Who: Commander Jane Shepard and Phil Coulson
What: Drinking and playing cards, seeing if they can live together
Where: Their apartment.
When: After This
Rating: Shouldn't be too bad. PG-13.
Notes:



So it had absolutely not been the best week ever. She'd been shot at, blown up, never mind seeing her planet sacked and burnt by evil space A.I., hell bent on destroying all sentient life. She'd been effectively kidnapped, which she still saw as not too bad of a thing considering the circumstances, was in a place where she didn't know anyone or anything, and had been turned to the wolves already battered. Still, that wasn't going to keep her down, at least not today. She'd been given a break, a rest, and a damn hard earned one at that. To say that Commander Jane Shepard intended to make the most of it, would have been an understatement.

So maybe she shouldn't have left the hospital, maybe she shouldn't have covered up the bandages and soldered through the pain, maybe she should have been more sensible about it, but what was the point? She understood, better than anyone could have thought, what she was facing when she went back there. She understood the concept of what they were doing and if, for whatever reason, she'd been given a small window to just breathe and relax? She'd take it. She wished more of her crew were here, but she understood that was unlikely as well.

She wondered, for just a moment, as she flexed her toes inside the front of her boot, walking toward the apartment, if maybe she'd lost her mind? Was it really that likely she'd been just..plucked..out of the battle and thrown here, some two hundred years in the past? She grimaced slightly and adjusted her weight as a poor step threw off her rhythm and shifted the small bag of her possessions from her left arm, to her right. Pain sure still felt real, and she figured that ruled out the probability of her being dead. She figured dead people likely didn't have much use for pain, unless maybe they wanted it, which she did not. She'd absolutely had enough of that. Could she really just believe Crane's story, just like that? She'd seen his little questionnaire and the guy was clearly certifiable. Even if he wasn't, the story was a hard swallow, and it wasn't even the weirdest part.

Truth be told, Jane felt the strangest about the idea of sharing a living space with someone. She hadn't done that since, well, since before everything. She couldn't remember the last time she'd shared an actual living space with someone. Sure, you share a bunk or a rack on long, haul flights out in the black, but that was different. In that context you put a few pictures up, hoped you could get enough privacy when you needed it, and that was that. This though, this was actual living with someone, in a space that didn't move, where they didn't move. The whole concept felt..strange.

Jane remained optimistic as she rounded the final corner on Coulson's directions. The guy had some kind of ties to military operations, if she believed him anyway, and didn't seem to have a problem with having a drink and a friendly game. She wondered, for a moment, just what people played for games in the twenty first, before absently dismissing it and figuring she'd learn fast, like always. There was promise here at least, some common ground for them to stand on, which she knew was important. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd dealt with anyone, human or otherwise, on a personal level - at least that didn't involve a war.

Dressed plainly, in a gray, hooded, loose fitting, sweat shirt and olive drab, cinched, slacks, Jane swapped hands with the bag, and cleared her throat. Was this the right place? Only one way to find out..

She raised her hand, and knocked on the door.