Who: Shepard and Callisto What: Paying a visit, feelings when: After this Where: Shepard's Status: complete Rating: PG-13
It hadn’t been the easiest transition to make, being back in the world, so to speak. Callisto wasn’t in the best place mentally and she didn’t really like being indoors, away from windows. She really didn’t like elevators, so she took the stairs everywhere, no matter how many flights she had to climb to get where she was going.
She was at Jane’s door, wanting to check on her after the ordeal with the Reapers and then when she’d come to get Callisto out. She hadn’t dealt with anything she’d suffered while being experimented on, and she definitely hadn’t dealt with the fact she’d believed Jane had died the entire time she was being a lab rat.
Finally getting the courage, Callisto knocked on the door. She probably looked terrible. Her hair was wild, and she looked like she hadn’t really slept in a couple weeks. Which wasn’t far from the truth.
Going after Callisto had probably been stupid, but Jane had been stubborn. She wanted to be there for her. It was like she had something to prove to Callisto, and to herself. But since then, she’d spent more time in bed than out of it as her body worked over time to recover from both events. She felt a little guilty, actually. It was Callisto’s trauma that mattered.
She groaned at the knock, and got off of her couch, grabbing a cane to make her way to the door. Her face lit up when she saw Callisto. “Hey stranger.”
The way that Jane’s face lit was a sight for sore eyes, which was something that had a deeper meaning after all the crap Callisto had been through. “Hey. I’m not interrupting your rest, am I?” Getting back into human interaction was difficult. It hadn’t been her strong suit before, so it took quite some effort on her part. Mostly Callisto just wanted to be in an open area. She wasn’t certain if being somewhere loud was better than being somewhere quiet. If it was too quiet, she heard the demons. If it was too loud, she could get restless and twitchy.
She probably already tried to deck Xena at least once on accident because of the demons keeping her from hearing the other woman coming up to her.
“You’re saving me from incredible boredom,” Jane replied. She reached for Callisto, wanting to take her hand, or at least touch her. She didn’t ask how Callisto was doing, and hoped Callisto would feel comfortable enough to talk about it. “Why don’t you come in. We can open the windows, let a nice breeze in.”
“Being in reserve isn’t exactly your style, is it?” Callisto said, watching Jane’s hand like a hawk for a moment before she reached out and took it in her own. “I think that sounds like a great idea.” Getting a breeze would be nice, it would help keep her relatively calm.
“Not even a little, or I wouldn’t have joined the Agency,” Jane pointed out helpfully. She squeezed Callisto’s hand, then led her to the couch, where she’d basically made a nest. “At least they could take a person deaf in one ear.”
Callisto followed Jane to the couch, noting the nest there. “Clearly they’re not picky,” she teased. Callisto was doing her best to focus on Jane, on the here and now, and not what had happened to her. “Though they could probably use someone a bit more mobile than you right now.” Again, more teasing.
“Window,” Jane grunted, sinking into the couch. She knew she didn’t have the energy to get it for herself, and didn’t mind the view of Callisto getting to it. She grinned to herself, and waved her hand. “I’m mobile. I can be mobile. Get me one of those little scooters from Wal-mart. Then I’ll be mobile.”
And a terror in the aisles.
Going over to the window, Callisto opened it, taking more than a few moments to breathe in the air and look out at the view before she turned around and came back to sit down on the couch. “A mobile terror, if your driving is any indication.” Callisto said with a smirk.
“I can drive.” No she couldn’t. Jane leaned against Callisto, as much because she wanted to reassure her with her presence as anything else. She’d died and come back twice, and there was a perspective to that that she was really starting to appreciate. Besides. She’d earned the right to be lazy.
Only Shepard would consider herself to be lazy, rather than recovering.
“I think your car would beg to differ,” Callisto quipped. She drew in a slow breath, trying to let herself relax. But the truth was, she didn’t know the meaning of relaxing anymore. She’d been wound up far too tight ever since she’d gotten back. “Do you know how to ride a horse?” It was a random question, but it was something benign to talk about at least.
“I...uh what?” Jane shifted around and looked at her, her insides protesting at the movement. “I can. Kind of. It’s been a very long time.”
“One of the gifts from my dreams was my horse. I should introduce you when you’re able to move around.” That had been an unexpected gift, but Callisto had at least found a stable for her horse.
“I think I’d like that.” Jane had heard two different things about horses. One, was that they were soulless devils, and the other that they were too full of soul, too pure. The truth was probably in the middle. “Hope it likes me.”
“Give her a carrot and she’ll be fine,” Callisto commented. “She can be a bit temperamental, but considering how unhinged my dream self was, it’s not that surprising.” She shrugged a bit. Callisto was unhinged again in this life, but she was trying to stay focused.
“So she’s your equine half?” Jane laughed, and leaned her head on Callisto’s shoulder and ran her hand along her knee. “Sorry. I’m on something nice.”
Which could potentially be bad. Jane unfiltered might say things she’d regret later.
Callisto actually managed to laugh a bit at that. “At least one of us is.” She rested her cheek against Jane’s head. “How is your recovery coming? I know it must’ve set you back to come find me.”
“Yeah. Garrus and the doctors are kind of pissed at me for that.” Which was her way of saying that she’d definitely had a set back. Several in fact. “Worth it though, to get you out of that hell hole.”
Jane could have died again, but Callisto was one of her people now. And Jane would die for her people.
“To be honest, I didn’t think anyone would come for me. I thought you were dead, and depending on the day I think Xena would rather I was dead.” Mostly because of the dreams. Sure, Callisto had become an angel, then been reincarnated as Xena’s kid, but that didn’t mean that the bad blood between them had completely disappeared.
“I don’t think that’s true. Xena might be a little bit of a bitch but I don’t think she wishes you were dead.” Maybe out of her hair, but that was a lot different. “Sorry. Didn’t actually want to die. Pretty sure I was dead for a little while.”
“Yeah well, I’m pretty certain she’s tired of dealing with me. I’m not the easiest person to handle for long periods of time.” Even before the dreams, Callisto sometimes wondered if she should’ve left the Godslayers and gone her own way, give Xena a permanent break from her. Now with the dreams added in, that was probably true three times over. “I’m glad you’re alive. At least something went right.” Did she mean the Reapers being destroyed or Jane being alive? Or was it both?
“Good thing I’m not either.” Jane ran her fingers through her hair, closing her eyes for a long moment as her chest suddenly felt like it was being stabbed. She grunted. “Happened….just like the dreams. Shot the catalyst. Feedback took… took them all out. Figured it would take me out too. But here I am. Guess I really am made of steel.”
“It seems you are. Not easy to keep you down.” Callisto commented. She well understood the art of dying, having died twice herself in the dreams. She might’ve technically been dead in this world as well considering Xena had to jump start her heart one morning. “So I should say you’re as tough as steel as opposed to tough as nails?”
Jane brandished her extremely short nails. “Don’t have much nails to speak of.” She grinned at Callisto, her mind going places with that. “Probably for the best. I know you like a little pain but some pain should be avoided.”
She wanted to wrap her arms around Callisto and hold her against her, but she resisted the urge. She wanted Callisto to not feel trapped.
She wanted to tell Callisto she loved her. Those were probably not compatible desires.
“Wouldn’t stop you from biting,” she countered with a bit of a smirk. Callisto looked down at her hand for a moment before she turned it over and rested it, palm up, against Jane’s thigh. She wasn’t quite sure where Jane hurt and where she didn’t, she let her have the option of taking her hand.
“Though it would seem I have a fast healing rate now, so you won’t be the only one to take rough play when you’re fully recovered.” Which had been evidenced already considering Callisto had been stabbed and shot, multiple times, during the breakout. All of those wounds had healed very quickly.
“Biting is different,” Jane assured her, palm moving lightly across Callisto’s as she threaded their fingers together. They were alone, after all. Glancing at Callisto’s chest, Jane thought about that. They still didn’t know what those people had did and Callisto wasn’t likely to let anyone examine her, let alone draw blood. Or even take x-rays. “Lucky you. I hate holding back.”
Callisto definitely wasn’t letting anyone examine her or get anywhere in her vacinity with needles. She had an idea of what had been done to her, she heard the demons, had powers and more, but Callisto hadn’t talked about it at all. She’d shut down any attempts at it. She held Jane’s hand in hers, the feeling foreign and yet familiar at the same time. “And I hate it when people hold back.”
“Don’t like people assuming you can’t handle it?” Jane thought this might be a good way to get Callisto to talk. Let her volunteer information rather than force it out of her.
“Exactly. I’m a warrior, I can take more than many give me credit for. Sure, I have my hang ups and things that make me crazy, but don’t we all have limits?” Callisto wasn’t precisely volunteering information that Jane didn’t already know, but it was certainly a start. Straight up interrogating her or forcing her to talk about what happened wouldn’t work. A more subtle approach where Callisto could decide what to say and when to say it was the right one.
“We all have limits. LIke right now, anything that makes my rib move is probably a limit.” Jane laughed, which made her ribs move, which hurt like hell even through the pain killers.
“You know… I’m glad I went after you. No one deserves to go through that kind of thing alone and I wasn’t going to let someone I care about suffer.” Jane tried to shift around. “Maybe I’m attached. You’re my favorite woman in Orange County.”
“You should probably focus on not moving that rib,” Callisto pointed out, though she was also concerned about Jane. She wasn’t in good shape, and she needed rest. Something that she clearly ignored to come after Callisto.
“Thank you. It could’ve killed you, but I’m glad you were there. It made all the torment and breaking out of the cage worth the struggle. Though cage is a kind term for what dark hole they stuck me in. It was barely big enough for me to sit up in.” It had felt like being buried alive, and she knew that suffocating feeling first hand.
“Nah.” Jane protested. She hated this part. Being laid up. She was too active a person and had been about this bad when she’d been blown up before coming to the OC. “Been blown up before, this is nothing.”
She did settle down, leaning her cheek against Callisto’s chest. “Makes me so angry. People doing that to anyone. I’ve done some dark things to save the galaxy, but that’s just… cruel.”
“You’ve got a funny idea of nothing,” she teased as she took a breath and settled a bit. It was calming to feel Jane’s hand in hers, and her cheek on her chest. “That was the most humane thing they did to me, actually.” Callisto said.
“They injected me with who the fuck knows what multiple times a day. The bitch I set on fire kept telling me most people died after the first injection, and she wanted to make me her prized project. She wanted to make me a god again, with added abilities.”
Then Callisto fell silent and pressed her lips together. The thought of her sister still being alive was poking at her, but she didn’t know if it was even true. And if it was, Cassandra apparently had some memory loss, so would she even remember Callisto? Or did she think Callisto was dead? Callisto doubted her sister would want to know her now anyway.
She was a monster. She was nothing.
Her chest constricted, and she was dangerously close to doing something she never ever ever did; cry. Her hold on Jane’s hand tightened, her grip stronger than Jane was used to it being.
It was probably a good thing that bitch was dead, because Jane would have gotten up to try to kill her. As it was, she was making note to contact the Agency. There were probably more places like that. It reminded Jane too much of Cerberus, and she knew quite a few people who would have issue with anything like Hydra
“You’re not a thing, Callisto. You’re a person. A broken one, but a person. Not an experiment or a monster or whatever they were trying to turn you into. I’ve stared monsters in the eyes. You’re scary, but you’re like me. Sure, we do monsterous thngs, but last I checked, I’m not a monster.”
“No, I’m a weapon. It’s what they got when they experimented on a psychopath.” Callisto said, pushing the thoughts of her sister aside as best as she could. She hadn’t cried in years. She didn’t cry at any time during the experiments, she sure as hell wasn’t going to cry now. “You at least aren’t a psychopath. I am. And now I have destructive powers to go with that.”
“If you’re such a psychopath, what are you doing here?” Jane still had Callisto’s hand in hers, and her fingers stroked over Callisto’s hand with her other fingers. Slow, almost gentle. “You’re a little crazy, but psychopaths don’t actually care.”
Did Callisto care? Not care? About what Shepard thinks? Or about Shepard in general? Jane almost wondered if they were at some kind of crossroad. Which path they went down was entirely up to her lover.
What was she doing here? Callisto wanted to be here, but it was also frightening here. There were feelings for Jane, but Callisto was also a danger, especially with not knowing the full extent of her abilities yet.
She suddenly felt restless and needed to pace, but she didn’t move, not with Jane leaning against her. “I’m more than a little crazy.” What had been witnessed at the facility had only been the half of it.
“But I’m here because I want to be. Because I care about you.” It was a step, and Callisto didn’t know if she’d regret or not. She hoped not, but Callisto was karma’s bitch, and things that went right in her life tended to not stay that way.
“Never want you coming here, if it’s not what you want,” Jane drawled. She shifted a little, lifting her head to look at Callisto. She felt a little floaty. Those painkillers were really kicking in now. “Love you too much, to tie you down.”
Which had been a problem for Jane here. Every time she met someone she could or did fall in love with, she let them go. Or she waited too long to tell them, until it was too late. A small part of her, after all, would always kind of love Regina. But that was in the past, and she wanted Callisto in her future.
Wait, what did Jane say? Callisto blinked as her brain processed Jane’s words. She loved her? “You love me?” She asked in clarification. Callisto kept hold of Jane’s hand, and made no move to bolt or rush to shoot down what Jane had said. Which should say a lot considering emotions and Callisto didn’t mesh well.
Wait. What? Jane blinked her eyes, the fog in her head lifting a little bit as she realized she’d said that out loud. It was something she’d kind of fought against. Letting herself feel emotions for someone, especially someone where the very real danger of them leaving existed. She held her breath. “Yeah. I do.”
So Callisto had heard Jane right, her brain had processed things correctly. Despite the growing attachment she’d had to Jane, she was still surprised by it. Had this happened a month or so ago, she most likely would’ve run off by now. But Callisto suddenly found herself realizing that she needed this. It felt strange after what she’d gone through, but it was what she needed. Cutting herself off from Jane would effectively get the same result that Marguerite wanted from her.
She felt emotions rise again, along with that nagging feeling of wanting to cry.
“I love you, and I need you.” Callisto finally managed, lifting her free hand to trail a finger tip along one of the scars on Jane’s cheek.
Oh. Oh. Jane let out her breath, leaning her cheek very gently against Callisto’s fingertip. She’d expected Callisto to leave. That usually happened to her. Even Liara had left for a time. Her mind had conjured up all sorts of scenarios, but not this one. Not Callisto admitting either of those two things. But she wasn’t going to cry.
Maybe just a teensy bit. “I’m here for you. Might be falling apart, but I’ll always come for you.”
“Try not to literally fall apart because I like your body parts where they are.” Callisto quipped. She had no experience with how these things went. She hadn’t exactly had feelings for someone and acted on them before.
“Guess I got an extra reason to stay together.” Jane reached up, playing with some curls of golden hair. Sure, Garrus would break if she hadn’t made it, but he’d recover. Callisto, not so much. “... Sorry. I know.. Feelings aren’t your thing. But also, I’m not that sorry.”
“No, they aren’t. But I suppose I could make an exception for you.” Callisto probably would’ve added in a little swat or playful punch if it wouldn’t add to Jane’s injuries currently. Plus, she didn’t actually know how strong she was now.
“I’m an exception. Lucky me.” She kept playing with Callisto’s hair. Shepard liked hair. She liked no hair too. Really, she just liked everything. Each person was unique and different with something wonderful about them to touch. Besides Callisto’s general hotness, it was her hair. “Think you might want to stay the night?”
“I might want to, yeah.” Callisto said. It would give Xena some breathing room, and Callisto could try to not feel like a burden. “Though I probably won’t sleep. You don’t need to hear me wake up screaming in your current condition.” Too many nightmares, too many demons.
“Tables will turn,” she warned her. When she was better, she could take care of Callisto. Not because she was obligated, but because she cared.
But right now, she just wanted someone there when she woke up. Her body was broken, and her mind wasn’t doing much better. Shepard had her own nightmares, clawing at her as she walked through that black tunnel. The Reaper attack had reopened old mental wounds and carved new ones.
She feigned strength, but she felt weak.
“But not now. You need your rest.” Callisto wasn’t exactly the best caregiver. She’d had experience when Xena’s back had been temporarily broken. This was both different and the same. “Do you need anything right now?” She mostly meant food or something to drink, but she could just hold Jane if she wanted.
“Just you.” Jane squeezed her hand, her head rolling on Callisto’s shoulder. “Just you.”