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1.
He knows she's a soldier before they even speak to each other.
It's her manners, he thinks as he orders a second shot of whiskey from the man behind the bar. No scientist carries herself like that, no engineer moves with the same confidence across the room.
She's young, even younger than she looks, he wagers. There's a gravitas to her that adds a few years but her face is a young woman's. And apparently she notices his stray glances in her direction because she gives him a knowing smile before she approaches. Somewhere on the way she gets intercepted, though, by some lieutenant he recalls having seen on Anderson's ship who seems eager to talk to her.
Hackett shrugs to himself, focusing his attention on the drink in front of him.
The Arcturus station isn't exactly that kind of place for a man his age and in his position.
That said, he isn't overly surprised when she slides past the men surrounding him and takes a seat nearby – reading people comes with the job, situations like this don't differ much.
"Pretend to talk to me," she hisses and that, however, makes him raise an eyebrow until she nods towards the lieutenant casting his eyes in her direction.
"Problems?" Hackett asks, somewhat needlessly. He rather longs for the quietude of the upper levels of this place, where only the Alliance brass are allowed entrance. But then again, he reminds himself, he went here tonight because he can't stand the self-important admirals in groups of more than two. Now he's tasting the consequences of that decision – whether or not it's worth it remains to be seen.
"Nothing I can't handle." The young woman makes a dismissive hand-wave. "He's going to have to pick his teeth off the floor if he approaches me again. I'm just trying to avoid violence."
"Good call," he agrees.
There's a little smile appearing on her face and she squints her eyes when she looks at him again, as though studying him closely.
"Besides, I'd much rather talk to you." She inches closer and waves to the bartender.
She's blunt, he'll give her that. And young enough to rub his ego the right way, he has to admit as well. She's attractive, though not in an overt fashion; her edges are hard, her voice bears no traces of higher education but quite a lot of bad experiences and there's an allure in that, in the supposed fire brewing under her surface.
Steven Hackett has always liked a challenge.
"Serrice Ice Brandy?" he nods towards her drink that's just been put down on their table. Before she has reached for her credits, he's taken care of the payment. Her expression softens a little at that and something curious seeps into her eyes as she looks at him again.
"Yeah," she replies, though he can tell from her tone that she's got no real clue as to what she's ordered. "Thanks."
They converse briefly and about nothing of importance before they get interrupted again by the young lieutenant who's trying - with a clumsiness that is downright painful to watch - to casually stop by their corner of the bar.
"Hey, Shepard," he says, then paling somewhat as he notices Hackett. "Evening, sir."
Hackett is about to reply but the woman forestalls him.
"Hart," she says. "Go piss someone else off."
When he still lingers, Hackett clears his throat and the man turns on his heel, hurrying in the opposite direction.
The woman – Shepard, he thinks, trying to remember what he knows about that name – chuckles appreciatively. "Now that's what I like in a man."
He takes a sip of his drink. "So, it's Shepard, is it?"
"Jane Shepard," she says and a little sting of annoyance flash through his mind before he decides it's probably for the best anyway. He's more than twice her age and holds roughly ten times her power on this station and she's got that particularly troublesome glint in her eyes that tells him she wouldn't give a damn although she should.
"You're Anderson's new recruit." Hackett leans forward; his hand close around his glass as he swirls it around. "I've heard a great deal about you."
And not merely good things, he thinks. Despite his faults, David is a brilliant judge of character and constantly finds the most talented people, but he's also got a knack for bringing more trouble than anyone else. You can always trust him to drag back undetected biotics and thugs from his little recruitment drives and he refuses to let them off the hook until they've proven themselves worthy of the chance he's offered, no matter how many reprimands he gets from the brass. It's well known that Captain Anderson doesn't give a damn about pleasing anyone and he's premièring the exact same traits in his protégées. For good or ill. This one comes straight from some criminal gang down on Earth, if his memory serves him. Raised on the streets, untrained and unshackled. A diamond in the rough, David had claimed in front of the admirals. I'm recommending her for the ICT program.
The woman – Shepard, the most promising soldier I've seen - frowns. "And you are?"
"Steven Hackett, admiral of the Fifth Fleet."
"Well," she says after a beat, her face flustered. "That's just my fucking luck. Er, sorry. Sir."
For a second she looks like she's about to salute him, but then she merely sinks back in her chair, looking rebuked and then immediately defiant, squaring her shoulders. Definitely one of David's grunts.
Their eyes meet; he's the first one to laugh - nearly surprising himself - and a second later she joins him.
2.
Admiral Hackett moves with purpose, breaching the gap between them in long, quick strides.
Shepard finds herself holding her breath until he stands right in front of her, that controlled half-smile appearing as she offers him her own; it's a tiny habit founded on a past nobody knows they have and that they never acknowledge in words. No marine with any kind of self-respect would admit to shameless flirting with a senior admiral, least of all with Hackett.
The man is made of steel, Jenkins says in her head, breathless and wide-eyed after a meeting with the brass. A fatherly kind of steel, sure, but that's almost worse.
"Nervous, lieutenant?" Hackett asks her now as he holds her gaze for a moment.
"Captain Anderson has talked me through the ceremony a couple of times." She had buried the last scrap of naivety and inferiority complex on Elysium but this massive old station still gets under her skin. No wonder she has spend almost every off-duty hour here drinking to calm herself down.
It seems long ago since she last stood here, but in reality it's barely been a year. Then she had been a fresh N7 graduate, scraped clean of her bad habits and re-forged to embrace new, better ones. She had come out of it a different person and she can't pretend that she misses that old self, the dirty old skin she shed along the way.
That old street thug self would never have been called to a ceremony to receive the Star of Terra, for one thing.
She wouldn't have behaved this well after several drinks either, she thinks later, as she leans against a table, watching the brass and the marines around them. If she remembers correctly, she had been more or less offering herself to Hackett back then. Not that he had done anything to dissuade her, she adds as he comes up to stand beside her. At least not at first. And damn if she wouldn't have preferred to be reminded of ranks and chains of commands later, with the damage already done.
"Admiral." She nods.
He's older now, too, his age showing and his undeniable experience is carried in every move, each word, a powerful presence in everything he does. Shepard stifles a sigh and takes a mouthful of her drink.
"I take it you will resume your shoreleave after this brief interruption?" He has a way of making questions seem like statements, she thinks, smiling into the wine glass.
"That's the plan," she says, glancing sideways at him. He's not much taller, but it feels like he's towering beside her all the same, just as his lean body gives him a large frame. In his dress blues with his face clean-shaven and his back straight and proud, he's the very definition of striking. One of his hands – broad and firm, the hands of a man who hasn't lost his past even as he's risen in the hierarchy – rests on the table, only inches from her own. She looks down, gaze travelling over calloused skin and knuckles, over the veins that run across the back of his hand and disappear beneath his clothes. She clenches her jaw as that familiar surge appears at the very pit of her stomach, spreading further down where she so shamelessly imagines those hands. When she looks up again, he is looking at her, an unreadable expression on his face.
"I will make sure the Alliance put your talent to good use," Hackett says, interjecting her thoughts. She blinks, feeling strangely caught.
"Thank you, admiral."
"Shepard, enjoying yourself?" Anderson's voice makes her turn around quickly, too quickly for her balance and she wobbles a little before Hackett catches her elbow, discreetly. Breath still stuck in her throat, Shepard stares down at the place where his fingers touch her, struggling to regain her composure. She feels hot, like she's burning up.
"Captain Anderson," Hackett says in her place. "I was just telling the lieutenant we'd better find something worthwhile for her to do. I'm certain you have plenty of suggestions."
"Of course." Anderson's voice is even. He eyes her for a second before resuming the conversation with Hackett, which feels like a respite if there ever was one.
Shepard takes a deep breath and concentrates on finishing her wine.
3.
Lieutenant Commander Shepard, executive officer of the SSV Normandy swirls past his eyes as he looks out over the dance floor. Around him the brass is soaring with pent-up gossip and accumulated bullshit that their increasing levels of intoxication will allow them to let out bit by bit tonight.
They're celebrating the upcoming shakedown run of their finest ship to date, a historical project and unique collaboration between humans and turians. Hackett has every reason to feel proud, though he rarely indulges the desire for contentment in his profession, preferring to keep the edge.
He walks from table to table, exchanging a few words with everyone he meets. Eventually he comes to a halt, watching the dancers with a drink in his hand. The whole spacious room seems to be a blur of dress blues and formal wear, clean lines and long sweeping dresses. Few dances well, but everyone who dance seem to enjoy it and he figures that ought to be the purpose of entertainment.
Shepard appears before him again, not dancing this time, but unceremoniously wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. He feels the corners of his mouth tug upwards in a smile. She is still quite something, this girl; certain parts of her refusing all attempts at refinement just as stubbornly as she refuses to compromise, rumour has it. Idealistic and full of integrity, his officers call her. Hard to please, near impossible to beat.
Hackett has voiced his support for her in front of the other admirals more than once already. He has a feeling it will evolve into a habit.
"You're not dancing, sir?" she asks now, standing with her hands on her hips in a pose that reduces all delicacy of that dress. On her it's not as much elegant as it is intriguing since it seems to fit her in a different way than intended. And he has to force his gaze away from the outlines of her body as he meets her gaze. There is no doubt in his mind that she notices his little slip.
"Not particularly well," he admits. At least this is his most frequently used excuse, one he has almost begun to believe himself.
The young commander looks unmoved by it, however.
"Neither am I." Her voice is light, with undertones of a warmth he hasn't noticed in her before. She's doing well, steadily gaining a reputation as one of the finest officers in the fleet despite the fact that some claim she still lack skill dealing with the brass and their need for formality and protocol. Personally he would say it's one of the reasons behind her success. "Still, it's a shame to waste this opportunity. Will probably be at least five years before I wear a dress again."
"You keep a schedule, Commander?"
"Yes." Something devilish flickers behind the calm composure. "Would you like me to forward it to you, sir?"
He gives a low laugh at that, making her smile in return.
A minute or so later he steers her towards the dance floor, one hand pressed against the small of her back, the other clasped with her own. She struggles a bit with the dress, shifting in her stance as though she's readying her gun for battle and he has to hold back a smirk. Then she relents into his grip, allowing him to move them both with surprising ease. Her head is tilted to one side, her mouth slightly open and he can feel the heat from her body through the thin layers of clothes. Unbidden, his mind leaps to the night years ago, before he knew her name and position within the fleet.
For a less scrupulous senior admiral – and Hackett can name a few - the situation would present itself differently. Scuttlebutt's sparing no one, but for those in possession of enough power, credits or sheer ruthlessness, a whitewash is usually possible.
He could end her career. He wouldn't, but he could.
Many young men and women don't see it like that – or they do, but pretend not to – but Shepard is sharp and jaded, she knows the rules and keeps tabs of the score. It's both a relief and a source of mild unrest in him.
They dance slowly over the floor until Shepard has learned how to move within his moves, follow the directions of his body; when she finally catches on, he notices that her posture relents somewhat, slipping more easily into the silent commands he gives. He finds that he's actually regretting the song coming to an end.
She leans in when it does, closing the last inch of distance between them. Her breath is ghosting over his neck and jaw; he can feel the curve of her breast pressing lightly against his chest before she takes a quick step back, suddenly cloaked in professionalism again.
"Thank you, Admiral."
He clears his throat. "The pleasure is mine, Commander."
4.
Her dreams still sting in her head as she sits up, her thoughts blurry but regaining their focus slowly but surely.
The jabbing, throbbing ache along her left side tells her that she's not healed yet and she presses a hand to her body, as though hoping to contain the injury, stop it from hurting. At least there's a relief in simple physical pain lately, a reminder of her own humanity that she wouldn't want to be without.
Hackett observes her, his hands behind his back and his gaze the unfathomably hard flavour of steel that sends a small chill down her spine.
"What the hell happened, Commander?"
Shepard swallows before she takes a deep breath and begins to explain.
Words spin around them, fall between them, taking strange shapes and purposes and she doesn't know for how long they talk, but she knows that when she's done, her voice has become hard and Hackett's expression has softened.
"Glad to see working with Cerberus hasn't stripped away your sense of honour," he says, making progress towards the door. Part of her wishes to ask him to stay.
"Well, you know me," she mutters quietly under her breath, not expecting him to hear her.
His eyes, however, tell her he did.
The scene shifts, unnoticeable for everyone but the two of them, she thinks. If there are any Cerberus records of this meeting – and she's sure there will be – they won't show anything compromising or remarkable about the way she takes a few steps forward and Hackett folds his arms across his chest, catching her gaze.
"I'm on your side, Shepard," he says, in a serious undertone. "Count on it."
Something swells dangerously in her throat; she looks away.
She hasn't stopped for a second during these past seven months, has barely granted herself permission to sleep - and never without one of Chakwas's recommended set of pills to keep both insomnia and nightmares at bay – until now, when it's partly over. It's not, though. It's never over. It's never just one mission or one order but an endless chain of them and when she looks into Hackett's eyes she sees the same knowledge simmering behind his composure, the same kind of weariness locked up, the same burden of command and she wants to reach out and touch it, touch him, crash into his defences and break her own in the process.
Feeling attraction for your superiors is nothing new; never before has it seemed so logical to her, such a vivid reason in her body, this surge at the very core of her.
"I don't need this to know you did the right thing." As he hands over the datapad, her fingertips touch his wrist and he pauses in the middle of the motion; she doesn't pull back, doesn't move. They stand there, gazes locked and hands touching, for a brief moment before Hackett disentangles himself.
"Yes, sir," Shepard says, her voice hoarser than she would like.
5.
"I was growing tired of all the damn shrinks in this place." Shepard greets him from behind the desk in the cramped little office where they have her working her way through her grounding. Paperwork, he notices. She must be going insane. "Good to see a face I actually like."
She rises to her feet though not to salute him or even shake his hand, but to lean against the front of the desk, watching him with a closed-off expression on her face. The reports on her come back with no surprises. Her psychological profile deems her strong and well-adjusted, her medical records track the plethora of her cybernetic implants but stress that she is still mostly human, albeit enhanced. And no interrogation or session with the therapists have managed to prove her a sleeper agent for the enemy. He sneers inwardly at the last part.
"How are you holding up?"
She makes a little sound, caught somewhere half-way between a snort and a scoff. "I'm checking lists of recruits and supplies. I authorize medigel transports from the Arcturus station. I'm sure you can imagine how I'm doing, sir. Hell, I'm thinking of just turning in my uniform and apply for a job in C-Sec."
They've played it close to the book with her. She's their vanguard, the tip of their sword, the icon of their entire war effort. It's a high risk with a high price and he feels a soft tug of guilt as he observes her now, her head held high with the fury of someone who is closing in on her own defeat.
Hang in there, he thinks, as though he would be able to offer any kind of release or reward at the end of this road.
He can't.
But they can't afford to lose her yet, all the same.
You speak of her like she's already a casualty of war, David had pointed out recently.
You know very well what I mean, Hackett had protested, but he's not so sure even he does any more.
All he knows is that the hope for humanity lies heavily on Shepard and that for humanity and for the galaxy they are all sworn to do everything, anything.
"You're still an Alliance solider." He holds up two datapads with intel she is allowed to have and walks up to her to give them to her. "Act like it."
She shakes her head.
"I'm not taking orders from you any more, am I?"
"You will," he replies curtly, ignoring the cracks and suggestions in her tone. He wonders what she had expected. Back on the ship she had turned from Cerberus vessel to her own private battleship he had told her to wear the dress blues and return to Earth to face her trial. At no point did he promise her a smooth ride and he had thought she knew better than that.
When he leans forward to put down the datapads on her desk, she grabs his arm and he frowns as he's meeting her gaze. There's fire in it, anger and urgency and something else too, that he deflects immediately. It's not a a lack of knowledge that causes her behaviour, he realises, it's the burden of having seen much more than a commander should have to see and the lack of options to act accordingly. She's frustrated to the point of breaking, tied up in regs and formalities while the galaxy lounges forward into flat-out war. In this light he notices the stress lines and worry in her face, the heavy losses and hard decisions spelled out all over her skin.
He straightens up but her hand remains.
"I need to get back out there," she says. "Hell, you need me to get back out there. Now."
"You will," he says again, gentler this time, and as he moves his own hand to remove hers from its hard grip around his arm, a shade of something crosses her features. "Count on it."
6.
She's closed all channels of communication, locked the door, turned off the computer and now she stands in the middle of her cabin, her heart racing in a horrible way. Her hands are cold and sweaty and she closes them to fists but it doesn't stop the flood of images and voices at the brink of her mind. Emotions aren't her strong point yet here they are, swirling around in her carefully trained body and her professionally detached mind, clawing and turning and threatening to crawl out of her mouth.
"Shepard." Hackett's voice is close, reassuringly near and she turns her head to look at him.
Personal debriefing, the official truth states. He had insisted on it after learning about Thessia. There's no doubt that he's here, too, because he's spoken to Anderson. Anderson who in turn has spoken with Joker about looking out for her. She had repaid Joker for that favour by shouting at him, if she recalls correctly. Just as she had rewarded Kaidan's faithful service with a harsh truth and some good old stone-walling.
A fine leader, she thinks with a sigh, raking a hand through her hair.
"I'm just so..." she cuts herself off, not knowing what to say so instead she decides not to say anything at all. "It's nothing, sir. I'm a bit on edge, that's all. I appreciate you taking the time to come here in person, but we're doing fine."
"I know our war effort fares well," Hackett agrees calmly. "Better than I had hoped, at this point. Most of it thanks to you."
She takes a few steps towards the fish tank, turns on her heel and walks back again. "Sir, I-"
"You're nothing short of extraordinary. But you are also nothing but a human being."
"Am I?" Her own question catches her off-guard. But his gaze is firm, a display of unshakeable confidence.
"Yes," he says, taking a step towards her. "And that is precisely why I'm concerned."
He stands a few feet away, scrutinizing her through narrowing eyes and with a compassion that strikes her as genuine and therefore overwhelming. We're soldiers, she wants to protest. We know the rules. But this is the war to end all wars and it has overturned every simple truth and banal rule of their games.
She thinks, suddenly, of something Javik had asked her the other day. If she still believed that it was possible to walk out of this war with her honour intact. She had answered without even thinking, an instinct running as deep as breathing. Yes, she had told him. I believe so.
She doesn't, she knows now with a weight mirroring the weight of the galaxy, pressing against her with a force that leaves her breathless. She doesn't believe in that outcome any longer, if she ever did. It has left a hole in her chest. When she tells Hackett he nods, slowly.
"I sacrificed the entire Third Fleet to buy us some time to escape," he says. He has told her before, but this time the words carry more significance. "There is no honour in that. Merely necessity."
"Necessity," she echoes, nodding as she closes the distance between them in three quick steps.
Necessity.
His hand comes up to her shoulder, squeezing it. Shepard breathes in and lets it out again, half expecting him to walk away from this, the way he usually does but this time he doesn't. He doesn't. It's almost too much that he's here, that someone is here at all and that it's Hackett whose importance runs in tight chains around them.
I'm counting on you.
She looks up, straight into his eyes.
There's too much history here and she doesn't have the energy to sort through it all, these old memories and notions and layers between them; perhaps it's easier to simply break its long chain by moving into his arms, without a word, without a regret.
That's what she does, at last.
Two steps, a fraction of a second, and she's in his arms, resting her forehead against his shoulder. For a moment, neither of them breathe; as she closes her eyes, she can hear him exhale and feel his chest heave against her body. They stand like that for a while, unmoved and unflinching before her hands move up to his back, holding him, exploring the planes of his back and the strength of his shoulders. Then, as though he's turned the decision over in his head, she feels his hands on her as well, skirting along the sides of her body and up towards her neck and her hair. She blinks, almost convinced she's asleep but she isn't. The reality, however, is rapidly morphing into a blur of dress blues and visible, palpable markings of ranks in the merciless lights surrounding them, reminding her that this is the ultimate way to destroy her career but she knows, in some pragmatic part of her consciousness that she won't live when this is over anyway so it hardly matters. It hardly matters, and Hackett has warm, strong hands and a voice that slips in between all the broken layers of her mind, comforting and thrilling in equal measures.
"I-" she begins as his fingers run over the back of her neck and through her hair, blunt nails scraping gently at her scalp.
She takes his other hand and moves it between them, presses it between her legs which causes him to groan unexpectedly and her to whimper as she feels the pressure of it remain even when she removes her own hand. He rubs her through the layer of clothes, his hand rocking carefully back and forth.
"Please," she murmurs, her lips stuck in the warm, pulsating curve of his neck where he smells of after shave and weapons, of metal and skin. "Please, I-"
"It's all right," he interrupts in a low, throaty voice that undoes her completely.
One of his hands rests firmly on her hip, while the other is still where she wants it; she moves against his palm almost against her will, feeling her legs weaken and her voice break and when his fingers move up to her belt, she lets out a low cry of impatience.
He smirks a little. When he has unbuttoned her pants and his fingers have found her wet and warm and ready, he finally kisses her. Slowly, deeply, expertly he kisses her while the strokes between her legs continue in the same rhythm; their tongues press against each other as his thumb rubs her – a little flicker at first, the another one, until she presses him up against the cool fish tank and he chuckles into her hair.
She comes before they have even removed their clothes, comes with a shudder and a moan into his mouth as she rocks against his hips, feeling him harden under her.
He undresses her thoroughly, taking his time, definitely enjoying himself, she thinks and feels a flash of something close to pride when she notices his gaze go darker as his hands frees her breasts. She unbuttons his shirt and lets her mouth roam over his flat, hard body that answers so swiftly to her touch. Moving them both to the bed, Hackett sheds his underwear and hers in the process and when they arrange themselves on the bedspread, she can feel the length of him against her belly and he groans when she pushes herself up, bucking underneath him.
Afterwards they both wash themselves and put their clothes back on without speaking much, but without the sense of unease she would have expected – hell, the sense of unease that has accompanied all her fantasies about this moment, she thinks, deciding to be honest with herself. It's seems to be a night for honesty.
Hackett smiles at her before he leaves, a different kind of smile, tucked-in and personal. "Watch yourself out there, Commander. That's an order."
"Yes, sir." She doesn't salute him, not in private. Certain things have been forever altered.
As the door closes she thinks of the future. It's still uncharted.
But the weight of it has shifted, if only momentarily.