Author's Note: *waves* Hi, folks! I wanted to take a moment to apologize for seeming to disappear on this story. I PROMISE you it is neither abandoned, nor forgotten. My muse just ran off with a pair of vampires, hence the delay in updating.

I appreciate you all for sticking with me in the interim, and hope you enjoy this new chapter :-)

It gets harder every year to recall the sound of her mother's voice, or how bright her father's smile was, but Jane is determined not to forget them. So she'll spend time, focusing on the fading memories - back before the batarians showed up and mutilated her life - and build a world around them in her mind.

A world where she is part of a normal family. A world where she is content as a simple farmer's daughter and has never seen the kinds of horrors that can be wrought by one species on another. But then Saren will call and the fantasy will splinter, and she'll find herself living an entirely different sort of life.

A familiar, pale blue face with violet markings pops up around the corner of the doorway of the shared dorm room, interrupting Jane's reverie. "Shepard! You have a vid-call from your father, he -"

"My father's dead, Elayna."

Jane's roommate rolls her eyes. "Fine. You have a call from your scary-as-shit guardian, and he looks pissed."

Jane sighs, of course he looks pissed. It's one of his three default states of emotion. The other two being morbidly amused and annoyed as hell. He very rarely displays the former emotion when he calls, but does often demonstrate the latter, usually in conjunction with the current one. Though she doubts her friend can tell the difference.

She saves the neglected work on her console and moves to the comm area to accept the call, waving off her roommate so that she can at least have the illusion of privacy as she prepares to be scolded. Doing so is made easier by the fact that, for once, she knows she doesn't deserve it. She was just following his orders after all.

"Evening, Saren."

"Jane. I received an interesting communication from the Headmaster this afternoon."

"I'll bet."

"You don't sound concerned."

"That's because I'm not. Whatever he told you, I can assure you it was all part of the mission you assigned me."

Saren's mandibles spread open and hover there for a moment. She's managed to surprise him. Good. She loves doing that. Makes a nice change of pace. He leans forward, closer to the comm camera, hands steepled in front of him. "Please, enlighten me as to what happened."

Jane sits up in her chair, sucking in a quick breath of air as she prepares to deliver her report in as direct a manner as possible. "In order to achieve the specified objective, I chose not to finish my school assignments in the time allotted prior to the planned class departure to the Hades Nexus cluster." An itch forms on the tip of her nose, making it twitch. She shuffles her hands under her thighs to stop herself from reaching up to scratch. "As a result, it was agreed that I would not attend the trip, and instead would remain on campus in order to complete the assignments." It's not a lie exactly. More like a reinterpretation of the true events.

She figures if anyone can appreciate the subtle difference, it's Saren.

"I then hitched a ride on their shuttle as a sanitation worker." Jane straightens her spine as she speaks, careful not to preen, as that's a surefire way to get Saren's ire up, but proud of herself all the same. "Pretty ingenious infiltration if you ask me. Managed to fabricate 'authenticated' identification on the fly, and adjust the ship manifest. Even coded the security mechs here at the school to still register my presence." A frown pulls at the corners of Jane's mouth as she relays the part's she's not so proud of. "Would have pulled it off too, if it hadn't been for those newly installed DNA scanners when we made port. I did what I could to override them, but ran into a snag in the third subroutine, and it sent off a warning to security. Mapped it all out though, so it shouldn't be a problem in the future."

She taps away on her omni-tool as she speaks, queueing up the information on the programs she used and the data she collected and sends it off through Spectre authorized channels to Saren's address. "There, that should be all of it." Yes, she got caught - which is a very large red mark against her - but everything else up to that point was perfect. Surely, he'll see that.

Jane can tell by the way the plate above Saren's left eye lifts as he reviews the documentation that he's impressed, but the rest of his tightly controlled expression gives little away. "Which assignments did you fail to complete?"

She coughs to cover her somewhat nervous laughter, she thought that might be a problem, but what the hell did he expect her to do when he gave her a mission like the one he did? "An open note take-home test for advanced calculus."

"That's hardly-"

"My historical perspectives on ancient asari societies research paper."

"..."

"And my interstellar cartography keystone project." Jane can pinpoint the exact moment that anger floods Saren's system by the way that his right mandible twitches, so she rushes to explain herself in advance of the chastisement she knows is coming her way. "It was the only way I could be certain that they would ban me from the trip! Sir." A little well-timed deference, Jane has learned, can go a long way.

The rumble of Saren's dual-toned growl echoing through the comm channel - accompanied by the squeak of the eavesdropping Elayna behind her - tells her that her timing might not have been good enough. "Jane, what part of 'covert assignment' made you think that failing three of your courses would be acceptable?"

Jane huffs, impatient. "It was just one set of assignments, Saren. Incompletes might put me behind, but it's nothing I can't recover from. Besides, I did complete the assignments. I just didn't turn them in on time, so they thought they were incomplete." There's no change in Saren's countenance at her assurance, and it makes annoyance spike in Jane's blood right back. Her fingers curl into fists and she bites back at him through gritted teeth. "How else was I was going to get banned from the trip like you told me to?"

"I never told you to get banned-"

Jane shoots forward in her chair, closer to the screen. "Excuse me? The mission parameters you gave-"

"The mission parameters I gave you indicated that you were to be excused from the trip so that you could infiltrate the ship." Saren's voice is calm. Collected. But with a thread of near imperceptible frustration Jane doubts many would pick up on lacing his subvocals, but that she's too damn familiar with to miss. "I wanted to see how well you could work within those limitations. At no point did I condone you failing your courses to do so."

Anger bubbles up inside Jane. This is just like Saren, give her an impossible mission, and then reprimand her when she fails to complete it. Never taking notice of what she did right. "And just how did you expect me to do that?"

Saren tilts his head to the side, that assessing stare of his - the one that never fails to make her feel like an insect - carving into her. "One avenue that I had anticipated would have been for you to feign an illness. You would have been left behind to recuperate. This route would have allowed you the benefit of sympathy were you caught sneaking onto the ship - since your professors would have assumed that you did not wish to be left out. They therefore would have been more likely to let you off with a warning - or no punishment at all."

Jane swallows. That...wasn't an option she had even considered. She never gets sick. The medical care at the school is top-notch. Her mind begins to whir with the possibilities. How would she have… She's yanked out of her ponderings by the sound of Saren drumming his fingers on his ship's console.

"Your ill-thought out choice has instead resulted in your additional confinement, increased levels of suspicion, and lowered marks in your courses."

Well, when you put it that way..."Oh."

"Indeed."

She fidgets in her chair, giving in to the urge to scratch her nose. "But I-"

"I expect a full-report on the mission - what portions of it succeeded, and which were failures, as well as an assessment on how you can improve for next time - sent to me by tomorrow evening. Is that understood?"

Jane grits her teeth. She'll have to stay up all night to complete that, but she doubts he cares about a little thing like her lack of sleep, not when he's already overloading her with additional work as is. "Yes, sir."

"Good." Without a goodbye, or any questions as to how she's doing besides, he disconnects the call.

Nice talking to you too, Saren.

Elayna pops her head back through the doorway she was skulking behind and frowns at Jane. "Okay, I'm not all that sure what just went down there - and I honestly don't want to know, plausible deniability, yeah? But giving you additional homework with the course-load you already have? He does know you have finals coming up, right?" She shakes her head when Jane confirms that of course he does. "Man, your turian's a slave-driver."

Jane thinks about the batarians that killed her family, the muffled screams she was able to hear from her hiding place and the nasty taste of the blood from the one she bit on Omega. She thinks about all the horrible things that would have happened to her if not for Saren, and shakes her head. "No, he's just an asshole."

~~~\/~~~

Elayna groans as the comm chimes with yet another incoming call.

"Are you going to get that?"

"No."

"Come on, Shepard! This is the third-time in the past hour that he's called. I'm trying to study."

"Then answer and tell him I'm not here. I don't care."

"By the goddess, no, I am not lying to him, Jane! You remember what happened to poor Ralla!"

Jane wrinkles her nose, refusing to look away from her omni-tool. She's almost at the next level of 'Puzzle Pirates' and isn't going to quit now because Saren's annoyed at her. Again. If he doesn't want her grades to slip, he should stop overloading her with extra assignments. "Ralla didn't lie to him, Elayna. She dropped me from ten meters and broke my arm."

"It was six meters, and you were fine, but Ralla got transferred to another school."

Jane doesn't have anything to say to that. She recalls the event all too clearly. Ralla had, after all, been one of the first friends Jane had made at school. And she'd been devastated when she'd learned the other girl would be leaving. More so when Saren had restricted contact with the girl in the future.

— "But she's my friend, Saren."

"Friends are liabilities, Jane. You shouldn't trust so easily." —

Jane's throat goes dry at the memory. She flicks at the holographic screen in front of her just a tad harder than necessary to make her next move. "Then don't answer the call. I'll message him later." She grinds her teeth as she misses the drop and is sent back to the beginning of the level. "After I've beaten this damn thing."

Jane doesn't look up, but she can feel Elayna's stare drilling holes into the back of her head.

"Fine. But if he shows up here in a huff, I'm not covering for you."

"Whatever."

The chime goes silent, and Jane pretends she never heard it ringing.

~~~\/~~~

From her position laying flat on her bed, Jane guides her drone around the room in figure eights above her head, frowning as it stops mid-stream, then flickers out and dies. "Damn. What is wrong with this thing."

A noise like a hiss answers her from the bed on the the other side of the room. "Maybe it's exhausted from your constant running of it for the last three hours,Shepard!"

Jane shakes her head. "No. It can't be the battery, I just swapped-" A pillow smacks Jane in the side, cutting her off mid-stream. "Hey!"

"I've got two hours before I need to be up for my biotics training routine, Shep. I need sleep."

"Oh. Sorry." Jane powers the drone down. She lays in her bed staring at the ceiling until her eyes adjust to the dark, knowing that while she should sleep, any chance of doing so is a long way off.

Still, she gives it her best mediocre level of effort. But in the dark and the quiet, her brain doesn't slow, just turns its attention inward.

Worry creeping in - like it's want to do these days. Wondering if staying at school is the right call - if she should hang out long enough to get the higher degree like Saren wants - or if it's time to cut her losses and run.

She could go to Omega, she thinks. Join up with Aria's personal guard. The asari would take her on, Jane's certain. She's only met her a few times over the years - Saren disinclined as he is to spend time on the lawless station - but the woman had taken an interest in Jane during each and every visit. Granting her a bit of time and attention.

Jane figures it was more to piss Saren off than in any real interest in Jane (the sour faces he'd make beside her were proof enough of that ), but Jane could use that to her advantage. Play the poor little refugee card. Oh-so desperate to break away from the suffocating rules and regulations of her Spectre guardian.

It's a tempting thought, the more Jane dwells on it.

She doubts Aria would put a gun in her hand and station her at her side straight away. No. More than likely it'd mean a stint behind the bar, serving drinks until she's proved herself. But, better that than dancing.

Jane shudders at the thought.

Saren would have a fit, of course. Maybe even more so than if Jane dropped everything and signed on with the Eclipse, or some other mercenary outfit.

Or, well...maybe not. As there's very little Jane can think of that Saren would detest more than her quitting school and joining up with a band of mercs.

Except for running off to the Alliance, of course.

Or she could opt to disappoint Saren in another way, and just give a go at civilian life. Just...get a job. At Armax maybe. She's decent at design, and she knows her way around their catalog. Or, failing that, she thinks that the shopkeeper at Rodam Expeditions would give her a chance. She's been more than a few places, she can probably figure out a way to sell that experience to customers. Make a steady income. Get an apartment. Maybe a pet fish.

Simple. Normal. Boring.

She heaves a heavy sigh, staring up at the ceiling in the dark, listening to the breathing of her roommate juxtaposed against the whirring of the cooling system fans in the walls. The myriad options - both open and closed to her - playing out in high-definition in her mind.

Ten minutes later, she gives into her insomnia and pulls up the drone's data log on her omnitool, hoping to decipher what keeps going wrong. Better to be productive than risk an idle brain taking her to dangerous and unfriendly places.

She flicks from screen to screen - the orange glow of the interface flashing in and out as she reads, blinking bright in the dark room. Jane frowns, unable to locate a clear answer to the problem. Maybe if she tries rerouting the-

A long, drawn out grown of displeasure rings out from the other side of the rom. "Ugh! Why can't you just go. To. Sleep?"

Jane frowns into the dark. "What? I'm being quiet."

"Yeah, but I can feel you brooding from over here."

"You an empath now, Elayna?"

"Oh, yeah. Didn't I tell you? I'm thinking about switching tracks and going into xenopsychology."

Jane snorts. "Sounds horrifying."

"I don't know. Getting people to spill their deepest, darkest secrets to me? Could be damn interesting."

"Hmm."

"So, why don't you help me get a good start, and spill. Because neither of us are going to get any sleep if you don't."

Jane gives it a moment's consideration, before dismissing it. Not really one to share. Still, maybe… "Any chance the Asari Commandos would be interested in taking on a human member?"

She can feel her roommates eyes on her, for all she can't see them in the black of the room. "I mean sure, if they're good enough. Why, know someone?"

"Me."

Elayna laughs, a giggle-snorting sound that Jane normally thinks of as 'cute' but that - at present - just feels insulting. "You're not a biotic, Shep."

Jane shrugs. "I'm young still. Could take a bath in some eezo. See what comes out."

"A lump of melted human, that's what."

Jane sighs. The sound as obnoxious a noise in the quiet space as her roommate's lingering chuckles.

"Look, Shep. You want to be military. So be military." Her roommate's voice is a little softer, a little kinder, than before. "Forget the Hierarchy, forget the Commandos. Forget freaking Omega-" Jane opens her mouth to interject, but Elayna powers on. "Don't even try and deny it, Shep. I know you, and I know you've got neon visions of shaking your ass next to Aria-"

"I do not!"

"But we both know you can't dance to save your life, so just put it out of your head. Finish up your degree, and go join the Alliance. Forget what your Spectre says about humans. You've been internalizing that shit for way too long. It's not healthy. And more importantly, it's wrong."

Jane chews on her thumbnail. Nerves and hope mixing in her stomach until she feels nauseous. "How do you know?"

This time when Elayna turns to Jane, Jane's eyes have adjusted to the dark enough to make out the sweep of her fringe, the highlights around her eyes. "Because I know you."

"But-"

"Shep, I know you. And you? You're a good person. Too good to be able to credit it all to that stick-up his ass Spectre that pays for your upkeep. If you're whole species were the toddlers that he claims they are, you wouldn't have been able to turn out half as well as you have."

Jane doesn't have anything to say to that. She wants Elayna to be right. Recalls her parents and how hard they worked to make Mindoir a home. Remembers all the different members of the colony - vague, formless, faceless people in her memory now, but real - alive - once upon a time - puttering around doing their best to make sure everyone didn't just survive, but thrived.

The memory of it makes her feel young and small again.

But it also makes her think that maybe Elayna has a point and it's time Jane stops caving into Saren's prejudices and demands, and do what she wants for a change.

~~~\/~~~

Jane's eyes are throbbing, and she has a crick in her neck from being slouched over her desk for the past three or four (possibly six) hours, when Elayna slams into the room.

The asari flops onto her bed with a loud exhale of air. "I am. So very. Very. Tired. I could literally sleep for a decade."

"Uh-huh."

"You missed dinner."

Jane doesn't look up. "Wasn't hungry."

"What are you working on?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing, huh? I wasn't aware that nothing required typing so furiously. It must be a truly unique sort of nothing to require so much of your attention."

"You're hilarious, Elayna."

"I know. So what is it? Another assignment from your Pops?"

Jane shots Elayna a toothy grin, too happy with her progress to bother being annoyed at Elayna's consistent refusal to not refer to Saren as her father. "Nope. It's...extracurricular."

"Oooh. Fun!" Elayna bounces up onto her knees on the bed, a gleeful expression lighting up her supposedly exhausted face. "What's it gonna do, and how many rules are we gonna break using it?"

Jane beams at her friend, adrenaline spiking through her veins as she fills her in on her plan.

~~~\/~~~

The look on Saren's face when the doors to his ship open up and she steps inside could scare off a pack of vorcha. The deep, irritated rumble in his sub-vocals and the rage in his eyes sharp enough to cut glass.

Jane smiles wide, showing two rows of brilliant white teeth and steps around him, moving into the ship. "Thanks for picking me up. I was afraid I was going to have to hitch a ride soon. Who knows where I would've ended up." She heads towards the cockpit dropping her bag on the decking by her usual seat, only to be startled by the presence of another turian sitting in her chair.

"Oh! Hi there." Her smile broadens at the surprised look on the newcomer's face. He's younger than Saren by about a decade, and maybe a handful of years older than she is. And quite pleasing to look at. The white markings on red skin are attractive, and they set his eyes apart.

It's a good look.

She thrusts her hand out in greeting. "I don't think we've met. I'm Shepard."

His hand is warm, and the grip firm. Not at all the awkward mess that accompanies a turian's first handshake with a human. Her estimation of him increases by a small degree. "Nihlus Kryik. Spectre Candidate."

"Ahh." She tosses a look over her shoulder at Saren, who's still fuming by the doors. "Another one, huh?"

He keys in the security code, mumbling something under his breath that she's pretty sure includes the words 'teenagers' and 'disrespectful' in it, before shouldering past her into the pilot's seat. "So it would seem."

She turns back to Nihlus with another smile. "You planning on washing out too?"

His mandibles flutter in shock, beside him she can hear Saren grinding his teeth. "I'm trying to avoid it." She laughs, he grins, and she decides she likes him.

"Jane, I believe you know where the sleeping quarters are. Go deposit your things there. The cockpit is not your closet."

She gives Saren a mocking salute and snags her bag from the ground. "Yes, sir!" The look he shoots her promises retribution for her attitude, but she doesn't much care.

By now, she's used to it.

Jane takes her time in the back, getting cleaned up and waiting until they are well away from the spaceport before going to join the duo up front. No reason to tempt fate. Saren's never left her behind before, but then again, she's never been expelled from a school before either.

It's possible it's put him in a mood.

With careful steps, she heads towards the front cabin, deliberately staying under their radar in the hope of being able to gauge just how screwed she is. She slumps against the bulkhead by the entry to the decon station, out of sight, and listens to them discuss the ship's heading and other non-interesting things for several minutes. The clipped, one word responses that Saren gives his companion tell her that he either doesn't like the other man, or that he is still pissed at her. Or both. It's hard to tell without visual cues.

Jane's exhausted, mentally and physically. She honestly hadn't meant for things to go belly up they way they did. It was just a prank. A harmless, little prank. Or at least, that was what it was meant to be. She'd been working on that drone for months, she really had thought the thing was stable enough to send out.

She never expected it to blow up the chemistry lab. At least she can console herself with the fact that, while she may have been expelled, no one was hurt. And at least Elayna only got a suspension.

Small favors, right?

She sighs, about to give up on her spying and head back to the bunks for some much needed shut-eye (sleeping on a spaceport bench while waiting more than a day for Saren to show up wasn't what she'd call relaxing) when Nihlus breaks the stifling silence up front.

"...You have a ward."

"Yes."

"A human ward?"

"Yes." The irritation in Saren's voice is palpable, the fact that Nihlus either doesn't notice it, or doesn't care tells her that he is either very stupid or very brave.

"I thought you hated humans?"

"I do." There was a point in her life when she would have been bothered by Saren saying something like that so matter of fact. But then she grew up and realized that while he hates humans, for some reason, he doesn't count her in their ranks. Even if he does look at her sometimes like he's not sure where she came from or how she got here.

"She's human."

"How very observant of you. I can see why you've been recommended for Spectre status."

"Saren-"

"There is very little I detest more than repeating myself, Nihlus. Yes. I have a ward. Yes, she is human. No, this does not change my opinion on humans as a species. I still believe them to be brash, impulsive, egotistical children not yet ready for the rigors of life in council space. And who still need to learn their place."

"And how does she fit into all of this?"

A beat. Jane imagines that he is readjusting the ship's controls for the umpteenth time, just to keep his hands busy. "That is none of your concern."

Undeterred by the brush off, Nihlus continues on. "I'm surprised is all, Saren. I've been working with you for months." He has? Damn, Saren. Always keeping your friends to yourself. "And you've never mentioned her."

Oh, wow. That actually kind of stings. She knows that, academically, Saren isn't one to share the details of his personal life, but the fact that he is so tight-lipped about her existence is a bit depressing.

"There was no reason to mention her. She's never had any bearing on anything pertaining to our involvement."

"We've been on multiple missions since my assignment, Saren. And there's been more than a few close calls. What would have happened to her if something happened to you?"

"Why the concern for someone you've only just met?"

Jane is equally perplexed. Getting any sort of positive emotion out of Saren is like pulling teeth. It's strange to hear someone else - someone who's only just met her - expressing those kinds of sentiments. She's not sure if it says more about the people she's known up until this point, or Nihlus, that he does. "I've got a soft spot for children, I guess."

Jane snorts, knowing what Saren's going to say to that before he even opens his mouth.

"Useless sentimentality that you need to extinguish if you're going to make it as a Spectre."

"This from the man with a human ward." A subtle bit of mockery bleeds through the newcomer's sub-vocals when he says it.

There's enough of a pause in his response that Jane finds herself leaning forward so that she can see around the corner when Saren answers. He's looking straight ahead, focused on piloting the ship (something she knows he could let the V.I. handle for a while, if he wanted to). Nihlus's gaze is directed at him, unabashedly waiting for a response. It's telling as to how well they know each other that he doesn't seem all that concerned that he's prying into the other man's personal matters. An ugly little burst of jealousy twists her insides.

"Every rule has an exception, Nihlus. You'll need to learn that too." The jealousy smooths out, and she smiles to herself. Coming from Saren, that's practically a letter of endorsement on her behalf. "But if it'll put an end to your incessant questioning and get you to focus on the task at hand, I have provisions in place for her in the event of my untimely death."

Huh. That's...an unexpected bit of news.

In truth, it's not something that Shepard has ever even wanted to think about. Saren might be a misanthropic asshole at times (okay, most of the time), but he's her misanthropic asshole. And the fact that Saren's deemed her care important enough to have made provisions warms her to an impossible degree.

Unwilling to trample on her newly contented emotions, she slinks back to the bunks.

It'll be better to deal with the fallout of her expulsion after she's had a full night's rest anyway.

Author's Note: So a quick (relatively unimportant) note on my interpretation/opinion regarding asari youth. I'm taking things from the perspective that their physical development is on par with that of humans/turians, but that emotionally/culturally, they aren't considered mature for quite a long while after that. Hence why I think that Jane having an asari roommate is a plausible scenario.

Just thought I'd add this in case anyone was curious about my inclusion of an asari roommate for Jane. Again, this has no real impact on the story, but it's info in my head/notes, so I thought I'd share for those who were interested.