Starbound
Chapter 11 - Heart To Heart
The door to his cell slid open silently, with only the heavy footsteps of the being outside alerting him that someone was coming in.
Jack, however, scowled and kept his gaze firmly at the opposite wall, staring at its unremarkable metal texture wordlessly.
It had only been roughly twenty minutes since they’d stuck him in here, despite all of his fighting, while they carried Twilight off who knows where. And to keep him from fighting, they had, of course, restrained him with durasteel manacles that were hardlocked to a stand in the middle of this holding cell.
Good thing, too. Even without his armor, he was going to fight tooth and nail to get to Twilight and ensure her safety.
The man who entered his field of view, however, was not wearing armor, unlike the ones who had found him and dumped him here. He was wearing a navy-blue uniform, unadorned save for the captain’s emblem stitched into his breast, and he carried a datapad in his left hand while he typed with his right.
“Where is she?” Jack asked in a deathly quiet voice the moment the captain strode in.
He looked rather plain, all things considered. His hair was brown, eyes were brown, his face was hollow, and he looked rather tired.
But when he met Jack’s eyes, he gave a small smile.
“Your concern for the equine is rather touching.”
“Where. Is. She?” he asked again, wrenching against the manacles.
“In good hands,” answered the captain, wiping his brow with a gloved right hand. “We don’t know what happened to her, but while we observed your battle with the bone dragon, that… shift she caused, where both of you seemed to appear in different places, so we’re trying to--”
“DON’T BULLSHIT ME, YOU USCM BASTARD!”
The captain only seemed mildly disturbed by his sudden shouting, which was what infuriated Jack the most.
“Mr. Thomas, I assure you, she is perfectly whole and in the best care.” Perhaps what was most impressive was how the captain looked him right in the eye while he told that bold-faced lie. Jack knew how the USCM were. Whispers and rumors of their cruelty toward nonhumans was commonplace on Terra Stella, and just about everyone suspected they had more than a little to do with the near-total disappearance of the Novakid race. “I have had our best caretakers working on her since we brought the two of you in.”
Jack let out a derisive bark of laughter.
“Really?” he asked, putting as much sarcasm as he felt he could get away with into his tone. “The same group of people responsible for the Novakid massacre are giving my companion the best possible care? Should I be on my knees right now, or will a simple ‘Thank-you’ suffice?”
The captain sighed patiently.
“You believe we are that section of the USCM.”
“Let me guess, you’re not?” Jack fired back. “Because that’s just what you would say if you weren’t. Assure me you’re on my side, get me to give over information, then use it to tear her apart!”
“Nothing I say to you can possibly convince you to my sincerity,” the captain smiled humorlessly. “Very well, then. Viers, Piett, if you would.”
Two USCM guards stepped in. Unlike before, when it had been a dark grey color, their armor was now white. Jack guessed it must be programmed to reflect the environment around them to act as camouflage.
One of them inserted a keycard into a slot on Jack’s restraining pedestal. With a click and a hiss, the manacles holding Jack to the center console came free. At once, Jack thrust them over to grab at the captain’s neck, hoping to wring his head from his shoulders, but the other guard stepped in the way and tackled him to the ground.
“None… of… that… now,” the guard grunted, managing to get Jack’s hands stuck behind his back, before grabbing them and hoisting him back to his feet. His partner was over to double-secure his arms again within a second.
Rather than manacle him, they seemed content to simply keep him held there.
“If you’ll follow me,” the captain turned and strode out wordlessly, after which the two guards practically dragged Jack, who was writhing and twisting and trying to break free all the while. “If you will not believe me with my words, perhaps you will believe by sight.”
Jack was dragged through several halls, past several doors, past several “USCM” sigils on the wall, and several more Apex Empire sigils that were faded, scratched out, or otherwise covered up.
What happened to the Apex who first resided here? he thought. Were they massacred as well?
It was a shorter trip than he thought it would be. A door slid open to reveal an observation room, into which Jack was taken. The room being observed was clearly a medical bay, and inside, the unmistakable unconscious form of Twilight Sparkle lay on a medical gurney while several medical personnel worked around her.
Nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. She had standard medical equipment attached, an IV, medical readers, and an oxygen mask fastened around her snout. Even her readings appeared normal.
Or what Jack thought was normal, at least, being no expert on Equestrian physiology.
“Twilight!” Jack finally wrenched himself free of the two guards and bolted to lean as far forward into the glass as possible.
“She is stable,” the captain said as he took a spot next to him, observing the proceedings. The medical staff appeared to be doing no more than simply taking measurements and writing down information, with the occasional prod with some kind of instrument. “As far as the doctors can tell, she’s just unconscious.”
Jack had nothing to say to that, so rather than humor the captain, he kept his thoughts to himself this time.
“She’s not in a coma or any kind of unnatural sleep,” the captain continued. “As best we can tell, it’s simply exhaustion brought about by overexertion. Meaning she’ll reawaken when she has enough energy to.”
“And then what?” growled Jack. “Then the ‘experiments’ begin?”
“And then we clear her for release, have a nice little ‘heart-to-heart’ about how exactly the both of you killed Dreadwing--” at the sight of Jack’s look of surprise, the captain smiled, “--oh yes, young man, we are quite aware of your exploits in Sector Alpha.”
“Have you been following me?” Jack narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
“Frankly, yes,” the captain shrugged. “When even the USCM couldn’t deal with a rogue homicidal penguin, and two unknown beings come along and wipe him out in one fell swoop, surely you didn’t think you’d attract interest?”
Jack scowled at that, but had nothing to add. He supposed the captain was right.
“You know, I really don’t get the hype,” he commented.
“How do you mean?” asked the captain, giving him a quick once-over, as if a bit wary of something.
“Dreadwing went down easy,” Jack answered, recalling the encounter. “Too easy. For a penguin everyone was afraid of, I was expecting a harder fight. Instead, I had him and his entire penguin army taken out within about ten minutes.”
“Hm,” grunted the captain, turning back to the viewing screen, where a couple of doctors were measuring her facial features..
This only reminded Jack of the day he and Twilight met, how he found her having been hit by one of Dreadwing’s lasers directly and how he had nursed her back to health with some stimpack and rest. Not to mention the rather embarrassing moment that came from when he determined that Twilight was, in fact, a she. Here, though, the USCM doctors just seemed to be keeping her stable and getting data.
For what sinister purpose, he had no idea, but he could do absolutely nothing about it.
“Perhaps he was degrading over time.”
“Sorry?” Jack turned back to the captain.
“Dreadwing,” the captain said, still staring at Twilight on her bed. “He was an experiment gone wrong by the USCM. Perhaps he was simply degrading and that’s why your battle with him was so simple.”
“Maybe,” Jack crossed his arms.
“Hm,” the captain grunted again, but he seemed to tire of watching the procedure. “Viers, Piett, dismissed. No escort will be necessary.”
Jack turned to glance at the captain in surprise. Leaving him unguarded? What was his game?
The captain must have sensed his thoughts because he smiled rather wryly. “We will get nowhere if I continue to treat you like a prisoner. I am a man of my word, and when I say I intend to simply nurse your companion back to health and then let you go, I have no intention of going back.”
“If you were a liar, you’d say the same thing,” Jack scowled. “I have zero reason to trust you.”
“Which is why I am going to show you to your room,” the captain replied, stepping away from the window and motioning for him to follow as he stepped out into the hall. “No surveillance, no guards, just a normal quarter with two beds.”
Jack only followed out of curiosity. Truth be told, he wanted to stay in that viewing room until all was well, but if he was going to get them both out of here, he figured it was best to play along and see what the captain’s plan was.
“Jack Jensen,” the captain said as they walked down the halls again.
“Beg ya pahdon?” Jack replied, before covering his mouth slightly. The annoyance that was his Bostonian accent still seemed to creep in at inopportune moments.
“My name,” the captain clarified. “My name is Jack Jensen.”
“Huh.”
They finally arrived in front of yet another plain-looking white metal sliding door, which shifted open as they drew close to reveal a rather bare room with two beds, a couple of writing desks on opposite ends of the room, a pair of end tables with plain lamps, and a normal sliding door at the back that led presumably to a closet or latrine.
“Here’s your room,” Captain Jensen said, gesturing at the beds. “If you need help finding the mess hall or some other room that strikes your fancy, just ask any of the guards and they’ll point you in the right direction. Obviously,” he added apologetically, “we can’t allow you into any military or restricted areas, but other than that, you and… Twilight, was it?”
Jack just stared at him, hoping not to give him anything.
“Regardless, you and your companion will have free rein over the facility except for the aforementioned types of rooms, of which you’ll find surprisingly little.”
“Ain’t this a military facility though?” Jack asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
“A converted science one, but the fact of the matter is,” the captain sighed and brushed some of his hair out of his face, “we’re by no means a military-capable force. We’re no more than exiles here, hiding away from the main force of the USCM and doing everything we can to help non-humans who have incurred their wrath.”
“And you think it’s best to do this by wearing the same uniform of the guys trying to take them down?” Jack asked.
“If the USCM find us here, and we’re wearing an enemy’s uniform, do you think they’ll allow us to live?” the captain asked back. “That, and there’s just not many different clothes here. Yeah yeah ‘just go get more,’” he added before Jack could retort, “but we can’t take very many trips to and from this planet. The more we do, the greater likelihood that the USCM finds us, and then we’re in a heap of trouble.”
“How do they find you, then?” Jack asked, finally stepping into the room and sitting on one of the beds. “Frankly, how did you find us?”
“Warp trail analysis,” the captain shrugged. “We were able to track the two of you all the way to Terra Stella and plant the coordinates of our base on your ship.”
“That was you?” Jack asked, suddenly angry. “I knew it. I told her this could be a trap by the USCM--”
“Think what you will,” the captain tossed his hand dismissively. “I can’t sit here and spend an unnecessary amount of time convincing you of the truth when there’s work to be done. As I said before, you’re free to go anywhere you like other than restricted sections. If you want food, the mess hall is indicated by the signs on the walls.”
And with that, he stepped out, letting the door slide shut behind him and leaving Jack alone in his room.
Or rather, his cell.
“Our guest is from Boston,” Jensen remarked in the Control Room of the outpost. The analysts and other officers were dutifully going about their business, but ever his right-hand man, Lieutenant Ross O’Donnell was there with him, his pale complexion rather eerie under the red sky of the planet in the evening.
“How’d you know?” Ross asked, monitoring the condition of the equine being from his datapad. Everything seemed normal, but normal beings didn’t just collapse unconscious after altering reality, so everything was rather relative.
“His accent,” the captain answered. “He tried to cover it up, but with the stress of the day, it bled through. You’re from Boston too, aren’t you?”
“Was, yeah,” Ross nodded. “Before I joined the USCM. Why, you’re not going to ask if I know the guy, do you?”
“I was going to,” the captain shrugged. “I know the metro area was, like, 7 million before World War III, but you never know.”
“Was gonna say,” Ross smirked. “That’d be a hell of a coincidence in this galaxy. What’s his name, anyway?”
“Data mined from his ship gives us the name ‘Jack Thomas.’”
Ross froze.
“The name’s familiar?” the captain glanced at his lieutenant.
“It’s… a name made of common names,” Ross admitted, but his look grew a bit distant. “I grew up with a Jack Thomas once. What did he look like?”
“Pale skin, kind of like yours, blue eyes, and red hair.”
Ross just stared at the captain for a long moment, mouth parted in astonishment.
“Lieutenant?” Jensen asked, giving him a strange look. “Do you know him?”
“I… maybe,” the lieutenant shifted his gaze out of the main viewing window. “Permission to go and see him?”
“Granted,” the captain nodded tersely. “If you do know him, see what you can do to get him to trust us.”
“Yes sir, captain,” promised Ross, before he walked out.
He was in the viewing room again. The doctors assured him that she was fine, but he just couldn’t help but shake the feeling that something was definitely wrong with Twilight this time. Something he couldn’t understand or fix.
They had used every manner of healing possible, including red stimpack, but nothing seemed to be helping. Twilight just slumbered away peacefully, stable but dead to the world.
Jack, meanwhile, was pacing impatiently in his spot. The seats in here were uncomfortable, and there was the lingering fact that he was currently sitting in a USCM military facility… Jack didn’t care what the captain promised. He wanted him and Twilight out of there at the earliest opportunity, but he couldn’t do that with Twilight in her current condition.
The door slid open again and a rather thin uniformed man stepped in. His skin was pale, his eyes a dark brown, his hair black, and his face an impassive mask as he stepped in.
But once he entered the room and saw jack, the impassiveness disappeared, replaced by incredulity.
“It can’t be!”
“Uh…” Jack stared at the man, feeling a bit confused. He did look a bit familiar, but Jack just couldn’t quite place where he had seen him before.
“Jackie? Is that you?”
Jack felt his jaw drop. Only three people in the entire universe ever called him that.
“Ross!?” he gasped.
“Holy shit, it is you!” Ross practically charged forward and rather aggressively gave Jack a massive bear hug. “God damn, what are the odds!?”
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I work here,” Ross shrugged. “Well, work and live, but you get my point.”
“Right, right,” Jack nodded, “yeah, I remember you joined up back when… well…”
“Yeah,” Ross walked over to one of the seats and sat down. “I was in Drogun’s fleet; Back when he was a colonel, before the schism.”
“No kidding?” Jack sat down a bit away from him, though he kept his gaze firmly on the slumbering alicorn a room away.
“Yeah,” Ross smiled humorlessly. “Back when he wasn’t a piece of shit. After the schism happened four years ago, well…” his smile twisted into something far more distasteful, “I escaped. It was chaos back then. Drogun seized power, personally took out Admiral Marcus’ ship, got a bunch of like-minded xenophobes in position to keep him in power, and then began his ‘Crusade of Cleansing,’ as he started calling it.”
“You escaped, but how’d you end up out here?”
“A friend of mine pointed me this way,” Ross smiled rather ruefully. “He’d been helping dissenters get out of the USCM for a few months. It got him found out and taken to the Rock, but long after I arrived here. I hope he’s okay.”
.”Probably not,” Jack growled. “If even half the things I’ve heard about that place are true…”
“Yeah,” Ross took off his cap to run a white-gloved hand through his hair for a moment before putting it back. “Who’s that?”
“Hm?”
“That… equine,” Ross stood up and strode to the window Jack had been standing in front of moments before. “You haven’t been able to take your eyes off of it.”
“Her,” Jack corrected reflexively.
Ross smiled. “Oh, you’ve been traveling with a female companion? “Have you two…?”
Jack gave him an irritated look. “What kind of question is that?”
“That’s not a no~!” Ross smirked back at him. “I’m not judging, Jack. Did you know I had something going with a hylotl for a while when we were sheltering her.”
“What was her name?” Jack asked, feeling surprised by this.
“Yoko,” Ross’ eyes glossed over and a rather familiar dopey smile slowly spread acrtoss his faceas he thought of her. “She had the smoothest aquamarine skin,,gorgeous red eyes, and she was a dead-eye with a pistol.”
“What happened?” asked Jack, now staring at Ross rather than at Twilight.
“Nothing,” Ross shrugged. “Nothing bad, anyway. I helped her get off-planet and get settled in Terra Stella, then came back here. She wanted me to stay with her, and I really wanted to, but, well…” he crossed his arms, “The USCM need to be thwarted, and I was gonna keep doing it. We still keep in contact, though,” he added.
Jack grunted.
“So, how’s Rory? I remember you two went off on your own when we all left Earth.”
“No idea,” Jack shrugged. “When I decided to go off on my own, he was working at the Terra Stella foundries. Haven’t seen him since I left.”
“I bet he’s alright,” Ross returned to his seat. “And I think we both know James is on Home One. Guess when your dad’s the leading Admiral of the UN Space Fleet, you can get your family to safety without much of a problem.”
“Define ‘Safety,’” Jack replied dully. “Don’t the USCM have eyes watching Earth to make sure no one tries to escape unless they pledge support?”
“Something like that, yeah,” Ross grimaced. “Earth needs help. Humans still on the planet desperately need to escape before the planet is devoured, but the USCM are stopping any aid attempts. We’ve tried,” he added, before shaking his head. “Only twice, and both times failed.”
Jack’s gaze returned to Twilight, sleeping on the medical bed peacefully as the doctors continued their measurements.
“I don’t know how long you plan on staying,” Ross got back to his feet, adjusting his hat as he did so, “but if you can find me while I have free time, I’d love to get caught up.”
“Yeah,” Jack nodded. Deep down, he still didn’t trust this “Jensen” person, but he knew Ross, and Ross seemed no different than he had when they had flown out. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
They shook hands, and with that, Ross left the room, leaving Jack alone to continue watching Twilight.
She was floating alone in a void. Around her were hundreds, thousands, nay, millions of stars in the inky nightscape. How long she had been here, she didn’t know. It seemed as though time had no meaning.
Deep down, she knew what these stars were, and with a flap of her wings, she was propelled toward the nearest one, which came into focus. There were planets and asteroids in orbit around it, but after a moment of investigation, she knew it couldn’t be the one she was looking for.
She investigated a second, and then a third, and a fourth. Not long after that, she lost count. Her search was endless. No star had her home in it, but it had to be here! She knew it, and she would find it.
“Twilight? Twilight, can you hear me?”
Faint voices echoed around the void, and she suppressed a small cry. How cruel, to hear the voices of her friends to taunt her in her distress? It only emboldened her to search all the more.
But as her search went on and on, and no star had home, she began to feel despair claw at her. Was she doomed to continue this search forever? Or until the heat-death of the universe? Would she ever find home?
Princess Luna’s eyes shot open.
“Sister!” she shouted, before, with a great flap of her wings, she propelled herself out of her room, off of her balcony above Canterlot, and straight across to Celestia’s.
Her sister had heard her call, and was busy pulling her sleeping mask and sliding out from under her covers as Luna entered.
“What is it, Luna?” Celestia asked, pawing the sleep out of her eyes, “are we under attack?”
“Neigh, sister!” Luna shook her head. “I’ve touched Twilight Sparkle’s dreams.”
Celestia’s mouth parted. “You’ve found her!?”
Luna shook her head again. “No. The dreamscape is not a way for me to locate a pony. But this proves she is still able to be contacted. If I can locate her again and speak to her--”
“You mean you didn’t speak to her just now?”
“I tried,” Luna grimaced, “but I was not able to get her attention within her dream. She…” she looked away, “she’s falling into despair, Tia. She’s spent the last several months trying to find Equus again, but she is starting to become convinced she’ll never do it. Her despair kept her from recognizing that I was there.”
Celestia felt her head droop at that, but only for a moment. “Keep trying, Luna. You can do it. you can break through. I know you can.”
Luna nodded, before taking off again and flying backward out of her room. Celestia, meanwhile, had a letter prepared and sent off to Spike and Twilight’s friends and family, informing them of her safety. At the very least, they could all finally sleep peacefully, knowing that much.
It was the second day after their initial “capture” that it happened. Jack had finally been allowed into the medical room, once the doctors had all the measurements they needed, which wasn’t too long after his conversation with Ross. Once there, he had only left Twilight’s bedside to sleep, eat, and keep himself clean.
And after almost two full days of sitting in a chair, morosely staying with her in the hope that she would wake up, her eyes shot open and she gave a great gasp.
At once, he was roused to alertness. She was wildly looking around, hyperventilating as she tried to piece together where she was.
“Twilight!” he leapt to his feet
Her eyes locked onto his the moment he shouted her name, and at once, her breathing slowed, and she stopped flailing.
“J-Jack?” she asked softly, before looking around at the sterile, white room and down to the simple restraints and medical instruments hooked up to her. “Where are we? What happened?”
“Relax, relax,” Jack gently pushed her head back down onto the pillow she had been sleeping on. Twilight complied, but not happily. Jack knew her natural curiosity was burning on waking up in an unknown place, and she wanted to explore, but while Jack had come to uneasily trust this USCM branch, he was still skeptical. “We’re in the medical wing of a base on the planet we fought the bone dragon.”
“A base?” she asked, looking around again. “Was that the settlement I found before?”
“Yeah, this is it,” Jack nodded. “Formerly an Apex science facility, it was taken over by a splinter cell of the USCM.”
Twilight’s eyes widened, and she paled. “The USCM!? Then we need to--”
“Twilight, calm down,” he pressed a hand to her sternum to keep her relaxed. “Splinter cell, one of the ones that shelters non-human species from the xenophobic group.”
Just like it had with him, that did little to calm her down. But to her credit, at least she stopped trying to get up.
“How do you know?” she asked.
“My friend Ross is here,” Jack smiled a bit at the sheer coincidence of it. “Told you about him, right? How he joined the USCM before the schism? He’s been hiding out here for the last few years, helping the guys here do what they can to shelter non-humans.”
“You trust him just because he’s a friend from foalhood?” Twilight asked, with more than a bit of skepticism in her voice.
“Childhood, for humans,” he corrected, leading to an irritated glare from her. and then he shrugged. “But yeah, I do. I’ve had two days to see if they were lying to me, and so far, they haven’t been. They’ve even upgraded my ship.”
“You do realize how suspicious that looks, right? Just upgrading a ship for no reason?”
“I don’t think it’s for no reason,” Jack sat back in the chair he’d occupied for hours before this. “They are the ones who planted the coordinates in our ship. Ross tells me they had planned on introducing us to something called ‘Project Terminus,’” he sniffed, “something to do with rallying other splinter groups like this one together to fight the USCM. They probably think we’re a two-being army, capable of wiping out entire fleets of USCM ships, all because I got lucky and caught Dreadwing by surprise.”
“They want to use you, or us, to take down the USCM? The entire USCM?” Twilight clarified with an unreadable face. “Jack, as soon as we can, we need to leave. I just wanted to find Equus. I just want to go home! I didn’t sign up for any of this.”
“Welcome to my world,” Jack sighed. “I wanted to help you find Equus. I didn’t want to get caught up in this whole war between two sections of a xenophobic organization hellbent on destroying all non-humankind.”
“But what about after we find Equus?” Twilight asked, her face still unreadable. “Do you just go back to your shelter, and that’s the end?”
“I…”Jack stopped, a tumult of thoughts running through his mind at that. What was his plan post-Equus? What would become of him and Twilight as friends? What would become of them beyond that.
He sighed again and sagged his shoulders.
“I have no idea. I haven’t really thought about it. This,” he gestured at the general everything around him, “this adventure we’ve been having… it’s been nice. Dreadwing, Fatal Circuit, Bone Dragon, and Giant Jelly Monster, which I still can’t believe we fought, aside,” Twilight rolled her eyes, “I’ve honestly found this… kind of fun.”
“So you haven’t given any thought to what happens after we find my home because you don’t really want this adventure to end?” Twilight asked. Jack didn’t really like how she sounded more curious than angry. He thought that him mentioning that would lead her to suspect he was intentionally steering her away from Equus or something.
Jack smiled humorlessly. “I guess.”
“I’ve done plenty of thinking myself,” Twilight replied, laying back against the pillows of her bed. “We’re not ready to be out here now, but now that I’ve been out here and seen some things, I think ponykind will be far better prepared. And whether it takes one year or a hundred, ponies will be counted among the species colonizing the stars.”
“Sounds nice,” Jack’s smile actually gained a semblance of humor behind it. “Seeing a pony on the Terra Stella High Council would be pretty interesting for a city that prided itself on its diversity.”
“But here’s what I want to know,” Twilight continued unperturbed.
“What’s that?” Jack asked, folding his hands in his lap and leaning back in his seat.
“What happens to us?” Twilight asked, her face going a bit pink.
“No idea,” Jack shrugged. “I guess when you find Equus, it’ll depend on what I’m doing. But if you get back out here, who knows? We could do more exploring.”
“Jack, I don’t mean this,” she gestured at everything around her the same way he had. “I meant… I meant our relationship.”
Jack blinked stupidly at that, even as Twilight’s pinkness grew to match his hair in its shade of red.
“Wh-what do you mean?” he asked nervously. This was definitely a minefield. One wrong move…
“Romantically,” answered Twilight, in as deadpan a way as possible. “I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time,” she glanced away, “but I… I like you. I enjoy spending time with you. I’ve been angry lately because I feel like I’m not doing anything to help while you’re risking your life for me, and I’m just freezing up any time I get reminded of what happened on Alpha Prime III-B.”
“Well,” Jack said, running a hand through his hair as he took it in. “You’re rather… nonchalant about this.”
“No sense in beating around the bush anymore,” Twilight replied, still staring sideways. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but… do you like me as well?”
“What makes you ask that?” he replied, hoping to buy a little time.
“You’ve spent the last however long I’ve been asleep sitting by my bedside, haven’t you?” she asked, though the knowing look in her eye told him this was less of a question and more of a light accusation.
“Guilty as charged,” Jack inclined his head.
“I don’t know how you humans are,” she preempted, speaking slowly, as if to weigh every word, “but… we ponies, to borrow your expression, ‘wear our hearts on our sleeves.’ It’s usually easy to tell when a mare or stallion is interested in pursuing a relationship because if they are, they’re more affectionate, they show greater concern even over friends, and they spend a lot of time around the pony they’re interested in. Considering my predicament, the third point is a bit irrelevant,” she quickly discounted before Jack could point it out, “but you’ve been very… huggy since we met. And you’re always so concerned with my well-being, it’s almost overbearing. Almost,” she added as he had again opened his mouth to comment. “For all I know, you humans could see all of this differently, but to a pony like me, well,” she shifted a bit uncomfortably so as to free her wings, “let’s just say I’m picking up signals.”
Jack let out a quiet, nervous laugh. She was right, but for the wrong-- well, mostly wrong reasons. Still, as she demonstrated time and again, she was picking up on things a lot faster than he anticipated. However, at Twilight’s look of indignation, he held his hands up.
“Sorry, I’m not making fun of you,” he assured her. “I’m just… I’m not very good at these one-on-one talks, these heart-to-heart conversations. Rather surprising for a guy who spent the last few years practically completely alone, isn’t it?”
Twilight snorted, but kept her gaze on him.
“But…” he looked down at the floor and kicked his feet, “I dunno, I guess you’re right.”
“You guess?” Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I’ve only just been introduced to the idea,” Jack shrugged. “When you warped off, I had no one to talk to but Timaeus, and you know how he gets. All blunt, and uncomfortably honest and stuff.”
Her eyes softened. “So you don’t know, but you’re not opposed?”
“I haven’t given it any thought,” he reiterated. “But… how about we wait until after we find Equus? Then we can give some kind of relationship a shot.”
“But what if we don’t?” Twilight asked.
“We will find Equus,” Jack assured her.
“But what if we don’t?”
“Twilight, we will,” Jack repeated sternly. “Stop thinking so negatively. It’s obviously out there. We just have to find it. If these guys can get us a Sector Chi starmap, we ought to find it quickly.”
“I hope you’re right,” sighed Twilight, sinking into her bed.
“Everything will be alright, Twilight,” Jack promised, smiling at her. “I promise.”