I have to this galaxy, now it's time for
She busies herself pouring another glass of wine. It’s more than she would normally drink outside of the comfort of her own home, she notes, but given the topic of conversation, she doesn’t really care. If anything, it would at least lighten her mood and perhaps loosen her tongue, although she doubts that much.
Monica knows he’s referring to himself now. And a part of her has questions but there is something else first. She shakes her head slightly but that wasn’t to say she was done talking.
“Why did you want to know?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. Striking blue eyes search his face for some sort of answer before he can even speak. "You read the file. That’s enough for most people. Everything you could want is in there — my past, my training, every one of my assignments except for a few that were… off the record. Why does it matter if I’m the one who simply repeats it?“
There is a moment of what seems to be almost insecurity. Monica shifts her weight and concentrates on her glass of wine. She had come to terms long ago that most of what people knew about her came from a report on a datapad. She revealed so little herself that she supposed it didn’t matter. But Hackett was asking her personally. She wants to know why he’s not like everyone else.
He tilts his head to the side, and thinks for a few moments. Why had he asked her? She was right in the end, as she so often was. He had read the file and learned it all for himself without asking her. But at the same time, hearing it and reading it were two different things, and hearing it from her made it seem slightly more real. Not that it was something you could ever measure how real something was.
"Because I wanted to know.” Hackett says slowly, staring down at his wine glass. He swirls the liquid in his glass before taking a short sip. Some where along the way the wine lost it’s flavor for him, and he sets the glass down rather abruptly. Sighing, he draws a hand over his face.
“It’s no secret I care for you, Monica. I wanted to hear it from you, see if maybe that would make it real in a way your file never could. I thought perhaps, if I heard it from you I might… be able to make myself hate you."
His lips twist, and he shakes his head at himself. "Somehow that seems impossible, even now… Even for a bitter old man.”
Monica bristles slightly. She pins him with a look — one that searches his expression for some sort of tell. She knows what he’s trying to ask but she wants to confirm it. Knowing she won’t be satisfied either way, she looks off toward the wall behind him then shrugs.
“I ran. I compromised myself and then I made myself into a liability. It was not exactly a well-planned move. I spent some time travelling — it sounds much more glamorous when I put it like that — and then I decided Omega would be the safest place to hide out for awhile.” Monica scoffs. "I was wrong, of course. I’m not sure why I thought anywhere was ‘safe’. Still too naïve, I suppose. I was good and would love to claim that all my success was on my own merit but I had been protected by Cerberus for too long. I never quite realized how much until I walked away.”
She left out the actual inciting incident on purpose. It was territory she would not willingly walk into again. Monica had buried those memories so deep down that digging them up again would only be a disaster waiting to happen. So she closes herself off again, making it fairly clear she isn’t going to bring it up.
After a few moments, Monica simply looks at Hackett, a silent indicator that if he had more questions, now was his only chance.
For a moment he considers pushing for more. Eyes narrowing he stares at her, trying to figure out how much he actually wants to know. In the end he shakes his head. It’s not worth it. He read the file, and asked the question.
It’s enough.
He picks up his discarded wine glass and begins filling it again. It gives him something to do instead of sit in the silence and wait for her to say something. After all, he knows so much more about her than before, and some of that information’s being willingly, if ever so slightly, given to him. It’s only be fair if he give her the same chance to ask about him. Not that there’s a lot you can ask an old man.
Looking at her, he offers the bottle of wine. “Is there anything you want to ask?"
Between questions, she waits. It had been a long time since she had thought about the past. There were times where she almost forgot her childhood completely. It seemed so long ago and far away, as it if had all belonged to someone else. It all seemed too perfect and ordinary. Besides some of the smaller details, she had been like every other child. But not every other child had grown up to be who she had become.
The silence between them doesn’t bother her. She had given him three questions after all and she is sure that if anything, he wants to make them count. So she is patient, her gaze occasionally drifting about the room. But when he finds his second question, her eyes snap back immediately. She frowns but lets on little more than that.
“You need to know something about my father first. He was once Alliance but after he was recruited to Cerberus, he was loyal to the core. Whether I knew it or not, it was his intention to train me as an operative as soon as he could. I barely knew him — he was always off on some assignment or another. But when he was around I wanted him to notice me. So when he came home one day after I turned fifteen and told me of the future he wanted for me, of course I agreed. He said he saw something in me that he knew he could perfect. I was… thrilled. And I never heard anything like that from him again. I worked everyday after that hoping just to hear that I’d met his approval.”
She pauses, biting her lip momentarily.
"He trained me for a year on his own. When I was sixteen, I joined Cerberus, lying about my age clearly, although I doubt it went unnoticed. New recruits who signed up of their own accord got basic training. I topped every single class and I can guarantee there were a fair few that hated me because of it. It was just a formality. My father was well-regarded and having him as a teacher had its benefits. I was determined to be the best, so that’s exactly what I did.”
Almost as soon as she begins talking he knows what his third question is, and it chills him to the bone. Never before had he stopped to think about the question, even after finding out that she had done the deed. It wasn’t something he had ever expected to talk to her about, but after hearing her talking about him he needs to know. Needs to know why she wanted to take the man’s life, or why she felt the need.
It’s just a matter of getting the question out there.
But on second thought… It’s a question he doesn’t need an answer to. He cares for the ex-Cerberus operative as a daughter, hearing the answer might hurt them both. The admiral doesn’t have the courage to ask her the question. Funny he can plan a strategy for bringing down a reaper, he can speak with politicians and be in the front lines, but he can’t ask her why she killed her father.
“What happened when you left Cerberus?” It’s a slightly safer question, one that doesn’t necessarily involve her father. He’ll leave it up to her on whether she brings him up or not. It’s probably a poor use of his last question, but it’s all he has the courage to ask. What an admiral he turned out to be.
She was waiting for all the horrible things he could have asked her. He had access to her mission reports, her training reports, her testing scores, her family history. There were so many dark things within those files that she wasn’t sure which ones she wanted to tackle first. It wasn’t that she was afraid to go back to those days in her mind, because it sit perfectly well with her… she just didn’t know how to explain.
So his question surprised her. And, suddenly, without much thought, she smiled.
“Of course,” she replied, a mischievous lilt in her voice. "I didn’t really have friends. I wasn’t allowed to go to a regular school like everyone else so I was the weird, quiet little girl whose mother rarely socialized with the neighbours and whose father was rarely at home. So, at best, nobody noticed me. I loved it.
“I played pranks on the other children because they would never know it was me. They always blamed one another and I loved the confusion it caused. I would run off and hide up in the trees when my mother wanted me to study. I tried to keep frogs under my bed as pets, until my mother found out. I taught myself how to play the piano.”
Monica shrugged. Perhaps she had naturally grown up well-suited for the type of work she had done for the rest of her life, but when she had been young it had just been simple fun. She had just been another kid, perfectly content with everything. She hesitated before pulling up her omni-tool.
Two holos came up. One had a little girl with long black hair and short-cut bangs, her bright blue eyes staring out at them almost pensively. The second was an older girl, at least ten, with the same haircut, hanging upside down by her knees from a tree branch and grinning. Monica turned her omni-tool back off after a few moments, tugging her dark hair behind her ears again. She kept few things of sentimental value but for some reason those captured moments of herself were of those few.
Hackett listens in silence, his lips twisting into a small smile the more he hears. A sense of relief nearly seeps him off his feet as he listens to her talk. He should ave expected a nice childhood, but the idea of a Cerberus operative having at least a decent childhood seems oddly… wrong. Though it’s Monica, and the idea of her being happy makes him feel happy, a sure sign that he cares too much.
When she brings her omni-tool to life he leans in to look, his eyes running over the pictures. Smiling growing, he leans back against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest. “You a troublesome child? Now why doesn’t that surprise me?” He’s teasing her, trying to keep the mood light and cheery as he ponders his next question.
Two left. And he has no idea what he wants to ask. Reaching for his wine glass he takes a slow sip, his eyes locked on the far wall. As he pulls the glass away he turns to look at her, his next question waiting on the tip of his tongue. He’s starting to enter bad territory, he knows that even before he asks the question, but again, he needs to know the answer. It might not give him any insight into the person she is, but he has a need to know that doesn’t seem to want to go away. "When did it change?“
She could have brushed him off. Hell, she could have just left. If anyone else had been prying into her past, she might have stormed off. That conversation was always so delicate. Pity, outrage, betrayal, and so many other reactions had come from the few times she had really talked to anyone about herself in any depth. Everyone found out about her ties to Cerberus eventually. But she liked to keep it at that. She didn’t talk about herself if she could avoid it. So why would she now?
Monica tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and cleared her throat softly. She placed the datapad on the kitchen counter for now, reminding herself to grab it later. She had completely forgotten about her glass of wine by this point, too distracted by where Hackett was going with this conversation. She decided to compromise with herself. Her flat expression took its usual place and she shrugged nonchalantly. She was guarded but she would give him something. After all, he was keeping this information private — the least she could do was tell him more about the person he was doing it for.
“Three questions. Then I’ll consider what else you may know,” she replied smoothly. She raised an eyebrow, as if whatever he could ask would have no effect on her whatsoever. In reality, she was actually nervous, not entirely sure what he really wanted to know. The feeling didn’t sit well with her but it was present nevertheless.
Three questions was more than he had hoped for. Staring at her, he tried to sort his thoughts out, tried to pick the three questions he considered most important. But there was so many, and it was so hard to put them into words. Every time he thought he had one he wanted to ask it slipped away and another took it’s place.
Looking away he tries to think about his own childhood, and the question he wouldn’t want people to ask about it. Several leap to mind, and he makes a mental note to try and avoid related topics with Monica. They might not have had similar childhoods, but he knows how hard it is to avoid the past, and just how painful it can be.
“Were you a happy child?”
The question slips through his filter before he can stop it, but he doesn’t regret it. Not in the least. His gaze slips back to her and he waits for her reaction, and the hopefully reassuring answer. Maybe it’s not the best of questions, but it’s something he needs to know, something that might help him sleep easier at night. Why this might help… He doesn’t want to think about that. Not yet at least. Maybe in the future, once he’s listened to what she has to say.
She made a small sound, a ‘hmph’ of general disapproval, but nodded. She didn’t like that he’d read it at all but she knew he hadn’t known what he was getting into. Monica couldn’t blame him for something out of his control. And he was right. If the Alliance caught wind of the finer details of some of her past operations, they’d be less than impressed with what was a very long resume of bad deeds and clandestine activities.
She looked at Hackett. She wasn’t sure why he was keeping this to himself. Did he want her to explain herself? To admit some kind of remorse for the life she had once led? Because if that were the case, he wouldn’t hear any such thing. She had long since learned to not to regret anything she had done. It wouldn’t change anything and, besides, she wasn’t sure it would be at all genuine. She was firm in her convictions and while her employment status had changed, her beliefs and sense of morality had not.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, clutching the datapad to her chest, as if protecting it from already prying eyes. She trusted him enough to believe he was telling her the truth. Perhaps she had a friend in the Alliance after all. "I still don’t know what there is to talk about. You already knew what I was capable of; the exact details change nothing of that.“
He stared at her, sadness welling up in his chest. He wished there was a way to take it all away everything that had ever been done and everything that would continue to happen because of what had been done. There was so much in that file that had pained him to read about, and yet he had forced himself to read it all, telling himself that if he had it he should know. Knowledge had been power once upon a time, though he wasn’t entirely certain he believed that philosophy anymore.
"I… You’re welcome, Monica.” He replied gently, turning away from her and sipping at his glass of wine. He agreed with her. Just because he knew the details of her life, and what she was capable of shouldn’t change anything… And yet in a way it did. Now he felt more protective of her, if that made any sense. There was just some part of him that wanted to reach out and try and take away some of the pain.
“I wanted to ask a few things.” Slowly he set his glass down, and turned to face her, his emotions beginning to break through the careful mask he usually wore. “Clarify some of what I read, get a better understanding of it, because what I read… I had more information about you, but I still don’t understand it.”
Monica took the datapad, looking at it carefully. She was still listening to Hackett, although her attention was diverted elsewhere. She was scanning through the file, her brow furrowing the more she read. This should not have been possible. Her file was buried in a mountain of others, likely only accessed when the Illusive Man sent someone after her. Why would it have been in the data stores of some facility? She shook her head to herself. She didn’t want to know.She read on. There really was a lot there. It was more thorough than any file anyone else had on her. Her old assignments, service record, even reports on her training sessions were there. She glanced up at Hackett, frowning.
“You shouldn’t have this,” she said slowly. Only she had a copy in so much detail, one she had stolen before she had left. It was a… memento of sorts, she supposed. But the information in the file was important to her. She didn’t like the idea of the Alliance having eyes on it. "Who else has seen this?“
He watched her read the file, his eyes sad.There was so much in there, and reading it had shed some new light on the woman for him. He respected her even more, if such a thing was possible, and though he had felt a moment’s pity, he had pushed it aside knowing it wasn’t what she wanted. When she looked up at him, he sighed heavily, his shoulders rising beneath his uniform and falling.
"No one. I’m the only person who’s looked in that file.” Many others had tried, the Defense Committee, Anderson, but he denied them all and told them to be on their damned way. Monica deserved some sort of privacy. “I thought it best that this remain between you and me. There’s information in there that could put your life in jeopardy.”
Tilting his head to the side, he tried to figure out why he cared so much, tried to picture him at the moment of her death. But the image of her dead was one he couldn’t hold for so long. Already he could feel a sadness welling in his chest. Brushing it aside he tried to switch back to his brisk business tone, but found it hard. “I’m giving that to you. It’s the only copy I have, and the Alliance doesn’t need it. No information’s been copied into the file the Alliance currently has on you.”
Monica couldn’t help but laugh softly. She took another sip of wine and smirked behind the glass. Lowering the glass, she bit her lower lip to keep from laughing any further. She cleared her throat quietly and tried her best to wipe the amused smile off her face. It didn’t work.“No, although now I might go home tonight and do so just to see what exactly it is you’ve been writing,” she teased lightly. "I was making an educated guess.“
She just watched him for a moment longer then shrugged. She didn’t think there was much he could find on her that wasn’t already public knowledge. C-Sec had a record on her, the Alliance had one as well; she knew all that already. Even the damn Spectres had some information on her. Only her full Cerberus personnel file was hard to get hands on. She kept that under lock and key so to speak and Cerberus, as much as they wanted her dead, would not simply hand it over. She didn’t think there was much Hackett could possibly know that she had not heard before.
"You’d be a fool not to have done your research,” she said, repeating her earlier thoughts. "Though what is there to discuss? I’m not on anyone’s side, if that needed to clarified at all.“
he stared at her for a few moments, his mind whirling as he tried to figure out his next step. There was so much in the file he had been given, so much he wanted to talk to her about, but that was the problem. There was so much that he just didn’t know where to begin. he could always let her take control of the conversation, but that would involve showing her the file he had.
At this point it didn’t matter, he told himself. Slowly he reached over to a datapad laying on the counter and switched it on. In a few seconds he was longed to the Alliance network, and opening his private folders. With a deadpan stare he opened the file and handed it to Galey.
"A few days ago, Shepard attacked a Cerberus facility, and managed to ransack some of their more important files. We got quite a lot from the raid, and most of it ended up on my desk. I was looking through it all when I found a file marked with your name on it.” He paused for a moment, his mask breaking a little as he leaned back against the counter. In a soft voice he continued, “I read through it. Everything. And I wanted to talk about it, if you’ll let me.”
Monica took the offered glass of wine, taking an experimental sip. Her features quickly showed her approval. As Hackett spoke, bright blue eyes continued to watch him over the rim of the wine glass. She debated how to answer.
She was curious, no doubt. She could take a complete stab in the dark as to what this was about. Whether she was correct or not was a gamble but she would find out easily enough. Or she could be patient and wait for Hackett to bring it up on his own. Judging by the look on his face, that would take awhile.
“You’ve been checking up on me, I assume? And found something you thought would be best discussed in person.” It was a vague assumption but what else could it be? He would have been a fool if he hadn’t done his research before letting her into his home. She raised an eyebrow in question.
He brought the wine glass to his lips and took a sip as he waited for the ex-Cerberus agent to reply. When she did his eyes widened, and he felt some wine go down the wrong part of his throat. Coughing, he set the wine glass down and covered his mouth with his hand, his eyes fixed on her.
“What the hell, Galey?” Hackett snapped between coughs, his voice rough from the coughing. “Have you been reading my damned reports again?” It was a safe enough assumption, unless she was just guessing, which would be nothing short of amazing.
After a few seconds he managed to stop coughing, though he rubbed the side of his neck with one hand. Well, now it was out and he waited in silence to hear what she had to say. He knew that he shouldn’t have gone through her files, that he should have asked her and respected her enough to expect a straight answer, but the Committee… The Committee had demanded he look into her, demanded that he guarantee she was on their side.
Monica laughed quietly and smiled. She rolled her eyes before her gaze returned to his. ”Good, because I really hate formalities.” As polite as she could be, formal titles got tiresome. As much as she respected the admiral, being on a more informal basis suited her just fine.She tilted her head slightly then nodded. She usually made a point not to drink often but a glass of wine or two would not hurt. She ran a hand through her hair, brushing it off of her face. She watched Hackett carefully, a habit she’d never been able to shake. She was eerily perceptive with most people and right now, he was no different.
“There’s clearly something you want to talk about,” she stated, her tone even and non-confrontational, simply curious. It made sense after all; she could think of no other reason that he would just invite her over out of the blue. Monica just couldn’t figure out what.
He relaxed an inch. He wasn’t entirely sure how long this state of informality would last, but at last they had reached it. Slowly he poured her a glass of the wine, and held it out to her, a small inviting smile etched into his features. If she was half as good as he thought sh was, she probably noticed he was hiding something, and he prayed to God that she didn’t ask him about it, not until dinner was over.
“There is,” Hackett agreed slowly, pouring himself a glass of the wine. “However, I am inclined to wait until after we eat. Usually such talks are taken better on a full stomach.” Looking over at her he set the bottle of wine down on the counter and slowly took a sip.
It was a nice wet wine, though he usually preferred his a little drier. Lowering his wine glass, he leaned against the counter and sighed. “Unless you feel like having it now and getting it out of the way. Whichever you wish.” Please God let her say no.