Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Shepard, fuck you.

Stop making me face

feelings I don't want to feel.

Fuck off, but don't back off

I can't get enough of you

and it's driving me mad.

I don't want this shit.

I'm a psychotic bitch!

Leave me alone!

I don't need you, I swear,

I need blood and fire and fear;

I need someone to die!

Just don't let it be you.

Chapter Text

– 1 –

Commander Shepard wasn't the Cerberus lap dog she'd thought her to be. Giving her the intel, stepping over the Cheerleader who'd tried to stop her; set the course for Pragia, and made Jack talk.

“We could be pirates,” she'd said. A stupid thing to say to a fucking hero, but there it'd been, and she had really meant it. Someone who would give Cerberus the finger even while riding their ship and living with their money, literally, was definitely someone she would accept for her team.

But Shepard wasn't the pirating type.

It wasn't clear what type the Commander was, but Jack could guess; there had been some kind of chemistry, and that was fucking unacceptable in every single way she could take it, no matter what. She worked solo, even if she'd needed help getting out of the Purgatory or... destroying Pragia, fucking Pragia. It was all repayment for her services against the Collectors and shit. Nothing personal: Shepard just needed a lot of people killed.

That suited her fine.

If only she would get out of her head.

Chapter Text

– 2 –

Shepard had come down again. “Just checking on you,” she'd said. “Everything alright in here?”

Stop, just stop, make this stop.

“I can't let go,” Jack had told her, words slipping out before she snapped her mouth shut. That was one wall down, and Shepard knew it, only they both pretended she didn't. Jack didn't want to deal with it, Shepard didn't want to push – something like that.

Jack had told the other woman how Pragia still haunted her. That'd been when she'd learned something about the Commander as well: that despite her big appearance, this first human Spectre, Alliance hero and Savior of the Citadel was afraid. That even though she acted tough, she'd still barely kept cool when they'd faced that Tresher Maw on Tuchanka. That even after everything she'd accomplished, she was still the person who'd had to fight for survival in the slums of Earth; that she was vulnerable.

Jack found out she cared about that.

“I was lucky, because I found people I could trust. Alliance is all about rules, but it provides people to watch your back too. It's sort of like a family I never had. Personally, I think it's worth it.”

Shepard had talked about herself, but doing that, she'd given Jack something as well. It's a family you could have too.

The thought had never occurred to her, because team work wasn't a word in her vocabulary, but right now, on this ship, with this crew – the idea didn't sound so bad. She never relaxed. On the Normandy, she had been able to, at least a little.

“I need people. And so do you.”

Chapter Text

– 3 –

The Cheerleader had gotten on her nerves again, but Shepard, she'd stood up for her. Made the bitch apologize like they were all kids playing in the same fucking playground, bickering about their toys. As if it mattered; Miranda meant her words just as much as she did when she accepted them. Whatever.

This won't affect the mission. She does her part, I do mine.

I don't care.

She did fucking care, and that seemed to make Shepard give a shit too, which only made it worse. She held grudges, but they were all hers to bear, and that made holding them fine; having someone else worrying about them, however, was another deal. Somehow, she had become responsible for Shepard's feelings, not just her own.

You have no right to mess with me, she wanted to scream, but every sound echoed from the Normandy's bare walls and every time her voice would came back it'd be weaker, and by the time the reverberation would die down she'd already be doubting herself, so she didn't.

The truth was, she was more worried about Shepard's feelings than her own.

Now that... that was fucked up.

Chapter Text

– 4 –

Jack had never felt as pathetic, and she'd been this little girl, hunched under the table, alone and in pain; this was a low she'd never thought she'd face, but there she was, at the bottom. She was starting to give in.

”What do you want? Pussy? Done that, not interested. If that's what you're after, fuck off.”

Shepard had pushed in anyway. Not by force – by being so fucking nice and patient it made Jack unnerved. Nobody was polite unless they were after something. Nobody was interested in her as she was, but for what she could do, and that was a rule no person had broken before. Or even if there had been someone, they were long gone; that's what feelings did for you. They got in your way, made everything messy, and in the end, you ended up dead. It was better to just not think and go on.

Survival was the key. No ”loving” or ”caring” or any of that shit they tried to sell in the media; none of it fit into the life she had, and she didn't need it to. Weak people needed others. She was the total opposite.

Shepard should've understood that.

Jack was changing, and it was only because Shepard made her feel like she actually cared about her.

”Fine, let's fuck! Let's just get this over with!”

”I'm in no hurry.”

Who did that? People who wanted a relationship. A partner. Jack wasn't up to either. She had her urges; sex could be great, but it was always exploitative, so the less strings attached the better. Waiting, teasing, talking and flirting were all things she simply didn't do. Rough, hard fucking on a table or against a wall was stuff she was familiar with.

The worst thing was, she liked how Shepard treated her. It would only make everything worse when they, if there was such a thing, were done.

But she did. She actually wanted to take a peek deep inside her own... shriveled heart, to open a door. To feel.

She was fucking pathetic, and not only because she was trying to be all poetic for fucking nothing.

Chapter Text

– 5 –

In the end, Shepard's arms were around her before she'd even managed to ask, as if the woman had known this moment was coming sooner or later. Maybe it'd been that obvious, maybe this whole thing was long overdue: her succumbing to her fucking feelings, Shepard holding her, stroking her back, whispering soft words she couldn't understand right into her ear.

She was crying like a god damn pussy, but for once, she didn't want to reel it in. She had tried, she really had, but what was she even fighting really?

This mission was supposed to be suicide, anyway. No reason to hold onto some misguided sort of dignity she'd clung to for the sake of self-defense.

Shepard kissed her like she knew what she was going through. She was holding her like she meant it. Knowing Shepard, Jack could hazard a guess she did – for better or for worse, the great Commander Shepard knew exactly what it was like, being who she was. Growing up alone. Having no one.

Learning everything the hard way.

Shepard kissed her, and Jack cried tears she should've shed years ago.

Chapter Text

– 6 –

They hadn't had sex. Shepard had held her. They had fallen asleep cuddling, which had been really awkward and utterly weird but it'd felt amazing anyway.

It'd been, without a question, the best night of her life.

She'd been so angry, so frustrated, so sorry for herself for so long it'd been time to let go of that package. She had to trust Shepard, the only real thing in her life right now – not just physically, but emotionally, and that night, she had opened up: allowed herself to fall.

Fall in love, whatever it was this shit was generally called. Falling in, not falling out, falling so hard and so far but still ending up in the same place, if not the same space.

It had got to be an alternate universe where she was right now. No way she could've felt this relieved, this complete in the one she'd grown up in.

It was one hell of a thing to experience before they took the Omega 4 Relay and wiped out the Collectors... or died trying.

Chapter Text

– 7 –

Jack had been ready to die with Shepard in the Collector base, but everything was fair game when it came to Shepard; with her, surviving and triumphing despite the odds were not just distant possibilities, they were inevitable one way or another.

That should've meant they had won. But Shepard, she decided to play nice, to do the right thing.

“I have to go,” she'd said, kissing Jack's eyelids, moving down, meeting her lips, apologizing. “You know I do. I need to be with the Alliance.”

Fuck you, Shepard.

Don't you dare to love me and then leave me like the rest of them. Don't tell me our thing wasn't to you what it was to me.

I fucking need you.

She was being unfair, but Shepard, she'd understood, the fucker. Sure, there'd been some yelling. Tears, even. But in the end Shepard had had her fingers in Jack and her lips on Jack's, and suddenly the world had turned around, twisted, and both of them had come out changed.

“I get it,” Jack had told her, “I get it. Fucking girl scouts, I swear...”

Shepard had promised she'd come for her.

Jack hadn't replied with whatever.