking.
“So now that I’ve rambled on for the past hour, I’m going to take a break and now I want to hear from you. As a former Yeoman I served with once remarked to me, “Jack’s tattoos are beautiful, as colourful as her past I’m sure’ And I know you’re a very private person…But I’ve always been curious about the meaning of each of your tattoos. They’re all so beautifully designed and impeccably arranged, but I’ve always been curious to know what they mean.”
Catching sight of two faces on Jack’s left forearm, he started there and pointed at them asking, “let’s start with these. They look like faces of….girls?” his voice trailed off in question. “Someone special, I take it. Who were they?”
Jack sighed heavily in contemplation and paused, wondering if she wanted to broach this subject with even the likes of Shepard. The one man in the whole galaxy whom she has learned she can count on no matter what. The one man in the galaxy whom she has learned to love and from whom she has learned what love is. She looked down on the angle at her arm and touched her arm with her right hand, pointing to each tattoo as she explained the meaning and history of each one.
“As you know, I grew up on Teltin and had to fight, both for scientific advancements and for my own survival. And as you know, I spent a lot of my teenaged years running with different gangs. Though many of the other kids at Teltin- the vast majority of them as a matter of fact- despised me because not only was I biotically stronger than them, I also hurt them and often pretty badly. They didn’t see or understand that I was forced to do it by Cerberus for the sake of their sick experiments- they just saw me. An angry, dangerous, aggressive, biotic bully who would do anything to ‘win’ the fight. And I get that. And I empathize with them. I can’t believe I’m saying that because it’s taken me a hell of a long time to learn what empathy is, but I do. And I even regret what I did and why I had to do it. You see, I always believed that I was singled out, that I was the target and the victim of Cerberus’ sick experiments and that I had it the worst. What makes it more important is what I learned while we were on Teltin together. But what I learned that day was that the other kids had it just as bad as I did, or worse. I wasn’t being singled out as the victim, instead I was being protected because I was their prized subject. They experimented on, tortured, and killed other kids as trial subjects for my benefit. What they learned through using those kids a guinea pigs, they claimed to make me ‘better’. As heinous and vile as it was, everything Cerberus did to them- everything they did to me as a result, was done for my benefit, because of the sacrifices of those other children’s lives. How screwed up is that? But that was my life then. Anyway, during the event that led to my escape…my escape was made possible because shit hit the fan, another routine day of tests went south real hard, real fast and before anyone knew it, there was utter chaos across the whole station. Once that cell door opened, I didn’t hesitate. I saw my chance to escape, and I took it. And I fought my way out the whole way, didn’t even stop to tie my boots. But there were a few select girls whom I grew close to and who saw me for me, who even liked me as a friend though I didn’t know what that was until much later. But the Blue Suns, including one Kai Leng, broke into Teltin and started shooting the place up. That’s what started the riot that I told you about. The faces of these two girls were two of my closest friends at the Facility, and this larger tattoo here,” she said, turning over slightly and exposing the back of her right shoulder…This is a tattoo of all the girls together. This was the first gang I ran with. There were nine of us all together. Their names are Joanna, Lineera, Heather, Abigail, Megan, Adeilita, Eydis and Perrine,” Jack said listing the names of each of the girls from memory as she moved her index finger over her shoulder to point at each face. “But in time we all came to consider each other as family. These girls were the closest thing I ever had to a family; they were my sisters. Some older than me, some younger. Then they were murdered in cold blood. You see, after I escaped Teltin I spent time on Omega and met this group of young human girls who had escaped Batarian slavers. We formed a gang. They became my sisters. We left Omega after a while and traveled around from system to system, but soon The Illusive Man’s goon, Kai Leng, caught up with us and murdered my sisters in cold blood in an effort to get to me. My escape from Teltin made the Illusive Man angry and so he’d sent Kai Leng to track me down and bring me back. Kai Leng murdered my sisters to hurt me and make me angry; he succeeded in at least one of those things. Making me angry. The bastard. I’d always hated him for what he’d done. Then after that day, only I was left. But when we’d discovered that he was hunting us and he was the one responsible for the destruction of Thessia, I’d wanted him dead even more. I was glad when you’d finally killed him during the mission on Cronos Station. Asshole got what he’d deserved. From what I can remember, I spent my very early childhood years on Eden Prime, but when I was maybe 3 or 4 Cerberus raided the outpost on Eden Prime and kidnapped a bunch of kids. I was among them, and I think at least two of these girls were with me, though I can’t remember. To this day I still think, feel and believe that they were my sisters. And these seemingly random sets of little numbers all over my arms in various places, these are the dates of their births and deaths, though scattered like much of their bodies were after the attack. No real meaning or order, like the Teltin Cerberus raid itself. They were the only ones who actually knew my true name, my birth name: Jennifer. Though after I escaped Teltin and left Omega behind, I buried my name along with my sisters and forged a new name, identity, and history for myself. These tattoos cover my scars in an attempt to write my own story, control my own destiny, erasing my past and burying my pain under layers of ink. If and when people looked at me, they would see layers of ink rather than layers of pain and anguish, and then I would be dismissed just as quickly. During my time with the gangs I told you about, I also went by the name Jacqueline Nought. That name crossed the former Shadow Broker’s desk at least once.”
Shepard’s expression changed momentarily as he remembered something.
“That reminds me….Yes, I remember now. Flying the skycar on the way to locate the Shadow Broker’s ship….I saw a huge billboard sized WANTED poster with your mug shot and the number 24601 on it. On the mug shot it had the name Jacqueline Nought on it.”
“An alias I used during my early gang years. When I hear the name Jennifer, my skin crawls. That’s why I only go by the name Jack now and why when Liara brought up the origin of my real name, Jennifer, when we ere back at Grissom Academy, I wanted to biotically throw her blue ass through the wall.” Damn her, why does she have to be so good at digging up dirt on people, sticking her nose into people’s pasts and digging up shit that should stay buried?
“Speaking of the Asari, this design here,” Jack said pointing to the lower-left side of her abdomen, “is my Asari family name. How I got that, and how I got involved with Asari, is a whole other story entirely and a very long one at that. But I suppose, it wouldn’t be far off to say that it is the reason why I am so indifferent towards Liara. My past and my experiences with the Asari family I was involved with, however long it may have been have left me detached, indifferent and not wanting to get too close to any other Asari.” Jack sighed heavily, “let’s just leave it at that and move on. These tear drop/raindrop shapes are the number of fellow gang members who have been killed on various missions we undertook over the years. Eighteen in total. Eighteen pointless, senseless deaths that could have been avoided if they hadn’t deviated from the plan.”
Shepard delicately rubbed his finger lightly between her cleavage. Jack jokingly swatted his hand away as she spontaneously burst out laughing. It was a genuine, all-out laugh. Then suddenly stopped and changed her tone to cover her surprise and insecurity with a more abrupt, annoyed tone “Ugh, hey! Perv!” emphasizing mock-disgust. Then after a moment of silent reconsideration she took his and replaced it where it was, resting on her breast.
“First, she giggles, now she laughs. What’s next?” Shepard asked rhetorically with a sense of playfulness. “I’ve never heard you laugh before. It was good to hear you laugh. You should laugh more often,” Shepard encouraged her affectionately. “I’m not trying to be nasty or anything, it’s not about that. I’m trying to point out another tattoo,” Shepard admitted. “These numbers, 6606,” he said still touching her, then looked at her throat and saw a different set of numbers, “and these one’s here on your throat… 6406? What are the meanings of these numbers?”
Jack lifted her right hand off his and unconsciously ran the fingers of her right hand her fingers over the right side of her throat where the numbers 6406 were tattooed and said in a tone that was almost vacant of expression, detached and rehearsed, “six-four-oh-six. Six thousand four hundred six. That was my cell number on Pragia. You remember when we went there to blow it up, and I showed you around my cell. Don’t know if you noticed this kinda thing with all the other crazy shit that was going on that day, but my cell number posted was posted above the door frame. The way I look at it, that cell was my home and the cell number was kind of like an apartment number. A way for me to identify that this cell, this house is mine. It’s one of the few actual possessions I had growing up. They didn’t intend for it to be seen that way, but I took whatever they gave me and claimed it. Made it mine.”
She moved her hand back to Shepard’s that was still resting gently on her right breast and repeated the same behaviour, though with slightly more emotion in her voice this time. “six-six-zero-six. Six thousand six hundred six. The total number of colonists on Eden Prime the day before the Cerberus raiders came to take me away to Teltin. I was only three or four when they took me, and I didn’t tattoo that number on myself until many years later, I think I may have been 18, maybe 20. It took some digging to find out that information—and to be honest, I’m not sure why I cared, why it mattered to me.”
“Because it’s part of what makes you who you are. Like it or not it’s where you came from, no matter how hard you may try to forget it. And it’s a way of remembering all the colonists who died that day. Not because of you of course, you are not responsible for their deaths, but you are just as affected as those others who may still be alive and somewhere in the galaxy and those who ultimately gave their lives. It is a way to remember those who died that day and who gave their life to prevent the raid and stop the attack. I think, as you got older whether you consciously realized it or not, some part of you wanted to keep their memory alive and as much as you could, stay rooted to where you come from.”
Jack sighed, then looked at Shepard affectionately. “I’ve never thought about it that way. Over the years, with so many tattoos that I’ve done trying to cover up my past, erase my past, run from, and even avoid my past I’ve done my best to make myself forget their meaning and instead think of them as simply tattoos, and nothing more. But you’re right. You’ve shown me I can’t do that. I inked myself with these specific tattoos for a reason and no matter where life takes me, I can’t ever forget that.”
Shepard looked on silently.
“And these numbers here and here,” she said, gesturing to her right bicep “8008- this is the registration number of the shuttle that belonged to that other guy I told you I was briefly involved with , Martok was his name, until he decided to play saviour and sacrifice himself in a vain effort to save me- even though I ended up making out on my own just fine.
Shepard propped himself up on his left elbow, then reached with his right hand to touch the front of Jack’s left shoulder. “And these? 427.11 This is a strange set of numbers; they have a decimal point in them.”
“Those numbers were the heading that Martok would have had to turn towards to save himself and get back to me. Idiot,” she added in a quiet yet dismissive tone, then paused and was silent for a moment.
“And these,” she added pointing to three paired columns of evenly matched circles; one extended the length of her back and her neck and two more, one on each arm, “these sets of circles are the injection sites of all the needles they stuck me with and filled me full of drugs for their experiments. They had me strapped into a chair of some sort and hooked up to a machine that would stick pairs of needles in me. All these circles up my arms, back and neck, serve as a permanent record and represent the areas I was injected and the number of times they injected me.” She paused in thought then said aloud, “I still get warm feelings during a fight, like my body is remembering being flooded with drugs. Though I have spent the last few years going clean. These tattoos are a reminder that I don’t ever want to get hooked on any kind of drug again.”
Jack shook her head and groaned in disgust with herself. “Ugh. Listen to me. I sound so pathetic. So boring. So….Weak. I have so many tattoos, all boring to me, and I could spend a lifetime just trying to tell you about all of them. You don't know what it's like to have garbage like that follow you around....It marks you in ways you can't imagine." She tilted her chin to look down at her stomach as she unconsciously traced the middle finger of her right hand over the large tattoo on her stomach. What happened to me in my past, I have to own that. I can’t change it, but I have to move forward. And my decision to cover myself in ink, I have to own that, too.
Shepard raised his left hand and stroke her chin with his index finger as he guided her view to match his so he could look her in the eye. “Hey. Stop, don’t talk like that. You’re not pathetic, it takes courage to face your past and with a past like you’ve had, I imagine it would be harder than most. That’s what you said to me after we returned from Pragia, remember? But you’ve grown so much in so many ways since then. And you’re certainly not weak. Jack, you’re the strongest person I know. Mentally, psychologically, emotionally, and heck- even physically, and I’m not just talking about Biotics. I’m simply going by pure physical human strength. More than that, it takes strength to admit you need help and courage enough to ask for it or accept it when someone offers. That you can’t do everything on your own, and that you don’t want to be alone. I remember the first night you came to me in my quarters, it was just before our Suicide Mission. You’d spent so much time previously pushing me away, putting up a wall, trying your damnedest to make me go away. But I didn’t, I persevered, and I was patient. I showed you in all the ways that I could that I was interested in you and that I wanted to be with you. Then I gave you space and time you needed to realize that. And when you did, you came up to me in my cabin here, and you said, “Shepard you’re right, I was thinking about you and you’re right…maybe I need…” I never did give you time to finish that sentence, because I wanted you to know that I wasn’t going to harass you with a laundry list of questions anymore. I simply wanted you to feel free, and to feel the security of the embrace of someone who loves you. I could happily spend another whole lifetime learning about all of your tattoos, and it would not be a boring or wasted life because I would be learning about the woman I love.”
Shepard paused, watching Jack with curiosity and intent, glancing from her face to her stomach periodically, as she continued to trace her finger over the tattoos on her stomach, silently lost in her own thoughts.
“I’ve noticed you paying more attention to your tattoos these past few minutes, since we started this conversation. You seem to be lost in thought about something, and your way of processing that is to trace your tattoos,” Shepard observed.
Jack stopped momentarily, as if feeling self-conscious about her behaviour, then looked at Shepard, “I’ve never really acknowledged my tattoos before, and talking about this…well, I guess it’s just my way of processing everything. By nature, I am a very physical person and I connect to people and things around me through touch. And you know I’m very open about my sexuality, so touching my own body in this way just makes sense to me and is oddly comforting and helpful.”
Just then the comm panel on Shepard’s computer terminal beeped. Ugh, what now? He thought. He slowly slid away from Jack, trying not to disturb her, not wanting to pull himself away from the most peaceful moment he’d had since that night of the party when he and Jack slept together for only the second time. But the comm panel continued to beep. He hurriedly jogged over to stand in front of his console and touched the button. “Yes? This is Shepard. Go ahead.”
Miranda’s voice filtered through the comm from down in the CIC. “Shepard, you have Fleet Admiral Hackett down here on Vid Comm down in the War Room. I know you’re spending time with Jack, so I can put it through to your cabin if you prefer. Audio only?” she suggested.
“No, that’s alright. Please tell the Admiral I apologize for keeping him waiting but I’ll be right down to conference with him in the Vid Comm. I just need to find my uniform,” Shepard added in a hushed tone of voice.
“What was that Shepard? Sorry I didn’t quite catch that,” Miranda answered.
“Nothing, nothing. Please just tell the Admiral I’ll be right down. Shepard out,”
“Understood, Shepard,” Miranda said, then closed the channel.
Jack sat up from her position on the bed, “what was that all about?”
Shepard shrugged as he walked down the single step to the lower floor then across the room to his locker where he pulled out a clean uniform and laid it across the bed. He lifted his left arm towards Jack and said, “I have to take a shower. Care to join me?”
Jack crawled across the bed and reached for his hand, “I thought you’d never ask. I’ve never used your shower before. Am I the first?” she asked playfully as she walked in front of him and then stopped abruptly and hip-checked him in a playful manner. Then she paused. “On second thought, I’ll let you shower alone—this time, as I know you need to rush down to talk to Admiral Hackett- and I would undoubtedly be a distraction. I’ll shower…alone once you leave.”