2170, Mindoir

"He was fine! All I did was leave him on the porch! What're you so worried about, it's not like the grass rats are going to come after him, damn. Ow!"

The last complaint was spawned from a flat-palmed swat to his shoulder that Milo Shepard didn't manage to duck away from in time. His mother was too quick for him... as usual.

"Watch your mouth, young man!" she scolded with the drawling Earth-based accent that was almost a default on the colony of Mindoir. The majority of colonists had been selected from the south and southwest of North America, drawing heavily from rural farmers and ranchers to focus on a more agricultural beginning and possibly looking into raising stock to give the outer fringes of Alliance space a more steady source of meats and dairy. As such, even the children who had never seen Texas, Utah, or Mexico any more than they had seen a flying purple quarian still carried the tones and twangs of their forefathers' speech. Though it was doubtful those forefathers ever imagined their descendants would someday be over a thousand light years away from their quiet roots on Earth.

Milo rolled his eyes with all the dramatic effort a sixteen year old could muster as his mother continued to nag about how it was his responsibility to watch after his brother, he couldn't just leave him on the front porch and go off with his friends! God, she was loud. And annoying. Sometimes it was tempting to drag Bobby with him anyway, not to keep him safe as promised but to keep their mother from complaining about it.

He glared over to the other side of the table where his eight year old brother sat and mumbled, "Brat." The child didn't reply, only stuck out his tongue; Milo at least got to smirk a bit when Bobby received a similar smack from their mother, who briefly interrupted her speech on responsibility to state, "And keep your tongue in your mouth where it belongs, Robert!"

Bobby cringed. When Mom was saying your actual name, you knew you were in deep. "I saw Milo using a gun!" he shouted with a kid's natural instinct to derail the heat off of himself and onto another sibling. Survival of the fittest. Milo began to contemplate how many ways the younger child could go missing and not to get blamed for it.

"Milo!" Hannah Shepard turned her eyes back on her oldest son, her steeled gaze fixed like a hawk's. No escape! "Is this true?"

"It's just an old rifle that Batey's dad brought with him; it doesn't even have a heat sink!" Milo argued.

"It's still a gun. What if you had shot someone? Or yourself?"

"I know how to handle them, Ma. I'm actually really good. We shot some cans. Outside of town!" he added quickly as he saw her inhale deeply before another verbal assault. "I promise!"

She only groaned and ran a hand over her eyes. "What am I going to do with you. You just wait until your father... comes..." Her words drifted away as a bright light flashed rhythmically through the window. For a moment, Milo thought it was lightning; it had been raining heavily, one of the few times it did on the planet while it was still being terraformed, but he'd never seen weather that strongly lit before. Hannah seemed curious as well as her words fell away, approaching the window as her two sons joined her in staring outside. It was most definitely not lightning; even from afar, Milo recognized it as the lights of a landing ship, but from so far away, it was hard to recognize the model or size. He placed a hand against the window. The glass was freezing.

"Supplies?" his mother murmured, staring out into the unwelcoming night, "but we got a shipful only a week ago..."

Milo shivered.

2174, Pragia

Warmth.

Subject Zero had felt blood on her hands before... both hers and that of others. But this time it felt different. As the guard let out his slow death rattle, slumping onto the floor in a broken heap, she stared down at the hot plasma dripping from her hands, so fresh it still steamed in the open air. The stickiness, the heat, or the stink wasn't anything new... but the reality that this blood was on her hands of her own choice was new.

For once, her senses were clear and unaffected, and the strength of the clarity was almost mind-numbing. She could hear sirens shrieking overhead, drowning out all but her thoughts. Panicked red lights flashed through the windows, calling the Cerberus lackies to action. Underneath the thin white T-shirt and shorts - they were new; they had to be, all the older ones were stained from more things than even she could remember - her skin was prickled with goosebumps, though whether from the rush of activity or the cold air conditioning, she didn't know. The floor was cold underneath her bare feet. And most bewildering of all, she was free of pain... No drugs, no electrodes, no wires. And she could smell something... she knew the scent, but she was usually too messed up to recognize it.

Fear.

She grinned with glee and sprinted down the hallway towards her freedom. One guard down... and dozens more to go.

Shore leave. Right.

Milo ducked back behind the concrete wall from the gunfire that exploded around him, wincing as he felt the tip of his ear get clipped, and it wasn't long before he felt blood dribbling down the back of his neck. Of course it was nothing compared to the freezing snow still raining down onto him and the rest of the people holding down the defense line. But unlike the rest of the police and soldiers who'd been lucky enough to already be wearing armor before the batarians had pulled a sneak attack on the human city, Shepard was only wearing his civvies. The omni-tool chip implanted under the back of his hand would keep up shields, but it didn't do shit for the cold.

"Oy, mate, you look like you could use one of 'ese!"

The young marine looked toward the gruff voice, an older man with a face like a bull dog who seemed to think dental hygiene was a habit not worth the effort. Like Milo, he lacked proper armor, though Shepard envied the thick leather jacket the man wore. In his heavy hand, the stranger was holding up a cigarette, fresh and not yet lit. Overall, he seemed nonplussed at the fact that bullets were still darting and zipping all around them.

"Me?" Milo asked.

"I ain't givin' it to the batarians, am I?" guffawed the man and pressed it into Milo's palm along with a lighter. It was small, sleek, and silver. It looked familiar, but he couldn't place the name for it. "Take it. Figure you've got more of a use than an old geezer like me."

"Appreciated!" replied Milo with a grin; he had to shout to be heard over a grenade explosion from a few dozen feet away. He flipped open the lighter; it made a satisfying 'chink' noise when the lid snapped back, and the little flame that lit the end of the cigarette was a welcome orange flame in a world of cold and wet. Taking a slow drag, he closed his eyes to savor the sensation as it slightly dulled the stinging pain of his ear, and smirked when he heard the old man chuckle some more. "Nice."

"Thanks. Make 'em myself, at home. The tobacco comes from the fields here, even. S'why I'm here." The old man reloaded his gun, checking the heat sink to make sure it was in place properly. "Gotta protect what's mine."

Milo arched an eyebrow. Here was an honest man. "That's courageous of you."

The elder man paused for a moment before he let out another hearty laugh. His breath filled the air with steam. "What, for admitting to being a greedy old fuck who's just looking to protect his place?"

"Better than what most people do, which is either pretend they're doing it for the greater glory when they're really wetting their pants, or just hightail it and run," Shepard argued. "I'd rather have a man who admits he's just doing it to keep his shit intact on my side than either of the former."

"Well damn, ain't that some decent logic. You won't last a second in the military if you keep havin' real thoughts in yer head like that," grinned the old man. "Better watch that."

Milo opened his mouth to reply, but a few things cut him off. A fresh round of gunfire. The shouts of some panicked officer nearby. And the wet splatter of skull and flesh as his new friend was felled, a stray bullet catching him in the temple. The old man sank to the ground without a sound, white hair and white snow around him staining brown and red. Though the world around him was exploding with sound and sights, Milo couldn't help but stare at the fresh body until the cigarette's heat between his fingers burned him. He cursed and dropped it before he could stop himself, glaring down at where it had fallen, snubbed it out by the sleet around his feet.

"Well. Shit."

"If you're hearing this Jack... I'm probably dead, or as good as. In any case, I want you to hear this."

What the hell? Jack was sitting back in the pilot's seat. With the ship in auto-pilot, she was leaning back with her feet up on the console, the last of the freeze-dried rations currently serving as dinner. She'd cooked it too long again. Her tongue was burned. A little blue light blinked steadily from the center of the controls as the familiar voice continued.

"I know we've had some pretty dangerous shit go on together, but I wanted you to know..." Murdock's voice paused and she could hear some mumbling to himself before he continued, "I never wanted to live this sort of life forever. Sure, it's fun, lots of cash and whatever. But I can't help but think about the future. Do you ever think about that, Jack? I wonder if maybe someday, somewhere, there could be a house, somewhere nice and quiet. It's tempting to think about."

Swinging her feet down, Jack bent over the console and stared down at the little blinking light, but it gave no secrets. That sounded like Murdock. That was his problem, wasn't it? He over-thought everything! Her muscles tensed as anger boiled up hot and fresh in her gut as she remembered how he died so uselessly. That moron. He was too-

"And... when I thought about it, I always thought about sharing it with you," the recording said in a whisper, interrupting her furious thoughts. "Jack... I love you. Loved, I guess. If you're still alive and hear this, I just hope you know that."

What?

"If you're not... I don't know, maybe we'll meet again someday, somewhere."

What?

"I love you, Jack," repeated the dead man's voice as if it could hear her doubts, her disbelief. "Goodbye."

The shuttle fell into silence again as she stood and stared down at the panel. She bit down on her lip, hard enough to feel blood swell up underneath her clenching teeth, tasting of copper and soothing her marred tongue. The light had ceased blinking. In the end, even the fucking machinery left her alone.

Again.

Even before there was the hiss of escaping air from his punctured suit, before he noticed the utter loss of control as gravity became a thing of memory, he felt the cold. No, it wasn't exactly cold, but the sensation of warmth simply leaving his body and nothing replacing it. It had been winter when he had been hailed as a hero on Elysium. It had rained the night Mindoir had gone from a population of over nine hundred to one. But the hell that now robbed his flesh was something his mind and body had not yet comprehended as possible. He could feel his sweat and blood and saliva; his skin was tightening, chilling him to the bone, becoming too stiff to shiver.

There was a loud pop and then everything went silent through a rush of pain in his skull; with lucid calmness, he guessed that his eardrums had burst.

He tried to remember his training, to not panic, and especially not to hold his breath. But as he continued to whirl away towards the planet, a piece of the Normandy sailing past almost peacefully, it was a little hard to stay calm even as he counted down the probable seconds of consciousness he had left. Oh god. Oh god. Even with a marine's self-control, in the face of death, his instincts forced his lungs to drag for breath before his mind could stop it, and he was met with nothing. How long was it supposed to be, he wondered. Before you passed out, your system dragging out the very last bubbles of oxygen from every corner of your body to feed your brain as it shut itself down? How long before... he could feel frost... on his neck...

How long before...

A flash caught his eye; a glorious red and orange as Alchera met her sunrise, her star peeking out from behind her. The perfect view.

...Long...

His heart hurt.

How...

...

The guard on Jack's flank went down like, well, like a dead guard. A mist of blood hit the air as the batarian collapsed, a nice clean hole all that was left of one of his upper eyes. This wasn't unusual for Jack; people tended to experience gravity and physics at a rather violent rate when in her presence. But what was surprising was that she herself hadn't touched a hair on him.

Still panting for breath, she swung around to face the one who had shot the Blue Suns member. There were three of them; a woman and two men. Right off the bat, she knew she hated the woman. She wore her beauty like a billboard wore an advertisement, and it wasn't accidental. There was a look of disdain on her statuesque face that brought to mind the way someone looked when they found gum on the bottom of a new shoe. All in all, Jack felt she looked like she could use a little color, sufficiently applied with a punch to the face.

The other man just looked dull. Blank face, blank expression, but body set and cocked like an explosive just waiting for someone to pull the pin. Typical soldier.

And in front of them both, another man. This one wore full armor but apparently that hadn't been of much use; a gash ran vertically along his left eye, bloody and fresh. He had that eye squeezed shut. Judging from the still smoking pistol, though, it hadn't impaired his vision that much... or he was an incredibly lucky shot.

He was smirking. It was infuriating.

"Howdy."

"Who the hell are you?" she snarled.

The soldier arched a single thick eyebrow. Jack tried to remember the last time she'd seen anyone with hair that bright of a red and came up empty. Holy shit. "Commander Milo Shepard. I'm here to get you off this ship."

Still pacing from side to side, she narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Did he think she was that stupid? She had seen the ship[,] and the symbol it wore. "I'm not going anywhere with you. You're Cerberus." She spat the name with venom.

The man shrugged. "I'm offering to be your friend, Jack. I don't want to be your enemy, though we can fix that."

"They have a way of dying," snidely commented the bitch in white. God, she'd just look so much better with a few missing teeth. Or bones.

"You show up in a Cerberus frigate to take me away somewhere," replied Jack, nodding her head back toward the parked ship outside the window. "You think I'm stupid or something?"

Shepard arched an eyebrow and replied with enough sarcasm to drown in, "Gee. Well. I suppose I could leave you on the exploding ship full of loose prisoners and guards with happy trigger fingers. I shot a pretty good number of them, but I can't kill everyone. But, hey, if you would rather stay here..." As if to finalize his words, there was a rather loud explosion from beyond the doors behind him followed by a few muffled screams that quickly fell silent. He had a point, Jack realized.

"Could just knock her out and take her, Commander," offered the other Cerberus lapdog.

Jack snorted at the idea, but she saw where this was going. If she killed them, she had two choices; try to make it to the frigate and steal it or head back and see if she could find escape pods. There were two problems presented there, though. One, Cerberus agents were sure to be aboard the frigate and no doubt they were just as equally armed as the ones standing here. And two, she was pretty sure this hellhole didn't even have escape pods; too many chances for the prisoners to try and use one... or, perhaps, one of the guards. Sometimes the Blue Suns members were just as trapped here as their captives. But... if these people were Cerberus...

"Look," she offered, stepping closer, slightly impressed when this 'Shepard' refused to back away like most would have, "you want me to come along? Make it worth my while."

"Such as?" asked Shepard.

"I bet your ship has lots of Cerberus databases. I want to look at those files. I want to know what they have on me."

The woman's protest was immediate. "Shepard! You're not authorized to-" She fell silent as he interrupted with a wave of the hand and said to Jack, "You'll get full access."

Jack grinned at the open resentment clear on the bitch's face. "Aww. It upsets the cheerleader. Even better." To Shepard, she said, "You better be straight up with me."

"I wouldn't dream of not being anything but," he said with that stupid damn smirk, "after seeing the damage you've done."

She stared him down for a moment. His face was a passive mask, his gray eyes meeting hers without flinching, before she looked away and growled, "So what the hell are we standing around for."

Shepard nodded in reply and gestured to the exit. The room rumbled around them as systems began to fail. "Everyone onto the bus, kids," he said with an optimistic tone. The other soldier shook his head but obeyed; the woman in white took a moment to glare at Shepard and then Jack before following as well, leaving Jack to follow up behind them.

Well, she thought cynically to herself as she watched Shepard's back lead them to the unknown ship, this better be fucking worth it.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE]: This is my take on the Jack/Male Shepard romance, in case you haven't noticed. Without going into it at length, I felt like the romance in game was lacking a bit of sensitivity regarding Jack's issues, especially in the last scene. So! I went the fan route and decided to re-write it. \:D/ I hope I'm able to handle it as sensibly and sensitively as it should be, and I hope it's a good read to boot. Comments and critiques are, as always, welcomed.

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