MY NAME IS JACK!

They did make a good team. Jack had had his back, and he hers. Melancholy wound through him, briefly, as he imagined being back in the Alliance, Jack at his side. Was a stupid fantasy, one that would never be realised. Jack loved teaching and excelled at it. And he was retired. 

He looked over at the hotel security milling around the crashed aircar and wondered if he could stand to wear a fake uniform and…his gaze dipped to their belts…carry a taser. 

It wouldn’t be the same. And he doubted they had any biotics on their team. 

As he chewed, Aaron surreptitiously poked his legs. His thighs had sensation and he could bend his knees. He’d be able to get around with the aid of a cane, if he had one. Jack’s shoulder would have to suffice. 

She chewed her ration bar and rested a hand on Az's thigh, gently rubbing the muscle. She didn't know if it helped, but it couldn't hurt, right? 

Hotel security swarmed through the woods. Half tended to the crash site, the other half fussed over Aaron and Jack. The ubiquitous blankets were pulled from plastic wrappers and tossed over their shoulders as if every emergency carried with it the risk of hypothermia. Aaron sweated under the thin, synthetic weave, but didn’t shrug it off. The layer of warmth felt cozy and comforting. Maybe that was the point, eh?

A stretcher was dispatched for Dave’s headless corpse, but the cops had surprisingly few questions regarding his death. 

“Miss, er, Jack, acquired one of the heavy pistols?”

“From one of the other guys. She fired in self defense, after Dave shot at me,” Aaron explained. “He was about to fire on her.”

“And this was before or after Miss, er, Jack,” the questioning officer seemed confused by Jack’s lack of last name, “ah, lifted Mr. Gehan, there.” The unconscious guy. 

“After. Also after I tossed those two through the forest and hung that one from a tree.” 

The officer looked at him blankly.

“Just for a second or two.”

“Right.” The officer swiped his omni-tool and offered a tired smile. “I think I have all I need for now. We’ll be in touch if we have any further questions. The hotel will have paperwork for you when you get back.”

Aaron arched a brow, but didn’t say what he was thinking: the hotel had dealt with poachers before and, possibly, fatalities. In other words, their security sucked. Instead, he asked, “So, is it all right if we go find our packs? We’re both pretty hungry.” If his legs weren’t already numb, he’d probably be kissing the dirt by now and Jack would be in worse shape.

“Um…” The officer looked perturbed by the fact someone could think of food while surrounded by dead and injured persons. 

“It’s a biotic thing.”

When Az asked about food and explained their need for it, the hotel security guy nodded and gestured. Jack pressed a kiss to Az's cheek. "I'll get it," she murmured in his ear. "You rest."

Yeah, she was tired, and fucking hungry enough that the bark of the nearby tree was starting to look tasty. But she could still walk, and she wasn't sure Az would be able to.

Gritting her teeth, Jack pushed to her feet and moved off in the direction of their campsite. She'd felt worse, she reminded herself; been in worse situations, been without food for longer, been more hurt than a little nosebleed. It helped put the discomfort she felt in perspective, even if she did still feel like whining.

She retrieved the packs and made her way back to Az, flopping on the ground beside him without any sort of grace. She dug into his pack first, unsure if his hand was being as cooperative of his legs, and pulled out an energy bar, then got one out of her own. She unwrapped it and lifted it up for a toast.

And she was sitting in a heap with blood trickling from her nose.

Aaron took one step, realised his legs weren’t going to hold him, and dropped to the ground. He then dragged himself over to Jack, dug into his pocket for a wrinkled handkerchief that had probably spawned intelligent life sometime last week, and pressed it to her nose. 

Unsure if he should whistle in appreciation or whine with concern, he settled on a compromise. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close.

"How're you doing, Baldy?" she asked gently. It had been a long time since Az's legs had "disappeared", and she hoped this wasn't an indication of a serious setback for him. But if it was…they'd deal with it. Together. 

"Mr. Warwick?"

Jack raised a hand to block the light of the omnitool. "Yeah," she called. "We're over here." 

"Are you all right?"

The rent-a-cop lowered his light and Jack blinked, trying to readjust her eyes. "Yeah," she said, though she was starting to feel like that aircar had run her over. She jerked her chin over to where Dave the headless wonder lay. "There's a body over there. I shot him. You'll want to call in the real cops or the Alliance or something." She leaned her head against Az's shoulder. "I'll cooperate." 

The pit of her stomach twisted, slowly, as she realized that this situation might not go her way. She was sure she and Az had done the right thing—they'd defended themselves against people who had demonstrated that they'd happily shoot them—but she wasn't sure if the cops or the Alliance would see it that way. Would they just see a pair of rogue biotics?

He didn’t relax his guard, though. As Jack exchanged a blue glow for a pistol, he shifted his barrier so that he appeared to ripple. Several pairs of eyes flicked sideways. 

“I’m just getting warmed up,” he said. Just in case they were wondering. 

He hoped they wouldn’t test him; his knees were tingling.

The sound of an aircar whispered across the trees. A stiff breeze followed, stirring the leaves. Aaron didn’t look up, he kept his attention on the poachers. Their grim smiles were the first indication something had gone awry. Aaron chanced a quick look at the hovering vehicle and saw two figures leaning out of the open door with assault rifles aimed at him and Jack.

“Don’t move and nobody gets hurt,” one of the figures shouted over the quiet roar of engines. 

Trev leapt up and ran toward the car. He was aboard before Aaron could come up with a plan that didn’t result in someone getting shot. Maury stooped to pick up the unconscious man and the woman had the other guy’s arm around her shoulders.

Fuck. 

Who the fuck went hunting with assault rifles? In an aircar?

Jack grimaced, the twisting of her lips growing more pronounced as each "poacher" leapt aboard their getaway craft. In a minute, less than a minute, they'd be gone, and answers with them. 

Like hell.

She thumbed the pistol's safety back on and let it drop from her hand, as though she were giving up. 

"I said don't move!"

She spread her fingers, like it had been an honest mistake, even as she reached deep within for as much power as she could muster. She had an idea. 

In the blink of an eye, a biotic shield appeared around her and Az, much like the one she'd used at the Collector Base with Shepard, but a bit thicker to deter bullets. Shots pinged off of it and she grunted, knowing she'd need every last bit of her biotics for the next step.

With a grunt that ended in a cry, Jack flung the shield outward, hoping it would knock the aircar off balance. The sound of an engine in distress rumbled through the forest, punctuated by the cries of the car's passengers. The two gunmen were too occupied by hanging on for dear life to think to fire at her and Az. Slowly, ever so slowly, the car tilted and slipped from the air, crashing to its side a short distance away. 

A siren cut through the night, finally. Jack sniffed, then lifted a hand to her nose, unsurprised to find a trickle of blood. With a groan, she lowered herself to her ass. Let the cops check over the idiots in the car.

“Not just any soldiers,” Aaron put in. “Marines.” It didn’t matter that Jack had no official rank and file. If she did, he had no doubt she’d be one of the elites. The girl just didn’t do grunt.

The woman leaned forward to whisper something to her buddy on the ground.

“Care to share with the class?” Aaron said. Like Jack, he kept his biotics at hand and visible. The effort cost him, though. He could already feel the burn across the back of his skull and his toes had gone numb. He had not practiced a sustained hold; he’d never had that much use for it. A vanguard charged, flattened and charged again. Sometimes he tossed people and stuff around, just for variety. Standing and glowing didn’t fit the job description.

“He needs medical attention,” the woman said.

“He’ll get some when the hotel police arrive.”

“Aren’t soldiers supposed to help wounded people?” Maury asled.

Aaron smirked. “It’s a judgment call,” he replied.

She tossed a pull field after the idiot. It caught him, reducing his mass to less than air, and he began to float. It didn't halt his momentum. He continued forward, screaming, until his face made contact with a tree. 

Glancing at Az, she muttered, "I should demonstrate what happens when two mass effect fields interact." She narrowed her eyes at Maury and friends. "Boom."

"You're fucking crazy!" Maury cried. "Trev! Shit. Trev! Get your ass back here." 

"He's a little occupied trying not to shit himself right now," Jack said, her eyes tracking Trev's movement upwards.

"Biotics," the woman spat, her voice shaking. "We're just trying to live and you—" 

"Yeah, we've had that conversation," Jack said.

"You're going to pay when the cops show up. You murdered Dave!" 

Jack rolled her eyes. A scream off in the distance indicated the pull field had disappeared. Reaching out, Jack caught Trev in another field and pulled him back through the forest, none too gently. The sound of wood striking flesh and vulgar curses echoed through the darkness, but it didn't take long for Trev to float back into view. She cut the field about two feet off the ground. Trev thudded to the forest floor with a grunt.

Jack released the hold on her biotics, the glow of her skin fading. She couldn't maintain it, not after the large expenditures in the last few minutes. Instead, she pulled out one of the heavy pistols and made a show of taking off the safety. 

Fuck, being a civilian was hard.

Rather than hum like a moron, Aaron called up his omni-tool and connected with the hotel. 

“Booroondarra Hotel! Brittany speaking!” someone answered in an entirely too chirpy manner.

“This is Aaron Warwick. You dropped my girlfriend and I off for the overnight hike?”

“Yes Mr. Warwick! What can I do for you!” The exclamation points at the end of each statement clearly indicated any request from a guest would be quickly attended to. Or, he could be saving Miss Chipper from the most boring night ever. 

“We caught some poachers sneaking into the area.”

The connection remained silent a moment as Brittany digested the news.  ”I’m so sorry you’ve been inconvenienced, Mr. Warwick!”

Aaron swallowed a snicker as he imagined Brittany working for military dispatch. Sorry for the inconvenience, Chief! We’ll have an extraction team at your position at 0200 hours! Is there anything else I can do for you, Chief! 

Still, she proved efficient enough, in her bright and cheerful way. The hotel police would be with them in fifteen minutes, which indicated they had a station halfway between the main hotel and the ‘wilderness’. Prudent and disturbing. Almost as if they expected trouble.

“You’re fucking guests?” one of the men asked, the one Jack had threatened to fling into a tree.

She moved in closer to the man who'd expressed incredulity that she and Az were guests and crouched down. "Yeah, we're guests, and we fucked up your entire night. How about that." She smiled coldly. "See, it'd be good to remember that there's a shitload of people out there now with experience fighting things a hell of a lot worse than you. And they do normal things, like go on vacation."

Maury swallowed. "There's n-not normally anybody out here and—"

Jack pushed to her feet. "Well, tonight there was."

"You're the ones who attacked us!" This time, it was the idiot who she'd threatened to toss into a tree who spoke.

“How many of you are there?” Aaron asked. 

Maury hesitated a fraction of a second before answering, “Five.” He pulled uselessly at his arm. “My arm fucking hurts.”

Aaron called out into the forest, “You got one minute to divest yourself of weapons and approach before I break Maury’s arm.”

And give him something to actually whine about. 

Aside from the mostly headless corpse over there.

Ten seconds ticked by before a figure stepped out of the trees, fingers curled about the stock of her rifle rather than the trigger. Aaron nodded toward the ground and she dropped it. 

One of the men downed by Jack's shockwave lay still, unmoving. The woman who'd emerged from the shadows last glanced at Jack for permission, then moved over to his side. The second man had moved to lean against a nearby tree and watched them approach with pain-filled eyes. 

"He's alive," the woman announced with a shaky voice.

Maury moved to sit beside the other man, the third man at his opposite arm, facing Jack and Az. "What're you going to do with us?" 

Rules of engagement. 

The guy on the ground looked up the barrel of Jack’s pistol and stammered, “We’re poaching.”

“Jesus fuck, Maury, why don’t you give ‘em your ID while you’re at it.”

Maury’s friend had finished extracting himself from the bush Aaron had tossed him into. His face was scratched and bleeding and he held one of his arms across his chest. He did not appear to be interested in retrieving his weapon, wherever it was. 

Aaron pointed a glowing hand at the guy. “Stay right where you are.”

“I ain’t movin’.” He stepped sideways and Aaron gave him a less than gentle nudge. The guy stumbled and fell on his arse, crying out as his arm bounced off his ribs. He held up his good hand. “Right, right, not moving. Let’s talk this out.”

“What are you poaching?”

“Anything that moves,” Maury answered, drawing Aaron’s attention back down. “It’s all fat and slow inside the fence and they can only run so far.”

“I’m neither fat, nor slow.” Aaron cocked his head toward Jack. “I’d think twice about saying my girlfriend has an ounce where it shouldn’t be.”

“Yeah. Shit.” Maury’s eyes flicked sideways, over toward his buddy’s corpse. “I can’t believe you killed Dave. Holy fuck, you killed Dave.”

Jack shrugged. “He was gonna do the same to me. You’ve gotta expect the same in return if you pull that shit. My luck that I’m quicker.”

“I don’t know who the hell you two are,” the other man said, his voice ragged, “but you’re going to pay.”

His charge dropped him between two trees. Swinging his arms around, he loosed the remainder of his barrier in a field that flattened saplings and two wheeling shadows. Aaron advanced on the nearest figure and knelt across and outstretched arm before leaning forward to inspect the guy’s face. 

Human, young, obviously not biotic. 

“What are you doing here?” Aaron asked.

“Who the fuck are you?” the guy asked, trying to curl toward his arm.

Aaron elbowed him across the temple and he dropped back with a hiss. 

The other prone figure moaned and Aaron sent a ball of eezo over there to knock his arse sideways, keep him occupied for a while. 

Jumping over a bush, Jack retrieved a heavy pistol from one of the assholes on the ground. Biotics were good, but she always felt better on the battlefield if she had a gun in her hand. The asshole she took it from was moaning. The other one wasn't. She didn't bother to check vitals; as far as she was concerned, they'd both forfeited their lives by sneaking around an area where tourists—mostly defenceless, she figured—were simply having a good time. 

She jogged over to Az as he demanded to know what they were doing there. Before the guy laying on the ground could answer, another voice sounded through the darkness from their right.

"Hands up, no biotics, or I put a bullet in your lady's pretty skull." 

Like fuck.

Jack brought the hand holding the heavy pistol up and fired, confident she'd make the shot. Yeah, her biotics were her strength, but she was fucking good with a pistol, too. The newest asshole's head exploded and the body tumbled to the ground with a thud.

He dropped to his stomach and wormed forward to meet the threat—fine, we’ll call them a threat—head on. 

Backlit by the stars, the figures took on proper dimensions and revealed their less than casual nature by exchanging signals and moving in a coordinated manner. Definitely a threat. 

And they were close to Jack. 

The air moved and one of the intruders shot up off the ground. Aaron pushed up off the ground and fed his barrier so that he glowed and shimmered before confronting the other arse (anyone who disturbed his sleep was an arse).

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“What the fuck!” came the answer. 

This was going well. 

A sharp crack rent the air and something punched Aaron in the back…and bounced off his barrier, tearing a small chunk away with it. 

That bastard had just tried to shoot Az! 

"All right, dead people," Jack growled, her eyes narrowing. "Let's play."

Closing her fist, she firmed up her grip on the fellow floating above her head, then whipped her arm downward to slam him into the ground. The impact forced a grunt from him. Jack turned to the other fellow, the one Az had abandoned in order to charge after the shooter. 

"Shit!" he cried, lifting his gun.

He kept the ‘volume’ low. This confrontation wouldn’t be about show, not yet. If their opponents needed a little inducement toward fear, he could glow. Until then…

Yeah, he was ready. 

Nodding at Jack, he murmured, “Since when did we need weapons, Sunshine?”

Whoever approached knew the terrain; they skirted every dead fall and avoided every dip. Their progress was steady and purposeful. And they were heading for the lake. They stopped just past the deactivated alarm and conferred, their voices nothing but a vague hum. If Jack hadn’t heard something earlier, the happy campers would have slept through the quiet conference and probably woken to a knife across their throats.

He’d decided the intruders were hostile, in a sense. They were moving with stealth and under the cover of night, which meant they were somewhere they shouldn’t be. Seemed they’d finally caught a whiff of smoke, too.

Aaron nudged Jack as he noted the dark clump separated into two distinct figures. One each. “Let’s find out what they’re up to,” he whispered against her ear.

The boom boom boom of a shockwave wasn't all that easy to ignore.

Nodding, Jack left the cover, staying low to let the shadows hide her. She moved as soundlessly as she could—which really wasn't very, though she hoped she was quiet enough to be mistaken for an animal. She needed to be a little closer to grab one of these guys in a lift.

The figures froze. Jack did too, dropping down. Their movements seemed a little less sure now, like they knew someone was out there. One gestured to the other, indicating they should move to the side. The motions were almost military, Jack noted absently. Not quite as crisp as Shepard's, but damned close. Mercs, then? Ex-Alliance wannabes?

Didn't matter. The flanking figure was going to step on her.

With a grunt of effort, Jack sat up, her arm moving, her eezo flaring. She caught the figure in a lift, hoisting him upward quickly enough that he didn't have a chance to make a sound as his stomach investigated the balls of his feet. Or maybe his balls investigated his stomach.

Night sounds tickled his ears; the air moving through the trees, the bubble of fish in the lake and stuff in the mud. Frogs, crabs, the Eden Prime equivalent of night crawlers. Nothing larger than a possum seemed to be stirring in the darkness…and then he heard a voice. 

Fingers squeezing Jack’s, Aaron pushed up, his movement fluid and quiet, and peered into the darkness. He’d turned half a circle before he thought he’d pinpointed their location. Upwind, or they’d have smelt the recently extinguished fire. Wouldn’t be long before they caught a whiff, though.

He leaned close to Jack. “Let’s find some cover.”

It was possible some other guests had wandered into their quadrant. Wasn’t supposed to happen, they were dropped far enough away from one another to get that alone in the wilderness feeling. And the hotel knew they’d all be swimming naked, right? Some folks liked their privacy. 

Aaron shoved his arm into the sleeping back before activating his omni-tool, worried the glow would give away their position. “Deactivating the northwest alarm. Don’t want to scare them off before we figure out who they are.”

A wide smile creased her lips as she looked at Az. She knew that good little teachers didn't get all amped up at the thought of a fight. But then, she hadn't originally been built for teaching, had she?

"No weapons," she murmured. They'd have to do this with only their biotics. "You gonna be good with that?"

Instead, he let out a growling groan and hooked his fingers beneath her shirt. He lifted it up over her head and flung it clear so greedy palms could lay claim to warm skin, fingers tracing dips, hollows and curves. 

Until something jerked her awake. 

Her eyes shot open, her brain lurching a step behind. Immediately she catalogued that the proximity sensors were silent, but something had awoken her. She doubted it had been a suddenly large snore from Az, either. The man slept as he lived; calmly, smoothly.

She modulated her breathing, waiting for the noise to recur. Surely it would. Unless she'd imagined it…

She stiffened as a sound drifted through the night. Soft, unintelligible, but definitely identifiable as a human voice. She couldn't place its location or distance beyond a vague sense that it came from the north, in the direction opposite the hotel. They were supposed to be alone out here, and she doubted the hotel had a patrol. That'd kind of defeat the whole "alone" idea.

What he didn’t quite understand was quite why he had tried. That he’d needed to, needed her, seemed too simple. The idea she was The One, the only woman in the galaxy he could properly love, seemed too romantic—and implausible. A vague theory of collections of particles drifting through the cosmos and connecting through chance encounter to birth something new and wonderful seemed…right and terrifying. What if they’d missed or connected off angle?

Wow, Aaron, really?

Shunting introspection aside, Aaron leaned forward to press his lips to her forehead. “I always saw a whole person,” he murmured. “Someone I wanted to know better.” 

It wasn't a type of thought Jack was used to having, the importance of another person in her life. For so long, there'd been only her; everyone else was a liability, a weakness, a chance for her to make a mistake she couldn't escape from. Not anymore, though, and that was because of the man laying beside her. 

Love expanded in her chest, filling it, hurting, making her breath catch and her throat clog. Months ago, it would have scared her, this weird, weird feeling of pain and happiness. Now…she still didn't quite know what to do with it, but it didn't scare her. Not anymore.

Taking a breath, Jack rose up, rolling Az onto his back and catching his lips with hers, hard. "Enough mushy," she breathed between kisses. She nipped at his lower lip as her hips flowed, making her desire and her need to return to something she understood clear. 

She trailed her lips across his jaw to his ear, biting the lobe and tugging, none-too-gently. "I wanna hear you yell," she whispered.

Best girlfriend ever?

Yep.

His smile narrowed as he pondered what she should say, however. 

“You’re asking me? I’m the singularly least romantic guy in the galaxy, though not for lack of trying.” He’d bought her a smiley face t-shirt, hadn’t he? And he cooked and washed her hair sometimes. Fuck, were those romantic things? Were mushy and romantic the same thing?

Flopping onto the ground, Aaron searched the stars for inspiration. The sky was beautiful and his lips curved naturally again.

She cleared her throat. "That's a pretty good start to this," she said, nodding.

Silence descended for a few moments, the sound of the fire crackling loud in the darkness. Jack spent the time figuring out what she wanted to say, and then giving herself permission to say it. It was all right. There was no one around. And Az should know, right? Of anyone in the galaxy, he should know.

A pang shot through him, from shoulder to tailbone—a weird jolt of melancholy Aaron experienced on and off, less often as the weeks wandered by and his physical condition improved.

He didn’t want to think about depressing shit on holiday.

Jack tried not to be hurt by his denial and attempt to change the topic. Shit, she didn’t really want to talk about it either. Easier not to, right? And they were out here in the middle of fucking nowhere to get away from this stuff.

Part of her whispered that maybe that made it the perfect time to face it.

Blowing out a sigh, she let the subject go. They’d revisit it sometime soon; he meant too much to her to let that sort of shit fester in the dark. But not tonight.

“You want to hear me get mushy? Really?” She made a face. “I didn’t think guys liked that. Hell, I don’t even know if I can.”

A lie, sort of. She knew she could; she wrote poetry, for fuck’s sake. She could be mushy. Deep. Existential, even. Laying here, beneath the stars…it sort of seemed like the place to share this sort of thing, too. There was no one around to hear them, no one to snicker at the scary bitch being all touchy-feely.