Note: This is the same universe as “Survival.” This is an alternate version of the pre-Omega Relay scene between Jack and Shepard. The original scene is on the iffy side (which is really putting it mildly), and it doesn’t really do Jack any justice. I think it could definitely have been better executed, so I tried to make it less icky.

So here’s what happened with these two before they hit the Omega Relay.

Shepard can’t sleep. She knows she ought to try to get at least a little rest before this mission, but she can’t sleep, can’t stay in that ridiculously large cabin with that stupid unshielded window above her bed. So she took a walk. And ended up down in Jack’s hide-away. Jack looks a little surprised. And a little something else that Shepard can’t put her finger on that makes her think leaving might be better than staying. But she’s got nowhere else to go.

“Shepard…”

“Hey. I’m not bothering you, am I? I just…how are you holding up? Ready for this?” Shepard tries to smile. Hopefully it didn’t look too…what? Worried? Tired? Forced?

Jack raises an eyebrow. “Are you ready?”

Shepard shrugs and leans against a bulkhead, closing her eyes. “As ready as anyone can be when they’re going somewhere no one’s come back from.”

“We’ll come back. You’re Commander Fucking Shepard. You have to come back.” Jack’s voice is teasing, but it wavers slightly. Shepard opens her eyes, frowning a little as Jack starts to pace. She should have just stayed in her room.

“Damnit, Shepard!”

Jack’s embrace nearly knocks the wind out of her, it’s so sudden. Shepard hugs back tightly, stroking one hand over the stubble of the younger woman’s head. She feels Jack’s tears against her skin, and her heart aches. Then she feel’s Jack’s lips on her neck. The room is suddenly warmer that it should be. She starts to ease away, only to have Jack’s lips pressed hard against hers. There is desire in the kiss, but there’s enough of…something else that makes it’s wrong. The timing is all wrong.

Shepard pulls back, gently pulling Jack’s hands away from where they’d started under her shirt. “Not like this, Jack,” she says softly as their eyes meet.

Jack grits her teeth and balls her hands into fists, but she doesn’t jerk them away. “What the fuck, Shepard! We could fucking die.” She looks away, and Shepard can’t remember ever seeing her this vulnerable.

Then she adds, softly, “You could die.” The fear in her voice makes Shepard’s heart ache.

“I know. But that’s…I said I’d be ready if you ever decided you wanted more, but not like this.” She wipes at the trail of eye-liner that was starting to run down Jack’s cheek. “You don’t have to feel like you have to do this.” She sighs and wraps her arms around Jack. “I don’t ever want you to regret anything that happens between us. And there’s no guarantee you wouldn’t regret it, if we did it now. Before everything.” She’s learned her lesson about intimacy when connected to suicide missions; she doesn’t need any repeats of Horizon.

She feels Jack take a deep breath. “Don’t fucking die, okay?” Jack sighs, her breath tickling Shepard’s skin. “Just…stay with me? Until we have to get ready?”

Smiling, Shepard relaxes. “Yeah. I was gonna ask to stay, anyway. Don’t think I could take being alone right now.”

So. I’ve been linking to my ff.net stuff when i post more of my femShep/Jack short fics, but I’m going to start actually posting the text of the fics here, too. So the next three posts are dedicated to fic.

Notes on this fic: Jack says “fuck” a lot. This is not anything knew to anyone who’s played ME2, but i warn for it on ff.net, so I’ll repeat it here. This one takes place after Grunt’s loyalty mission. This femShep is a Colonist Sole Survivor, and a lot of my writing covers ways missions specifically relate to those backgrounds, because it doesn’t get address, really. Also, in these fics, I do my best to handle Jack-related things in less cringe-worthy manner than the game sometimes did.

They’d killed a fucking thresher maw. Just the three of them, on foot. That was a high. All the fucking krogan wanted to kiss their feet, or at least Grunt’s and Shepard’s. Jack was just glad she’d gotten to be there for it. Now that was a good fight.

She watched Shepard on the ride back to the Normandy. Something was wrong about the way she held herself. There was something Not Shepard about it, and when they stood to get off the shuttle, she noticed a slight tremble in the Commander’s hands. The fuck was going on with Shepard?

Back on the Normandy, Jack started digging around, searching the extra net for anything that might explain the mission seeming to shake up the unshakeable Shepard.

[Search: shepard thresher maw]

Shit. Akuze, 2177. Whole fucking lot of dead marines and only one left to tell about it. That was Shepard. Jack knew Shepard was some kind of Alliance badass or whatever, but damn. That wasn’t just one thresher maw, either. More digging led to more information about the attack, and another thresher maw attack on Edolus. More dead marines. That time, Shepard blew the thing up in a M35 Mako.

And fucking Cerberus did that. How the fuck could Shepard work for them, knowing that? Fuck.

Jack heard the thud of boots on the stairs leading to her bunk. Shepard. No one else bothered to come down, but Jack knew Shepard’s step anyway.

“Jack?”

“Why the fuck do you work for Cerberus? They fucking used you and other marines to fucking study Goddamn thresher maws. They nearly killed you, Shepard.” Jack caught a change in her own voice. The way she says they nearly got Shepard fucking killed. And she knew why. Because she’d been thinking that fucking Cerberus almost kept Shepard from being alive to break her out of Purgatory. Not ever meeting Shepard…the idea bothered Jack more than she wanted to think about.

Shepard leaned against the wall by Jack’s bed, arms crossed over her chest. “It’s not because I want to, Jack. Cerberus…they’re the only people who’ll let me have the resources to do what I need to do. To keep the galaxy safe. The Alliance doesn’t give a shit about me anymore, Jack. Not past using me as a figurehead. Or a scapegoat, depending on how they’re feeling.”

It’s weird, seeing Shepard look…vulnerable. It made Jack uncomfortable. Shepard being tough or a hard-ass she could deal with. It kind of hurt, and not in a fun way, either.

“Look, Shepard-”

Shepard held up a hand. “I just wanted to see how you were doing, Jack. I…didn’t really keep an eye out for you, or Grunt, once the…once the thresher maw popped up.”

Jack remembered watching Shepard during that fight. It was like nothing existed except Shepard and that fucking thing. She’d never seen Shepard be that quiet during a fight before. That explained it, though.

She shrugged. “You wanted to stay alive. I get that, Shepard. I do.”

Shepard pushed off from the wall and paced for a moment, pausing with her back to Jack. “I shouldn’t have let my memories get in the way like that. If something had happened to you because of my selfish need to survive-”

“Don’t you get all fucking mushy on me,” Jack growled, jumping to her feet. “I can take care of myself.”

“But what if you couldn’t, Jack?” Shepard turned to face her. “Everyone slips up, sometime. Everyone. You’re on my team. I’m not leaving anyone behind this time.” Something in her eyes softened, just for a moment, and Jack’s heart jumped unexpectedly. “Especially not you…”

Shepard reached out like she was going to touch Jack’s face. Jack stiffened slightly and Shepard dropped her hand; she looked like someone had just fucking kicked her puppy. Fuck it. Jack grabbed the front of Shepard’s uniform and kissed her, hard. Shepard kissed back, hands settling on gripping the fabric at Jack’s waist after some hesitation. Commander not knowing where to put her hands. Cute.

Jack pulled back from the kiss, hand still clenched in Shepard’s uniform. “We get done saving the galaxy, we steal this fucking ship and fuck Cerberus up with it, okay?”

Shepard laughed, and Jack couldn’t stop herself from smiling. “I’ll think about it.”

“You fucking better.”