Work Text:
Daniel Jacobi’s hands are rough and scarred. Burns interlace their way around his fingers, across his palms, and up the back of his hands. Tough calluses round out the sides of his fingers and create rough textures at the tips. His nails are always bitten down short, exposing much more of the skin underneath than normal from years of a bad habit.
Maxwell’s hands are neat and untouched, (years of time spent sitting at a computer and, more importantly, actively protecting one's hands from harm, will do that). Her fingers are long and slender, with pronounced tendons protruding from her knuckles and down the back of her hands. Her nails, often cut neat and short, with the occasional bad night leading her to bite them down to the skin, leaving her cuticles sore with freshly opened, reddened skin.
Maxwell always knew her hands were important– in the same way the anyones hands were important– but her’s in particular she knew needed to be protected. Back in the 7th grade, during gym class she had jammed a finger in her left hand while playing volleyball. She could barely write the rest of that week, it had been a miserable four days. From that point on she always kept the safety of her hands in mind over most else.
Jacobi’s hands were a tool, a means to an end, a weapon. What were a few scars compared to the pile of rubble that had once been a skyscraper? An abandoned building turned to dust? He would use them until they broke, preferably along with the rest of his body, but the tremble he soon learnt to suppress suggested otherwise.
…
“Jacobi– Doctor Alana Maxwell.”
As Jacobi stepped into the unofficial SI5 office space he was met with a new face, the face of one Alana Maxwell, apparently. She had been sitting upon an empty desk, a desk that hadn’t been there when he left yesterday,
“Oh, hi! Uh, charmed to, I mean, pleasure - it's nice to meet you.” The nervous smile that shone across Maxwell’s face was paired with a sturdy hand outstretched.
When Jacobi took her hand and shook it there were no metaphorical sparks, no sudden realizations or eye-catching “I just knew” moments. There was only “of course.” The knowledge that– of course she was here. Of course they would be working together. Of course they would always have each other's back.
Since they first met, Jacobi and Maxwell got on like a house on fire, that is to say horrifically and destructively. Since they first met, the two would always be Jacobi and Maxwell, Maxwell and Jacobi. They were the perfect blend of conspiracy and sarcasm with a pinch of sincerity.
But, for all Jacobi’s joking, even he knew from that day there was no one better for the position. He knew that he believed in her.
“You're here, that means you're one of the best. That you're gonna do great things.” He told her. “No matter what happens, I’ve got your back.” And she believed him.
Maybe it was just what he told himself to sleep at night, or maybe he was blinded by the first true friend he’d had in years, but he knew that she was special. He knew that she was important, and it was his job to protect that, not that she needed protecting. He knew that he did the awful, destructive, terrible things that he did and it was okay. It was okay because what he did made sure that Maxwell could do what she did best. They had each other’s back, and they would do great things together.
…
Maxwell and Jacobi are both self-described “bad guys.” They do the hard things, the dirty work that people couldn’t understand, in order to make real change. They both know the extent of what Goddard was willing to do to make an impact– hell, their hands pull the trigger– but they also see the results. And hey, what’s a few cracked eggs to a breakfast buffet?
That’s not to say they want to hurt people, but when Colonel Kepler says something needs to be done it gets done. “Loyal to a fault” some might say, “SI-5 dogs” they’ve been called, the looks they get walking the Goddard’s halls back at Canaveral, a combination of impressed and horrified. Regardless, their implicit trust in Kepler isn’t unwarranted. Over the years that trust was rightfully earned.
“You all right?”
With the awful clang of a heavy wrench on Eiffel's skull, came a withered sigh from Maxwell. Of course Kepler was right, he always is in the end, just a shame it had to be then. “Yeah. You?”
“Fine. Welp... Looks like we're doing this. Wasn't sure they were gonna have it in them.” Jacobi said, looking over the unconscious bodies before them.
Maxwell never wanted to have to stick her hands inside Hera’s head– not after all she’d already been through. She’d work so hard to be herself again and the work they’d done together. Maxwell even considered them to be friends by that point. And so of course it pained her to take Hera’s functions into her own hands. The pain in Hera’s voice wouldn’t leave her head anytime soon, had it had the chance.
“You good?” Jacobi asked as she finished her work, drifting over towards her.
“Yep. I'm done.”
“Great. Let's go be monsters.” Jacobi said, placing a scarred hand on her back, leading her away from the console.
…
“Knock knock,” came a quiet voice from the other side of Maxwell’s door late that night. That night, only a few measly months ago but it felt as if it could have been both years and weeks. Jacobi didn’t wait for a response before he pushed through into the room.
“Oh, Jacobi,” Maxwell was sitting at the edge of the hotel room bed, hands clenched in the fabric of the lab coat as she looked out the window and up at the night sky only looking away when Jacobi sat himself down on the bed next to her. “Did you need something?”
“Just wanted to check in- are you good?”
Maxwell chuckled softly, not quite bitterly but not quite genuine all the same, and turned her focus back to the window, staring up at the moon. The cloudy weather blocked out the majority of the stars that night but the full moon shone brightly through the mist. “I’m… fine.”
“Riiight, because there's nothing to be not fine about the night before you go to space.”
“Jacobi…”
“I’m just saying! If you were… Not fine, that would be ok”
Maxwell sighed, dropping her head to her hands, elbows resting upon her thighs. “I just.. We’re going to space, Jacobi. To the Hephaestus no less.”
“Hey, whatever happens we’ll have each other’s back, yeah?”
“Yeah… yeah, we will”
…
In those last moments Maxwell isn’t scared, her hands don’t shake the way Jacobi’s do, not like Minkowski’s hand shakes while pointing that gun at her head. She knows they have the upper hand, Minkowski and her crew aren’t as subtle as they think and no one, no one, outsmarts Kepler.
Minkowski won’t shoot, Maxwell assures Jacobi, and he believes her.
The explosion goes off- Hilbert is gone, Lovelace is gone, Maxwell is gone, and something inside Jacobi breaks.
…
Maybe it was his fault. No, not Jacobi’s fault. His fault.
Everything, everything, was need-to-know with him. Plans upon plans, the bigger picture- and maybe he had a point. Or maybe he just enjoyed acting like he knew everything, all the time.
Need to know- She needed to know. She would have known better. She was better than the both of them, than anyone.
“You didn’t kill Maxwell, Jacobi. Neither one of us did.”
Right. Sure. Whatever lets him sleep at night.
Time’s up, Lieutenant.
Would she have wanted this? She told him how, many, many times, but now? Maybe this was unhealthy, but it’s the goddamn Hephaestus, alright? The only thing keeping that station in orbit was spite and a truckload of unhealthy coping mechanisms.
“You ready to be a bad guy again?” said the bit of Maxwell still floating around his head, the bit of her that he knew, the bit of her that he needed.
Or was it the bit of her he thought he needed?
“Hell… it’s about time.”
He knew the plan like the back of his hand, it was how SI-5 worked, they had contingencies upon contingencies. And maybe she wasn’t really there, watching over his shoulder, guiding him through it, but it sure as hell helped to imagine she was. To pretend it was just like before, Maxwell hovering behind him, making sure he didn’t mess up, Jacobi doing what he was told, but never shutting up. He could almost hear Kepler chiding them for messing around from across the room.
Antikythera protocol. Voice override authentication: Helo-Alpha-Romeo-Tango.
“Concentrate,” she reminded him, “bring it in for the big finish.” And he listens.
Maybe this is too far, but Kepler made his perspective clear and “unconventional grieving process” only scratches the surface. He got Alana killed. He let her go, he thought he could push and he was wrong. He was so, so wrong.
He was… wrong.
No. He was wrong. Jacobi was wrong
Alpha, Lima, Alpha, November, Alpha.
Alana.