Jack Week, Day 1: Before
When she was little, Jack lived on Eden Prime; she had a family. What was her life like before Teltin? Who was she as a child?
“Hey, Dukey.”
They looked up from their game pad as their mother crouched beside them. “Got someone you should meet,” Hannah continued, beckoning someone over. “Mari, this is my kid Duke. They’re older than Bina, but they like younger kids too, right, Duke?”
“Sure,” Duke said as the dark-haired little girl hid her face in her mother’s shoulder when she saw Duke was looking. “Your name’s Bina?”
The girl peeked out just a little to nod.
“Bina, Duke is gonna be a biotic just like you,” Mari murmured to her daughter. “You can ask them about it! They’ll tell you it’s not so scary. Okay?”
Bina still cried out when Mari set her down, and she clung to her mother’s leg with her big dark eyes staring at Duke.
Duke held out the pad. “Wanna play a game with me?”
It was like magic. Bina’s eyes lit up, and the immediately let go of Mari and ran to sit next to Duke on the park bench. “What game?”
“It’s a really old one from Earth; it’s called Pokémon.” Duke held the pad out so Bina could see. “You catch weird animals and make ‘em battle each other.”
Mari and Hannah exchanged secretive smiles as they left their children absorbed in the video game.
“Duke?” Hannah knocked softly on the door. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah, c’mon in.” Duke barely looked up from the pad as they pressed the button by their bed to allow the door to their room to slide open. Their brow furrowed as their Metagross’s health dropped dangerously low thanks to an attack from a Charizard.
“Duke, honey, can you pause it for a second?”
Something in their mother’s voice made them look up for real this time. Hannah’s eyes were red. “Mom? What’s wrong?”
Hannah swallowed hard. “I just got an email from Mari,” she said softly. “You remember we met her on Eden Prime a couple weeks ago?”
“Yeah,” Duke answered uneasily.
“Bina got sick really suddenly a few days ago. They took her to the hospital, but…she passed away last night.” Hannah wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry. I know you liked her.”
Duke’s mind went blank. “She was four,” they said, as if that invalidated Bina’s death. “She was only four.”
“Eezo sickness,” Hannah said quietly. “She just…couldn’t fight it off. I’m sorry.”
Duke wrapped their arms around their mother, too shocked for tears. Bina? Bina who really liked my Pikachu and who begged her mom to get her a Pokémon game as soon as Mom and Mari came back. Bina with the big brown eyes and the pretty dark hair. Bina who shrieked with laughter when we played tag.
Bina’s gone.
“There was a kid,” Duke says quietly. “When I was, I don’t know, nine. Met her on a human colony. She had biotic potential like me. We were best friends for a day. And then, two weeks later…she died.”
“You saying we’re lucky ‘cause we didn’t die?” Jack asks with a snort, taking another gulp of her whiskey.
“No…I’m saying maybe she was the lucky one.” Duke takes a sip of their brightwine, and Jack recognizes the beginnings of her Dukey’s depression when she sees them.
“Hey.” She reaches over and puts a hand over Duke’s. “You saying I’m not lucky? You’re the luckiest thing that ever happened to me, asshole.”
That gets a smile from Duke, and they hold up their glass. “To being lucky enough to have the hottest girl in the galaxy dropped into my lap.”
“To seducing the most badass motherfucker in the galaxy,” Jack snarks back, clinking her tumbler against Duke’s glass. “And to being lucky enough that they stuck around.”
Duke smiles as they watch their girlfriend toss back the rest of her drink. Bina might be gone, but Jack is here now.