Chapter Four: Sweeter Than Fiction

"There you'll stand, ten feet tall; I will say, 'I knew it all along.' Just a shot in the dark, all you got are your shattered hopes. They never saw it coming, you hit the ground running, and now you're onto something. What a sight when the lights came on, proved me right when you proved them wrong. I'll be one of the many saying, 'Look at you now, you made us proud.' And when they call your name and they put you picture in a frame, you know that I'll be there time and again, because I loved you when you hit the ground."

-Taylor Swift

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Jack's day had ended with a revelation. He was the problem; it wasn't a game anymore. If he was looking for someone to blame for anything really, it was himself. But, the night came and went quickly, and when he awoke, he had managed to tuck this revelation safely away into the back of his mind where so much else was stored. He may have let himself be vulnerable to Marsha's words the night before thanks to a long day, a tiresome argument, and dimmed lighting, but today was a new day.

If he was going to fulfil the promise he'd made to himself and remain closed off and dejected from everything and everyone around him, he was just going to have to act as if he was completely unchanged. This was far from challenging for him, he'd been doing it his whole like, but he couldn't let anyone see that they might just be getting to him. Especially not her.

Meanwhile, Marsha was getting very tired of trying repeatedly to finally get through to Jack to no avail. The psychiatrist in her suggested that they were close to that desired breakthrough, but it was exhausting to her as a person. It was the same every time, there were two potential outcomes with him. He would either refuse to take her words seriously and an unnecessary argument would break out, leaving him ultimately idempotent, but there were also those rare, potentially effective occasions when he would become silent as she spoke, clearly allowing himself to take in every word that she said. It was during these moments that she would hold on to that naïve hope that she might have finally begun to help him through the darkness.

But no matter how much it wore her out, she knew that she would never stop trying. That was who she was; she constantly did things for the wellbeing of other people no matter what it required on her behalf. She didn't see Jack as broken, nor as something that needed to be fixed by her or anyone else. People are people, they don't change, their judgement shifts. She just wanted more than anything to help him understand how to keep the past at bay without completely repressing it, she wanted him to see that he still how the heroic potential that he always possessed. She wanted him to see himself through her eyes.

When Miss Holloway literally ran into Jack that morning, she could tell simply by his demeanor and the cold look in his eyes that he was internally ignoring the conversation that they'd had the night before. She was afraid this might happen, but she knew why he was doing it. The closer he got to a progressive change, the more intensely he would be forced to close himself off. Not only that, but the harder he would push her away, since it was her who seemed to be working her way through to him.

Jack rolled his eyes but didn't even bother to tease her about her clumsiness, so she decided to resist the urge to make her own comments about his rather impressive ability to suppress his feelings. Miss Holloway merely apologized for running into him around that dreaded corner that always seemed to compromise her equilibrium as the two of them picked up the files she'd dropped on the ground following their collision.

Due to her exhaustion, she didn't necessarily want the day to begin quite so quickly, but she inevitably had to speak the words that neither of them really wanted to hear. "You're with me today, by the way." She said as they walked in the direction of the training rooms.

Jack sighed but didn't argue. If there was one thing that he'd learned since his to Area 52, it was absolutely futile to attempt to get out of doing something that that particular woman had put into motion. It was a losing fight. Instead, he decided that he'd come about this situation with a slightly different approach as he raised his eyebrows in a blatantly flirtatious manner. "Oh, yeah?" He teased in a voice filled with unspoken implications, giving her a suggestive look as they continued to walk. "Doing what exactly?" He finished with a wink to which she responded with a mocking smile.

"Formal physical and psychiatric evaluations of the children." She raised an eyebrow as she spoke, knowing exactly how much he would utterly hate what was to come.

"Well," he began, mostly to himself, "that's one way to kill the mood."

Instead of playing into his characteristic flirting that she was finally beginning to notice, Miss Holloway kept her eyes forward and handed him a few identical forms. Daring to look them over, Jack realized that the two of them were going to have to work together to assess the children and fill the forms out. Wanting to do anything but that, his brain was working double-time to attempt to come up with any kind of excuse, but he knew that anything he could possibly say would only be pointless.

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Jack and Marsha sat together at a small table in the newly re-glassed viewing platform while the children practiced independently below. As Miss Holloway had explained, their job was to observe them and fill out the formal evaluations while taking into account everything they know about the children personally and with regard to their abilities. And that was what Marsha was currently doing; Jack was sitting dejectedly in his seat while his supposed "partner" did all the work as he watched the clock.

There were two sections to the evaluations, a physical examination of their powers which was supposed to be filled out by Jack, and a psychological evaluation to be filled out by Miss Holloway. After Jack had immediately let her take the lead, she suggested that he at least fill out the identification parts of the forms until it became clear that he could not do so because he didn't even know some of the children's last names let alone how old they were nor their family history.

As much as Marsha wanted to address Jack's lack of commitment and willingness to put any kind of effort into anything, she also didn't want to begin an argument that she couldn't finish. Nonetheless, she worried that they were headed in that direction anyway as the two of them quickly became snippy with each other. When she just couldn't bite her tongue any longer about his apathetic behaviour, Miss Holloway sighed sharply which caused him to finally turn his attention to her.

"Could you at least pretend to be interested in this?"

Casting her a look of disbelief, Jack argued back. "What would be the point of that?"

She rolled her eyes and set down the pen she'd been holding before her hand could begin to cramp. "You're going to have to contribute to this eventually."

"You think?" He responded sarcastically, causing Marsha's aggravation to boil over.

"Jack," she said irritably, "it's a simple evaluation."

Jack paused for a second, shifting in his seat so that he was actually facing her. "Which is why you should have no trouble filling it out yourself." He suggested in a voice dripping with sarcasm. He didn't know why she was constantly putting him up to things like this; he couldn't help the team. No matter how hard he could try, he just simply wasn't the man that she and the rest of the world were expecting him to be.

"That's not how it works, and you know it." She said in a quitter voice, thankful that they were not full out arguing yet as she slid the paper that she'd completed around so that it was now in front of him. She was right, it really was a simple evaluation. Something that someone like her could do in her sleep. Unfortunately, she and Jack were two very different people, and Jack would just need to make a bigger deal out of it than necessary.

The working pair hadn't been sitting in the booth for long, and it took almost no time at all for Miss Holloway to fill out Cindy's psychiatric evaluation. As she moved on to the next form, Jack skimmed the paper that she'd placed before him. Her beautifully constructed script was exactly what he imagined her handwriting would look like; without flaw. Glancing up at her with a look of incredulity, he wondered if she could do anything imperfectly. It infuriated him.

Marsha's evaluation was well written and carefully thought out. She'd written an incredibly thorough writeup for such a small amount of time, causing Jack to sigh silently at and finally scribble down a few casual thoughts of his own before sliding the paper away from himself and returning to his thoughtless void. He watched as Marsha's eyes went from the paper before her to what he had just written on Cindy's form. He watched with amusement as irritation flashed across her eyes at his shallow writeup, but to her credit and his curiosity, she never said anything about it or even looked over at him.

Perhaps she was giving up. Jack wondered if with all of her attempts to put him back together, he'd managed to break her. For some strange reason that would go undeveloped by Jack, this sent a wave of slight panic over him. He had no idea why the notion of Marsha giving up on him had such an effect on his concealed emotions, but he didn't like it one bit. But, unbeknownst to him, this was not the reason behind Marsha's lack of reaction.

It wasn't until all four forms were completely filled out that the issue was addressed. Miss Holloway looked up at Jack for the first time in nearly a half hour with a tired look in her eyes. "That's really all you're going to write?" She questioned, hoping that he would come to his senses on his own but knowing that was a pipe dream. As she tucked the forms away into a folder, Jack sensed some kind of subtext to her words, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. It was as if she knew something that he didn't.

"I wrote what I knew." He challenged her, leaning back into his seat with crossed arms.

"That's because you haven't even taken the time to get to know the children, let alone become familiar with their abilities." She tested, glancing through the glass down towards the team of kids.

"See, you keep saying stuff like that," the suddenly aggravated tone of his voice caused Marsha to look back at him as he leaned closer towards from across the table with a harsh look in his eyes. "but, I'm as familiar with those kids as I'd like to be." He smirked, for some reason he had a feeling that he would get the better of this argument. How wrong he was.

Now, it was Miss Holloways turn to give him a look of sarcastic disbelief. She could see right through his façade, whether he knew it or not. "You're as familiar with them as you'll let yourself be." She said, as if she'd had him figured out to a tee.

This aggravated Jack even farther, she didn't know anything about him, he wanted her to quit insinuating things. "What, so we've been hanging around each other for a few days now and you figure you know everything about me?" He narrowed his eyes in sarcasm.

"Of course not," she responded with sarcasm of her own, "you'd never let anyone get that close to you." Her comment earned her a severe look, but she continued before he could argue. "You know, maybe if you'd just let yourself actually put some investment into the team that you're supposedly leading, you would be so untrusting of every single person you encounter."

It was the same argument between the two of them as they'd always had. But with every passing encounter, the words grew more personal. Jack was silent for a moment, before speaking with even more sarcasm than before. "Do you charge by the hour for this?" And with the attack on her profession, he stood from his chair and began to walk towards the door.

Behind him, Miss Holloway simply rolled her eyes and took the folder into her hands before rising calmly and catching his attention before he could leave. "Just so you know," she began with a tone that could easily be defined as secretly devious. So much so that it made him stop in the doorframe and turn around to face her. "you and I get psychiatric evaluations, too."

"And?" He asked impatiently. He had figured that, as the children's trainers, they would have to be evaluated.

"And," she mocked his tone while walked towards him, "I get to fill out yours." She finished with a satisfied smile as she walked right past him and out the door.

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Jack sat alone in the lounge that evening. The kids were all around the facility together and he hadn't seen Marsha since their argument. Left alone with his thoughts, his mind forced him to dwell on things that he had no interest in revisiting. Mainly, the conversation that he'd had with Marsha in that very room nearly twenty-four hours ago.

He wondered how every single word that she'd said could be so very accurate, he wondered how she could be so convincing, he wondered why she kept trying to fix him in the first place, he wondered how she hadn't collapsed with exhaustion due to his stubbornness yet. What he'd learned, was that she was surprisingly just as stubborn as he was, which lead to very tiresome arguments. Ultimately, Miss Holloway was a source of absolute wonder to him. He had never encountered anyone like her, he knew that for certain, but he wondered why.

Jack would always have his doubts about anyone who pledged allegiance to Area 52 – especially those who, like her, seemed to follow behind it blindly – but, she seemed nothing but genuine. Even when they argued, she only ever expressed her concerns about Jack's ultimate wellbeing. For the first time since he'd returned to the facility, Jack realized that she only argued because she cared. He supposed that he was unfamiliar with the concept of such care, and perhaps that was why he'd grown so defensive against her.

"I know you didn't ask for any of this," she had said the night before, "and you certainly don't want it." She was right, anyone could see that. Ever since the trauma that he considered to mark the end of his life, he had a plan for how he would live out the rest of it. He would keep to himself, he would live each day the same, he wouldn't even try to turn it around, he was giving up and giving in. And just when he'd gotten so comfortable with his routine, a green dress showed up and turned everything upside down.

She'd encouraged him to "embrace it," last night. Maybe that's what he should be doing. The reality of the situation was that he was terrified to have something to lose. What he didn't realize was that, even though he didn't really know the children, there might still be something to lose anyway. While all his efforts had been put into keeping himself away from caring for the kids, maybe she had successfully worked her way under his skin. He had no idea that it would have been her that he had to shield his concerns from all along. But, if it had already gotten to that point after only a few days, he understood that there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it. You can't fight the inevitable. But he could ignore it to the best of his abilities, and he could do so by growing even colder than he had been before.

Just when he'd devised this new and improved plan, his mind was suddenly on the last conversation that he'd had with Marsha. He knew that if she was in charge of his psychiatric evaluation, that meant that it was already completed and signed; she didn't procrastinate. All this meant that somewhere, in a locked filing cabinet, there were truths about him written on a paper that he might not even know. These were truths that he personally couldn't wait to argue. That alongside the fact that the evaluation was all basically an archive on Marsha's deepest opinion on him, his curiosity was quickly getting the better of him.

Within five minutes, Jack was in Dr. Grant's office, where he knew the files were all waiting to be delivered to Larraby. It took him a few mere seconds to break into the filing cabinet, swipe the folder containing the evaluations, and find a secluded spot to do some light reading. In his hands were six files, two of which he was drying to read, four of which he'd helped fill out. He didn't know what it was, Marsha's arguments were possibly finally getting to him, but something made him read through the children's files once more before getting to what he really wanted to read.

This was something that had proved as the first wakeup call of many. The difference between Jack's careless notes and Marsha's precise writeup almost seemed embarrassing to him in hindsight. He actually found himself having to remind himself that he didn't care. After reading Tucker's evaluation, Jack nearly chuckled at the fact that both he and Marsha believed that the other would have to work with Tucker in order to help him gain control over his powers. Since he knew damn well that he was only putting that off on her because he had no interest in putting any effort into Tucker's training (or anyone else's, for that matter), Jack figured that she was likely correct and that the only way Tucker could ever truly grasp his powers would be if Jack worked with him.

After reading Summer's evaluation, Jack smirked as he read that Marsha described how they would have to merge psychological training with physical training in order to develop the girl's powers to the greatest extend. If Marsha wanted to work with him, she could have just said so, he thought sarcastically and subconsciously wished that she was there so that he could tease her about that.

When Jack entered Grant's office with the intention of snooping for his own personal gain, he had no idea that it would end up being his undoing. He'd read every single word that Miss Holloway had written about the team that he was supposed to be in charge of. Marsha didn't have to put in so much effort, she didn't have to care so much about the kids. She just did, because that's who she was. Because of this, Jack was suddenly wondering about what her psychiatric evaluation read. Glancing at the information portion, he noted that it was written by a Dr. Adam Stevenson.

He wasn't going to read it, he genuinely wasn't. But when it came to certain things, he just couldn't help himself. Apparently, she was one of those things.

Psychological Evaluation

Date: April 14, 2007

Evaluated

Name: Marsha Catherine Holloway

Date of Birth: September 19, 1969

Psychological Evaluator: Dr. Adam Stevenson

Family History

Mother: Catherine Holloway (diseased, 1985)

Father: Peter Holloway (diseased, 1985)

Spouse: N/A

Children: N/A

As Jack read through her personal information, he knew that he should stop. He found it strange that he was feeling guilty, he would usually do things like this with no regard for anyone but himself. He didn't know what was different this time. He'd only read her personal information and family history, but what he found already came as a shock to him. Doing the math in his head, he realized that both of her parents died when she was around sixteen. She was a teenaged orphan; he never would have guessed. And here he had her pegged for "perfect childhood." Knowing he shouldn't, Jack read on.

Psychiatric Evaluation

Despite the extensively traumatic events that she has experienced as well as the abuse she was subjected to in her younger years, Marsha Holloway certainly seems to serve as the miracle case that psychiatrists are constantly searching for. To this day, thanks to not only the help that she received from others but also the help that she continuously provides herself with through her expert psychological knowledge, she remains constantly in contact with her emotions and does not dwell on the past. Though her mental state was clearly hazardous from September 1985 to July 1987 and the incidents in September 2001, October 2003, and November 2004 left her emotionally traumatized, it remains perfectly balanced today. Nonetheless, during these episodes of poor mental stability, she would always revert to her optimistic ways, and continuously see the world from a positive perspective.

She constantly tries her absolute hardest to always see the best in people, almost to a fault – clearly, after everything that has happened in her life – but I see this as a testament to her undeniable strength. All things considered, it is my professional opinion that she does a miraculous job at keeping the past as bay while simultaneously avoiding harmful repression or suppression. She understands that the things that she has experienced are just as much a part of her life that she lives today, and she strives to learn from these hardships and address them appropriately while refusing to let them completely shape her world.

The absolute expertise that she displays for psychology and psychiatry is well beyond my own knowledge, and she understands it on what appears to be an emotional level. She is a complete and utter asset to Area 52 and I strongly suggest hat she continue to work with the new Zenith Team as she will clearly be able to provide them with the proficiency that no one else can. My advice would be to have her continue working alongside Mr. Jack Shepherd – her expertise will be needed in order to familiarize him with his past, present, and future. What's more, is that with everything that she knows about both the psychology and physiology of metaphysical powers, I would say that there is a strong chance of him regaining his abilities.

Marsha Holloway is completely mentally sound and without a doubt one of the most extraordinary cases I've ever had the pleasure of working alongside.

Evaluator Signature:

Dr. Adam Stevenson

And just like that, he was hooked. Stevenson's evaluation was thorough, but left out the details that Jack desperately wanted to know. Even if the thought of them left him feeling utterly sick. He thought that he was the one with the rough past, but based on what he'd just read, he now wondered if Marsha's file might even be bigger than his own. As his mind was bombarded with questions about what could have possibly happened to her when she was younger, that overwhelming sense of guilt washed over him once more.

He realized that he had just helped himself to something that she wouldn't have wanted him to see. However, he had no idea that he would find anything like what he did in her psychiatric evaluation. His only intentions for reading the evaluations was to read his own and have whatever disapproving words she used to describe him help him to dislike her more. Instead he found a piece of information that he tried to put from his mind, but knew that he'd probably never be able to let go.

In an attempt to clear his thoughts, Jack decided that it was finally time to find out just what she had to say about his mental state. Picking up his file, he sighed upon realizing that it was five pages long. Ultimately, his curiosity won out over his short attention span.

Psychological Evaluation

Date: April 14, 2007

Evaluated:

Name: Jack Shepherd

Date of Birth: August 14, 1966

Psychological Evaluator: Dr. Marsha Holloway

Family History

Mother: Rosalina Shepherd

Father: Jonathan Shepherd (diseased 1998)

Spouse: N/A

Children: N/A

Psychiatric Evaluation

As of right now, Jack Shepherd's psychological state is clearly not the best that it could be.

This should be fun, Jack thought to himself upon reading the very first sentence of Marsha's report.

This is completely fair, as he has suffered great tragedy that is incomprehensible for people who have never experienced calamity of similar magnitude. After the Gamma-13 incident where Mr. Shepherd lost not only his brother and his girlfriend, but his entire team, the collateral damage was not properly addressed by neither him nor the program. He was in shock of what had happened for quite some time and in what I assume was a state of heavy disbelief. Because of the strange way that things had happened, he never got to properly experience the stages of grief, so he immediately went straight to anger-masked guilt.

On the surface, he was anger than he ever thought he could be. He searched for the rest of his life for someone or something to blame for what had happened to him and to his team. They were killed at the hand of his brother, who was presumed deal, but because Jack could never really know for sure, he would never be able to receive a complete sense of closure. For twenty years, he blamed the facility and the people inside of it, every single one of them. And rightfully so, the idea to inflict radiation onto the team in order to increase their powers was likely a merely consumption-based decision.

But deeper down, Mr. Shepherd was blaming himself – and that's where the guilt comes into play. He blamed himself for everything he could think of, for not fighting the idea of the radiation, for not getting himself and his team out of Area 52 before everything went wrong, for not being able to fight his brother when he began to kill his teammates, and so on.

The guilt would forever be present for him, because he was the Captain of the team, he was supposed to makes sure that, no matter what happened, they all came out of it alive in the end; and in his mind, he had failed. While it is completely unfair to blame Mr. Shepherd for anything that happened on July 23, 1987, it is going to take thorough work in order to convince him of this, as it goes against everything that he has been thinking for twenty years. Throughout the years, he pushed the guilt and anger down inside him until they were virtually forgotten about, until the day that everything was forced to catch up to him. Though he thought that he was successfully ignoring his past, he still lived his life around it in a severe way.

Because he didn't want to admit to himself that the past was behind him, Mr. Shepherd forced his life to revolve around it while never actually confronting what had happened and his feelings surrounding the tragedy. While, of course, he's never told me anything at all about his life nor his past, I believe that it is safe to assume that, at least for the first few years following the trauma, he suffered from a case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder that was likely – or perhaps, still is – accompanied by flashbacks and intrusive memories due to the suppression that has resulted in a complete ignorance of the past events that have shaped who he is today.

He lives in a seriously unhealthy state of denial, that he will one day have to come to terms with before any progress can be made. Upon his return to Area 52, I have only been able to assess the things that he wants me to see, the way that he interacts with others, and the slight things that I am sometimes able to pick up on. It is painfully clear that Mr. Shepherd refuses to trust anybody at the facility (or perhaps in general) in even the slightest way; but until he can learn to do so, there is only so much that I can receive from him. He has spent the last two decades of his life building rock-solid walls around every part of him so as not to expose himself to the same kind of hurt that he once experienced, thus making him a facetiously bitter man.

Even with all things considered, I can still see the valiant hero that he once was and still could be if he would only let himself. It is nothing if not clear to me that he still possesses the courage, selflessness, humility, and kindness that he did when he was known as "Captain Zoom," as these are things that one does not simply lose, but he has taken to masking these traits with bitterness, anger, narcissism, and sarcasm. I believe that when the time truly calls for it, he will one day let those qualities surface and regain the status that he once bad.

Based on my observations, I believe that the reason he refuses to train the children properly and put true effort into their success is because he does not wish to form strong bongs or relationships with them. He has witnessed firsthand just how easily the people that you care for can get taken from you in their line of work, and he thinks that he would be nothing but foolish to let himself care about anyone that could so easily disappear. His utter lack of responsibility and interest in the new team as well as his disregard for consequences makes that clear.

Another note I have is that Mr. Shepherd has a clear aversion to being titled "Captain Zoom," which at first, I found strange, since the two are ultimately the same person. But, I understand now that in Mr. Shepherd's mind, he is no longer capable of being a hero to be looked up to. He does not want the responsibility of people considering him a role model or expecting things from him that he is unable to accomplish. While "Captain Zoom" is Jack Shepherd, Jack Shepherd is not "Captain Zoom." The superhero is composed of all of Mr. Shepherd's best qualities, but leaves out the rest. The man himself is much more than that, this was a concept that I did not quite understand until working alongside Mr. Shepherd for the past few days.

As noted before, Mr. Shepherd has devoted his life to building barriers and defences around his mind, heart, past, and emotions. But, I believe that these walls might just be broken if the right person tries hard enough. There is a tremendous amount of good inside of him, even if no one else – specifically himself – finds that easily observable. He is still capable of everything that he once was, he simply now has more baggage that comes with it. He is no longer the teenaged superhero that was portrayed in the media, he has faced the real world and grown into an adult; the circumstances have changed indefinitely.

In my professional opinion, with time, Mr. Shepherd will open himself up to the idea of providing support and training to the team of children. It is going to take a lot of time and work in order for him to ever learn to trust anyone completely again, but I hardly believe it to be impossible.

Evaluator Signature:

Marsha Holloway

Jack was rather shocked – the woman who he assumed simply tolerated may as well have written an entire essay on him. Not only that, it was more accurate than it could have been if he himself had composed it. He had underestimated her; not only her acute ability to observe, but her sincerity. He had to read it twice

Right from the start, she holds back nothing. She writes that she understands Jack's anger towards the facility and all that they stand for. Not only does she justify it, but she seems to feel it as well. The words that she had written could have served as a rebellion on paper. Clearly, Jack had been wrong in thinking that he could not trust any employee of Area 52, as they would just follow orders blindly. Simply hearing that she agrees that the program had made a mistake with the radiation was enough for Jack to feel a relief that he thought he'd never feel.

And what did she do next? She called him out. She stated that Jack had been blaming himself all these years – and she was nothing but correct. This was something that he couldn't even admit to himself and yet she managed to make him understand that this was exactly what he was doing. She then began to make assumptions about how the incident and the associated guilt were affecting him. He'd never told her anything of the sort, she'd inferred it all, and again, she was spot on. How was it that someone whom he had just met somehow knew him better than he even knew himself? She must be good at her job.

But, the most miraculous thing of all to him, was the way that she actually understood his resentment of the label "Captain Zoom." It was as if she had managed to put his thoughts into words. She realizes that Zoom is only the character, made up of Jack Shepherd's most noble qualities – something that he assumed she of all people would never comprehend. Jack is the real person, and he is composed of much more than simply heroic characteristics. If you want one, you get the other.

Everyone always assumes that they know him based on the stories that they've heard and the comics that they've read. It takes a lot to truly know Jack Shepherd and to accept the fact that he really is not "Captain Zoom" as he goes about his every day life. When the time called for it, of course he could channel up these qualities and become purely the hero, but that took dire situations. She understood that. And for the first time since he'd returned to Area 52, Jack realized that his one and only goal of not allowing himself to have anything to lose would never be accomplished. He already had something to lose – her unconditional support.

She trusted him, that much was clear. It took reading the report to realize that he had been wrong about her. She did not follow blindly behind Area 52, she followed blindly behind him. And that was dangerous for the bother of them, she knew that. And yet, she still decided to give him all of her faith and trust. He hadn't experienced anyone do this since his original team was still living – he'd never encountered anyone quite like her.

And suddenly, something inside of him shifted. All of the arguments that they'd had, all of the times that she'd tried to convince him to commit himself to the team, all of the times she'd tried to tell him that he wasn't as bad as he made himself out to seem, the night before in the lounge when he realized that she was someone he could trust, and now the file that he'd just read. It was overwhelming and, quite frankly, terrifying. And yet, it was not unpleasant. It was all strangely reassuring.

She was right, she had been right all along, and he had no idea why it took him so long to realize this. He was going to help those children, he was going to be the leader that they needed, he was going to make sure that the past was not recreated, and he was going to do it because she wanted him to. If it had been that simple all along, he hadn't realized it.

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The next morning, Jack awoke feeling more refreshed than ever before and truly ready for the day ahead. Today was the day that he begun trying, he would actually put his time and effort into training the kids. But, before he could begin to do so, he would need to assemble some kind of team that could fabricate proper suits for them to wear during combat. Their military jumpsuits would be fine for training, but out in the field, things would be different.

Meanwhile, Miss Holloway paced around the classroom as she and the children waited for Jack. He was scheduled to take over for her in the classroom about ten minutes ago, so the team was in waiting. The kids weren't surprised, they weren't even disappointed or frustrated anyone either, they had simply grown to expect it. Marsha didn't know why she was still waiting for him to do the right thing, but she had a feeling that she would never stop doing so.

Which is why she attempted to appear unconcerned as the kids sat at their desks in boredom, even if she felt utterly defeated inside. She wondered if all of her efforts to get him to put some effort into the team had only had the reverse effect. This was not at all who she'd expected Jack to be when she was initially informed that the legendary superhero would be returning to the facility, but she was continuously waiting for him to put his talents to good use. She wanted him to be a hero, she needed a hero.

Miss Holloway glanced at the clock once more, and just as she was about so suggest that they just move on without him, the man himself came through the door with uncharacteristic ease. "Sorry I'm late," he began as he caught her eye from the opposite side of the room, "I had to get my team together." The surprise that Marsha initially felt at whatever change of heart he was experiencing quickly morphed into total happiness. She was unable to prevent herself for smiling slightly in his direction as he came towards her and he must have noticed her contentment, because he cast a teasing look her way. "You almost look happy to see me."

And he was right, if the two of them weren't careful, they might just accidentally cast aside their irritation for each other and allow fondness to grow.

Within a few days, the progress being made by the team was noticed by all, even by Larraby, who never seemed pleased by anything. It had only been a mere week and a half since the team was assembled, and they'd suffered through their fair share of difficulties already, but their initiation was promptly complete. This, of course, was made possible by Jack's transition from bitter to invested. Jack had now come to terms with the fact that he truly was being ridiculous in not allowing himself to put the wellbeing of the children before his own fears, and it took someone repeatedly bringing this to his attention in order to allow the change to be made.

Speaking of that particular person, Jack realized that he hadn't seen much of her since his change in character, mainly because he'd been so busy with the newfound interest he'd discovered in training the kids. He knew that none of his current success could have been possible without her, and he decided that perhaps it was time for him to swallow his pride and offer up something in the vague form of a thank you.