Tag: ME2

Lace and Combat Boots: I just really wish Morrigan was queer okay (and Jack)

laceandcombatboots:

She was taught from a young age to use and manipulate men sexually. I think the writers did a pretty good job of showing what a hard time Morrigan had with intimacy, but… I don’t know. I have a really hard time believing she could truly grow to love a man in a the few short months she travels…

THIS. It makes so much narrative sense for both of them to have been s/s romance options. If Jack is not a romance option for femShep in ME3 I will be sorely disappointed. And will have one run of a femShep that continues to pine quietly over Jack.

Lace and Combat Boots: I just really wish Morrigan was queer okay (and Jack)

Dear BioWare: Please let Jack be a romance option for femShep in ME3, and if so, please write it better than Jack’s romance in ME2. Also, in ME3, please return Ashley to her originally intended state of being a romance for either Shepard. If you do this, I shall run one particular Shepard through twice just to do both options, in addition to the other Shepards I’ll be running through at least once.

Fic: Coping Methods

The second part of this is a re-write of what happens with the in-game confrontation with Jack and Miranda if you side with Jack. Haven’t run through that mission on a game version of this Shepard yet, but I watched a video of all the options (well, all the option that let you keep both of them loyal) and was annoyed that, if you side with Jack in the initial confrontation, both the Paragon and Renegade responses of explaning your actions to Miranda are really…kind of equally distateful, to me at least, as far as how Shepard talks about Jack. So I “fixed that.”

Pragia turns Shepard’s stomach. Killing colonists and marines in the name of science was bad enough, but what Cerberus did to the children at Teltin…it’s unforgivable. Beyond unforgivable. Watching Jack relive it and realize it had been bigger and more horrific than she’d known it was is painful. And blowing it off the face of planet only helps so much.

It’s so easy to say “your past doesn’t have to control you.” Shepard likes to think she’s moved on herself, and in some ways she has. Most of the time she’s fine. But sometimes she runs into things that bring it back. The thresher maw on Tuchanka, the one on Edolus, finding Toombs, talking Talitha out of killing herself, and now Pragia. She can relate to Jack’s pain, even though it’s different and Jack had it far worse than she did.

So has everyone she’s met who lived through Mindoir or Akuze. It makes her sick, what happened to them. The guilt is the worst part. Shepard knows she’s no better than Toombs or Talitha. It should have been her, not them. There are nights when she can’t sleep for the why’s that echo in her head. Why didn’t she die with her family? Why didn’t she die with her men? It’s driven her to try to make things better, to keep another Mindoir or Akuze from happening. But it’s never enough.

Once the bomb is in place and they’re back on the shuttle, Shepard watches Jack play with the detonator. She wonders how Jack will deal with knowing so many more children were tortured and died in order for Cerberus to do what they did to her. Shepard wonders how the beginnings of Jack’s own survivor’s guilt will effect the biotic.

It’s getting harder and harder for Shepard to take Cerberus’s blood money. Harder to see the group’s insignia on Miranda’s uniform and Jacob’s. On her own clothes.

——————————

The last thing Shepard wants after a mission like Pragia is to have to play referee to Miranda and Jack, as it seems that Jack is, understandably, dealing with the anger part of coping.

What makes Shepard’s blood boil is the way Miranda says Jack was “clearly a mistake.” It’s not apologetic, not saying what happened to Jack shouldn’t have happened. It’s a judgement-you have been weighed and found wanting, you shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t exist. At least, that’s how Shepard heard it.

“Stand down, Miranda.” If Shepard wasn’t so tired, and if this wasn’t so serious, she’d almost be amused at how surprised Miranda looks that she sided with Jack.

“Shepard, she can’t be trusted. She’s unstable, and she’s jeopardizing the mission.”

“As commander of this ship, I decided who or what is or is not jeopardizing this mission, Operative Lawson.”

That puts a fire in Miranda’s eyes that Shepard knows could start a wildfire. Jack leaves Miranda’s office looking a little smug and triumphant, but Shepard’s mind is on putting out that blaze before it burns her and the rest of the crew.

“I can’t believe you let her get away with that, Shepard. She’s a major liability!”

Shepard takes a deep breath. “Do you know who you’re talking to, Operative Lawson?”

That seems to set Miranda off balance. Shepard can almost see the Cerberus operative’s mind whirling, trying to figure out exactly what sort of question that is, and it it requires an answer. And if it does, what kind?

“Shepard-”

“So Teltin went rogue. But they -did- start as Cerberus, and your boss decided that Teltin’s little ‘mistake’ might be useful.” Miranda starts to protest, but Shepard holds up a hand. “He may not have known until now. He may have. Right now, I don’t really trust him. You can tell me it was a rogue facility till you’re blue in the face, but my personal experiences with Cerberus in the past don’t endear them to me.”

Shepard leans against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. “I lived through Cerberus’s experiment on Akuze. I dealt with the aftermath of Edolus. I ran into a corporal named Toombs, who wasn’t lucky enough to get rescued like I was, who lived through some of Cerberus’s idea of advancing humanity through science. So maybe I have the remarkable ability to run into every single rogue cell you people have. If that’s the case, you people really need to work on that. If it isn’t the only explanation is that some of those cells weren’t as rogue as you’d like to think they were.”

She doesn’t quite expect the silence that Miranda gives her in return. Shepard just hopes Miranda uses that silence to actually think about what she’s saying.

“The Illusive man got you out of a bad situation. I get that. And I don’t regret saving your sister. Don’t ever think that of me.” She took a step closer to Miranda. “But do not try to explain away the fact that people who have taken Cerberus’s money have used it to victimize other human beings, some of whom I knew personally and care about. Do -not- make excuses to me so you can sleep at night.”

Shepard doesn’t wait for a reply. She’s out the door and to the elevator before Miranda has a chance to find the words for a rebuttal. The elevator doors close, but she can’t decide where to go. Her quarters are larger than she needs, and she hates that stupid, dangerous window that’s right above her bed. She doesn’t want to sit alone with her fish and her model ships. But she’s not sure she should visit jack just yet. She doesn’t want Jack to think she pities her, and she doesn’t want to try to talk about mutual run ins with Cerberus right now. Jack will probably need to vent. If not now, then later. Shepard thinks later would be better. Right now, she’s tired enough to cry, and she doesn’t want Jack to see that. Not now, at least.

Finally, she presses in a destination. When the elevator reaches it, Shepard exits and heads to the starboard observation deck. She glances at Samara, then sits down beside her and takes a deep breath. Shepard closes her eyes, and tries to clear her head.

Fic: Stay With Me

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.”

Fic: Survival

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.”