Captain Hackett's waiting room was almost obscenely sterile. The walls were a blinding shade of white, the carpet an inoffensive and suspiciously unstained blue-gray, the secretary's desk exactly perpendicular to the rest of the furniture and precisely three feet from theoffice door. Four gray naugahyde chairs stood on either side of the room, shined to a gleaming finish and each with exactly two inches between the arm rests. Pamphlets on conduct and base information were immaculately fanned on low, faux-woodgrain tables at either end of the rows of chairs. The whole of it was bathed in unforgiving fluorescent light.

Jeff hated it.

The room was so cold and aseptic it could have been the waiting room of any hospital in the Systems Alliance. All that was missing was the faint scent of "lemon" industrial cleaner over the even fainter yet somehow ever-present smell of blood. Yet even without that good old hospital smell, and despite his best efforts, Jeff couldn't help but be reminded of the hours spent in waiting rooms too much like this one. Of the scared little boy he'd worked too hard and for too long to ever be again, but couldn't seem to escape. He even had the plaster encasing his left leg below the knee to complete the image. That cast, he thought bitterly, was the physical manifestation of what was probably the end of his overwhelmingly brief career.

For a few glorious days, Jeff had dared to believe, to really believe, he was more than that scared kid. He had graduated at the top of his flight school class without breaking so much as a toe. The sickly kid who everyone assumed was a charity case and would drop out after a few months was a better pilot after a year and a half of training than the half the instructors. It hadn't been an easy eighteen months, an endless stream of waivers and checkups and "are you sures," but it had paid off.

His unmatched skills and work ethic had gotten him a better set of orders than he would have dared to hope for: test piloting experimental starships. It was the sort of assignment that usually went to pilots with years of experience under their belts, that every new-minted jet jockey aspired to and most never achieved. His presence had not only been accepted, but requested. Pilots with legendary careers spanning wars and decades, whose names were whispered with awe by his classmates, were calling him the future of Alliance aviation, a prodigy with both technical and practical skill almost unheard of in a recruit of his age.

And then, not ten minutes after arriving on Arcturus Station, he stumbled getting off the transport shuttle. The impact of his shin on the top stair shouldn't have been anything to write home about, enough force to bruise and hurt like hell, but anyone else would have cursed and shrugged it off. It had fractured his tibia in three places.

It was embarrassing. It was infuriating.

You got complacent, he thought viciously. You're the best pilot to come out of the academy in fifty years and you fucked it up two days after getting assigned. You just proved you're a giant liability. Hackett's gonna put you behind a desk and you get to spend the next four years of your contract planning other pilots' flights while-

The waiting room door hissed open, forcing Jeff out of his rapid descent into self-loathing. He looked up in time to see a skinny girl seat herself in one of the chairs opposite him. She cast him a brief, mildly curious glance before turning her attention to the book tucked under her arm.

Rubbing his eyes, Jeff took a deep breath and shifted in his chair. It wouldn't do any good to sit and wallow in his own misery. There was always the chance, the smallest chance, that this was a personal debrief with Hackett, since he had been too preoccupied with a trip to the infermary to attend the official one.

I should have brought a book, he thought, pulling his hat down and closing his eyes. If he was getting force retired anyway, couldn't hurt to catch a short nap.

"You should have brought a book."

The voice startled him. He pushed the bill of his cap back up and found himself looking into the eyes- well, eye- of the girl seated across from him.

"Excuse me?" he asked. He was never very socially adept.

She laughed a little. "One thing I've learned after my many visits to Hackett is that you always bring a book. The wait can be a little long."

Jeff wasn't entirely sure how to respond. He suspected that behind the black eye and the butterfly tape on her jaw, this girl was cute. Hell, withthe black eye and the butterfly tape, she was more than a little attractive. Pretty girls didn't generally talk to him, and when they did it was with the same saccharine-drenched condescencion usually reserved for infants and small animals and other things too fragile to care for themselves. Then again, maybe his luck was changing. He'd broken his leg, sure, but maybe it was so he could be in this seat and meet this girl. Besides, years of television and movies had promised him one thing: girls loved fighter pilots.

"Oh," he said, and shrugged. "Yeah. I guess."

She offered a slightly confused smile, and looked back down at her book.

Eloquent. Real ladies' man there, Jeff. He fidgeted, picking at a stray thread on his pants, and furtively glanced back at the girl.

Her uniform, gray and green, insinuated she was a marine. The nametag over her right breast pocket read 'Shepard.' Judging by the chevrons on her shoulders, she was a baby officer. Impressive, since she didn't look very old; he was just barely nineteen and she looked about the same, give or take a year. Bright red hair was loosely bound at the back of her head, a few flyaways curling over her forehead and the back of her neck. It was obviously not her natural color, he could see her roots were mousy blonde.

She was also a biotic, if he recalled correctly the meaning of the lightning bolts on the lapels of marine uniforms.

Suppressing a sigh Jeff settled back in his chair, crossing his arms. Whoever this marine was, she was definitely out of his league.

"You're a pilot."

Again, he was startled at her voice.

"What?" Smooth.

"I sort of assumed, with the flight suit and the wings on your hat, you must be a pilot," she said. "Either that or you're in here for impersonating an Alliance pilot."

"No, I'm really a pilot," he replied. For now.

"So what do you fly?" She had closed her book and tucked it back under arm, leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. For some reason she was genuinely interested in him. She doesn't know about the Vrolik's yet.

"Nothing, yet," he said. Probably nothing, ever. "I just finished flight school. Got here yesterday morning."

"Well, what are you going to fly, then?" She smiled, and Jeff wondered why he was compelled to open up to this girl. In the face of her bizarre charisma, he couldn't even muster his usual armor of wit and sarcasm.

"Uh… I'm going to test-fly experimental fighters," he said, nodding slowly and looking down at his hands. Or I'm going to fly a desk right into an early retirement.

"Don't sound so excited about it!" she laughed. "Test piloting sounds like an awesome job. And I hear the pay is great."

Jeff shrugged. "It is a pretty good assignment," he said, and inadvertently cast his eyes at his broken leg.

"Oh, I see," the girl said quietly. He furrowed his brow. "You know, I'd say with how clean it is, that cast is fresh. Meaning you busted your ass in some probably very stupid way before you even got a room in the barracks. And you think Hackett won't let you fly."

She had read him like a book. All from one downward glance at his own leg, she had picked him apart. Jeff frowned at her. Who are you?

"Something like that," he said flatly.

To his chagrin, she stood and moved to the chair directly next to his. "I bet you anything, you go in there and he tells you not to worry about it. After all, you don't need legs to fly," she said, and her smile was somehow both teasing and reassuring. "You just need wings. And if they put you here test-piloting fresh out of flight school, I'd say you definitely have a set."

Jeff looked into her one luminous, un-swollen green eye for a long moment.

"That is the corniest thing anyone's ever said to me," he said finally. "Ever."

The girl rolled her eyes and laughed, nudging him good-naturedly with her elbow. "I'm just trying to help, you tool. You looked really depressed there for a minute."

In spite of himself, Jeff smiled back at her. "Thanks, anyway."

"You know you're not bad looking at all when you actually smile," she said. "You should do that a little more often."

A flush began creeping up the back of his neck, and Jeff did his best to deflect the subject.

"How'd you get that magnificent shiner?" he asked.

She laughed, once, and absently touched the bruise along her jaw. "Oh, the usual. Some standard-issue asshole in the mess started picking on this poor kid for having a stutter. I told him to knock it off, poor guy can't help a stutter, right? And he called me a cunt and took a swing at me." She shrugged. "So I punched him in the throat."

"In the throat?" Jeff blanched. He swallowed reflexively.

"It's an easily reachable, soft part of the body," she explained, tapping a finger against her own neck. "Usually disables someone who's not expecting it. This guy had a really thick neck though, so he stayed up, and got a lucky shot in. Well, a lucky two shots, specifically"

He considered that for a moment. "So… they only sent you up here? Where's the other guy?"

A sheepish smile replaced the ferocious one, and she looked away at the far wall as though she were embarassed. "Infirmary," she said slowly. "I... might have broken his collar bone when I put him against the table by the back of the neck and made him apologize." Her eyes wandered back to meet his.

"You are the most terrifying woman I've ever met."

She wrinkled her nose at him. He noticed she had freckles. "Thank you. I try."

"You have a name, O defender of the stutterers?"

"Elizabeth," she said, chuckling. "I just go by Elle, though. What about you, Mr. Experimental Pilot?"

"Jeff Moreau, I presume?"

They both looked up. Another marine was shuffling towards the door, looking thoroughly Captain Hackett stood in the door to his office, as stiff and well-put-together as his waiting room.

Awkwardly, Jeff got to his feet and retrieved the crutches from their position leaning against the wall behind him. Lungs clenching with anxiety, he approached the waiting captain.

"Please come in, Mr. Moreau." Hackett gestured into the room behind him, a surprisingly warm expression crossing his face as Jeff moved slowly past him. He turned a sharper gaze on the girl. "I'll talk to you in a minute, Shepard."

"Well?" Elle looked up expectantly, setting aside her book and leaning forward in her seat as Jeff reentered the waiting room.

He looked down at the floor, brow knitting. A quiet, surprised gasp escaped her, and she started to murmur an apology until Jeff cut her off with a broad grin. She had been right, and Hackett had just wanted to go over what Jeff had missed at the orientation the day before. In fact, the captain had barely even addressed the broken leg other than to ask how it was. If a cracked tibia or two hadn't gotten in Jeff's way, well, Hackett said he wasn't going to either.

"Still flying," he laughed.

Shepard smiled broadly and shook her head. "You shit, you had me going there. Good! Hackett plays the hardass, but he's a good guy. I told you it would be fine."

"No, you gave me a cornball speech," he teased. She rolled her eyes and stood up.

"The next time I'll just let you sit in a puddle of your own misery," she said, punching him playfully in the shoulder.

Next time? Jeff marveled for a moment at the relationship he'd formed with this girl over fifteen minutes in a waiting room. He suspected that there was something about her easy smile and innate empathy that could convince people to do insane things for her. She could probably talk me into jumping the Omega 4.

"Hackett's ready for you." Jeff nodded towards the captain's office.

"Guess I better get in there, and hear the same speech." She put her hands on her hips and affected a deeper voice that was probably supposed to be Hackett. "You can't stand up for every downtrodden, unfortunate kid who thinks they want to be a marine. Let them fight their own battles. They'll toughen up or drop out on their own. You'll never finish OCS or qualify for N-school if you're too busy fighting for everyone else's career instead of your own.

"But I disagree," she continued, sticking her hands in her pockets. "I think we're marines so we can stand up for the downtrodden kids."

Jeff narrowed his eyes. "Cornball," he repeated.

Elle laughed again, and started for the door. She paused before running her hand over the green holo on the office entrance, and turned back to him.

"Maybe I'll see you around, Jeff Moreau."

A sweet smile, and she was gone.

"Yeah," he said to the closed door. A grin that he just knew qualified as stupid and shit-eating pulled relentlessly at his cheeks. "Maybe I'll see you."