Chapter Text
“You’re Sherry Birkin and Jake Muller, correct? We’re BSAA personnel, assigned by the FSO to escort you back to the United States,” one of the BSAA officers aboard the military aircraft said.
After escaping from the underwater facility, Sherry and Jake were found nearby by BSAA soldiers. Now they were seated inside a transport plane, on their way back to America.
They weren’t the only ones on board. Several other BSAA soldiers were there as well, many of them injured, sitting quietly and resting. No one seemed to be in the mood for conversation after the battle they had just survived.
Then, suddenly, a ringtone broke the silence.
It was Sherry’s phone.
“We’ve already coordinated the aftermath with the BSAA. Once you return to the U.S. with them, the two of you will need to stay at a DSO research facility for a while and undergo a full physical examination, just to make sure neither of you has been affected by the C-virus,” Ingrid Hunnigan said over the call.
“Understood. Thank you for your help,” Sherry replied before putting her phone away.
Jake, sitting beside her, finally allowed himself to relax and let out a long breath.
“That was one hell of a trip. Let’s just hope nothing starts chasing us again this time.”
Sherry let out a quiet laugh. Then she turned to him and said, “Jake… back there, while we were escaping, you said you were grateful I saved you. But honestly, you were the one protecting me the whole way through, so… thank you.”
Instead of an answer, she suddenly felt a heavy weight against her shoulder.
Startled, Sherry turned her head slightly, only to find Jake leaning against her, already asleep.
Well… that was understandable.
They had been fighting all night. And he had just gone through a brutal hand-to-hand battle with the Ustanak. In that fight, Jake had thrown everything he had into staying alive, and even with the molten steel around them working in their favour, they had only barely managed to win.
Now that they were finally somewhere safe, it was only natural for the exhaustion to hit him all at once. Truthfully, Sherry was sleepy too. More than anything, though, she had wanted to tell Jake how grateful she was. She just hadn’t expected him to fall asleep before she had the chance.
Still, what made her happiest was the simple fact that Jake had been able to fall asleep beside her so easily.
That meant he trusted her.
As a mercenary, he was not the sort of person who would drift off unless he felt completely safe—completely at ease.
Realising that, Sherry smiled softly and carefully adjusted him into a more comfortable position, lowering his head onto her lap.
Like this, asleep and defenceless, Jake finally looked more his age. Watching his sleeping face—still carrying that faint trace of boyishness—Sherry found herself thinking just that.
Come to think of it, she had never told him how old she was. If he found out she was six years older than him, would he still call her Super Girl?
The thought made her want to tease him a little.
Instead, she began to sing quietly—a soft, gentle lullaby.
Maybe it was the song, but Jake’s expression seemed to grow even more peaceful than before.
Her soothing voice drifted through the quiet cabin. Around them, the BSAA soldiers listening to the song—one that seemed to comfort even them—gradually relaxed, their movements growing softer and quieter.
No one knew how much time passed before Sherry, too, finally gave in to her exhaustion and fell asleep.
One of the BSAA soldiers noticed and whispered to the man beside him,
“Should we wake them?”
“Let them sleep,”
The other soldier murmured. Then, after a pause, he looked at the two of them and smiled.
“They’ve both had a long night. Besides… they look kind of cute like this, don’t they?”
Good work, you two young saviours.
When Jake woke up, the first thing he saw was Sherry’s smiling face.
“Good morning, Jake.”
The person in front of him, along with the soft sensation beneath his head, told him everything he needed to know.
He had fallen asleep with his head in Sherry’s lap.
“…Mm.”
Had he actually fallen asleep?
In a place like this?
Startled, he sat upright at once. The thoroughly bewildered look on his face made Sherry laugh.
“Damn… I let my guard down.”
Seeing Sherry smiling at him like that, Jake felt a faint flush rise to his face. Out of embarrassment, he raised his left hand to cover his mouth and cleared his throat, trying to hide it.
And yet, at the same time, part of him thought that if his awkward side could make her smile like that, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
“Anyway…” he muttered. “You’ve changed a lot. Personality-wise, I mean.”
Sherry tilted her head slightly, puzzled.
“Before, you were always so serious,” Jake said. “Even when I joked around, you barely smiled.”
“That was during the mission,” Sherry replied at once.
“We were in the middle of a dangerous escape. How was I supposed to relax and chat like I am now? You could call it work mode. Besides, I wasn’t close enough to a stranger to joke around with him.”
Jake let out a quiet laugh.
“So I’m not a stranger anymore? Because if we’re being technical, we’ve only known each other for two days.”
He had meant it teasingly, expecting to see her flustered.
Instead, Sherry looked at him with steady, sincere eyes, her expression so earnest that it caught him off guard.
“No,” she said. “Maybe it’s only been two days. But Jake, you kept risking your life to protect me. And when I was feeling lost, you were the one who encouraged me.” She paused, then smiled. “So I trust you. Right now, you’re someone important to me. You’re my friend.”
A friend.
In all his life, Jake felt as though no one had ever truly called him that.
He had grown up in poverty, alone with his sick mother. When he was young, there had been a few kids he could talk to or play with, but most of his time had been spent working odd jobs to help pay for her medicine. There had never been much room in his life for childish games, let alone friendship.
Then, at fifteen, he had chosen to become a mercenary, training to risk his life for money so he could continue paying for her treatment.
And yet, not long after he completed his training and became a mercenary, his mother died.
Before he could do anything for her, he had lost the only person who had ever truly loved him.
After that, the only person he had left was the mercenary instructor who had trained him—a man he had looked up to as both mentor and father. Jake had placed that fatherly image onto him, only to be repaid with betrayal. The scar on his face was proof of it.
He hated his former mentor for that betrayal.
But even more than that, he hated his own weakness. He hated that he had ever relied on someone like that in the first place.
From then on, he trusted only money and kept everyone at a distance.
If he never formed attachments, then he would never have to fear losing anyone.
If he stopped expecting anything from others, then he would never be disappointed.
And yet now, here was someone telling him she trusted him—someone who saw him as an important friend.
And strangely enough, it made him happy.
He didn’t reject it.
Not even a little.
Ah…
So all this time, what he had really wanted was simply someone he could trust.
Someone who could comfort him. Someone who could look straight at him—at who he really was.
Someone who could reach past all the walls he’d built in his heart and make him want to lower them.
And now, that person was sitting right in front of him.
Jake closed his eyes for a moment, hiding the emotion that threatened to show in them. Then he smiled—a little softer than usual, a little gentler—and said,
“…More than friends, we’re partners. One of a kind. The only two like us in the world.”
At that, Sherry’s face lit up with a bright, radiant smile, and she nodded hard.
In that moment, it became a memory Jake would carry with him for the rest of his life.
I really can’t win against you, Super Girl.