Outback Steakhouse, Tuesday Afternoon

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan needed to unwind.

This was not a thought he'd exactly had very often in his life, but there it was: unwinding. Required. For his sanity. He told the waiter at Outback Steakhouse as much - "I'm getting a steak. Maybe a steak sandwich. Because I need to unwind, recover my sanity. You know?"

"Like a sanity check," the waiter said, idly scribbling on his pad.

"Yeah, a sanity check," Kaidan said, nodding. "I like that. Let's do that. Uh-- get me the filet sandwich? Thanks."

This was going to drag him out of the rut. It had to.

[[ open! ]]

Comments

[bitten_notshy]

Jack had developed a weakness for the Bloomin' Onion, and after the week he'd had it felt like a weakness worth indulging. He paused on his way to his table when he spotted Kaidan.

"Need something terribly bad for you, too?"

[not_a_whiner]

"I can't say no to a good steak sandwich," Kaidan admitted, shooting a wry look Jack's way. "Especially not after a long week."

[bitten_notshy]

"The longest week," Jack said, claiming a seat at Kaidan's table with only the slightest lift of an eyebrow to ask if he minded. "It made me feel -- well, I don't want to say helpless, but that wouldn't be too far off."

A pause. "I need the fired onion thing, myself."

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan's shoulders made the slightest shrugging motion - of course he didn't mind. "Overwhelming, maybe," he offered. "It's not often you find yourself face to face with the seemingly insurmountable quite like that."

Well, okay, he'd had his fair share of it. And his personal coping strategy had kind of kicked him upside the head as soon as he'd gotten home. Still.

[bitten_notshy]

"And even when the odds look bad, usually you know what you're up against," Jack nodded. "Or at least how to find out what it is. Last week we didn't even have that, most of the time."

[not_a_whiner]

"There was a pattern to it," Kaidan pointed out, motioning at the waiter. It'd be a tragedy if Jack didn't get his Bloomin' Onion, after all. "But... yeah, you never knew what was going to pop out at you if you opened the wrong door. Or how to handle it."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack held up a finger, gesturing for Kaidan to hold the thought as he gave his order to the waiter. When the man had been dispatched to find a deep-fried onion:

"The monster ones weren't as bad as they could have been," he said. "Four years in Fandom, I know how to bash things in the head until they go away. But the ones that played with our heads leave a stain on you."

[not_a_whiner]

"Don't remind me," Kaidan said, taking an audible breath. "Sorry. I kept planning to check in with you, but..."

First he'd been in a strange frame of mind. Then he'd let himself be driven by the need to do something.

"I guess that didn't happen."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack waved it off. "Don't worry about it. I've been trying to do everything but spend time at home. I should have checked in witgh you, too."

[not_a_whiner]

"I'm fine, so don't worry about that either," Kaidan said - almost automatically - and leaned back about as far in his seat as his Alliance posture allowed. "So. I heard about Allie..."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack tilted his head down, sipped at his water delicately. "She seems to think I should have been much more upset than I was."

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan's eyes narrowed very briefly as he tried to read Jack's expression anyway. "Aren't you?" he asked.

He had been. Still kind of was, but he tended to internalize his anger.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack shook his head.

"Not to be asked, though of course I don't enjoy the idea," he said, thinking it over. "But imagine what could have happened if it had gotten to the point where she needed to feed. Better she go as a martyr than she take someone else. I'd have asked for the same, if the moon had been different."

[not_a_whiner]

"Assuming it's going to happen - is that really the first potential scenario you want to jump to?" Kaidan asked. "Why not talk about restraints or limits? I get that it's a practicality issue, but death should never be our first option. She should know that."

He'd figure this one out eventually. Somewhere, on a burning bombed-out planet. But that was a few gray hairs down the road.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack sighed. Either something was wrong with him or something was wrong with Kaidan and Allie, and he wasn't sure which possibility he liked less.

"I asked why we couldn't bar her from camp and let her fend for herself until she took care of things, but she didn't like the idea," he said. "And restraints -- honestly, Kaidan, I don't think anyone would be helped by having a half-mad, hungry vampire tied up and raving in a corner. And I say this as someone who generally likes vampires quite a bit. But it'd be torture for her and for us."

"If she could feed without killing, that might work -- though it's not something you want to try with half-starved people -- but I always had the impression she couldn't."

[not_a_whiner]

"When you're in a situation like that, you can't just start killing your own, Jack," Kaidan said, reaching for his own glass of water. He felt like he needed that right now.

Maybe something stronger, actually. Did they serve alcohol here?

"No matter what they've got going on."

[bitten_notshy]

"I wasn't talking about killing her as a precautionary measure," Jack said, sulking a bit. "But if she knew she had become a threat, I don't see why we couldn't treat her as one."

His gaze was level as he glanced back over. "What would you have said, if she'd asked you?"

He had a sense of it, but now he was curious about the answer.

[not_a_whiner]

"Not unless it's the absolutely last option left," Kaidan said. He looked up from his glass a moment later, his gaze steadying until it was equally level. "I'm not putting another friend in the ground unless we've exhausted all other options."

He... probably wouldn't have taken it well. Not now. Not at this point in his life.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack hesitated, remembering the heat of the exploding Normandy and feeling part of the weight of what Kaidan had been through.

"We might be talking around each other," he realized. "I'd want to look at every other option before I laid a finger on Allie. But I like knowing the ultimate back-up plan from the beginning."

Jack liked knowing all the plans from the beginning.

[not_a_whiner]

"I don't," Kaidan said simply. "It's important that we do these things
right, Jack. What Allie needed was hope and a fighting chance."

He took a swig of his water.

[bitten_notshy]

"So you think I should have lied," Jack said, tone calm but with a challenge just below the surface. "We'd been down there most of a week and the only sign we had of any progress was some rumors about statues. Derek was dead. How much hope do you think I even had to give?"

He hadn't been suicidal. Exactly. But he had suspected he might die down there.

[not_a_whiner]

"You know how many situations I've been in where it looked like I wasn't going to make it out alive?" Kaidan asked. He was keeping careful control of his own tone - trying to keep the challenge out. "You think my superior officer ever turned around and said, 'Well, if it gets too crazy, you can rely on me to put a bullet in your head'? What kind of effect do you think it would have on people under my command if I did that?"

[bitten_notshy]

"You understand soldiers and battle," Jack acknowledged. "But I understand vampires. It's not the same thing. If they need to feed, force of will can only hold them back for so long. I've only known one who could make it more than a matter of days, and his lapses were ... messy."

He wadded his napkin on his lap, a bit of nervous movement. "Put it this way: In a hopeless situation, how long would your commander have kept around a soldier he knew was a danger to every other soldier?"

[not_a_whiner]

"As long as he humanly could."

Kaidan remembered Wrex, out on that beach on Virmire: he'd seemed close to killing everyone in a blind rage. Ashley had been ready to shoot him - Shepard had talked him down.

(The less than kind part of his mind filled in something else: well, I assume they would've shut down the entire operation, slapped the soldier on the wrist after he did some damage, and then covered it all up.)

"I'm not saying we should've avoided killing her at all costs," he said. "But I am saying that in a situation like that, the last thing you want to do is strip away her morale before anything goes wrong."

[bitten_notshy]

"I wasn't trying to strip away her morale, and I agree if I did it was wrong," Jack conceded. "What I was trying to do was let her know, honestly, that I had her back if things got that bad. That I wouldn't let her hurt anyone else. I'd ask the same for me, if it came to that."

[not_a_whiner]

For a moment, Kaidan looked like he wanted to argue - but that expression faded away. "I get that," he said. "I do."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack was going to seize onto that understanding, and not ask what Kaidan's first thought had been. "I'm glad," he said instead. "I never want to be in that situation again, but if I am, I'll remember what you said."

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan frequently had first thoughts that wouldn't do anyone any good - least of all himself - and he was happy to keep it to himself. "Let's hope the island lays low from here on in, then," he offered. "Because seriously-- I don't appreciate it digging things up I'm trying to lay to rest."

The previous subject was now closed.

[bitten_notshy]

"Did you get more after the Normandy?" Jack asked, with some sympathy. "After I lost you, the room decided to remind me about something I thought I'd forgotten. I have no idea how it managed that dirty trick."

His onion arrived then; he eyed it, hungry but feeling eating a fried thing would be incongruous, and offered it toward Kaidan.

[not_a_whiner]

"Not hungry?" Kaidan asked, as they delivered his steak sandwich too. "Bad memory?"

[bitten_notshy]

"Feels weird to eat something this absurd right now," Jack admitted, but broke off a bit of onion anyhow. Remembering to put it in his mouth might take some more time. Still, he kept his tone matter-of-fact. "I -- it showed me when my mother signed me over to my first master. I'd buried that."

[not_a_whiner]

Kaidan left his sandwich where it was for now. "I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "That-- must've been pretty rough on you. Either time."

Then he picked up said sandwich, because he really was hungry.

[bitten_notshy]

"Shockingly, vampires who foster 5-year-olds don't tend to have the best intentions," Jack said, eyes focused somewhere in the distance as he fumbled the bit of onion through the dip. "But I didn't know that then. I was proud to be -- wanted, I suppose. I don't think I understood it was meant to be forever."

He managed something like a smile. "Easier not to remember any of it."

[not_a_whiner]

"At least it worked out okay eventually," Kaidan said, after having taken a bite and swallowed it. "--No, sorry. That's not okay. None of that is okay."

[bitten_notshy]

"It's not," Jack agreed. "But -- somehow I'm here. Most days I'm sure that's what matters."

And then he finally remembered the onion was for eating, not for clenching, and put it into his mouth.

[not_a_whiner]

"But some days you're not-- through with the old stuff," Kaidan said. Definitely not unsympathetically. He'd-- put most of his old past behind him. Vyrnnus hadn't gotten to him much last week. Didn't mean he didn't get it.

[bitten_notshy]

"It is what shapes you, isn't it?" Jack asked rhetorically. "No matter how far or fast you run."

[not_a_whiner]

"It is," Kaidan agreed. "Best we can do is square ourselves with everything that happen. Tie up the loose ends and move on. But-- yeah, that influence stays."

Profound words from a man just biting back into his steak sandwich.