For Saffron

[more_flexible]

It had been a long night and Jack hung out until everyone but Helen had taken off. Let them make what assumptions they wanted about the two of them, he only had one thing on his mind as he walked behind the bar and grabbed a nearly empty bottle and two glasses, then pulled a seat out for her and stretched out in the other.

"You look beat, bao bei," he said candidly. "Have a drink with me before you go home."

Comments

[devilwoman]

"Well, he had a little help," Saffron amended with a smirk. "But he's more clever than you'd think. Thinks well on his feet, I'll give him that much. I tricked him into marrying me and stole his ship out from under him, but he got me in the end."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

Jack was suitably impressed. Serenity was nothing to be messed with when it came to Mal; he hardly knew the man, but he knew that much.

"Do tell," he said, giving her a look of encouragement. "Is he the only one to get you, or just the most worthy?"

[devilwoman]

"The only one," she said proudly. She was damn good. "There were Monty and Durran, but in those cases I was found out because I let myself get found out, and they were both directly related to my dealings with Mal."

She paused, and her smile faded just a little. If it had been anyone else, she wouldn't have said anything further, but it was Jack. "Well, there was one other one. The one who taught me about being a con. I try to forget about him most days."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

He could tell without trying that they were venturing into uncharted territory. There were things he didn't talk about, and when (and if) he did, he knew his voice took on the same tone.

"You never really forget," he pointed out gently, then cleared the path for her, just in case she really wanted to go down this road. "Who was he?"

[devilwoman]

She'd tried to forget his name, but she hadn't been able to, so her compensation was that she never spoke it. Sort of like her own name, Saffron supposed.

"Just a con artist, albeit a good one," she said, the corner of her mouth hitching just a little. "I met him when I was almost nineteen, after I left Durran. I was with him two years, and stupid, naive girl that I was, I fell in love with the tāmāde hùndàn, thought I'd be with him forever."

She paused, then, her expression unchanged, to appreciate that at least she'd come a long gorram way from that, and had gotten a hell of a lot better. "Course, I snapped out of that right quick after we pulled a job on a border planet and he and the rest of the crew took off and left me to be caught."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

When Jack was nineteen he'd entered the Time Agency Academy. It was funny, kinda, how their lives paralleled each other's. Funny in that way that it was almost too close to be called comfortable.

"And then what?" he asked. He didn't mean to be nosy, but this was more than she'd ever told him and it was impossible not to be curious.

[devilwoman]

"I didn't get caught," Saffron said with a wry smile. "He'd taught me well, and I've always been a quick learner. After that, I was on my own, by my own choosing. And that's when I started the profession that would carry me through the next few years, until I came here."

She paused, partly for effect, and took a sip. "I reckon you're familiar with the term 'black widow', sugar?"

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

There was an amused gleam in his eye as he nodded. Of all the fantastical things he'd imagined i her past, the role of black widow had come up, but not seriously and not for long.

"I'm familiar," Jack said. "Dangerous con to pull. Only the best get away with it after a few times."

And of course she was one of the best he'd met in ages. Outside the Time Agency, very few people could get the drop on him. She had...from the day they met.

[devilwoman]

Saffron tilted her head slightly and did a little flourish with one hand. "Mal was the only one I married who didn't make me a widow," she replied, and there was maybe a little pride in her voice at that. "Danger just makes the con more fun. I've never been a fan of an easy mark. Too boring."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"Why'd you do it in the first place?" he asked, taking a slow sip and studying her face. "Once I left the Agency, all my cons were about revenge more than money...although the money was nice."

[devilwoman]

"I won't argue the money's nice," Saffron agreed, smirking a little. "Good seamstresses are expensive, after all. But it was never really about that, for me."

She thought about it a moment. "I once told Mal that he was assuming the payoff was the point, when he asked me why I would bother with anything elaborate. It's about the game for me, the challenge. The satisfaction in getting the jump on someone who's a little too pleased with their own cleverness, or someone who thinks they're untouchable. I reckon it's partly revenge, too. Proving I can do it on my own, and that I'm the best."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"One of the best I've ever met," Jack replied, flashing her a genuine smile. "I think the universe is lucky we never worked together. No one would have stood a chance."

[devilwoman]

"Likewise, honey. I think we've proven we're better as allies than as adversaries," Saffron remarked with a smirk. Both as a pair and in a threesome, as they both knew. "The 'verse wouldn't know what hit it."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

That made Jack grin broadly and he nodded.

"That's the truth." He paused and bought a little time with another sip, then he rested his elbow on the table.

"But where did you come from? Before the cons, before the companion training...what were you like when you were very young, bao bei?"

[devilwoman]

Saffron was silent a moment, then blew out a breath. "Well, I've told you this much, I reckon I might as well tell you the rest," she said with a wry smile. Already, Jack knew more than anyone else.

"I don't remember much of my earliest years. I was born on a little backwater planet called Santo, and when I was five my parents sold me to a couple who lived on Londinium, one of the central planets," she explained. "It'll probably be no surprise to you to learn I was a bit of a wild girl, and I reckon my adoptive parents couldn't handle me. When I was thirteen, they sent me off to the Companion Academy."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

His reaction to hearing she'd been sold was instantaneaous, but brief. It was disgusting that people did that to one another, even in the fifty-first century and beyond. Some things just couldn't be obliterated by the Time Agency and the indoctrination he' had regarding personal freedom that he'd heard from birth was one. The sale of people was beyond distasteful.

"They sold you," he repeated, shaking his head slowly, then he moved on. "Do all companions go in at thirteen?"

[devilwoman]

"No," Saffron replied, shaking her head. "Thirteen is a little old, actually. Most girls start at twelve."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

That made more sense to him and Jack nodded. "That sounds about right. Were they good to you there? You've told me a little about your training..." he asked, growing more comfortable with the opportunity to ask her questions.

[devilwoman]

They were on a roll, it seemed, Jack with the questions and Saffron with an actual willingness to answer them, so she kept going. "I learned a great deal at the Academy, about sex, sure, but so much more as well. It's been very useful in the years since," she said. "I didn't decide not to become a registered Companion because I didn't like the profession itself, I decided that because I didn't like the idea of being under the control of the Guild."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"Do many who go through training wind up freelancing? Or does the Guild look down on that sort of thing?" He knew that anyone who went through the Time Agency didn't get the option of going of on their own...usually. He was the only exception to that that he knew of.

[devilwoman]

Saffron shook her head. "I don't know of many who have," she replied. "See, being a Companion is a very respected profession. In some cases a Companion will have more clout than an Alliance officer. But women who do what a Companion does without being a registered member of the Guild, well - then you're just a regular old whore."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"That's something I'd never think of you," Jack replied. He'd known plenty of 'regular old whores' and Helen was miles beyond any of them.

"Was it worth it, though? Being free of the Guild?"

[devilwoman]

Naturally he wouldn't; Jack had experienced her talents and knew better. That didn't make Saffron any less gratified to hear it. As a thank you, she leaned over briefly and kissed him.

"Oh, it was definitely worth it," she said with a nod as she sat back in her chair. "It was hard for a couple of years - first there was Durran and that whole mess, then...the one I just told you about, who taught me the basics of being a con. After that, though, it was great to be free, to go where I wanted and -" she paused, gave a little coy shrug and a bat of her eyelashes- "con who I wanted."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

He flashed an appreciative smile and raised his glass. "Here's to conning who you want, when you want," he said decisively. "And here's to us...living as honestly as we can stand."

[devilwoman]

Saffron raised her glass in turn and clinked the two together in a toast. "I'll drink to that," she said, and took a healthy sip.

"Well, now that you know more about me than anyone else here..." she started, running her index finger lightly around the rim of her glass. "I'd love to hear some of your story, Captain."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"I'm an open book, what do you want to know?" he asked, the liquor he'd already downed loosening his tongue more than it should have.

"I was born on an Earth colony world and grew up on the Boeshane peninsula. When I was thirteen we were invaded. We lived under the constant threat of attack. When I was fifteen I lost my brother and my father was killed in an invasion. Seventeen- I went to war."

[devilwoman]

"So young to be a soldier," Saffron commented. "There was a war going on when I was seventeen, too. The Unification War. I didn't fight in it, though." She hadn't had any part in the Unification War. That was one thing being in the Academy had saved her from; that, and her age. "What happened then?"

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"Then? Then I was a soldier," he shrugged, the air around them growing heavy as he looked into his glass for the easy way to tell the tale. The answer wasn't in there. Jack poured a little more and slugged it back in one swallow.

"When I was seventeen I convinced my best friend to join up with me. I told him it would be an adventure. It was...for a while. Then we both got caught and the invaders tortured him because they knew he'd break. And I had to watch..."

He swallowed hard and contemplated the bottom of the glass for another long moment.

"So then I started taking stupid risks and racking up one hell of a body count. That's when the Time Agency took notice and recruited me. I went with them and that's where I met John. He wasn't John back then, but names don't matter. Mine's not really Jack and I bet yours isn't really Helen."

[devilwoman]

It didn't surprise her, to know that he'd been tough even at that age. It also didn't surprise her to learn about where he'd met John, or that they weren't their real names. Ai ya, she missed John sometimes.

"Haven't used my real name since I left the Academy," Saffron confirmed with a shake of her head. "Mal and his crew knew me as Saffron. I think that's been my favorite so far, of all the names I've used."

She took another drink, draining her glass. "Tell me about John, about your time with him," she prompted gently.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"John?" he repeated, then barked a sharp laugh as aa grin spread across his face. "He was as young and cocky as I was. Louder. He walked into the room and you just had to look at him. God, he was so beautiful. He was out of control, just as much then as now. We got partnered up because I was the only one who could handle him. That, and I was the only partner he never managed to get killed. Maybe because I was just as psychotic as he was."

Jack paused.

"We were both so full of hate back then and it had nowhere to go but out."

[devilwoman]

Saffron nodded, listening but also remembering the time she'd had with John, starting with the day they'd first met and paralyzing lip gloss had canceled out a Goodnight Kiss. "That doesn't surprise me terrible much," she said, referring to pretty much all of it.

She looked thoughtfully down into the bottom of her empty glass. "What do you think would have happened, Jack?" she asked. "If John had stayed what do you think would have happened with the three of us?"

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"What would have happened? All hell would have broken loose. We'd have had to choose sides. He'd eventually have killed someone...and he'd have drank the club dry by now," Jack said plainly. "And I'd probably be locked up, either for joining him or killing him. Either way, it could have only ended in tears."

[devilwoman]

Saffron gave a vague noise that sounded something like commiseration. "I think I probably would have taken your side," she said. "Whatever side that was. And I'm not sure they grant conjugal visits when both parties are imprisoned, unfortunately."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

Hearing that she would choose his side, regardless of what it was, made him smile. His eyes sparkled with affection and he reached across the table to take her hand.

"Somehow, I think we'd figure out a way to do that," he chuckled. "Security here is nothing compared to some places I've been."

[devilwoman]

"It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure I remember how to pick a lock," Saffron replied in agreement, and squeezed Jack's hand with a fond smile. There weren't too many she'd be willing to go to Island Jail for, but he was one of the very few she was willing to go with. If they ever had cause to team up and pull out all the stops, she was pretty sure the island's population wouldn't know what hit them.