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Chapter Text

The darkness is devastating.

Shepard has been through a lot, but to die this way – suffocating in space rather than downed in a firefight – is unexpected. She wouldn’t call it undignified, but after everything she’s survived, it doesn’t feel right.

Snippets of memory:

• The Normandy in pieces
• Joker alone in the cockpit
• Pulling at cords, wires, tubes
• Floating
• After everything, everyone – “I’m going to die alone.”

All the good she’s done (and the bad), all the people she’s helped (and killed), all the friends she’s made (and boyfriends left to die), and Commander Shepard is going to die by herself in the far reaches of space on a fake call about geth activity.

How unceremonious.

“Pardon me, human, but you seem to be lost.”

Shepard can count on one hand the number of things that she knows about drell, but she has been alone in the dark for what feels like forever. She is in no place to be picky; she would even be happy to see a batarian that still blames her for what happened during the Skyllian Blitz.

Her body isn’t like it used to be, but Shepard tries to smirk.

“That’s one way to put it.”

The drell is beautiful in that way that aliens are: foreign, colorful, unfamiliar no matter how familiar she is with another species.

“I wondered why I was supposed to come here. I think you are the reason.” Shepard doesn’t answer, and the drell continues. “Kalahira told me it would be different for you, that there are no oceans for humans. I do not understand why it is so dark.”

“It’s a joke,” Shepard says, voice cracking and wavering after what could very well be millennia of disuse. “All I ever wanted was to go to space. What I have left is a starless void.”

The drell hums noncommittally, changing tack.

“I’m sure you know how important you are. It is not only humans who revere the Hero of the Citadel. Perhaps that is why Arashu chose you.”

“I don’t know much about drell religion-”

The drell shakes her head, smiling. “There are few who do that do not practice themselves. It does not matter anyway, really; she expects nothing from you that you have not been doing already. Be a guardian, Shepard. Do your name proud.”

She doesn’t leave afterwards, and the darkness is still stifling, but Shepard is not alone in it.

The drell comes and goes as she pleases, or so it seems to Shepard, but realities are deceiving. Time has always slipped through Shepard’s fingers, a silvery fish swimming almost-but-not-quite close enough to catch for herself. She’s a good listener, the drell, but very rarely offers anything up about herself.

“Why?” Shepard asks.

The drell shrugs. “I am dead, Shepard. What does it matter?”

“So am I.”

“For now.”

The way she says it is alarming, but her affectations are still foreign and drell-like and neither of them have translators in this limbo that they’re in. Their understanding is something unassisted by tech. When Shepard mentions her unease on the topic, the drell doesn’t understand.

“Surely there are some things that technology can’t explain.”

Shepard snorts. “Tech got me this far. I scrapped on Earth until it got me into the Alliance.”

She is not usually so loose-lipped, but really, what does she have to lose? The drell is never unkind, and Shepard has no secrets anymore; she has had no secrets since killing Saren, and even if she did, who would this dead drell tell?

If the drell asks questions, Shepard answers, and sometimes she shares just out of boredom. Anything is better than being alone in this vast expanse of arctic blackness. Time stretches on infinitely and passes instantly at the same time, and one day –

“What’s your name?”

Shepard has asked before, and the drell always smiles coyly, deflecting elsewhere. This time is no different.

“Why does it matter?”

“Why does keeping it matter?” Stubborn, hotheaded Shepard shines through for just a brief moment, and it’s enough to force a genuine grin from the drell.

“Your secrets disappear with me, Shepard, but when you wake up, only Arashu can guide you.”

“You keep saying that I’ll wake up, or that I’m only dead for now, but I feel like I’ve been gone a long time and the only friend that I’ve had in the interim won’t even tell me her name.”

Shepard has improved (some) in reading drell body language, and in human-speak, the drell’s voice sounds almost teary when she speaks.

“Arashu truly has blessed me if you bestow upon me the honor of being called friend.”

The drell flickers out into the black, and Shepard is alone.

Something is wrong. All of Shepard’s nerves are firing at once, like they are trying to learn how to be alive again, and her drell has been absent for a time that feels longer than eternity. She has not cried since the Blitz, and she can’t remember a time she cried before that, but this pain is so deep that she is tempted to. As her body pulls itself together (literally, muscles tethering together and neurons rewiring), Shepard tries to scream and nothing comes out.

It is still dark, but a brighter black than before, and from the void, Shepard hears a distinctly human voice say, “Reconstruction nearly complete.”

An indeterminate amount of time passes.

“Shepard.” The voice is her drell and the human voice, together, at the same time.

The next breath Shepard takes is excruciating, tearing from her throat to her core to her extremities.

“Arashu protect you.”

Chapter Text

Life has changed, since Irikah. Sleep eludes Thane, which is no surprise; he spends even his waking moments in a kind of slumber, so it has been a negligible loss. Briefly, Thane registers that Nos Astra is beautiful. People like Nassana Dantius don’t deserve it, but people like Nassana Dantius are also the ones who made Illium into what it is today. The asari care so much for their reputation, and Thane has never been sure why. Perhaps it is because they live such long lives.

Nassana has a cautious streak to match her ruthlessness. Over the weeks spent casing her, that much, at least, became clear. Thane is thankful that her headquarters are based on Illium and not somewhere a drell would stick out even more than he already does, but the planet’s reputation for security is proven true for Nassana.

Mechs, mercs, underpaid salarians, all under the spell of Nassana’s credits. The last, at least, inspires pity.

And he had heard the rumors, of course. Thane’s network is not what it once was, but one would have to be living under a rock to not have heard that Commander Shepard was alive. It is another thing entirely to see a fearless soldier take off her helmet to talk to two salarians that Thane had just shoved into a storage unit for safety, revealing olive skin, long dark hair wound up tightly at the back of her head, a smattering of scars, and a lethal gaze.

Yes, Commander Shepard is alive, and she has just wandered into his hit. From Thane’s vantage point in the air ducts, he can see and hear everything.

“I’m looking for someone. An assassin.”

Her presence alone is unexpected but hearing her say that put things into perspective. This is not a coincidence. Shepard is looking for him.

She is flanked on either side by a female quarian and a human woman. They follow her lead when Shepard holsters her weapon, and Thane sees quickly why she removed her helmet. She puts the salarians at ease with a soft, reassuring smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “Have you seen anyone but the mercs?”

“There was one-”

The salarian speaking is interrupted by the human on Shepard’s right turning quickly and placing several bullets into a merc who had apparently survived the initial onslaught. Shepard snorts, a sound that Thane doesn’t quite understand, and says, “Little dramatic, Miranda?”

The human named Miranda shrugs. “You didn’t hack your way in here just to let a stray merc kill these people.”

“She may be Cerberus, but she does have style, Shepard,” says the quarian.

“I wouldn’t bring anyone around that didn’t, Tali,” Shepard scoffs good-naturedly, like Tali is a close friend.

“Anyway.” Miranda gestures back towards the salarians.

“I don’t know who he is, but there’s someone else here. A drell. He killed a couple of the mercs that were giving us trouble and told us to stay here, lay low until things died down. He appeared and disappeared like nothing. No clue how he’s getting around.”

“Lines up with what we heard on the radio. He’s probably in the ducts like they said.” Tali’s words must convince Shepard even if the evidence alone wouldn’t, and she puts her helmet back on. Shepard steps aside, and Tali and Miranda mirror her.

“It should be safe as long as you aren’t going up. Follow the carnage back; we’ve wiped out any merc reinforcements that might have come since your friend stopped through.”

Salarians never move slow, but these two have a particular hustle to them. Shepard spends the briefest moments watching them go before starting off again, and Thane does the same.

Time to move.

Life has changed in the two years that Shepard was dead, but she’s getting better. Despite initial impressions, Miranda’s a hell of a companion, and she’s managed to pick up Joker, Garrus, and Tali along with some other fresh blood along the way. Ashley hadn’t been happy to see her, of course, but that’s not surprising; they hadn’t really been alright since Virmire anyway.

Tali had asked questions about the tattoo when she got it on the Citadel, the drell word for guardian that Liara told her was anglicized as yelket. It’s not hard to explain away; “It’s a dream I had, in between,” suffices as an explanation. It spins itself down her left bicep. The tattooist had scoffed when she’d told him what she wanted, like Shepard was appropriating whatever culture was foreign and popular. Shepard’s heart thrums with the memory of her nameless drell, of Arashu, of a mysticism that she doesn’t quite understand.

Her brain still rattles around her skull, her arms feel loose in her shoulders, and she can breathe in deeper than she ever could before, but she is alive. She has got this far.

Arashu protect you.

The drell visits, sometimes, in sleep, but she never speaks. It’s a little pathetic how when the salarians mention that the assassin is a drell, Shepard’s existence almost grinds to a halt.

It could be her drell –

No, they use the wrong pronouns. He.

Shepard rolls her shoulder; Miranda built her back authentically, even if this body still feels foreign at the best of times, and the stiffness in the joint is something inherited from before she died. The salarians take off as fast as their legs can carry them, and Shepard doesn’t know the assassin yet, but she does respect him. He was under no obligation to protect workers that Nassana wouldn’t recognize if her life depended on it, but he did.

The assassin may not be a good man, but a bad man wouldn’t do that either.

Her squad makeup is perhaps not the most well-rounded; she and Tali have almost the same training but from different backgrounds (Tali’s a better programmer and Shepard’s a better hacker), and Miranda’s biotics are augmented with tech knowledge as well. It’s worked so far, though. They tear through Eclipse shields, and more than once while surrounded by mechs Shepard is glad that she and Tali both are engineers.

She even catches Miranda chuckling to herself as the combat drones float along behind them.

If reuniting with Ashley was like a break-up, Tali acts as though she were never gone. Letting Veetor return to the fleet with her had also smoothed over what probably would have otherwise been an uncomfortable second meeting for Tali and Miranda.

It’s almost too easy: pop the shield, command the drones to zap their armor, let Miranda’s biotics do the rest. Their first real challenge is their last obstacle.

“How can asari build like this?” Tali mumbles sourly under her breath. Shepard’s inclined to agree.

When the tech isn’t trying to blow them off the bridge, it’s the wind. Two rocket turrets face them head-on, and the minimal coverage to protect them from that won’t stop the mechs and mercs that Nassana is dispatching from putting bullets into their shields. Shepard hacks the rocket turret on the left, and both combat drones are dispatched in the only direction there is – forward.

Shepard moves like she’s going to take her first steps out onto the bridge, but Miranda says, “Wait. They haven’t put together that you’ve hacked the turret yet. It hasn’t had a chance to fire.”

Two Eclipse asari fall prey to the turret before the mercs put it together.

She and Tali take turns hacking the turrets, only ever one at a time. Any more than that, and the security protocols will run them both out of the system, locking down. As the turrets clear out threat after threat, Shepard reanalyzes. Soon, they’ll make a break for it.

As the turret on the left takes it upon itself to swing around and destroy the turret on its right, Shepard motions Tali and Miranda rapidly forward. They sprint as fast as they can manage (and Miranda is damn fast in those heels), the one LOKI mech remaining tossed over the bridge by Miranda’s biotics. The mercs are waiting for them on the other end of the bridge except the two asari killed at the start, but it’s a standard grind. Shepard prefers hacking to guns, but there’s a certain fondness she has for her SMG that she hasn’t quite been able to replicate anywhere else. Two salarians, a human, and another asari hold fast to weapons, and another asari is frantically tapping at her omni-tool, presumably in an attempt to get the remaining turret on their side once again.

“You’re not going to outhack me,” Shepard says, staring down the four that are pointing weapons back at her while addressing the engineer. “So you five can get out of here, or you can die for someone who will probably be pleased that you won’t be alive to collect your credits.”

The human merc’s eyes narrow through his visor, but the asari engineer says, “She’s right. Unless you think you can kill them without the turret-” She cuts herself off, looking worriedly at Shepard.

“You can try.” Miranda’s tone is lazy, pistol aimed at the human and left hand glowing blue.

“No more paychecks if you don’t live to take another job,” Tali snorts.

The mercs take the hint, but the human lags just a little behind.

“I thought Cerberus was humans first,” he says, pointing to the logo on Miranda’s chest. “Didn’t think you’d be palling around with suit scum.”

When the human spits the final words, Shepard rolls her eyes and shoots him in the hand, shield still offline from the previous sustained turret-fire.

“Nice shot, Shepard.” If his assessment of Cerberus bothered Miranda, she doesn’t show it.

As the human limps away, Tali pulls up the blueprints of the building on her omni-tool. “These diagrams are a little outdated, but if I had to guess, I would say Nassana is just up ahead.”

“And hopefully our assassin as well,” Miranda says, pistol lowered but not holstered.

Admittedly, Shepard and her party being around has made this job significantly easier. The mercs are so tied up in their head-on assault that they have no resources to spare for Thane, and Nassana is growing more agitated by the minute. Listening to what Shepard has to say is the least he can do for how simple she has made this job.

The door to Nassana’s penthouse slides open and the few mercs remaining focus on the intrusion, oblivious to Thane right above their heads.

“Shepard?” Nassana is incredulous. “But – you’re dead!”

Shepard doesn’t bother with the helmet, and Thane doesn’t miss the two drones shadowing her and Tali and the telltale glow of biotics in Miranda’s hand. She shrugs. “I got better.”

“Who hired you? I guess it’s only fitting. I did get you to kill my sister after all.”

Shepard’s helmet is still on, but the boredom oozes from her suit. “Pretty self-absorbed, Nassana. I’m not here for you.”

Nassana scoffs. “I’m not naïve, Shepard. I’m one of the highest priority targets on Illium. You can’t expect me to believe-”

Thane drops from the ducts, snapping the neck of one merc and doing the same to the next before shooting the last.

“You-” Nassana manages in her last breath before Thane buries his pistol in her stomach, pulling the trigger.

Shepard crosses her arms and watches as Thane carries out last rites. Miranda, in particular, looks bewildered at his silent prayer, and it’s difficult to say what Tali thinks. It’s hard to gauge quarian emotion at the best of times if they aren’t speaking.

“Hello?” Shepard breaks the brief silence as his prayer ends.

“Prayers for the wicked must not be forsaken,” Thane says, opening his eyes to look at Shepard and her party.

“So you say it yourself. She wasn’t a good person,” Shepard says. “I know you agree. You wouldn’t have helped those salarians if you thought what she was doing was justified. Do you really think Kalahira would want anything to do with Nassana Dantius?”

At the mention of Kalahira, Thane gives Shepard his full attention. “I confess, most drell these days follow the Enkindlers, or even asari philosophy. To hear a human speak of Kalahira is… unexpected. Still, it does not change facts. The prayer is not for her. It is for me.”

No, he is not her nameless drell, but she likes him no less, a mixture of grace and lethality that is positively alluring. He doesn’t even flinch when she mentions the Collectors. She can’t stop herself from asking if his illness will impact the mission, and he takes no offense.

“My arm is yours, Shepard. No charge.”

Succinct, to the point. He’s made a phenomenal, if somewhat broody, impression. Thane Krios is impressive, at least. They walk their way back down the tower.

“For the sake of full disclosure,” Tali says, looking to Shepard for approval for what she’s about to say. When Shepard nods, she finishes, “We are on a Cerberus ship. The crew has been surprisingly welcome, even to me, but it is something worth mentioning. Cerberus has done some terrible things. Don’t want there to be a conflict of interest, or for you to expect this to be more welcoming of aliens than it is.”

Miranda waves a hand dismissively, and Thane notices, eyes darting between her and Tali before back to Shepard.

“My arm is Shepard’s,” he repeats, and that’s the end of that.

Jacob hates him, which Shepard supposes she should have seen coming, though she struggles to see an Alliance defector as any better. When Jacob exits the debriefing room, she exhales loudly through her nose, Thane still so quiet that she barely remembers he’s there.

“Thank you, Shepard.” It is all she can do not to jump out of her skin when he speaks. “I look forward to a worthwhile cause. May I ask where I can put my things?”

“Ah,” Shepard says, pausing briefly. “This is as good a time as any to introduce you to EDI.”

EDI appears on command.

“Yes, Shepard. A pleasure to meet you, Sere Krios.”

“Likewise. If at all possible, I would prefer something with an arid climate.”

“Of course. I think you will find life support most suitable. It is the driest place on board.”

“Thank you.” Thane bows his head at the AI’s projection.

“My pleasure,” EDI says. “You will find life support on Deck Three.”

EDI blinks out, and Thane affords the same bow of his head to Shepard before walking out the door.

A little broody, perhaps, but Shepard thinks he’ll slot in fine. Just maybe not with Jacob. Not right away.

Chapter Text

Religion has never been something too close to Shepard’s heart. There wasn’t room for it back home in Los Angeles; every second after twelve years old, after not having a parent anymore, was consumed by surviving. Her mother had had something, something traditional, Đạo Mẫu, but Shepard doesn’t remember most of it except that at the time she died that it had felt ironic. All that time worshipping a mother goddess, and it couldn’t even save her own mother.

Needless to say, if anyone had told her that she’d have at least a passing interest in drell spirituality at some point before she died, Shepard wouldn’t have believed them. In fact, she might have outright laughed in their faces. And yet, she has a few books on the subject scattered around her cabin: one on her desk, one on the nightstand next to her bed, and the last in the trash bin because it took Shepard approximately thirty-seven seconds to realize that it was fetishizing bullshit.

All these aliens. It’s the one thing that growing up on Earth didn’t really give her a frame of reference for. Turians, sure – humans hate turians, turians hate humans, even though Shepard got over it in time to see that Garrus would be an invaluable addition to the Normandy. Quarians? Not a clue – probably thieves, though (even thinking it has Shepard tasting bile in her mouth, the concept of quarian inextricable from Tali in her mind). Asari are beautiful, erotic, their own understanding of being monogendered be damned because if they can be sexualized as lesbians then why wouldn’t we do that?

Shepard sighs, the door sliding shut behind her as she exits her cabin for the elevator down to the other decks. Earth kids taught her krogan are mean, violent, and they were mostly right on that one, even if Grunt and Wrex do have a little more nuance than that, and salarians just never stop talking. That one’s true, too, though she learned it as a bad thing and it’s actually one of the most endearing things about Mordin.

Drell? Green, mostly.

The vids, the history books, they all act like she was an orphan from the day she was born, raised on the streets from infancy. The truth isn’t quite as romantic. By the time she was orphaned, Shepard had already been menstruating for about six months.

Shepard’s stomach groans like it knows she’s on her way to the mess hall. She had hoped that the food might be better with Cerberus than the standard Alliance fare, but thus far it’s about the same. Food is her guilty pleasure. Every good memory Shepard has with her mother is at least food-adjacent, and every cred-splurge was on ingredients when she had some place she could cook or on the best takeout she could afford when she couldn’t make food herself.

It’s early in the morning or late at night; Shepard can’t decide which, and it doesn’t really matter except that it means that it should be quiet on the ship.  She thinks she slept, but it isn’t that important. Since the cybernetics, sleep has been a luxury rather than a necessity. A few hours a night is enough.

Food is a different story.

The mess is deserted, like Shepard had predicted, and the soft smile that comes over her face is real. The ingredients are not good, but she has time to play for a couple of minutes. It’ll do. The bread is wrong, the mayonnaise is wrong, and the vegetables are wrong, but it’ll do. At least the pork is almost right.

The sandwich comes together like a masterpiece made from garbage, so low-quality are the ingredients.  Shepard cuts it in half, a habit her mother instilled that she’s never managed to shake. It isn’t good, but at least the first bite doesn’t make her grimace, even if Shepard knows her mother would turn up her nose at it in a heartbeat.

It hadn’t taken him long to settle in, and the remainder of the time since has done so has been spent in meditations. He has no engagements as far as he knows so far; Shepard will spend more time on Illium tomorrow, and though he does not ask why, she shares that she is recruiting a justicar. She is not speaking to him specifically; the entire crew is assembled, and it is more people than Thane has been around at once in a very long time as well as being much more diverse than he expected. The humans outnumber everyone, but Tali’s words had left him believing that they would be close to the only aliens on board.

No, in addition to himself and Tali, there is also a turian, a krogan, and a salarian, and if Shepard’s mission is to recruit a justicar, they will also soon have an asari in their midst.

There is a quiet rattling from the main part of the ship, something not affiliated with the Normandy’s processes, like someone used to rifling through cabinets is trying and failing to do it quietly. If he had to guess, it is one of the humans on board, based on their gait. Something pleasant, if spiced too heavily, reaches his nose, and in a matter of minutes the smell is gone again as he hears the elevator slide open and whir upwards.

So chances are that it’s Shepard. The Normandy runs on the absolute minimum at night (or what passes for night in space), EDI fully capable of running almost all processes on her own even while shackled, and Thane can’t imagine that the crew are permitted to take food with them to work. The only place upwards that someone wouldn’t be working is Shepard’s cabin.

When Thane looks at the clock, it is almost time to wake, but instinct tells him that Shepard has not slept.

Shepard takes Garrus and Miranda planet-side for the justicar. After seeing her chemistry with Tali’Zorah in action, Thane is surprised to see her left out of the party. For her part, Tali seems unfazed, wishing Shepard and Miranda good luck and giving Garrus a friendly rap on the breastplate as farewell.

She places a hand on my chest, smiling – “You know your heart is with me.”

Laughter. “You know that isn’t where the heart is, siha?”

Her hand moves accordingly. “Better?”

“Better.”

“Krios? Thane?”

Thane has not spoken the memory, but it has consumed him no less. Luckily, Tali has not been trying to get his attention for long.

“Yes?”

There is a smile in Tali’s voice. “I just asked if you might be able to help with something in engineering.”

“I am happy to assist, but you should know that I am no tech.”

Tali waves him off. “Please. I’m tech enough for the both of us. It’s your biotics I need, if you’ll indulge me.”

“Gladly.”

They descend to the engineering level. Thane lets Tali lead the way because she has been aboard longer, though he soon finds out it’s not by much.

“I’m glad you joined us. I found out Shepard was alive a month or so ago, but I joined the crew just before you. The more people on this ship that aren’t Cerberus, the better. That’s actually why I wanted your help.”

She would be foolish to trust him already, but she trusts that he isn’t Cerberus.

“What exactly can I assist you with?”

“I’m glad you asked.”

It’s simple enough. She wasn’t joking about needing his biotics; Tali slides into spaces she could never reach alone, assisted by Thane’s biotics pulling the ship apart just enough for her to fit but not enough that he can’t put the pieces back where he found them.

“Do I want to know what you did?” Thane finally asks as Tali puts the finishing touches on her last foray into the ship’s interior.

Under the face mask, he’s sure Tali is smiling. “Just… countermeasures. In case the Cerberus gambit doesn’t work out all for the best. I checked with Shepard first.”

Thane doesn’t press her, but after a moment, she says, “I just wanted to take a look at some of the hardware tied up in the weapons targeting systems. Everything seems above board for the most part, but I don’t think being cautious is a bad idea.”

Thane can appreciate Tali’s measured, vigilant approach. They ascend again, past Donnelly and Daniels, who don’t seem to dislike Tali but can’t quite decide what they think of her yet and know even less what to do with a drell.

“Thanks, Thane. I owe you one.”

“The pleasure is mine.”

The sound of the airlock activating interrupts them, and Tali says, “Shore party’s back.”

Justicars demand respect without ever saying a word about it, and this one is no different even as she defers to Shepard’s authority, letting her walk ahead. She walks in step with Garrus and Miranda.

“Tali, Thane.” Shepard nods in the direction of the debrief room. “EDI-”

“I have already alerted the others to assemble.”

Shepard’s walk is brisk; she’s tall for a human, the same height as Miranda without the heeled shoes. She doesn’t look behind her to check that Tali and Thane follow, a sure sign of a leader used to being listened to. From the back, Thane can even see that the way she wears her hair is coming apart, strands of it falling loose from the tight knot that Shepard normally has it in.

Being included in the debrief is surprising, but only for a moment; after all, most of the crew had been present when he himself had come on board.

The room is stuffed to the brim. Thane has seen all of them on the ship in the twenty-four hours he has been aboard it, mostly when he himself became part of the crew, and he even knows most of their names. The people on Shepard’s crew are infamous, and they were even before joining her on this suicide mission.

“Thane Krios.” Nothing has startled Thane for years, and Mordin Solus’s approach is no different, but Tali jumps instead. “Happy to be working with you. Unfortunate to hear about your Kepral’s. Would love to run tests, biopsies, bloodwork, with your consent, of course-”

“Mordin.” Thane doesn’t have to answer because Shepard cuts off the conversation short before he has to. “You’ll have time after. I just wanted to gather everyone for a few minutes to meet Samara.”

Samara takes a step forward when Shepard says her name, scanning the room and nodding greetings, posture stiff and proper.

“In addition,” Shepard continues, “We have the team I want, the team I need. If any of you have personal business that requires attention, please fill me in as you see fit. We all know that we might not come back from the end of this alive. I don’t want anyone to have regrets.” A pallor falls over the room, and Shepard steps back from the conference table. “Dismissed.”

The crew filters out. “Was serious about biopsies,” Mordin says in passing. “Stop by the tech lab at your earliest convenience. Look forward to getting to know drell physiology better.”

Jacob follows Mordin out, Tali and Garrus chatting amicably with the thief Kasumi Goto close behind, and the rest of the crew after. It is force of habit to be the last to leave a room, but Thane has never turned his back on anyone if he can help it. This may be his team, but there are plenty of skilled killers on it (even if none are quite so skilled as he).

“EDI, arrange for Samara to settle in on the observation deck,” Shepard says to the holographic projection.

“Thank you, Shepard.” Samara’s words resonate eerily in Shepard’s head. It isn’t intentional, she doesn’t think, but only asari can make her feel so young. Liara had been the exception to the rule.

Samara heads on her way, Thane the final person remaining, though not in a way that makes her believe that he is waiting to speak with her.

In answer to her unspoken question, Thane says, “I have been on my own for some time. I find it difficult to let people exit a room behind me.”

Shepard smirks. “Reasonable, though I assure you we’re all on the same team.”

“Of course, Shepard.” Thane dips his head.

She walks out next to him, instead; there’s no need to try his patience just for her own amusement. As she gets ready to part ways with him, he surprises her.

“What food did you make early this morning in the mess hall? I don’t know much about human cuisine.”

Shepard’s eyes narrow. “How did you know I was in the mess?”

Thane shrugs. “Process of elimination. Whoever it was took their meal upstairs. You are the only person on board who might take a meal on the upper levels.”

Well. He’s not the best assassin in the galaxy for no reason.

“Just a sandwich I used to eat growing up. Bánh mì thịt nướng.”

Thane furrows his brow (is it even really a brow?). Her drell had often done something similar. “I apologize, Shepard. My translator does not know what to make of that.”

Shepard snorts. “It’s just a grilled pork sandwich with vegetables. I should’ve known better than to use the ‘technical’ term.”

“Hmm.” Thane doesn’t offer anything up more than that until they part ways. “Shepard.”

“Thane.”

For whatever reason, the encounter is haunting, perhaps because she had been so dismissive of the food itself. Nothing about her father was worthwhile, but to be so flippant over something her mother had taught her leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

There is always something to be done, though, even long after the crew has called it a night: another report, exercise, someone to mourn. How can she sleep? Shepard buries herself in a datapad, musing briefly on how it’s still called “paperwork” when paper has long been outdated, but she can’t shake the conversation with Thane. “It’s just a grilled pork sandwich with vegetables.” Her mother would be ashamed, and Shepard doesn’t think that too often anymore, not after clawing her way out of the slums with nothing but a fourth rate omni-tool.

She also thinks that if her mother was alive today, she would want her to eat a much better bánh mì thịt nướng than the sad excuse she threw together early that morning. Shepard tosses the datapad next to one of her two books on drell mysticism only for it to go skittering across the bed. Cringing, she picks it up a little more delicately. Shepard hasn’t quite figured out the strength of this body yet in more everyday circumstances.

The ship sleeps, but Shepard doesn’t need a crew to set a course for the Citadel. EDI confirms their course.

“Can you also let Thane and Garrus know that they’re going to be my ground party?”

“Of course, Shepard.”

Shepard pushes off from the galaxy map and stretches, bones and joints cracking. It’s a good reminder that she’s still human, and that’s enough to convince her that maybe a few hours of sleep might be worth her while if she can manage it.

Thane has perfect memory, but perfect memory doesn’t give him the ability to search for something on the extranet that he so clearly didn’t understand. It is a fruitless effort, and he probably would have been awake anyway, but it does mean that he isn’t asleep when EDI says, “Excuse the interruption, Thane. Shepard has requested that you accompany her once the Normandy reaches the Citadel.”

“Understood, EDI. Thank you.”

“My pleasure.”

Chapter Text

Jacob does not like that Shepard has chosen him for her ground party, but Miranda seems to have no such qualms. It is not an inference; their loudly whispered conversation may as well have been broadcast over loudspeaker.

“Jacob. Any issues you have about crew can be taken up with Shepard or the Illusive Man. It is outside my purview.”

There is really nothing to dislike about Jacob. If anything, his unease actually instills respect in Thane. It stems from Jacob’s principles, and far be it from Thane to fault a person that. That would be more hypocritical than anything in his life so far.

Shepard and Garrus fall into step easily with one another, like only those who have killed together can. It has been a long time since Thane has worked with others, so this is unfamiliar, but not unknown. He will always prefer to be on his own, but he will adapt. He always has.

Garrus seems uneasy from the moment the Normandy docks on the Citadel, which is rather unlike him in the (admittedly brief) time that Thane has known him. He is closer to Shepard than probably anyone else on the ship except perhaps Tali; even Joker falls short in that regard, despite their shared humanity. Today he acts different, even if he tries not to let it show. Turians are not as sly with their emotions as they think they are if one knows what to look for.

“May I ask our objective on the Citadel, Commander?” Thane asks as they clear customs and Shepard gives a nod to Captain Bailey who responds with a lazy wave to both her and Garrus.

“Being my escort isn’t enough of one, Krios?” Shepard asks, tone dry, and most of Thane’s experience with humans comes from killing them. He must be silent just a second too long, because Shepard cracks a grin at him over her shoulder. “Kidding, Thane. Believe it or not, you got to me a little yesterday. I didn’t come back from the dead to eat shitty food.”

“You need two snipers for grocery shopping?” Garrus laughs, a little color back in his voice despite the fact that he is still holding an infinite amount of tension in his back.

“I’m a very valuable asset to Cerberus,” Shepard drawls. “Imagine if I managed to get myself killed a second time.” Shepard actually laughs at the thought. How much would it cost to bring her back yet another time?

“That’s actually been your end goal this whole time, I think. What better way to stick it to Cerberus than dying on their watch?”

Yes, that sounds more like the Garrus from the past couple of days.

“So, to answer your question,” Shepard says, returning her attention to Thane, “I guess we three highly-trained killers are going grocery shopping. Garrus and I have an errand to attend to as well, but you’re free to return to the Normandy or spend some time on the Citadel if you like when we do.”

It’s as confusing as anything else a human has ever said to him. It almost feels like a test, but at least the first half of what Shepard says is a truth. She knows her way around the Citadel almost half as well as Thane does, though she admits to Garrus she has no idea what dextro food to stock up on.

“I’m the only person on board that’s dextro other than Tali. I’m happy to eat rations,” Garrus says.

Shepard frowns. “Well, I don’t know what drell-”

“Also levo,” Thane interrupts, and Shepard looks at him sideways.

“Well,” Shepard starts again, not quite huffing. “I might be satisfied with you eating rations, but Tali deserves better.”

“She usually eats that paste the Migrant Fleet sends with them on pilgrimage anyway-”

Shepard doesn’t wait for Garrus to finish his sentence before walking forward into a turian store. Garrus shakes his head and says to Thane, “Welcome to the crew.”

The turian at the counter looks confused when she asks about dextro cuisine, and in retrospect, the Cerberus logo plastered on her armor is probably part of it. She warms up as much as turians ever do when Garrus walks in behind her with Thane.

“Officer Vakarian,” she says, and Garrus rubs the back of his neck.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been with C-Sec, Alcidia.” His voice is sheepish, but Alcidia doesn’t seem convinced.

“Whatever you say, officer,” she says absently, talons hard at work on her omni-tool. “Anything in the store, you can have my employee discount.”

“Thank you,” Shepard says, “Any recommendations for quarians?”

Alcidia makes a face that Shepard can best describe as a grimace. “Mostly, they’re vegan because livestock just aren’t sustainable in the Fleet. I have a few pre-made meals that are purified for quarians, but it’s all paste, as you can imagine.”

It’s not what Shepard wants to hear, but to say she expected something otherwise would be disingenuous. She buys out the terminal, and Garrus’s eyes bulge in disbelief.

“Shepard, I am just one turian-”

She waves him off and smirks at Thane. “Don’t worry; the Illusive Man is buying.”

No, Thane is not her drell, his face too impassive at a joke that manages to get a chuckle out of this new, jaded Garrus.

“Anyway,” she continues as they exit the store, “You two must have been close, Officer Vakarian.”

Garrus snorts, trying for blasé but only achieving uncomfortable. “Not quite. I stopped someone from robbing her store once.”

“If you say so. I still say you missed an opportunity with that Dr. Michel anyway.” Shepard rolls her eyes before turning back to the matter at hand, having managed to embarrass Garrus out of his melancholic brooding. “Food preferences, Thane? I know less about drell food than I know about quarian food. Where should we go?”

“Food is a means to an end for me, Shepard. If it gives me energy, it is enough.”

“How utilitarian of you,” Shepard says, but doesn’t push the matter. She visits asari and human merchants and cleans them out as well. Cerberus pays much better than the Alliance, but her joke about the Illusive Man comes from truth. Anything she wants for the crew comes from a credit chit stamped with the Cerberus symbol.

“You bought as much for the one turian on board as you did for all the humans,” Garrus says dryly.

“You keep repeating yourself, Garrus, are you sure that you’re feeling alright?”

Garrus holds up both hands in surrender, and Shepard is surprised that he is acting so close to the Garrus who came with her on the SR-1 considering what they’re about to do.

“Everything’s back on the ship,” Shepard says, “Ready, Garrus?” When Garrus nods, she continues, “We’ll meet you back on the Normandy, Thane. You’re free to your own devices until then; we should be finished in a couple of hours.”

Thane nods, and this isn’t a test, per se, but if she were in Thane’s shoes, there would be no way that she didn’t follow to see what was going on.

Still, Thane fades into the crowd dutifully back towards the docks. If he’s as good of an assassin as Shepard thinks he is (as good of an assassin as the Illusive Man said he was), she’ll never know if he’s followed them or not.

It had been a week ago that Harkin had set up this trap for Sidonis. Shepard doesn’t quite regret it yet, but it’s really doing a number on Garrus.

“Let’s do this, Shepard.” Garrus’s voice is steelier than usual, back to how he’d acted earlier this morning, flecked with iron. It grinds against Shepard’s ears, unbidden memories of Los Angeles pricking at her edges. She gruffly acquiesces, the scars on her face burning like they’re more wound than discoloration. This body is a gift and she knows it, but it comes with strings. Some of them are shaped like the Illusive Man (like Miranda (too beautiful, too smart, too strong), like Jacob (too familiar, too loyal, too steady)), and some of them are shaped like accidentally leaving divots in the mess hall table from slamming down a mug harder than she ever knew was possible.

This Garrus is not the Garrus that Shepard knew in the fight against Saren, but she’s been gone a long time. Her body reminds her of that every chance that it gets.

Garrus drives the skycar. She’s just fine getting around the Citadel, but he still knows better, knows how to get places faster and quieter.

“You know that this won’t bring them back,” Shepard says, not a question. He doesn’t react except to grip the controls of the skycar that much harder.

When they’re at the vantage point Garrus wants, where he can see Sidonis, Garrus has her look down the scope to identify him.

“That’s our guy, Shepard.”

“You’re sure about this?” she asks, scars throbbing.

“It’s not about being sure. It’s about justice.”

Garrus’s blue eyes go dark, and it’s hard to argue with him.

It is not his job to follow them if they do not want to be followed, but Shepard had explicitly stated that this time was his to do with what he wished. Perhaps he is being naïve, but Thane doesn’t believe that Garrus would have packed a second sniper rifle if their errand was not combat related.

The scaffolding that spans the entirety of the Citadel is a necessary evil; a space station always requires repairs and storage, and if assassins were to make use of them occasionally, who would ever be the wiser?

They take a skycar. By the time that Thane catches up, they are in position (for whatever it is that they’re doing) at the Orbital Lounge, Shepard on the ground and Garrus like he has eyes on a mark from above her. Shepard is talking to an agitated turian and Garrus is –

This hit is almost too easy. The thought is gone as quick as it comes.

The salarian stands at a desk, oblivious. The laser on my rifle rests squarely on the back of his head, and suddenly it is on the forehead of a drell woman, beautiful in her obstinance.

“Security!”

She shouts for reinforcements and –

“Listen,” Shepard says, hands up in the universal sign of surrender, “I’m a friend of Garrus’s.”

The turian moves like he wants to run. “Garrus is here?”

“I would not move if I were you,” Shepard snarls. “I’m the only thing standing between you and a hole in the head.”

“Look, I- I didn’t have a choice! You think that I don’t deal with it every day? That I don’t see them every night? I haven’t slept since.”

Shepard pauses. Thane’s sure that Garrus is in her ear.

“Let you take the shot? Look at him, Garrus.” Another pause. “He doesn’t deserve to live? Does this look like a turian who’s doing much living?”

It’s quiet, Shepard and the turian not moving. When Shepard finally takes a step back, putting the turian into line of fire, he looks like he wants to cling to her. “He’s letting you go, Sidonis. Make something of it. And don’t fuck up again. I won’t be able to stop him, and I won’t want to.”

“Tell him… Tell him I’m sorry.”

Garrus is mad at her, but it’s temporary, just like it had been when she’d wanted to take Dr. Saleon into custody. Granted, that time his target had died anyway, but he had not been pleased that Wrex’s biotics had dealt the final blow. Garrus’s temper is actually the least of her concerns at the moment; he’ll see reason. He always does.

No, Shepard wonders often if things would have been different if Miranda had been able to resurrect her on the terms that she had wanted. Waking up too early has seemed mostly a nuisance; all of her major functions are completely intact. Her body never fails her in combat, and she remembers everything from before she died.

Now, as she struggles to type into her omni-tool late at night in the mess, Shepard wonders once again if these are just the limitations of the Lazarus Project or if a few more days would have left her completely in control of all her faculties. The joints in her fingers feel stiff, like she’s broken them and never done the proper therapy to have this particular motion back. It is the most difficult three sentences she has ever written.

Shepard places her creation on a plate, sets it on the spotless floor outside of life support, raps on the door twice, and ascends to her own cabin, curling and uncurling her fingers as best she can the whole way up. The sandwich tastes much better this time, every bite a flood of the best that Los Angeles ever had to offer, the only parts she ever misses.

In the dead of night as it is, Shepard might think she’s being quiet, but she isn’t. She is clearly as sleepless as him, and he hears her footsteps lead right up to his door before she knocks twice and leaves.

He thinks nothing of it. Perhaps it’s some strange human custom, a way of acknowledging the fact that sleep eludes him as it does her.

His omni-tool blinks.

Thane,

I feel I undersold it. Bánh mì thịt nướng, for your judgment, now that I know you’re levo. Curbside delivery, even.

Shepard

He opens the door in understanding to find her dish at his feet.

It explodes with flavor, too much to compare to any drell or hanar dish he’s ever eaten, but once he gets past the bursting of sensation, the gesture is easy to appreciate.

Shepard,

I can see why you would struggle to simplify something like this as simply fuel for the body.

Thane

He exits life support, cleans the dish, and places it back where it belongs.

Shepard stares at the stars from her bed, ignoring the stiffness in her fingers, the pounding in her scars, and the chill that overtakes her every time she remembers the bleak blackness of space dotted so cruelly with specks of light. It’s psychosomatic, she knows, because this body is hers and she is in control, but every time she shuts her eyes it is all she can do to not imagine the Cerberus wiring pulsing under her skin.

Chapter Text

Learning about Shepard is not difficult. There is no finesse to an extranet search for Commander Shepard. Whether the information is credible is another story, but this scratches the surface nicely.

Alliance News Network has a good reputation in the galaxy, and the production quality is well in line.

Their logo plays out across the screen and a voiceover follows.

“A soldier never stops being a soldier. But what makes a soldier?”

The voice is a man’s, and as the logo fades out, Shepard and the man who Thane assumes was responsible for the voiceover come into the picture. When he opens his mouth, he proves Thane correct. “My name is Angel Gonzalez Garcia. If you’re watching at home, you already know my guest. Lieutenant Evangeline Shepard was only 29 when she almost single-handedly repelled the assault on Elysium that is now called the Skyllian Blitz.”

Shepard noticeably winces when the interviewer says her full name, and Thane does think briefly that she does not seem like an Evangeline at all. Her hair is shorter here, cropped almost up to her ears; it would be impossible for her to wear it up like she does now. The scars that make a lattice of her face are also missing, and she has wrinkles around the eyes that she doesn’t have anymore.

“Lieutenant, thank you for joining me.”

“My pleasure, Angel.”

It looks like anything but a pleasure. Shepard’s body is stiff, and she moves like she wants to pull her left leg up under her in that pliable way humans do, stopping herself at the last moment.

“We all know the story of Elysium, how your actions earned you the Star of Terra. What I want to talk to you about today is a little different. How did you become the Hero of the Skyllian Blitz?”

Shepard rubs the back of her neck in an action that Thane thinks can be pegged as sheepish. “You’ll have to be a little more specific than that?”

Angel holds his hands out as if to say no problem. “Let’s start at the beginning. Earth, the Tenth Street Reds, and a girl who was much too good with an omni-tool.”

Shepard grins, all teeth, a predator even if Angel hasn’t realized it. “Sure. That’s the beginning.”

Thane pauses the vid to punctuate a knock on life support’s door. Tali lets herself in, but Thane finds it endearing more than irritating; this ship is, after all, much more her home than his, given her time on its first incarnation.

“Thane, we have a situation.” Tali’s words are serious, but her tone betrays her. There is a laugh bubbling right below the surface, even though Thane can’t see it behind the mask.

“We do?” he asks, willing to play along for the moment.

“They bet me that I couldn’t get you to come and play Skyllian Five.”

“They?”

“Garrus and Joker. Just a couple games of cards and I’ll win. Shepard and Jacob are playing, too.”

“I’m no good at cards. Can we try the roulette table?”

She is more radiant than I’ve ever seen her except for the day that she stepped in front of a mark that didn’t deserve to live.

Irikah flickers in and out of his head whether Thane wants her to or not, and he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Tali. Perhaps next time?”

“Sure.” She tries hard not to sound disappointed and almost succeeds; something in Thane’s chest twinges. Tali turns to leave, but she glances back to get a better look at the vid he’d been watching.

“All the ANN stuff about Shepard is basically propaganda, if you ask her. The only way you’ll get the real story is from Shepard herself.”

The door slides shut behind Tali, and Thane hums noncommittally, starting the vid again.

“It’s not like I was born an omni-tool prodigy. I had a knack for it, sure, but I didn’t start off with grand theft skyauto.”

“Looking at you now,” says Angel, “It’s very difficult to think of you as a petty criminal.”

Shepard smirks again and uncrosses her legs, leaning forward on her elbows. “I get that a lot.”

Tali returns from life support with her shoulders not quite slumped, but Shepard can see that she certainly hasn’t gotten her way.

“If you wanted him to play with us, mentioning Jacob was a surefire way to shoot yourself in the foot,” Joker says offhandedly, dealing as he talks.

“I don’t know much about drell, but if I had to guess, I would say Jacob’s distaste is one-sided.” Garrus looks at Jacob almost-but-not-quite pointedly.

Jacob doesn’t even bother looking cowed. “Don’t like guns for hire.”

“Thank the spirits Shepard’s never taken you down to Omega,” Garrus quips.

Shepard rolls her eyes. “Are we going to play or are we going to talk? We might as well get this over with. Tali’s about to clean us all out.”

Garrus, Joker, and Tali all protest, and all it takes is the three of them opening their mouths for Shepard to smile.

“We all know that’s a damn lie, Shepard. You leave us with nothing every time. Only reason we keep inviting you is because you’re the commander,” Joker says, sparing a glance at Miranda as she walks from the elevator towards her office.

“Oh, you’d treat me differently if I wasn’t your superior officer?” Shepard shakes her head, mock-hurt. “Cerberus should have left you grounded.”

“Unfortunately, the pool of qualified candidates was very small,” Miranda says in passing. “If we’d had another choice, we would have considered it.”

Joker’s jaw drops at that, and it’s enough to make Tali laugh and Garrus chuckle, even coaxing a smile from Shepard.

“You know what? Find another pilot willing to put up with that thing, and I’ll consider resigning my position.” Joker gestures vaguely upwards into the space above them that everyone considers EDI an inhabitant of, and Miranda pauses at the door to her office.

“Unfortunately, we’re well past that. You weren’t quite on Shepard’s level, but you’re still an investment.”

Miranda disappears into her office, and Joker grumbles.

“I kind of like her, for being Cerberus and all,” Tali says, glancing at Jacob before saying, “No offense.”

“None taken,” Jacob shrugs. “She’s what got me to join Cerberus, really, so I can empathize.”

“If Cerberus was more like you and Miranda and a little less like the Illusive Man, I’d be a little more inclined to believe in their good intentions,” Garrus says, folding.

Joker snorts. “Say that to Jack.”

“Didn’t say it was perfect. Just that I’d be interested in listening a little harder, even if it’s hard to forget all those experiments.”

Tali shudders across the table, and a chill winds its way down Shepard’s own spine.

“Hard to believe I ended up being one of the experiments,” Shepard says, sweetening the pot a little, and there is a just-too-long lull in the conversation that hangs in the air long after they resume talking.

She cleans them out. It’s too easy. It always is. Garrus is all fluttering mandibles, Tali has twitchy fingers, Joker can’t shut up. It takes her a couple of hands to figure Jacob out, but she can always read a mark. She’s been pulling cons for years.

“They don’t pay vigilantes enough for me to get slaughtered like this,” Garrus finally says, pushing away from the table.

Tali shakes her head. “We know better. Why do we keep doing this?”

“This time I’m going to say it was Jacob’s fault,” Joker says with an accusatory gaze. “We tried to warn you. We really did.”

Jacob’s hands are up in the air. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

They disperse. They’re a good crew, really, even if the ship isn’t flying Alliance colors, but it’s not the same. Ashley isn’t speaking to her anymore, Liara has more than moved on, and Wrex is leading a krogan renaissance.

There’s no need to think about Kaidan, but she does anyway. The lump in her throat won’t lead to tears, but it lodges itself there uncomfortably regardless.

They’re a good crew. Miranda is Cerberus through and through, but she’s really just looking for something to believe in. Jacob followed Miranda, and who could blame him?

Even at her most unstable, Jack is an asset unlike anything else. Kasumi would have been a devastating partner back on Earth. Grunt is probably the closest thing to a son that Shepard is ever going to get. Zaeed’s as tough as a krogan, despite what Grunt and Wrex might think. Samara and Mordin are just alien enough that Shepard won’t ever get too comfortable. Tali and Garrus are family, plain and simple. And Thane, well –

Shepard glances in life support’s direction.

Thane’s a wildcard.

For the first time in a long time, Shepard feels tired.

The vid is unenlightening. He hadn’t thought Tali had been wrong or lying, but Thane had hoped he would be able to pick something up from the vid anyway. He isn’t sure why, but mostly the parallels to Irikah are staggering. She haunts him every waking moment; it is only fair that Shepard would remind him of her as well. The numbness of sleep makes it a bearable penance.

“I pulled myself off the streets when I was eighteen, enlisted with the Alliance. The rest is history.” There’s an irritation in Shepard’s eyes that hadn’t been there previously, and Thane can’t figure out why.

Angel nods anyway, either oblivious or apathetic about Shepard’s annoyance. “The rest is history indeed.” He looks into the camera and Shepard mirrors him with a tired half-smile. “I’m Angel Gonzalez Garcia of Alliance News Network with Lieutenant Evangeline Shepard. Thanks for tuning in.”

The vid cuts off, but not before Shepard closes her eyes and breathes in deeply.

It did not answer many questions. Tali had absolutely been right.

He exits onto the main deck, searching for a glass of water and not much else. EDI had been correct that life support was good fit for its aridity, but it was also very close to water. Millions of years of evolution in a desert have not allowed him to forget its importance, even if Kahje was never short.

Shepard has been near-silent; in fact, if she had not moved when his door opened, Thane might never have known she was there.

“Thane,” Shepard says, eyes bleary.

“Shepard,” he nods. “I apologize. Did I disturb you?”

“Technically, yes,” Shepard says, rubbing one eye, “But only because I dozed off in the mess. What time is it?”

“Not late enough for you to make a sandwich,” Thane says, and Shepard looks at him, confused, before smiling.

“Look at that. You can make a joke. Jacob owes me ten credits.” She leans back and stretches her arms over her head, leaving her too-soft human stomach exposed, covered only by the flimsy crewman’s uniform that she wears when not fully dressed in armor. It’s a gesture of trust if ever Thane has seen one. On her bicep, though, just barely revealed by the fabric sliding up, is a tattoo that Thane can’t quite make out even though it looks positively drell.

“I meant to ask the next time that I caught you – no one has made you feel uncomfortable on board, have they? Tali and Garrus have assured me that the Cerberus crew have been cordial at worst, but I wanted another opinion.”

“I confess, I have had very little interaction with the Cerberus crew members. Not much of my time has spent outside my quarters other than on the Citadel.”

“By choice?” Shepard quirks an eyebrow, almost as if she’s worried.

“Yes.” Thane dips his head in affirmation. “I told you before. I have worked alone for many years.”

“I understand.” Shepard rolls her neck from side-to-side, and a pop almost startles Thane. She must notice the movement, and she chuckles. “Do your joints not crack like that?”

“Crack?” Thane can’t keep the incredulity from his voice.

“Yeah.” Shepard’s smile seems almost genuine. “We have something that lubricates our joints. Synovial fluid. It lets us pop our joints.”

She puts her hands out and lets the palm of one hand push back on the fingers of the other to reproduce the sound.

“Why… would you want to do that? Is there a benefit?”

“You know, I actually don’t think so. It’s just satisfying.” Shepard shrugs. “My body pops less now than it did before they rebuilt me, though. Smoother machine, I guess.”

“In any event,” Thane says, eyes still wary, “I apologize for disturbing you.”

Shepard shrugs. “Glad you found me and not Grunt. Hard telling where I would have ended up. Hair in the toilet or something, probably.”

Thane walks past her to draw his glass of water. “Forgive me, Shepard, but you do not sleep as much as a human should.”

“No, I do not,” Shepard confirms, but seems unfazed. “I was worried to begin with, but I think I just need… less sleep since dying. The vids always wanted to believe I was superhuman anyway. Guess it’s true, now. Doesn’t matter where I came from before.”

Thane drinks and doesn’t answer.

“How did you become an assassin?” she asks, shoulders slouching like she is on the brink of dozing off once again. Thane leans against the counter where Gardner always stands when on duty.

“It is not that I do not wish to have this conversation, Shepard, but if you truly need so little sleep, you should take advantage of it when your body asks for it.”

Shepard punctuates his sentence with a yawn and waves a hand flippantly. “All you drell are all so wise.”

There’s a story there, he’s sure, but for now, a small smile and, “And humans so stubborn. Sleep well, Shepard,” will suffice.

If they are to trade tales, perhaps he will get a chance to ask about the vid after all.

There is no glory in telling others that the slog to her cabin is one filled with dread if not terror, the stars above her bed a reminder of how mortal she is. Shepard’s heart thumps too loud in her chest, the picture of Kaidan on her desk a reminder of being raw and in pain. She looks at it, holding his gaze just a moment too long. Shepard reaches out, letting her fingers rest on the frame, but she can’t lay it face down.

It’s another reminder.

The stars.

Kaidan’s eyes.

The galaxy is heavy for heroes.

Chapter Text

The black suffocates. Shepard knows better, knows this is a dream, but what does it matter when she can feel her lungs rupturing as she tries to hold her breath? Her skin swells as her suit depressurizes and –

When the drell takes her hand, Shepard is stripped of her suit, helmet and all. It doesn’t fall away from her; it just disappears into the ether of space. She’s left with underclothes, and it should be colder (should be freezing – her eyelashes should be frosty, her intraocular fluid stiffening), but her drell smiles and it is like a sun thawing her from the inside out.

The dreams are usually like this, the drell a savior with webbed hands so beautiful that Shepard would kiss them if she thought the drell would give her a chance. No one knows what Arashu looks like if Shepard’s reading is to be believed, but Shepard thinks Arashu might look like her drell, radiant, a halo of safety that radiates out just enough to let Shepard in and keep everything else out.

She opens her mouth, and every muscle in Shepard’s body tenses, falling over herself to hear what the drell will say.

When her eyes shoot open, the blackness of space is above her but Shepard is not floating in it. The artificial gravity of the Normandy chains her to her bed and Shepard breathes deeply, oxygen soothing her lungs like a salve. Her sports bra clings to her ribs and she tries to relax, releasing the muscles in her core and shoulders as best as she can. There’s no saliva in her mouth, and her legs move of their own accord, a primal instinct pulling her to the closest source of water on the ship.

The water in her shower is technically the closest, but it isn’t safe to drink. When she had asked, Jacob had apologized: “Sorry. You’ll have to slum it in the mess with the rest of us.”

It had sounded sarcastic, even though looking back Shepard knows it was just dry humor. At the time, she had fixed him with a raised eyebrow and a skeptical look.

“You’ve got the wrong idea, Taylor. You’re the ones slumming it with me.”

He’d given her a smirk, then, and she’d known he was really part of the crew. It wasn’t a joke, though. Almost every crew member who has ever served under Shepard has had a cleaner history than her. After Elysium, of course, her records were expunged; it is the world’s worst-kept secret that she was a world-class criminal at seventeen. Everyone knows, but legally, it never happened. If they live through this suicide mission, though, the Alliance will surely have something to say about this affiliation with Cerberus, war hero or not. This is a far cry from stealing skycars and… other things.

The elevator is near-silent, marvel of technology that the Normandy is, but the same cannot be said for the mess. Mordin is precise, certainly, but stealthy? Not so much. He jitters and jerks about like only a salarian can, seemingly on the same mission that Shepard herself is pursuing.

“Shepard.” Mordin’s acknowledgment takes less than a quarter of a second, and the glance he spares her mirrors it.

“Mordin. Everything alright?”

“Of course. New environment better than expected; knew Cerberus was wealthy, did not expect them to be so accommodating. Have not worked with such resources since time with STG.”

“Glad it’s to your liking.” Shepard can’t suppress a smile.

“Was hoping I’d run into you. Have personal favor to ask, before we take on the Collectors.”

“Shoot.” Shepard takes the space next to him, fishing for water to relieve her own thirst once Mordin has done the same.

“Had an assistant, Maelon. Helped me with the genophage. He was a brilliant geneticist; had the most potential of any salarian I’ve ever worked with. Received news recently that he has been captured by krogan, held on Tuchanka.” Mordin grimaces. “The consequences if the krogan realized his work on his genophage could be… fatal.”

Shepard downs her water in one gulp and swallows the instinct to clap Mordin on the shoulder. “You got that, EDI?”

“Yes, Shepard. Setting course for Tuchanka.” After a moment of calculations, EDI speaks again. “We are on track to arrive at Tuchanka in nine hours. Would you like me to alert another person to join your ground party?”

“No thanks, EDI. I’ll let them know myself.”

“Understood.”

Mordin nods. “Thank you, Shepard.”

“Requests for another member of the ground party?” Shepard asks; her critics have always called her a little too egalitarian, but she doesn’t know Mordin that well. Making him uncomfortable on a mission that’s for him is the last thing that she wants.

“Not really. Trust your judgment.” He pauses for a moment. “Discretion is… hallmark, I suppose, of a good assassin.”

Shepard’s eyes flit to life support. Grunt will be irritated to miss time on Tuchanka, with Wrex, but discretion and Grunt don’t belong in the same sentence. In any event, Shepard will be more comfortable asking about Grunt’s behavioral issues without him actually present.  “You’ve got it. Haven’t had a chance to see him in action much, anyway.”

“Remind him about the biopsy,” Mordin says, splitting with her at the elevator as she readies herself to knock on Thane’s door. “Must have forgotten. Have not heard from him since I suggested it.”

“I’m sure he must have.” Shepard can’t keep the snark from her voice, but Mordin wouldn’t know it if it punched him in the face. Her hand raises in the universal signal of an incoming knock, but the door opens before she can manage to do so.

She lets out an exhalation of moderate surprise. Thane doesn’t turn to face her, but he says, “Forgive my presumptuousness, Shepard. I heard you speaking with Dr. Solus outside and asked EDI to open the door.”

Thane never moves from his seat. Shepard crosses the room in a few steps and, remembering his words about being the last to leave the room, takes it as a seed of trust. She’d shown him her stomach; he lets her see his back.

“Any objections to being part of my ground party in about nine hours?” Shepard leans against the window across from Thane’s table-desk, next to his (rather extensive) collection of firearms.

“None.” Thane folds his hands under his chin and finally makes eye contact with her. “Our objective, if I may ask?”

“Personal favor. Mordin’s assistant is on Tuchanka, presumed captive by krogan.”

“That hardly seems cause to divert the course of our entire mission.”

Shepard shrugs; to many a different commander, Thane might have been right, but there’s a reason that Tali and Garrus were willing to be part of her crew even if it meant being Cerberus. “I meant what I said before, at the debrief. There’s no guarantee that any of us come back from this alive. I want everyone to feel at ease with that, or at least as at ease as we can manage.”

She must come off a little more concerned than she means to, because Thane cracks a dark smirk. “I’m dying anyway, Shepard. You’ll hear no complaints from me.”

“Can you explain a little what’s happening to you?” It’s not the time to admit that she’d come across Kepral’s Syndrome more than once in her reading. Hearing it from his mouth makes much more sense. “Mordin talked about it, but I couldn’t keep up. I’m a damn good engineer, but I’m no scientist.”

“Drell were not made to live on Kahje, but when the hanar rescued us, we made do. Sadly, placing desert life in such humid conditions has… consequences. My lungs do not process oxygen properly. With time, the condition will spread to other organs, but that will not happen until after our time together is up, unless this mission takes a few years.”

Shepard knits her brow and crosses her arms. “There’s no cure? At the very least I would think that you would have the option of a lung transplant before it spreads.”

Thane fixes her with a look that Shepard interprets as scrutinizing. “I have made peace with my fate, Shepard. When Kalahira welcomes me, I hope I will have made the world a better place despite the evil that I have done in the past.”

Shepard closes her eyes and nods. “Fair enough.” She pushes off from the window. “I don’t understand much of your people’s relationship with the hanar. Someday you’ll have to tell me more about the Compact.”

That gets Thane’s attention. “You asked how I became an assassin. You already have the answer. At six, the hanar saw skill in me.”

“Six?”

The bafflement must show on her face, because Thane says, “It is not all as it sounds. I did not make my first kill until I was twelve.”

Twelve. She lost her mother, then. Shepard swallows hard.

“I understand how it sounds to other species, but the Compact is a great honor. I saw it as such, and so did my parents.”

Shepard nods, feeling exposed no longer leaning up against the window. “I would like to understand it more, I think. To me, it sounds like slavery.”

“Rest assured, my teachers were not slavers.”

She starts walking out, smiling slightly as she says goodbye. “We take a shuttle down to Tuchanka. They don’t have a dock for the Normandy.”

“Understood.”

Thane doesn’t dislike Mordin, but he is truly the antithesis of Thane’s preferred style of work. To anyone who can’t follow his rapid-fire thought processes, he is completely unpredictable. That Shepard can follow him with any degree of certainty is a testament to her technical mind.

The Cerberus shuttle pilot does not seem thrilled that Thane and Mordin are Shepard’s weapons of choice, but he has the professionalism to at least not say so. Jacob keeps his comments (if not his glare) to himself, and Tali waves him off happily.

He has not known many quarians, but she is exceptionally kind as well as capable of holding her own, he thinks. There are few who would ask him to do something as domestic as play cards. Perhaps he will have to take her up on the offer if there is a next time.

They load up to leave, but Shepard is conspicuously absent.

“Would say we could just go by ourselves,” Mordin says to Thane as an aside, “But Shepard’s reputation is the only that will keep krogan from tearing me apart as soon as we land. They don’t even know I created the genophage.”

Grunt’s footsteps pound on the metal of the CIC as he and Shepard exit the elevator, and he is heated as Thane has ever seen a krogan.

“After this mission,” Shepard says as she leaves him behind. “We will get this sorted out. I promise.”

Grunt growls menacingly, and once her back is to him she exhales heavily.

The shuttle pilot asks, “Is he going to –”

“Already told Garrus to keep an eye on him. Tali too, but Grunt respects Garrus a little more.” Shepard’s eyes swing from Thane to Mordin to the pilot and back to Thane. “Let’s head out.”

Thane is last in the shuttle, even though Shepard rolls her eyes good-naturedly when she notices. Mordin is peppering the pilot with questions, and in the interim, Thane says, “Grunt seemed unnaturally agitated, even for a krogan.”

Shepard nods, exhaling again, reminiscent of how she had done just before on the ship. “I don’t know what’s going on with him. If I’d known that he was a centimeter from totally snapping, I would have made it the priority, but he didn’t press the issue until I told him I was heading for the shuttle.”

She puts her helmet on but keeps speaking through their comms link. “He’ll be fine. And if he’s not, Garrus took on the Blood Pack, the Blue Suns, and Eclipse at the same time on Omega. If anyone can handle it, it’s him.”

“If I recall, Shepard, you may have played a hand in things.”

Shepard chuckles softly. “Only at the end.”

Chapter Text

Thane has never been to Tuchanka before, but when the shuttle door whooshes open, he knows that he likes it much more than many planets he has visited. The krogan have destroyed their planet, but in doing so they have made it a desert; it is no Rakhana, certainly, but when Thane breathes in, it feels right. The sensation lasts only momentarily as the reality of his previous thought crashes over him. Tuchanka is not a desert. It is a wasteland, devastated by krogan hubris and galactic disenfranchisement.

“Long time since I’ve been to Tuchanka. Not much has changed.” Mordin pauses and looks at Shepard. “Urdnot Wrex has a lot of work to do.”

“Nobody else could get the job done even if they tried,” Shepard says as she steps out of the shuttle. “I didn’t let him live on Virmire just for him to fail here on his own planet.”

She doesn’t elaborate, and it’s difficult to get a read on her through her armor from the back. They pick their way through rubble into the heart of krogan civilization, Mordin unflinching despite the weight of the stares around them. Thane himself is not quite uncomfortable, but it is not his preferred method of entry. Being out of the spotlight is his entire philosophy. His efficacy drops significantly if people already know he is in the area.

To their left, there is a krogan vendor with a varren that’s as domesticated as varren get. Northwest, Thane sees a rocket turret that looks as though it was set up to deal with pyjaks, of all things as well as a mechanic and a varren fighting pit that looks downright barbaric. Shepard spares all these sights little more than a cursory glance, gaze dialing in immediately on a makeshift throne that sits a massive krogan who Thane recognizes only from the dossier for a job he refused to take.

Urdnot Wrex is a threat to the galaxy. The resurgence of the krogan under his leadership would prove disastrous. Take care of him.

The message had been followed by a credit amount that would have been difficult to pass up in the days where Irikah, Kolyat, and Thane had been a unit, but that time had long passed, and after his own research on Urdnot Wrex, the job had not been worth it. Killing someone trying only to restore krogan honor and secure them a place in the galaxy was as unseemly a job as Thane had seen in a long time, and as a matter of policy he tried to avoid political assassinations (with very few exceptions).

Wrex looks bored, mostly, which is a far cry from the bloodlust that usually paints a krogan’s face in battle. Another krogan nearly as massive as Wrex himself paces in front of the throne, lecturing animatedly. Thane hears only snippets, focused in on the guards who stop Shepard at the threshold.

“Don’t come any closer, human. The chief is busy.”

Shepard’s impatience is uncharacteristic, but effective, and Thane wonders if it’s just because she knows exactly how to deal with krogan. She shakes her head in irritated disbelief, ripping her helmet off almost recklessly with one hand and pulling at the nearest guard’s cowl with the other.

“Do you know who I am?” she snarls, and the krogan scowls, raring back as if ready to charge.

Thane’s biotics thrum into his right hand, ready for a fight, but Wrex’s voice booms over them before any of them get the chance to inflict bloodshed.

“Shepard!”

Wrex lumbers off his throne and Shepard releases the krogan guard with a shove and a glare that could cow a god. The guard doesn’t step aside and is nearly trampled in Wrex’s wake, a veritable krogan charge with a grin.

“My friend!” Wrex’s exclamation bellows out across this wasteland of a city, and Shepard smirks, arms open in a welcoming human display. He ignores her motion, wrapping his arms around her (comparatively tiny) human waist, lifting Shepard into the air. She laughs, pounding a gloved hand on his back as hard as she can manage, and when he finally releases her from his grip, Wrex says, “You look well for dead. I should have known the void couldn’t hold you.”

It is one thing to read about the exploits of Commander Evangeline Shepard; it is another to watch her play off one of the other storied heroes from her tale, one of the only krogan even remotely close to respected in the galaxy.

They swap stories and reminisce, Mordin growing more agitated the longer that he remains quiet behind her. If Thane were him, he would be thankful. Wrex and Shepard are raucous enough that eyes are no longer on Mordin or Thane, and Thane is nearly six times as efficient that way.

“Shepard.” When Mordin interjects, Wrex finally seems to notice him and Thane as well. “Maelon?”

“Some things never change, hm, Shepard? The Normandy wouldn’t be the Normandy unless you had as many non-humans on it as possible,” Wrex says, his eyes lingering on Thane just a little longer than he’d like. Thane’s posture stiffens under Wrex’s gaze, but Shepard’s laugh draws him back.

“You looking for an invitation? We could use you. I’ve got a teenage krogan I can barely keep under wraps anyway.”

That piques Wrex’s interest, but he shakes his head even though he can’t quite stifle the gleam in his eyes. “A tempting offer, but no one else can rebuild Tuchanka like I can.”

A krogan behind him scoffs and starts to say something. Wrex does not deem him worth turning around for, but he still says, “Speak when spoken to, Uvenk. I’ll drag your clan to glory whether it likes it or not.”

Something in Shepard dims, but it is subtle enough that Thane doesn’t think that anyone not trained to look for it would see. “Suit yourself.” Shepard shrugs, still smirking even though it’s flat. “We’re looking for a salarian who might have come through here. Mordin thinks he was kidnapped by Blood Pack.”

“Haven’t heard or seen anything myself, but I’m mostly tied up in politics these days.” Wrex spits the word politics like it’s a vulgarity. “My chief scout knows everything about everything. If anyone’s seen your salarian, he’ll have information.”

“Thanks,” Shepard says, pulling her helmet back into place and rolling her neck from side-to-side like she’d done in the mess. “I’ll be back. My teenage krogan is having some issues adjusting.”

Wrex nods and turns back towards his throne. “You know where to find me.”

Mordin shakes his head rapidly as they walk down towards the heart of the encampment. “Don’t like this, Shepard. Something feels wrong.”

“We’ll figure it out, Mordin,” Shepard snaps, too harsh for the conversation that she’s just had. “Let’s talk to the scout.”

Seeing Wrex is a knife driving itself into her navel. He is the last of the SR-1’s crew who she had not seen since her rebirth. He is the last because Joker, Tali, and Garrus are at her side, Liara is in Nos Astra, and Ashley scolded her on Horizon. He is the last because Kaidan is not alive.

The grief rips through Shepard like lightning, the scars on her face throbbing with a feeling that flirts with betrayal. Logic tells her that she has been gone two years, that it is naïve to think that everyone will put their life on hold to help her, but the wound festers no less. Joker was in before she even woke up. Garrus dropped everything as soon as he knew she was alive. Tali finished a mission and boarded the Normandy right after.

Her temper flares despite everyone having good reasons. Liara couldn’t be an information broker on the Normandy? Wrex had no one on Tuchanka that he trusted enough to hold down the fort for a while? And Ashley – Ashley hurts more than anyone else. She had looked at Shepard like she didn’t even know her.

They all have their reasons, and they’re good reasons, even if Ashley’s circle back to Shepard being a treasonous traitor.

Would Kaidan have trusted her enough? If she hadn’t been enough to convince him, would seeing Garrus and Tali and Joker do it?

Does it matter? She made a choice that left Kaidan behind. She killed him.

The rage is blinding, like a red film over an ocean of grief. Shepard seethes in the safety of her helmet’s tinted visor.

“This is not like you.”

It is the first time she has heard her drell since she was dead.

Tears prick at her eyes but she swallows them deeply, buries them in the parts of her that she has kept to herself since her mother died. It is too conspicuous to remove herself from the party’s comm frequency, so she mouths it to herself silently.

“Guide this one.”

The words are from an old drell prayer, one for Kalahira, and Shepard still does not consider herself religious, but she believes in her drell. She has begun to think that perhaps her drell is Arashu or Kalahira herself.

The snippet of a prayer is a salve, washing the red from her vision and replacing it with inscrutable clarity. Thane and Mordin follow after her diligently, unaware of her crisis or kind enough not to mention it.

Thane is unreadable as ever, but the longer that they go without news of Maelon, the more agitated that Mordin becomes. There’s no reason to put it off any longer than they have to, so once she recovers her senses, Shepard makes a beeline for the chief scout, strides lengthening.

“Shepard.” Thane interrupts her single-minded path towards the scout. “The krogan Wrex called Uvenk has been watching you since we walked away.”

Shepard snorts. “I have always had a way with krogan.”

Thane rewards her with a soft chuckle. “Be that as it may, Shepard, every krogan in the area wearing his clan colors have been looking as well.”

His follow-up is sobering. “Noted. We’ll keep an eye on it. Thanks, Thane.”

“My pleasure.”

The scout is helpful, and Mordin decompresses almost instantly merely at the fact that Maelon’s presence is confirmed.

“I heard rumors that they’re hiding a salarian in Weyrloc territory. Something to do with the genophage.” He punctuates his last word by looking Mordin up and down predatorily.

“Can you point us in the right direction?”

Shepard punches the coordinates into her omni-tool and thanks the scout. Thane and Mordin nod.

“The shuttle can drop us closer. Let’s go.”

Shepard’s boots hold firm on the uneven Tuchankan ground, Mordin’s jittery step close behind. She trusts Thane is following her as well, a soundless shadow. She may not have noticed before, but after Thane’s warnings, Uvenk’s eyes hang heavy on her back in the shape of a target.

Krogan are not subtle at the best of times, and the krogan known as Uvenk is no different. He is conspicuous, especially after drawing so much attention to himself in their initial meeting with Wrex. Thane would have noticed anyway, the eyes of everyone who shares Uvenk’s clan colors, but it is such an amateur attempt that Thane almost laughs. Shepard has been otherwise occupied and has not noticed herself, but that is why she has someone like Thane at her side, he supposes. From her possibilities for ground crew, Garrus, Miranda, Jacob, and Samara certainly would not have missed the signs either.

Thane is glad that he had not accepted the contract to kill Urdnot Wrex. It’s really no surprise how far the krogan have fallen if their leaders were so often like Uvenk rather than Wrex (notwithstanding salarian intervention, of course; the krogan were at a disadvantage from the moment they played out their hand by exterminating the rachni and the galaxy no longer had a use for them).

Thane closes his eyes and inhales deeply, a meditation in only a moment, the polar opposite of Mordin. Mordin radiates nervous energy more than usual. This assistant must have been something special for the great Dr. Solus to value his wellbeing so highly.

Shepard has not had a chance to see him in action except for his assassination of Nassana Dantius. If she has any doubts about her investment, she will not after this mission.

Mordin paces back and forth, stopping only briefly to brace himself as the shuttle takes off. Shepard sits across from Thane, removing her helmet and massaging her temples as discreetly as she can manage.

“You can’t keep living the same way you did before.” Irikah isn’t crying. He has only seen her cry a handful of times.

“It is the only way I know to support us-”

She doesn’t let him finish. “You can’t support us if you aren’t ever here.”

Irikah raises a hand to her forehead and rubs small circles between her eyes.

The memory is over as soon as it begins, but it is Shepard that pulls him back, waving a gloved hand in front of him.

“Apologies, Shepard,” he says, throat dry. “Memories.”

Shepard surprises him, chuckling.

“Yeah. I’ve been there.”

Chapter Text

Tuchanka is hot, Shepard thinks, even though that might mostly be psychosomatic. Her suit has processes designed to regulate internal climate control, but when Shepard catches glimpses of Aralakh out of the corner of her eye, the unforgiving star that breathed life into Tuchanka the first time around, she feels hot.

Flashes of a life that is millions of lightyears in the past flicker through her mind. In no particular order, Shepard remembers:

• A childhood visit to the Grand Canyon
• The cactus that lived on her windowsill until she wasn’t a little girl anymore
• A woman on an ancient motorbike, accelerating wildly on a run-down strip of pavement that splits a desert in two, so entrancing, so free that Shepard considers for the first time that maybe love is real
• The Tenth Street Reds dropping her into the middle of the Mojave, claiming it was an “initiation”
• Her own voice: “Nothing beautiful ever came out of a desert anyway.”
  • Kaidan, somewhere close by: “Not true. You came out of one, Shepard.”
  • Herself, again, snorting: “Los Angeles being built in the desert isn’t really true. You know that, right? It’s a Mediterranean climate, or something.”
  • Kaidan, sighing: “You’re tough to compliment.”

It’s not really a desert. There are too many ruins interrupting what should be dry shrubbery and sand, but it’s close enough.

She has been out of the shuttle for only thirty seconds, and Mordin jumps out quickly behind her, wasting no time and clearly itching to move. Thane’s disembarkment is more measured, and in fact, Shepard would not even know for certain that he was there if she didn’t chance a glance behind her.

Shepard motions over her shoulder, gesturing forward in an Alliance hand signal that usually translates well enough to non-humans. Mordin and Thane get the gist, matching her pace as she moves forward, SMG at the ready because diplomacy isn’t always a possibility with krogan.

“Comms check. Mordin? Thane?” The time she doesn’t quadruple-check their link will be the one that it fails, and she’d rather that not be today.

“Shepard.”

“Shepard.”

Thane and Mordin respond in unison, and she nods minutely even though they probably can’t see it.

“Joker?”

“Copy, Commander.”

He’d made fun of her once, for checking comm links so many times. Joker’s probably the only person that could get away with it, so it worked out alright.

“The Urdnot scout said that Clan Weyrloc’s been hiding out in an old hospital. Keep your eyes open; I’ve got the coordinates, but extra caution never hurt anybody. Stay sharp.”

Tuchanka, for as desolate as it looks, should be quieter, but the air buzzes with the sound of native wildlife, masking sounds that greater danger could make. The fauna itself is also worthy of respect. Two klixen around a corner manage to startle Shepard for half a second before she unloads her SMG in one. Mordin and Thane dispatch the other, a cryo blast into a biotic throw, the very model of efficiency.

And they walk, boots on the ground. Shepard’s muscles are tense, prepared for an ambush despite the fact that the Blood Pack is not known for its subtlety. In fact, when they finally come across the Blood Pack, they hear them before they see them, and it isn’t because the world has grown quieter; they are simply that loud.

A rocket launcher discharges around another bend, perfectly in line with the coordinates of the hospital that’s put into her suit’s navigation system. Shepard suppresses an eyeroll as vorcha laughter rolls towards them.

“Two hostiles by the sound of it. Both vorcha, at least one heavily armed.”

Her deductions are correct, but both vorcha have rocket launchers and with the addition of another klixen, larger than the two they took care of before.

“Thane, you’re on the left vorcha, Mordin on the klixen. I’ve got the one on the right.”

Shepard’s combat drone takes off with ease, floating harmlessly enough towards them and almost close enough to the right vorcha that he could touch it before noticing. He gives the drone a questioning look that lasts a second too long as Mordin repeats his display from before, launching a cryo blast from a distance at the klixen.

The vorcha on the left floats helplessly in a blue cloud of Thane’s biotics, his rocket launcher still on the ground. The second vorcha points his own weapon at Thane, and Mordin lets loose a short gasp as he pulls the trigger. He pulls the trigger once, twice, a third time, each result the same; the rocket launcher doesn’t fire, and with every moment that passes, Shepard walks closer.

“I was worried for a moment,” Thane says. “Your drone is so efficient that I didn’t see it jam the weapon.”

Shepard chuckles, firing three rounds into the vorcha. “She’s cleverer than me most of the time.”

The drone flies back to her, taking up its usual place over her right shoulder. It’s juvenile, she supposes, to name a combat drone, but every one she’s ever programmed has just been an earlier incarnation of this one. The drone is her oldest and most consistent friend, bar none. She’ll only let Shepard down if Shepard fails her first.

A gunshot pulls Shepard from her thoughts. Her neck swivels towards the sound, landing on Mordin, who has fired into the klixen that had previously been frozen still.

He shrugs. “Insurance, Shepard.”

Thane had taken her words about dispatching the left vorcha at face value, so to turn and meet the other one’s rocket launcher pointed at his head was unsettling. For a moment, it had even looked like it was going to end poorly. Mordin certainly thought so; his gasp over the comm link had more or less settled that.

It would have been an unceremonious way to die, really, after everything his life has been so far, although dying in a hospital bed won’t be much better. With any luck, Shepard’s suicide mission really is a suicide mission.

The two vorcha and singular klixen are the last defenses outside the hospital, though Thane is sure that more violence awaits them inside. The entryway jams, and Shepard has to force her way through, placing her body in the small gap available between the double doors. She strains, pushing, and Thane has the time to just briefly consider that a human shouldn’t be able to push open a door like that, one made for krogan –

As the thought crosses his mind, Shepard gives one last hard shove, and the doors rocket apart, like she’s loosened the mechanism through sheer force alone. Where her gloved hands gripped just moments before, the metal of the door is dented, and yes, it is outside the general spectrum of human ability to be able to do that.

Shepard knows it too, eyes lingering at the damage she has done by herself to the reinforced metal of a hospital door.

Whatever Cerberus mixed with her when they brought her back, it certainly wasn’t all organic.

“Repurposed hospital. Fitting.” Mordin’s words are brief as they enter the building, and it doesn’t take long before they can confirm that they’re in the right place. “That body.” Mordin is the first to speak of the corpse on a landing just down a flight of stairs. “Human. Need to take a look.”

His omni-tool projects an image of the human skeleton, but Mordin doesn’t even stop talking to look at it. “Sores, tumors, ligatures showing restraint at wrists and ankles. Track marks for repeated injection sites. Test subject. Victim of experimentation.”

“Sounds like some Cerberus shit.” Shepard has forgotten that they are linked to the Normandy or, more likely, she simply doesn’t care. Mordin shakes his head.

“No. Too much finesse. Unethical, but sophisticated. Humans make perfect test subjects. Genetically diverse. Never used them myself. Disgusting. For brute-force researchers, not academics.” Mordin sighs. “Unfortunately, conceptually sound. Genophage alters hormone levels. Could repair damage with hormonal counterattack.”

Shepard seems more unaffected by the human test subject than Thane had expected, but perhaps that was his own mistake. She’d killed plenty of Eclipse humans on her mission to find him alone.

“We can’t do anything for him. Let’s go.”

Thane’s prayer is momentary and silent. He knows nothing about this human, but there is no honor in a death like this one. So quick is the commemoration that Shepard and Mordin do not even notice that he doesn’t immediately follow.

The hospital is quiet, unnervingly so. Krogan are not known for their sense of strategy, but Thane would guess that their altercation with the vorcha at the entrance has alerted them to an intrusion, which would mean that it is likely that they have pooled their resources in a central location in an attempt to head off Shepard’s incursion.

“Shepard.” Saying her name is enough to get Shepard to stop, and Thane says, “Listen.”

Heavy footsteps thud in the next room, along with the clinking of metal against metal. Shepard nods and makes the same gesture that she had early that Thane takes to mean forward.

The room is as heavily populated as Thane had thought. Several krogan, at least eight at a cursory glance, dot the room. Four stand on an overhanging bridge, three are on the right side of the room, and the last one has his back turned to them, punching buttons haphazardly on a weapons locker.

The biggest krogan laughs, leaning forward on the railing of the bridge he stands upon. “This is what they send to stop us? A human, a salarian, and a drell?” He laughs again, bellowing loudly across the room. “When we cure the genophage, Weyrloc Guld will rule all krogan! The surviving races will frighten their children with tales of what the Blood Pack did to the turians.”

Shepard’s laugh mirrors the speaker’s, and it startles him enough to pause his monologue. “I can’t imagine Garrus afraid of anything except speaking to his father.”

The krogan scowls and continues: “The asari will scream as-”

Shepard sighs, a reckless smile in her voice. “You talk too much.”

She fires two shots from the pistol that hung limply at her side just moments before, and Thane would have to admit that he’s impressed. The explosive symbol on the pipe had escaped him until just moments before, and it appears that the krogan still don’t know about it.

“See? The human cannot hit a simple target.”

“Can’t be helped. I’m just an engineer.” Shepard raises her left hand, the one without the pistol, and forms her fingers in the general shape of a gun, pointing it straight at the speaker as the pipe explodes underneath him.

“Points for style, Shepard.”

“The smoke gives us cover and she killed four of the krogan with two bullets. It’s as fair of a fight as we could hope for,” Thane says.

“Thane, cover the left flank; Mordin, stay back and incinerate what you can. I’ll stay on the right.”

Krogan aren’t like asari or humans or salarians or even turians. There is no quick, easy, cut-and-dry way to kill them. Most species drop with a twist of the neck. The exceptions are hanar, elcor, and krogan, among others, and krogan are the sturdiest of them all. Still, these krogan are not coordinated. They have been thrown into more chaos than usual by Shepard’s quick thinking, so Thane’s general approach will do: shoot them until they regenerate, warp them with biotics, finish the job. It is a tried and true method if not a clean one, and there is not truly a neat way to kill krogan, although an incineration from Mordin does help.

Once Thane rids himself of the only krogan even remotely close to the left side of the room, the smoke has begun to dissipate. It is far from a clear shot, and Shepard is more than capable; she has killed three with only a little help from Mordin, and the fourth is not in good condition. Thane takes the final shot anyway in an echo of Mordin’s earlier sentiment – insurance.

Shepard offers him a thumbs up, the most ubiquitous of human gestures, and then the same in Mordin’s direction before they move on to the next room.

The genophage issue is complicated, Thane thinks as Shepard and Mordin share words over a data console containing evidence from some of the experiments conducted here. The salarian approach is a logical one, and Thane has killed plenty for worse reasons than the genophage was developed and then modified. It is the systemic nature of it that is bothersome, the structural ramifications, the willingness of one species to play at being a god over another.

Quite suddenly, he thinks that perhaps other species must feel similarly about the Compact.

“Understand rationale for modified genophage,” Mordin says, “Right choice. Still hard to sleep some nights.”

If ever there was a sentiment that Thane understood, that one hit close to home.

“Right choice. Still hard to sleep some nights.”

Mordin says it like he has never considered the alternative, and Shepard wonders if that makes him better or worse than her, because she has wondered a thousand times what Virmire and the aftermath might have been like if she’d left Ashley behind instead.

They move little by little, slower than Shepard might like, but this somehow feels personal. This is what Wrex is trying to fix, what Mordin helped to perpetuate. The thoughts swirl in her head like a cloud, and she misses something that Thane clearly does not as he ducks into a room that probably had a door once but doesn’t anymore.

An unmistakable mass lays on a run-down gurney, covered in a blanket so large that it could almost be called a tarp. Thane’s webbed hand rests gently on the blanket, his eyes shut like they had been for Nassana Dantius so long ago.

“Female krogan. Volunteer. Sterile. Hoped for cure. Pointless waste of life.” Mordin sighs heavily and takes a pause that feels like an eternity. “Need to look. Need to see. Accept it as necessary. See small picture. Remind myself why I run a clinic on Omega.” Mordin’s hand hovers over the body much as Thane’s did, and he says, “Rest, young mother. Find your gods. Find someplace better.”

For the first time in what feels like an eternity, Thane speaks. “Two prayers will find her somewhere where she can have peace.”

“Hard to see big picture behind pile of bodies,” Mordin says, not looking at Thane or Shepard. “Not easy. Choice could have fallen on someone else. Not my problem.” He sighs again. “Fool’s wish. Had to be me. Someone else would have gotten it wrong.”

Shepard averts her eyes, wondering if Thane also feels like Mordin’s words have wormed their way under his skin.

Someone else would have gotten it wrong.

Who’s to say that any of them has ever gotten it right?

Mordin mutters to himself endlessly, and Shepard can’t bring herself to stop him. The comm link is shared, but Mordin is too preoccupied to hear what Thane says.

“Given your reaction to the Compact, I thought you would perhaps be more critical of his involvement with the genophage.”

Shepard looks to Thane sharply, almost surprised.

“I killed plenty of batarians on Elysium. I have no room to judge.”

“I would not call a genophage as heroic as your actions during the Skyllian Blitz.”

“Is that so?” Shepard fixes him with an intent stare. “How do you suppose retaliation for the attack on Elysium got off to such a good start? What happened on Torfan probably wasn’t my fault, but my actions certainly didn’t help.”

Thane is silent, so Shepard continues. “I made the right choice. I can empathize. The big picture is littered with corpses.”

Chapter Text

A dull throbbing settles into the base of Shepard’s head, or maybe it’s been there the whole time and she hasn’t noticed. Her father only ever gave her two things: her name, and this. Migraines came and went on Earth, but they were a thing of the past; Shepard hasn’t had one since she joined the Alliance, health package and all. It’s hard to know what another person’s pain is like, but she thinks that they probably were never as bad as the ones Kaidan occasionally had. She’s still got the medicine (with a Cerberus logo on the packaging, of course), but her brain must not agree with all the wires in her head nowadays. The pricking is a precursor to the kind of hurt that used to lay her out for days at a time, and there isn’t time for that as she, Thane, and Mordin cross the threshold into the room where Mordin’s former assistant stands. The sight of Maelon does the impossible; Mordin is rendered speechless, if only momentarily.

“A-” Mordin starts and stops, actually staggering back a step. Shepard has never seen him so off of his rhythm, perhaps because he always expects the rest of the world to adjust to the beat that he sets. “Alive. Unharmed.”

Shepard raises an eyebrow, though neither of them can see behind her visor. “Safe to assume this is our guy?”

Maelon inputs and calculates with the singlemindedness only a salarian can manage. His coat resembles Mordin’s, and frankly, Shepard might not know the difference from behind were it not for the fact that both his horns are fully intact.

Mordin holsters his weapon, but Shepard does not mirror him. Thane follows her lead, but she can’t imagine that he has not come to the same conclusion that she has.

“No restraints. No evidence of torture. Don’t understand.” Mordin speaks softly to himself, but not soft enough. Maelon turns to the sound of Mordin’s voice, and the light flickering off the holoscreens illuminates Maelon’s face.

Shepard isn’t sure if salarians are capable of rolling their eyes, but disdain is dripping from Maelon’s voice regardless. “For such a smart man, Professor, you always had trouble seeing evidence that disagreed with your preconceptions. How long will it take you to admit that I’m here because I wish to be here?”

Maelon’s words are electric, fizzling in the space between himself and Mordin as they stare at each other singlemindedly.

“The Blood Pack never kidnapped Maelon,” Shepard says, finally; the silence is untenable and the weight of it hangs heavy in the air, and whether Mordin can see it or not, Maelon has made his choice. “He went to them. He’s working on a cure voluntarily.”

For the first time since stepping into the room, Mordin tears his eyes from Maelon, locking on Shepard’s visor well enough that she might actually believe that he’s holding her gaze. “Impossible.”

Shepard raises her eyebrows even though Mordin can’t see, nodding her head softly in Maelon’s direction as explanation.

“Whole team agreed!” Mordin mirrors her, looking at Maelon again. “Project necessary!”

Shepard’s Cerberus fingers twitch around the trigger of her pistol against her will, a particularly sharp pulse of pain from the back of her head the culprit. The gun doesn’t fire, but her breath catches loud enough that the comms pick it up. Mordin is too enthralled by the altercation he continues with Maelon to notice, but she is not so lucky with Thane. His eyes flit to her briefly, so fast that Shepard almost thinks that she imagines it. Steadying her voice, willing the tremble from it (she has control enough for that, at least), channeling the anger she’s still feeling from Wrex’s betrayal, she asks, “What happens if the genophage is cured and the krogan expand again? That will be on your head.”

“Look at this galaxy.” Maelon gestures wildly. “Batarian attacks in the Traverse, geth attacks on the Citadel. Is this a more peaceful universe for what we did to the krogan? The assault on Eden Prime may never have happened if we left the krogan alone.”

Curiosity gets the best of her. “How would a krogan population have done anything to stop Saren and the geth?”

Maelon scoffs. “I’d always heard that the great Commander Shepard was smart, but I should have known that what that really meant was smart for a human.” Rage as red as blood pricks at the edges of her vision, and she swallows hard, burying it in the pit of her stomach as Maelon continues. “An increased krogan population would have forced the Council to take steps, likely involving colony rights in the Traverse. Do you think active turian fleets in the area would have left any room for the geth to do anything on Eden Prime?”

“Supposition.” Mordin spits, and Shepard almost expects a frog-like tongue to lash out from his mouth. Shepard’s grasp on salarian anatomy is admittedly lacking, but it’s hard for her to extricate amphibious from frog-ish.

The tangent proves a welcome distraction from the agony that is collecting itself where her spine connects to her skull, waiting to strike at what Shepard is certain will be the most inopportune time possible. Thane’s gaze flicks towards her again, more like a lizard than a frog, reptilian rather than amphibious. Her eyes lock with his, even if he wouldn’t know it through her visor. Mordin, of course, has eyes only for Maelon.

“This project is over,” Shepard finally says as Mordin’s voice crescendos, nearing a shout. “We’re shutting this lab down.”

“Shutting down more than that.” It’s something that Shepard thinks would have been more effective had it been muttered, but the argument has escalated all of Mordin’s words to a shout. The headache pulses at the volume of the argument, inching ever closer to the migraine that Shepard knows she is on the brink of.

It shouldn’t surprise him, but it does; Shepard stops Mordin from shooting his former assistant, which, morally, is the correct choice. Her voice doesn’t quite quiver, but she seems unsteady when she says, “You heard the professor. Get out before he changes his mind.”

When Mordin speaks again, he sounds at odds with himself, like he is saying the right words but doesn’t believe them. “His research. Should destroy it. Tainted.”

Thane’s sure she’ll agree, but she doesn’t, though that shouldn’t be a surprise either given her opinion on the genophage itself. A pregnant pause precedes Shepard saying, “Keep the data. Better to have it and not need it.”

Mordin busies himself with the data as Shepard turns towards the door where they came in. When it swings open, she steps out into the rest of the complex. As Mordin wraps up, wiping Maelon’s research locally as he saves it onto his omni-tool, Thane follows her out.

Shepard’s back is to him and her helmet is on the ground, her gloved hands fumbling with the elastic tying her hair back from her face before she suddenly gives up, heaving over as close as she can towards the wall, and retching. The vomit splatters on the floor, but if Shepard is uncomfortable, she gives no sign of it. Instead, she finishes taking the elastic out of her hair, dropping it at her feet and spreading a hand across her face, middle finger and thumb each rubbing one of her temples. Shepard turns; Thane was not trying to be quiet, but years of assassination have made him more than adept at it even unintentionally.

When she spots him, her face cracks into a smirk. “Come out to hold my hair?”

“Do humans not have two hands?” Thane asks, folding his own behind him, uncomfortable with the joke even as he half-heartedly attempts it.

Shepard laughs briefly through her nose. “Don’t worry; I’m done anyway. It usually relieves the headache for a while.”

The door swings open a second time, and Mordin doesn’t notice anything: not Thane’s gaze swinging to him when he walks out, not Shepard wiping at the corner of her mouth, not even the chirping of his own omni-tool at his side. “Ready to go,” he says absently, “Ready to be off Tuchanka. Anywhere else. Maybe somewhere sunny.”

“Couldn’t agree more,” Shepard says, scooping her helmet off the ground and gritting her teeth before they start walking. “I was wrong, Thane. It doesn’t feel that much better. I think I’d rather have gotten shot. Maybe even shot twice.”

Thane doesn’t know if it’s intentional, but Mordin’s demeanor changes instantly, no longer a professor, but a doctor.

“Migraines? Boring diagnosis. Experience something similar. Could try treatment on you; not sure of reaction with human physiology. Maybe not boring. Intriguing experiment.”

If Thane hadn’t seen her wincing, or the pile of sick in the corner, he might have said that Shepard had fabricated something else for Mordin to think about.

The pain blinds.

Shepard’s scars pulse in rhythm with waves of hurt and nausea from the migraine, her whole head a hotbed of misery; she can barely remember waving a goodbye to Wrex along with a promise that she’d be back in the next day or two with Grunt in tow. He probably hears her. If he doesn’t, well, she’ll explain the next time that she’s down on his planet.

What would this feel like if she had never had a migraine before? Maybe she’d think that the spots shimmering in her vision were the Cerberus tech backfiring, her brain rejecting the wires and cords and metal plates holding her together. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t a migraine at all.

Three sharp knocks on her door make Shepard’s brain feel like it is bursting.

“Mordin is at the door, Shepard.” EDI’s voice is usually soothing, but today, Shepard wishes that she had a corporeal form to hit. Shepard waves in acknowledgment, and EDI opens the door.

“Shepard.” Mordin’s attempt at whispering is enough to make Shepard open her eyes even if she instantly regrets it. “Understand loud noises can exacerbate symptoms. Will be quick.”

He is at her bedside in moments, holding something that looks enough like medi-gel to make Shepard skeptical. “I don’t think-”

With a soft whir, a nozzle appears from the packet. Briefly, Shepard is worried about where the nozzle is supposed to go. “Nasal spray. Should help. You’ll feel better in a matter of hours,” Mordin says, and Shepard does her best to clamor for it in a dignified way. She gives herself the medicine, and it is only afterwards that Mordin says, “Or could have allergic reaction. Can’t be sure. Works for me. Might want to spend some time close to the med bay. Maybe eat something. Don’t sleep for a few hours.”

Mordin is gone as quickly as he appeared. The spray feels like a miracle; the worst of the pain dissipates within minutes, and its absence has Shepard gasping with relief. She hauls herself out of bed with great effort, not really wanting to sleep but not interested in moving either.

He’d left so fast that Shepard hadn’t even gotten to say thank you, but maybe he wouldn’t have wanted her to until she was certain she wasn’t going to die from his treatment.

That would really take the cake, she thinks with a soft chuckle as the elevator taxis her down. The smirk on her face doesn’t hurt, and if she ever gets the chance (and this doesn’t kill her), Shepard will nominate Mordin for sainthood. The blinding pain has quieted to the dull ache that Shepard associates with the day after a migraine, but it’s almost comforting, like the soreness of a well-worked out muscle.

Her smirk has split into a full grin by the time the elevator opens up to the crew quarters, because after all of these years, she still hasn’t gotten over how much of alien tech (or medicine, for that matter) is like magic. Shepard’s so caught up in it that she doesn’t notice Thane standing in front of her, holding a cup of something steaming. He steps out of the way as she moves forward, but not quite fast enough, bumping Thane’s shoulder with her own and somehow managing not to send the beverage clattering to the floor.

“Apologies, Shepard.” She’s quite certain that she’s imagining it, but Thane sounds almost sheepish as well as startled, his eyes mirroring a deer in the headlights somehow even more than usual.

“Not at all. If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I wasn’t paying attention at all.” The scent of the drink wafts up to Shepard’s nose, and she raises an eyebrow in curiosity. “Tea?”

“Yes. My wife…” Thane’s voice trails off, and Shepard knows he’ll be back momentarily, once he’s through with whatever memory has just possessed him. “It might sound foolish to you, but my wife always claimed that a warm drink could cure all but the most serious of injuries, although the mess does lack the ingredients needed for me to make it authentically.” His inflection on authentically hangs in the air like a joke, poking fun at her bánh mì from not so long ago.

“Well. If someone hadn’t been so adamant that food existed only for the sake of utility, perhaps there would have been more of a selection for you.”

Thane half-smiles. “Be that as it may, you have saved me the trip up the elevator. I simply wanted to return the favor of cultural exchange, or whatever you might call it, and perhaps assist with the head pain.”

She sips the drink after he hands it to her: ginger, lemon, and something else that she thinks most people probably wouldn’t put into tea on earth even though she can’t put her finger on what exactly it is.

“Your wife was smart. You’re sure she wasn’t a Vietnamese human?”

“Vietnamese?” Thane’s brow furrows, the translator failing.

Shepard walks to the closest table and sits, stretching her legs out as far as she can manage while still cradling the tea in her hands. “People from Vietnam. Where my mom was from. Where I got this stunning, dark complexion.” Shepard punctuates by gesturing to her face. “Vietnamese are big on tea, even if not as much as some others.”

Shepard had promised herself she’d be more forthcoming with information about herself on this rebirth, even if not to Cerberus. She didn’t have to trust them with her history and her life, but her crew were different. The only person on board that she might not be totally honest with was Miranda. The aliens, in particular, had no reason to use any harmless information against her, and there is nothing left on Earth that could be used as ammunition anyways.

“I never asked my wife where she learned her love for it. I suppose that I always assumed that she just liked how it tasted,” Thane says pensively.

“As good a reason as any.” Shepard pauses, drinking long from the mug that is finally cool enough for her to drink rather than sip. “I don’t know if I’ve heard you mention your wife before.”

“You’ll forgive me if I abstain from it further. My wife is dead. That is all there is to know.”

Shepard dips her head. “Of course.” The detachment is cold, but unsurprising; Thane has been a killer for years, before, during, and after any family connections he may have made and broken or lost. Her head pulses, not with pain, but with a question: what was her name?

She swallows the question, unsure why it rose to her tongue with such urgency, but there is no time to contemplate it, because for once, Thane is not content to let silence hang in the air.

“I apologize if it is too forward, but if your course of action is still to return to Tuchanka, for Grunt, I would like to accompany you in the ground party.”

The request admittedly knocks Shepard a little off kilter. “I have no objection if you have a good reason.”

Thane’s dark eyes feel as though they are looking through her, but perhaps that is just the intensity of a widower and an assassin wrapped in one being. “Tuchanka reminds me of what Rakhana might have felt like. And…” Thane is always serious, but when he continues, it is just a little less serious. “I was also the only one with enough awareness to notice Uvenk. I would like to see what should happen if he were to try to follow through on some kind of coup.”

Shepard barks a laugh at that. “Wrex would have him flayed and displayed as a flag before we ever got our hands on him, but I can’t argue with your performance. Tomorrow, we recover – I’m not sure what coming down from this medicine Mordin gave me is going to do to my body – but the day after, you, Grunt, and I will go deal with his… puberty.”

Shepard says the last word with great pain in her voice. Thane laughs softly. “We have both lost much, Shepard. Surely seeing an adolescent into adulthood will be something of a relief.”

Raising her eyebrows as high into her hairline as she can manage and shaking her head, Shepard downs the rest of the tea. “Maybe if Grunt was a drell kid and not a krogan born in an oversized bean full of water, I’d agree with you.”

“I do think if the salarian medicine were going to make you sick, it would have done so already,” Thane says, and Shepard nods.

“Whether it was Mordin’s doing or not, I do feel like I could sleep.” She stands, taking care of the mug before looking back to Thane. “Thank you for the tea. If no one hears from me in the next six hours, send up Chakwas. I should go.”

“Shepard.” Thane’s goodbye is always simple but sincere. He disappears into life support as the door to the elevator closes.

Chapter Text

When Shepard opens her eyes, she expects it to ache, like the day after the day after a bad hangover. She wakes up, instead, to the blissful feeling of not feeling anything at all except for the usual plunge in her stomach at the stars above her bed. She didn’t really have any reservations about Mordin, but if she did, they’re certainly gone now. She needs as many doses of that migraine medication as Mordin can manage, because it’s nothing short of miraculous.

If she hadn’t told Thane that they’d be taking a day between excursions, Shepard feels rested enough to take on Tuchanka again today. Then again, that would mean that she’d have to face Wrex with Grunt in tow sooner rather than later, and while she meant what she said about helping deal with personal business, this feels particularly personal for Grunt in a way that digging up Mordin’s assistant just didn’t.

Shepard sits up after laying there wide awake for an hour or two, cover crumpled into a ball on the other side of the bed. Marks from the shorts she wears to sleep mar her skin, too similar to the scars on her face for comfort. The shower looks inviting, but Shepard pulls a tank top over her sports bra and changes shorts instead, a set of athletic shoes the final touch before she walks out the door. Talking to Grunt can wait until she’s had a good workout.

She still needs one more thing, though.

“Garrus.” He is where she expected, tinkering away at something in the main battery of the ship. “Ten minutes. Hangar. I need a workout.”

Garrus doesn’t bother with an answer, just saluting; when Shepard looks closer, she realizes that it’s probably because he’s holding some kind of tool in his mouth while puttering away on his omni-tool. He heard her. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have bothered with the acknowledgment.

Tali comes out of Miranda’s office and spares Shepard a small wave. “Who’s getting beat up today?” she asks after taking in Shepard’s outfit, and Shepard smirks.

“Garrus, whenever he hauls himself out of the battery.” Shepard rolls her shoulder, a brief release from the near-constant tightness. “Miranda giving you a performance review?”

Tali laughs, and, as always, the sound pulls a genuine smile out of Shepard. “Hardly. I had some suggestions I wanted to implement in the engineering bay, but I never feel like Donnelly takes me seriously and I couldn’t track down Daniels. I figured if Miranda gave me the okay, they couldn’t really object. I could have come to you, too, but that seemed a little too much like calling in a favor.”

“If Miranda gives you any trouble, let me know.” Shepard has more to say, but Tali is already shaking her head.

“All things considered, I actually find her… pleasant to work with. For Cerberus, I mean. She’s unbearably perfect, of course, but I can appreciate that she’s innovative and efficient. If we weren’t Cerberus-funded, I might say she’s almost quarian sometimes.”

“And she’s not bad to look at, right?” Shepard winks.

The mask can’t hide the exquisitely performed eyeroll in Tali’s voice. “Of course, Shepard.”

“I need to warm up before beating Garrus’s ass. If you need any help on your engineering project, let me know. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty.”

Tali laughs deeply, from her belly. “Has anyone ever claimed you were so proper that you wouldn’t get down in the dirt with the rest of us?”

Shepard arches an eyebrow as high as it will go, shrugging dramatically. “I am a war hero, you know.”

“Go to the gym, Shepard.” It’s a dismissal, but Tali is still laughing when Shepard steps onto the elevator as she knocks on the door to life support.

Thane has cleaned the same rifle once a day, every day since the last time he saw Kolyat. He isn’t sure why he has this ritual, or if it even brings him comfort, but it is a small bit of routine in a world that has become more unstable by the day. Even his own condition is unpredictable. Kepral’s can cause a body to deteriorate quickly, with little warning.

He finds himself thinking of his disease more often than usual, this morning. Perhaps it is because of Shepard’s migraine; perhaps it is because of all their talk of the genophage. In any event, this is likely the most he has thought about the effect of Kepral’s on his body since his diagnosis.

Diagnosis is probably the wrong word, he thinks, as he gently places the rifle down on the table in front of him. Kepral’s is a sentence doled out to every drell upon birth except for the few who have lived their whole lives off of Kahje; it is not a matter of if one would contract Kepral’s, but a matter of when. Once, before all the decorum of the Contract had been fully impressed upon him, he had asked one of his hanar mentors if there was any hope for a drell to live a truly long life. The answer had been, “Perhaps for the few who remained on Rakhana.”

“This one does not understand the purpose of your question.” Alandin floats in front of him, as threatening as a hanar ever is.

Thane pauses. “Curiosity.”

“A tool has no use for curiosity. It distracts from the mission.”

Thane stands. All today is is a vessel for memories long in the past, or so it would seem. He places the rifle delicately back in its place, fitting it into the hooks custom-made for its frame, just as Tali enters life support. She and Shepard were talking next to the elevator, and Tali has a habit of not knocking, and Thane is not uncomfortable with her around in any event, so he is neither surprised nor irritated when she lets herself in.

“Tali.” She stops walking at his greeting, perhaps startled that he is not sitting at the table as he usually does.

“Hello, Thane. I’m sorry to impose on you again so soon, but I’m starting another project and I was hoping you’d be able to lend me your biotics again? Not today, but sometime in the future.”

“Of course.” Thane nods, but Tali doesn’t move to leave.

“Also,” she continues, “I have a chance to redeem myself for losing my bet to Joker and Garrus about you playing Skyllian Five with us. Will you play? It’s double or nothing. I can’t afford to lose. I won’t invite Jacob either.”

In spite of everything, a small smile tugs at Thane’s mouth. “I take no issue with Jacob. Invite who you like. I will be there.”

Garrus or Joker (most likely Garrus, considering their location) must be entering or exiting the elevator, because the door is not even closed before Tali lets out a triumphant, “I told you so!”

The door slides shut, but Thane can still hear Garrus’s reply. “Can this wait? I’ve got to go see if this new and improved Shepard will accidentally break off one of my mandibles or something.”

“What?”

“Oh, come on, Tali. You’ve seen the dent in the table in the mess. All she was trying to do was set down a mug. Whatever Cerberus did to her, as close as she is to how she was before, they put something back wrong.”

Thane remembers how Shepard had nearly effortlessly opened the jammed krogan door on Tuchanka, her grip enshrined there now until the door is replaced or until the elements reclaim it.

Tali makes a joke instead of acting as uncomfortable as he is certain she must be. “If you think you can’t beat a human in a sparring match, never mind a human engineer, then you really lost your touch on Omega, Archangel.”

Garrus’s pause is probably a lengthy sigh. “I wasn’t looking for sympathy anyway. Shepard can obviously take care of herself but keep an eye out when you can. Who knows what Cerberus put in her?”

Tali doesn’t answer. She deflects. “Cards after dinner. Don’t be late.”

It takes about two minutes of warming up while waiting for Garrus for Shepard to realize why this was probably a foolhardy idea. Her fist pounds mercilessly into a punching bag, sending it flying off the hook a few meters across the hangar.

Shepard leans up against the Kodiak, not bothering to rehang the bag. She doesn’t have to wait long for Garrus to show up, five minutes at most. When he sees her, his mandibles twitch. “Is this supposed to be an intimidation tactic? Is the bag supposed to be me?”

“Please.” Shepard rolls her eyes. “If I wanted to intimidate you, all I’d have to do is threaten you with a job at C-Sec.” She shakes her head, finally tearing her gaze away from the bag to look at Garrus. “I’ve rethought my game plan. Sorry for dragging you down here. I hadn’t considered that I’m a cyborg who could accidentally punch your scars off.”

“We wouldn’t want that,” Garrus says, mirroring her posture against a storage unit. “The scars are all I have going for me with the ladies.”

His nonchalance is a balm for the nervousness that Shepard feels towards what is happening to her body. Everything can be okay as long as Garrus is making jokes. It’s the axis her world is spinning on at the moment. They stand in silence for a moment that feels like an eternity before Shepard says, “Imagine how strong I’d be if I hadn’t spent so much time tinkering away in junkyards.”

“Yeah, you might be a galactic hero or something,” Garrus says, chuckling, and Shepard even smiles a little. “It wouldn’t hurt to tell Miranda. If there’s something going on, she’d be the only one that would even know.”

“Telling Miranda is telling Cerberus.”

“Probably. But for the moment, you and me and Cerberus all have the same goal in mind. They wouldn’t want their resource to be compromised.”

It’s a cold way to put it, but Garrus is right. “Yeah. Maybe,” Shepard concedes.

Garrus shrugs. “For all you know, there’s nothing neurologically wrong. Maybe you’re just a krogan physically, now, and your brain needs some time to come to terms with it.”

“Now there’s a thought,” Shepard smirks. “Imagine Cerberus spending four billion credits to turn me into a krogan when they wanted a human ambassador. Incredible.”

“If all we’re going to do is talk, can we do it in the mess? I’m starving for the finest dextro slop that Gardner can offer.”

“Oh, come on. It can’t be all that bad. The levo is fine now that we got better ingredients.”

“Yeah, because Gardner tastes the levo food before he gives it to you. I get the food that Tali eats out of a tube or something that Gardner thinks resembles food in the slightest.”

Shepard would love to speak to her dream-drell, but if she cannot have her, Garrus can always make her feel better, too.

Thane normally refrains from stepping out of life support when there are too many people in the mess, but water is the one indulgence he allows himself. If he wants it, he is not going to wait for the kitchen to clear out.

Tali has disappeared from the crew quarters deck, likely down to engineering, and the faces still in the mess are Cerberus operatives that Thane doesn’t have names for. To their credit, two of them spare him the kind of passing glance that they would give a human crewmate that they didn’t know, while the third offers him a nod of greeting that Thane returns. Gardner, as always, says hello genuinely if still a little guarded. Perhaps the Cerberus representatives on the ship were selected because of their tolerance for aliens; the Illusive Man must have been aware of the crew makeup of Shepard’s ship while she was chasing down Saren. If Cerberus liked the work she did then, they certainly would not have wanted to supply her with a crew that would bog her down in prejudice.

As if thinking of Shepard summons her, she and Garrus step out of the elevator, neither of them looking as though they have even broken a sweat despite Tali’s conversation with Garrus earlier. Shepard says hello with a smirk, and Garrus gives Thane a nod reminiscent of the one that Thane gave the Cerberus operative prior.

Gardner fixes Shepard something quickly as Garrus looks almost forlornly at the dextro meal in front of him. It is only as Thane turns away back towards life support, having drank his glass of water and replaced it, that Thane realizes he was right a few nights ago. When Shepard had stretched her arms above her head, joints popping in a downright ghastly way, there was drell writing on her arm.

Yelket, reads her arm. Guardian.

Shepard eats her late lunch with Garrus before tackling the conversation that she needed to have with Grunt. It’s simple enough; in fact, he’s so thrilled at the thought of going to the krogan homeworld that Shepard thinks he might actually hug her. In any event, by the time she has placated all of Grunt’s questions and weathered his multiple threats of violence, it is past dinner time, and Shepard has resigned herself to the fact that her meal will be some kind of protein bar. It’s a genuine surprise when she makes the climb from cargo back to the crew quarters in search of a few calories that Garrus, Tali, Joker, Miranda, and Thane are seated around a table with a deck of cards.

The moment they see Shepard, Joker and Garrus protest, and Tali puts her head in her hands. The response surprises Miranda, who raises an eyebrow, and it’s always hard to read Thane but Shepard would imagine he feels the same as Miranda.

The less they want her to play, the more Shepard knows that she has to. She hasn’t even bothered to change out of the clothes she’d put on that morning to spar with Garrus, but Shepard sits down in the one empty seat available and says, “What? You aren’t going to deal in your CO?”

Joker shoots her a look of contempt, and it’s all Shepard can do to ignore Thane’s gaze on the drell tattoo on her arm.

“We really had a shot at making some money tonight, but unfortunately, we’re all losers now,” Joker says, sighing heavily.

Shepard expects to lose the first couple of hands, at least until she figures out Thane and Miranda. She’s a world-class grifter, but even world-class grifters need to case a joint before they can rob it blind. Miranda is easy enough, even though Shepard hadn’t expected her to tell to be running a hand through her hair.

Soon enough, though, they are six hands in, and Shepard can’t get a handle on Thane.

When an incredulous grin spreads across Shepard’s face, Garrus says, “Have we finally found the one person in the galaxy that Shepard can’t give the run-around?”

They play an hour before everyone starts dispersing for the night. Garrus is first (“The calibrations aren’t going to take care of themselves.”) and then Joker (“How can anybody win against a crime lord and an assassin?”). When Miranda leaves to finish up paperwork, Tali bows out soon afterward, indignantly saying, “Would you leave Donnelly alone in engineering too long, Shepard?” when Shepard winks at her.

“Nope,” Shepard says, grinning knowingly and never breaking eye contact with her.

“Good night, Thane.” Tali specifically avoids saying good night to Shepard even as the eye-roll works its way into her voice.

“How’d you get so good at Skyllian Five?” Shepard asks, once it’s just the two of them.

Thane doesn’t answer immediately, and Shepard hadn’t intended it to be a difficult question, but his answer explains the pause: “My wife enjoyed gambling from time to time. The nuances of my profession transferred well.”

His wife again. Shepard swallows the urge to ask her name a second time.

“Well, I have to hand it to you. Been a long time since I’ve met somebody with a better eye for the game than me. Been even longer since I’ve met somebody without a tell, or at least one I can find.”

Thane chuckles softly. “The perks of being trained for a deadly profession from childhood, I suppose. Your tell is minute. I can see how the others would struggle to win against you.”

Shepard leans back, deck of cards forgotten on the table. “My eye used to twitch, but I haven’t heard that I’ve got a tell in almost fifteen years. What is it?”

“You sit leaning your chin on your right hand when we play a round, but the little finger on your left hand twitches just the barest amount. People don’t notice because they’re too busy looking at your face or the hand that’s touching your face, and it’s almost imperceptible even knowing what to look for.”

Shepard barks out a laugh. “I’ve met my match then. Thanks for playing. They’ll never invite you again now that they know what you’re capable of.”

Thane smiles a small, genuine smile. “If I overstep, Shepard, you need only say the word, but I must ask about the tattoo.”

She had wondered if he’d bring it up, considering the way Thane had been drifting back to it the entirety of the game.

“I met a friend when I was dead. It was her idea. Or something like that.”

Thane holds her gaze but doesn’t move, and doesn’t say anything, perfectly comfortable with the weight of the silence.

“Yelket, indeed,” Thane says, finally, after what feels like an eternity. “Arashu would be lucky to call a guardian such as you one of her own.”

Something deep in Shepard’s chest aches, but Shepard can’t quite place it. The feeling is somewhere between longing and vulnerability.

“Good night, Thane.”

Chapter Text

“You are worried.”

Her voice is fire, flooding Shepard’s veins with warmth. She has heard her drell once since she has risen from the grave, on Tuchanka, but this is the first time that she has spoken to her in a dream since then.

“I missed you,” Shepard says. Her mouth doesn’t move, for some reason, perhaps because yet again she is floating lifelessly in the blank blackness of space, but her drell smiles nonetheless, fully. Shepard tries again, lips still not working, but hoping that she will understand regardless. “I’m not worried. Not really. I’ve already died once. What can be worse than that?”

The drell’s skepticism is palpable. “We both know there are things worse than dying. Not many. But I believe feeling powerless over your own body would be one of them.”

Shepard scowls.

At any other time, the cold would be piercing, lethal. Instead, Shepard is strung up somewhere between traumatized at once again living out her death and comforted by the only person she’s ever spoken to who really knows what it’s like to be dead. The cold barely registers, even as it permeates her skin before penetrating deeper.

“Anger has its uses,” her drell finally says after what feels like an eternity. “As long as it is yours and you do not belong to it.”

Something like a halo outlines her body, and Shepard reaches out, her fingers coming up just short of touching her drell. She is always just short.

Someday, waking up will not feel like a demon perched, unmoving, on her chest. Someday (perhaps), the stars above her bed will not feel like a death sentence. Or maybe they always will, and she will be thankful when the Alliance inevitably throws her in a cell where she might never see the sky again. Shepard is a terrorist by association now, and she has, of course, been a criminal for decades, but this is different. The Alliance will see it as treason, even if it is anything but.

A special kind of melancholy washes over her, an emotion that is the opposite of the correct headspace for touching down on Tuchanka. It’s almost cosmically humorous that, when she pulls up her omni-tool, a message sits in her inbox from A. Williams.

Shepard exhales hard through her nose before checking the clock. She’s got time before putting her life (and Thane’s, for that matter) on the line so that Grunt can truly experience being a teenager.

Shepard,

I'm sorry for what I said back on Horizon. I’ve been dealing with survivor’s guilt for a while – Kaidan first, obviously, and then outliving you, too. Or so I thought.

I don't know what's true anymore. Part of me can't believe it's really you.

I wouldn't have expected you to work for Cerberus, but I know why they sent you to Horizon. I saw how many people were lost there, and if anyone can stop the Collectors, you can. I can't go where you're going, but I can wish you luck.

Just stay alive out there... Skipper.

--Ash

Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

Shepard’s finger hovers over the button that reads Reply for too long, the too-familiar rage blurring her vision tempered by an ache of vulnerability. Of course, Ashley won’t leave the Alliance to come with her; the Alliance is Ashley’s whole life. It’s hard to fathom that her found family on the SR-1 moved on while Shepard was taking a glorified, dangerous nap.

When she can’t make herself reply, Shepard closes the message without deleting it. At least Ashley doesn’t hate her that much. It’s a small relief, but a relief nonetheless.

Unbidden, an image of a dark-skinned teenage girl springs from Shepard’s thought. Shepard shakes her head. One drell ghost is enough to take up residence in Shepard’s head. Minnie has never left Shepard, of course, but thinking about her is rarely productive. More often than not, she just evokes a sense of self-pity and regret.

God. If Minnie’s being pushed to the forefront, maybe Garrus was right. Shepard really does need talk to Miranda, make sure there’s no wires crossed, or whatever. There’s no time, now; if Grunt catches her trying to put off their trip planetside to talk to Miranda, he’ll probably decapitate her (or try) before she can even open her mouth to explain.

As if to punctuate just how unhuman she feels, Shepard stretches her fingers a little too wide, snapping the elastic of her hairband. It was new, even, not one of those stretched thin by weeks or months of daily use. Shepard grits her teeth and exhales through her nose in frustration, rifling through her desk with reckless abandon for a replacement. The elastic she retrieves is little more than a rubber band, significantly more delicate than the one she has just snapped, and Shepard breathes in deeply, centering herself before twisting it into her hair as gently as she can manage.

It takes everything within her to not roll her eyes into oblivion at her own actions. From the fury that wanted to overtake her at such a minor inconvenience, perhaps that will be the most difficult thing that Shepard goes through today.

The second that she sees Thane and Grunt standing side-by-side, the shuttle pilot standing as far from them as possible within reason, she knows that that was a pipe dream. Thane is, as always, the very model of poise, and Grunt is… not. She supposes she can’t blame the pilot, whose name she can’t remember for the life of her. There are few people, human or otherwise, who would want to stand next to a world-class assassin and an unstable krogan.

“Ready for a trip to your ancestral homeland, Grunt?” Shepard asks, not bothering to hide the dry humor from her voice. A near-silent exhalation from Thane might qualify as a chuckle.

Grunt surprises her, matching Shepard’s deadpan tone. “They have pods of life-supporting goo down there?”

Shepard snorts. “Maybe I’m falsely advertising.”

The pilot is the first into the shuttle, likely of the mindset that the quicker this mission gets off the ground, the sooner he is back on the Normandy. Shepard can appreciate the enthusiasm. Grunt boards shortly after, and Shepard looks to Thane to see if he will follow before a half-smile reminds her of what he’d told her soon after joining her crew. He will board before her if she asks, but if it’s all the same to her, he would prefer to be the last.

Shepard nods an acknowledgment and matches his half-smile. He has given no reason so far for her to believe that she is in danger with him at her back. If he wants to be the last on the shuttle, so be it.

When she sees Wrex this time, the rage will not blur her vision unless she decides it does. She is in control. She always has been. And even if she isn’t, Arashu or her drell or something that isn’t Cerberus will be.

They make the pilot nervous. That is anything but a surprise. He had been uncomfortable on their first trip planetside, and Grunt is not so well-behaved as Mordin, who is strange and certainly alien to a human but at least what one might call civilized. Grunt is aggression without nuance, a temper with no filter. Grunt is a time bomb. He is quite frankly the antithesis of everything that Thane was ever trained to be, likely more so than any other krogan that he has known. In retrospect, however, Thane has mostly killed krogan rather than worked with them.

Shepard is quiet, though when she speaks nothing seems out of the ordinary. Rapport is harder to maintain with Grunt than it was with Mordin, though he has always considered himself an awkward conversationalist and it has not seemed like a problem in the past. No, Shepard seems more pensive than tense, even if that is at odds with her occasionally impulsive displays. There are few humans who could pull a krogan by the cowl and live to see another sunrise, but she is not just any human.

They still draw stares upon their arrival; tourism is not exactly a thriving business on Tuchanka, but Mordin had been a lightning rod. Without a salarian, they are not so noteworthy except for the few that recognize Shepard and Thane on sight from their first visit.

Grunt picks his way through the rubble, not delicately, but less foolhardily than Thane had thought that he might. “This is being a krogan? This worthless planet of junk? This is the great krogan homeworld?” A pause. “Never thought I’d miss the tank.”

It is disenchantment incarnate. Thane can’t help but wonder what he was expecting.

Shepard flexes her fist, curling her fingers in and then relaxing, before stepping up towards Wrex’s makeshift throne once more. She removes her helmet, a gesture that disarms, the kind that would almost certainly never work on a krogan except that she and Wrex have a history that is almost impossible to overstate. Thane does not know everything about humans, of course, but he thinks that it might have been more effective on others of her species before scars crisscrossed her face.

“What can I do for you, my friend?” Wrex speaks to Shepard, but his eyes never leave Grunt.

“You told me you could help Grunt with his problem,” Shepard says as Grunt steps up to meet Wrex’s gaze.

“Where are you from? Was your clan destroyed before you could learn what was expected from you?” Wrex asks, an almost-sneer in his voice.

“I have no clan,” Grunt says, standing tall under interrogation. “I was tank-bred by Warlord Okeer-”

“You are the offspring of a syringe,” Uvenk interjects.

Grunt’s eyes narrow. “You should be in awe. I am pure krogan, my line distilled from Kredak, Moro, Shiagur-”

“You are not fit to walk Tuchanka.”

Shepard snorts despite herself. “I don’t think Tuchanka will mind.”

Wrex leans back and stretches before standing, descending to stand in front of Grunt. His eyes move slowly up and down, searching for pieces of him to deem unsatisfactory, and apparently not finding any on the surface. “You were on the right track. There is nothing wrong with your krogan. He is becoming an adult.”

Shepard’s eyes flit to Thane, her eyebrows raised, and he can see the message clearly in her eyes: “Human pubescence is not even close to similar.” Thane’s smile is soft and small and barely noticeable; Shepard can only see it because she is looking for it.

“Krogan undergo the Rite of Passage,” Wrex says, finally, after a long pause. A growl unearths itself from deep in Uvenk’s throat.

“Too far, Wrex. Your clan may rule, but this thing is not krogan.” Uvenk storms off without another word, and Shepard is the only one who bothers to watch him go.

Wrex punctuates Uvenk’s absence with, “Idiot. So, Grunt, do you wish to stand with Urdnot?”

Thane is not sure what that means, but if the Rite is anything like everything else krogan are involved in, it will surely be bloody.

Shepard crosses her arms and shrugs when Grunt looks to her. “Your call.”

“You’re only getting the choice because you’re with Shepard in the first place.”

“It is in my blood,” Grunt says, finally. “It is what I am for.”

Wrex nods. “Then speak with the shaman. Grunt has the weight of my clan behind him. Everything else is out of my hands.”

Shepard loves krogan. They’re so easy to understand: bravado, ego, whatever the alien equivalent of testosterone is. Uvenk is no different. It’s a little embarrassing that she only noticed him and his clan after Thane pointed them out. Now that she’s seen the staring, she can’t stop seeing it. There is a representative of Clan Uvenk around every corner, behind every dilapidated wall. Her actual concern is minute, because any krogan that tried to attack her here would instantly be on the outs with Wrex and his clan, but Thane was right. It’s certainly something to keep an eye on.

A very wicked part of Shepard likes who she is on Tuchanka. The aggressive condescension feels like a puzzle piece sliding into place in a spot that is not quite her heart but at least near it. Minnie would hate this Shepard, so far removed from the Eva she’d been when they were both teenagers.

The words cut as they come off her tongue (“Grunt has the right to be here. An Uvenk has no place telling an Urdnot what can and can’t come to pass, and Grunt is twice the krogan he is either way.”), and Shepard feels the same satisfaction that she always does when she gets her way. The shaman is skeptical, of course. How can a krantt be a human and a drell?

If he had any doubts, the headbutt convinces him. It should make her skull smart and sting. Instead, she feels only the gratification of a fight she’s won.

“When the candidate is ready, the Rite is performed at the Urdnot Ruins. Grunt will come out the other side dead, or as a krogan of Clan Urdnot,” the shaman says.

Grunt’s eyes narrow. “I am pure krogan. I have been ready since I was born.”

The shaman laughs, a bellowing sound the echoes off the ruins around them. “Very well. Good luck, young one.”

For once, Shepard takes a step back, letting Grunt take the lead. Thane notices, because Thane notices everything.

“He can have it this once,” she says, quietly, when Grunt is climbing into the shuttle. “You only get to grow up the one time.”

It’s not like the Rite could possibly throw anything at her that she hasn’t dealt with before. Every krogan goes through it. How hard can it be?

Chapter Text

Tuchanka is dry and dusty and horrible, no matter how much Shepard likes krogan. Grunt nearly tumbles out of the Cerberus shuttle in his excitement to get on with the Rite, the ground nearly quaking beneath his feet, and it is all that Shepard can do to suppress a smirk.

“Get out of here as soon as we’re clear of the shuttle. I’ll radio when we need a pick-up. There’s no telling what’s going to go on down here.”

The Cerberus pilot nods a little too enthusiastically, and Shepard exits the shuttle with Thane as her shadow. The shaman waits for them atop a set of ruined stairs, having exited the moment they touched down, and Grunt glares at them impatiently as they approach and the shuttle evacuates the area.

“If you wish to join Clan Urdnot, you must contemplate the keystone and its trials,” he says, with much more decorum than Shepard has ever before heard from a krogan.

Grunt surprises her by asking, “What will happen?”

The shaman chuckles deeply. “Who knows? You must adapt. You must thrive, no matter the situation.” He pauses, looking Grunt from head to toe. “Any true krogan will.”

The shaman returns to the shuttle that dropped them off; Shepard is certain the pilot is uncomfortable, but he will deal with it one way or another, because ferrying the shaman is an order. The keystone doesn’t seem like much more than a glorified, blinking green button, but what it will unleash is anyone’s guess. Shepard reaches out for the keystone to begin the Rite, pausing as she hears Thane’s voice.

He has disabled his commlink for the moment; his voice is only audible because he stands reasonably close, or perhaps the affectations of his speech simply carry better than the human tongue. In any event, Shepard can hear his prayer clearly: “Amonkira, Lord of Hunters: Grant that my hands be steady, my aim be true, and my feet swift-”

Shepard smirks despite herself, and there isn’t time to disable her commlink or worry that he will see her joining him as an interruption when she says, “And should the worst come to pass, grant me forgiveness.”

Thane’s surprise is minute and momentary, and were it not for an almost imperceptible nod, Shepard might doubt that he even heard her.

“Now is not the time for philosophy, Shepard,” Grunt growls dismissively. “It’s starting.”

The ground rumbles with untold depths, creatures inhabiting the insides of Tuchanka that Shepard doesn’t even want to imagine.

The likelihood of there being anything out here to hack is minimal, but she deploys her drone anyway. Squadmates come and go, even if she doesn’t want them to, but her combat drone remains, in one iteration or another. It flits around her helmet, and Shepard dons a soft smile despite herself, though it doesn’t last long. Thane’s body tenses even before Grunt says, “They’re coming.”

Thane prefers hand-to-hand combat, but Shepard knows that he is a more-than-capable sniper; he’s maybe not as good as Garrus, but he’s close enough that the probability of running into a situation where that matters is very low.

“Thane. Take the high ground to our left and try to cover Grunt. I’ll swing right and try to cover that flank. Don’t be afraid to drop in and get your hands dirty.”

Thane doesn’t answer but she sees him nod out of the corner of her eye before climbing a few dilapidated stairs and then a small pile of debris to reach what she struggles to call a vantage point.

Her vision is sharp, her head is clear, Thane is smart, and Thane and Grunt both are lethal. There is nothing that three krogan could handle that this team could not. Shepard deploys her drone, but it stays close, hovering at eye level. A cry in the distance precedes any visual indication that there is anything nearby to fight.

“Varren.” Grunt’s voice comes through the commlink. “A lot of them.”

“Copy that.” Shepard’s response is minimal as she busies herself by readying her SMG. Varren are annoying. Her close-quarters combat has always been the weakest part of her skillset, and varren are hardy enough to nearly always close the gap unless sniped right between the eyes.

As the varren come into view, Thane picks one off easily, and Grunt blasts the first one that breaches the arena in the stomach with his shotgun. Her quick scan leaves her satisfied; if all the Rite has to offer is varren, they are very overqualified.

In the very moment that she has that thought, Thane and Grunt both round on her. Grunt lunges forward, shotgun in hand, but a bullet from Thane’s rifle sings past her first. She turns, lightning quick, to watch his shot pierce a rapidly advancing klixen.

“Shepard.” Grunt’s voice crackles over comms, and Shepard is almost amused to hear disapproval there.

They come in droves; despite her somewhat close call, the advancing wildlife of Tuchanka do not get another chance to deal serious damage despite their seemingly infinite numbers.

Thane is precision, coiled; he does not miss, and Shepard wonders briefly if he even can. She has never seen Garrus so close to having competition.

Grunt is carnage; anything that approaches the range of his shotgun lives only as long as it takes for him to pull the trigger.

This is not a mission tailored to her skillset and she will be the first to admit it. Still, her SMG is more than worth its weight, and even as they work up a healthy sweat (proverbially, of course; whether krogan and drell can sweat is beyond her), Shepard wears that kind of half-smile synonymous with battle.

She should be skeptical, of course. She has been around the block enough to know that it is never this easy, but her senses are different from her companions.

“Shepard -” Thane rasps, a warning imminent, but he is overshadowed by Grunt’s exclamations.

“Do you feel that?” Grunt asks, voice trembling with excitement. “Everything is shaking.”

It takes a moment, but eventually Shepard does feel what they seem to have sensed long before her. The ground quakes and when the thresher maw finally breaches the surface, Grunt cackling gleefully, Thane has already ascended to a higher vantage point, Shepard not far behind.

“Grunt!” Shepard calls out over comms, “Don’t stop moving. Its spit will rip through your shields in less than a second.”

He gives no indication that he’s heard her, instead, still chortling, shouting, “Finally! An enemy worth fighting!”

How anyone could think that Grunt is anything but pure krogan is beyond Shepard, and she exhales a short laugh despite herself.

“I don’t know your experience with threshers, Thane, but you should know that my skillset is woefully inept here.”

“No need to worry, Shepard,” Thane says, calm in the face of the thresher maw in a way that Shepard thinks should not be possible. “I am deadly enough for the both of us.”

Her jaw drops. “Is that a challenge, Krios?”

His only response is warping the thresher maw with a biotic blast before returning to his rifle, though the small half-smile gives him away. The teasing is good-natured, she knows, a ribbing borne of camaraderie, but the Cerberus parts of her take it as an excuse to come completely online. Shepard’s vision sharpens and her muscles tense, and Thane doesn’t know it, but he has just kicked her into overdrive.

Shepard has killed a thresher maw or two in the past, of course, but the Mako played a critical part in each of those ventures. Here, on foot, is a different story. Despite Grunt and Thane being in good humor, she is anxious.

Still, Grunt is a veritable tank. He is capable of taking nearly as much punishment as the Mako, if Shepard had to guess.

The arc projector strapped to her back is heavy, and generally, Shepard cares little for heavy weapons. Wrex used to tease her for it, even; she has always been much happier with a pistol than a grenade launcher. Now, though, it seems like the basis of a good (if stupid) idea.

“Grunt! How high can you throw me?” The arc projector is off her back and on the ground in front of her, omni-tool hard at work over it.

Thane turns to her, and the look on his face would be impassive on anyone else, but for him it is probably more like bewilderment. Grunt, shotgun briefly quiet as the thresher has receded into the ground, says, “Humans have no meat! Could toss you to Aralakh!”

That seems like hyperbole, but if Grunt thinks that he can do that, then Shepard’s request will be no big ask. “Bait it to you, and when it surfaces again, toss me as high as you can.”

“Shepard -” Thane starts, but the adrenaline is coursing through her now. Nothing short of two broken legs would be enough for her to turn back even as every bit of Alliance training begs her to take a step away and reevaluate. This is going to work. Her tech has never failed her before, and she is more tech now than she ever has been before.

“Oh, come on, Thane,” she says, “You know we owe our krogan son the smoothest puberty experience possible.”

This is reckless. Foolish, even. Thane is in disbelief that he is seeing this behavior from arguably the most decorated officer in the Alliance.

She bounds down from the high ground that they have secured in the direction of Grunt and the thresher maw. Grunt, for his part, does an admirable job of drawing the thresher maw’s attention; countless thermal clips are wasted as he fires straight down into the ground near him, anything to attract it as close as possible.

The timing could not be better. Thane gives cover for just a moment as Shepard closes the gap between herself and Grunt, and when she finally does, Grunt tosses her into the sky like she weighs nothing.

It is not enough.

The thresher is small for its species, but still large enough that Shepard lacks height as she readies the heavy weapon too large for a standard human to handle. She reaches the apex of her arc, and Thane drops his rifle, biotics thrumming into both hands. With all the control he can manage, no matter that this is far outside the purview of any training or experience he has ever had, Thane lifts.

Shepard, suspended in mid-air with only her shields and the blue glow of Thane’s biotics to protect her, comes face to face with the thresher maw, its mouth agape to spit acid or swallow her whole. It gets the opportunity to do neither.

Whatever she did to the arc projector appears to be effective; it crackles to life, and from where Thane stands, he can see it vibrate, unstable. It drags on for an eternity before finally it explodes in the most literal sense of the term. A beam of light impales the open-mouthed thresher maw, the back of its throat a spot that evolution never deemed necessary to protect. It screeches a ground-shattering wail, falling hard and heavy to the soil from whence it came. The ruins quake with the weight of its descent.

Grunt roars, krogan in every sense of the term, firing his shotgun wildly into the air (thankfully, he has had the good sense to move a reasonable distance from where Thane still suspends Shepard). The arc projector has well and truly been blown to pieces; Shepard drops what is left of it in her hands, and Thane releases it from his biotics. It falls harmlessly to the ground, and upon further evaluation, it seems the blast from its explosion has been mitigated by Thane’s biotics and Shepard’s personal shields, which no doubt have been upgraded by her own skill in engineering.

“Knew I liked you, Krios,” she says, grinning wildly, and what else can Thane do? He chuckles, lowering her slowly to the ground. It is his biotics, of course, that have aided the aesthetic, but -

No.

Her blood pumps violently despite the care that Thane employs in bringing her back to her feet. Grunt pounds Shepard on the back when Thane’s biotics dissipate, and despite everything Cerberus has fortified her with, his krogan strength sends her stumbling forward, but she does not lose her footing.

Thane dashes down from his high ground, certainly more graceful than Shepard was when she made the same descent. Grunt’s initial effort had been valiant, of course, but it is only because of Thane’s willingness to play along that her (admittedly stupid) plan worked. When he approaches, Shepard says, “And you told me you didn’t know how to work in a team.”

“It is not as though I had much of a choice, Shepard,” he says, the deadpan words mitigated by the soft lilt in his voice. Thane is hard to read, but it would be a lie to say that he doesn’t have a personality.

A shuttle swoops in without fanfare, and Shepard assumes it must be the shaman. Who else would arrive so soon after the completion of the Rite? But she has not pressed the keystone to signal that they have completed their trial, so -

Uvenk steps out instead, flanked by three krogan of similar size.

Shepard sighs. “Is this a joke?” she mutters under her breath.

“You live, and you brought down the thresher maw,” Uvenk says; it would not feel like a threat if he and the other krogan did not hold weapons. “That has not happened for generations. Urdnot Wrex was the last.”

“My krantt gave me strength beyond my genes.” Grunt speaks before Shepard can. “And my genes are damn good.”

They bluster in that way only krogan can. If Grunt was not insulted by Uvenk’s insinuations that he be a trophy, Shepard would have been for him, but as it stands, Grunt was more than capable of tackling the assertion.

That does not mean Shepard has not been listening, or that she is not prepared for it when Uvenk finally says, “Alive or dead, your head is still valuable.”

Grunt laughs, darkly, deeply. “Just try to take it.”

Shepard’s legs suddenly, with no warning, feel weak, like she is moving on borrowed time.

After the thresher maw, Uvenk and his squad of clanmates pose essentially no threat at all. They are still krogan, and it is a fool’s errand not to take them seriously, but they are nothing compared to what Thane, Shepard, and Grunt faced just minutes before.

He does not understand much of krogan rituals outside of what he might need to kill one, but there is nuance here that Thane thinks much of the galaxy has dismissed due to their bloodlust. When Uvenk has fallen and Shepard presses the keystone a final time, there is pride in Shepard’s face as she watches Grunt interact with the shaman.

“Shepard is my battlemaster,” Grunt says after the shaman tells him he has the right to choose another. “She has no match.”

Thane is inclined to agree. She is impressive.

The shaman chortles. “What say you, Shepard? Do you have more tales of blood and conquest?”

When Shepard smirks, it is empty in a way that it had not been previously. “Too many to count, shaman. I have time to speak to Wrex, but after that I have to get back to my ship. Time on the shuttle will have to do.”

She tells him stories that seem impossible, but Thane has heard them a hundred times from sources much less believable than Shepard herself. She killed Saren. She faced a Reaper. She saw the genocide of the Protheans, albeit secondhand.

How has one human done so much? Shepard is the first to admit that she was not alone in any of her endeavors (the beacon on Eden Prime notwithstanding), but she is still just a human. This has not happened to her over the lifespan of an asari.

The shaman is the first out of the shuttle as they return to the central hub of Tuchanka, and as they file out in line, Thane last, Shepard waits to walk in step with him.

EDI comes over the commlink. “Killing the thresher maw has produced several breeding requests for Grunt.” Grunt barks out a laugh before EDI continues. “And one for Shepard.”

A flash of teeth is the only response it garners from Shepard. Her body is tense and every step is precise, almost as though she is worried that any one might be her last. When Wrex confirms what she wants to hear (that Grunt is healthy, that Grunt is a part of Clan Urdnot), she makes for the shuttle again.

When they finally reach the docking bay on the Normandy, Grunt bounds out without a backwards glance, and the pilot is quick to evacuate the premises as well. She removed her helmet the moment they boarded the shuttle and has been silent since. Shepard moves to step out of the shuttle before Thane, not begrudging him his desire to be last out of any location, but Thane notices a shake in her step before she herself does.

“Shepard,” he says, voice steady, “Are you alright?”

She scoffs. “Of course I’m alright.”

Her statement is punctuated by a stumble so minute that Thane almost misses it, and then she collapses onto the floor of the docking bay.

Chapter Text

Thane is fast. It is rare for something to catch him so unawares that he is not able to react accordingly. This is one of those times. He is not quick enough to catch Shepard before her legs fail her, and she hits the ground with a soft, “Fuck.”

“Are you okay, Shepard?” He more or less repeats his question from before. Shepard does not deem the question worthy of an answer.

She props herself up on her elbows, grimacing; Thane can only assume that she is trying to move her legs. When Shepard is unsuccessful, she looks up to where Thane is kneeling at her side. “Is there anyone else here?”

Thane does not bother looking; his initial sweep after exiting the shuttle is enough. “No. I can fetch Tali or Garrus to help you -”

“No.” She cuts him off, bitterness dripping from her voice to match the almost-terror in her eyes, and Shepard is not quite in a panic, but it is as close as Thane has seen her yet. “I wasn’t asking because I didn’t trust you to get me help. I was asking because I didn’t want anyone to see me.”

Thane nods; that much he can understand. “What do you want me to do?”

She grimaces again. “Really sorry to ask you to do this. Can you carry me to the elevator?”

Thane blinks twice, but Shepard doesn’t break away from his gaze, her scars angry and red. Finally, he nods, and she begins removing the pieces of armor that she can from her position, attempting to lighten herself. “Make sure you don’t open your mouth,” he says.

“Pardon?” Shepard asks in a tone akin to alarm.

“Drell skin is infused with venom. I am not sure of its effect on humans specifically, but it can cause hallucinations in other species.”

“Oh,” Shepard says, skin pinkening beneath her scars. “Understood.”

Thane turns his back to Shepard, and he would probably feel more exposed by the action if she had more control of her faculties, never mind that she is plenty capable of killing him without her legs. He tenses as Shepard puts her arms around his neck; despite his invitation to do so, it is difficult to divorce the action from violence. She pulls herself up as much as she can given her current state of immobility, and Thane wraps his arms under the crooks of each of her knees.

“Shouldn’t have had that extra bun at dinner last night,” Shepard snorts.

She is not heavy, of course. The armor she was unable to shed with her limited movement is the most unwieldy part, but Thane is able to carry her without much effort.

“You don’t weigh nearly enough to tax me, Shepard. The armor is the worst of it.”

The elevator is empty, and Shepard exhales in relief, some of the tension in her body releasing.

The birth has been hard. Irikah holds Kolyat in one arm, the other reaching out for me.

For the first time in an eternity, I relax. When I touch her hand, I feel something dangerously close to peace as my muscles uncoil.

The memory is brief, bookended by Shepard awkwardly resting her head on his shoulder. The act is not intimate, but it is friendly, tender in a way that is unexpected.

“This new body - I don’t know it the way I knew the one I was born with,” she says as the elevator rises. “It has limits, but today it felt like it didn’t stop me before I reached them.”

“Is it only fatigue?” he asks.

Shepard shakes her head; he can feel her cheek move against the fabric of his coat. “No. It’s deeper.”

“Shepard.” EDI’s voice interrupts. “I have taken the liberty of asking Miranda to meet you in your cabin. She will want to know that you are having difficulty.”

“Perfect,” Shepard mumbles, more or less into his neck, and Thane laughs, softly.

“For what it’s worth, Shepard, it would be a Cerberus operative who knows what’s wrong.”

“Don’t trust Cerberus,” she says, still nestled up against him almost like a child, speaking quietly. “Not like I trust Garrus, or Tali, or Joker. Or you.”

Thane’s breath hitches, but it overlaps with the door to the elevator sliding open to Shepard’s cabin quarters. Miranda is waiting there already, hand on her hip with that almost-bored look that she wears like a uniform. A brief look of surprise flits over her face when she sees Thane, replaced almost as quickly as it appears.

“Thane.” Miranda acknowledges him with a nod. “What happened, Shepard?”

She almost sees Minnie for a moment, her features etched into Miranda’s face, but Miranda is too light-skinned, too tall, too willing to wear a pair of high heels. No, the only thing that Miranda and Minnie share is an idle expression and the first two letters of their name.

Thane eases her into the chair next to her private terminal and the photo of Kaidan that she actively avoids looking at, and she has never been more grateful. This experience has been nothing short of mortifying; Shepard is lucky that Thane was the only one present. As far as sole witnesses to the incident, she could do much worse.

This does nothing to quell the anxiety nesting deep in her stomach, the feeling that she was right all along. Cerberus put something back wrong, or worse they put something in that just didn’t belong. Some of the feeling has begun to return to her legs but she knows that she couldn’t stand if she tried.

“Shepard.” Miranda speaks again, and Shepard realizes that she did not answer her initial question. Miranda repeats herself. “What happened?”

Finally, the last piece of her is free from being wrapped around Thane, and Shepard says, “I don’t know. Something hasn’t been quite right for a while. It came to a head on Tuchanka; it was like I unlocked a part of my body I wasn’t supposed to. Like I borrowed power and now I’m paying the price.”

Neither she nor Miranda are bothered by Thane’s presence, but he must believe that the conversation requires some semblance of privacy (or maybe he just has something better to do), because he excuses himself: “If you’re alright, Shepard, I’ll take my leave. I’ll be in life support if you have need of me.”

Shepard nods. “Thank you.”

He returns the gesture. “Of course.”

“What trouble did you get into down there?” Miranda asks as soon as the door shuts behind Thane.

“Killed a thresher maw, for one. Lucky my body didn’t give out in the middle of that.”

Miranda is already shaking her head. “It’s not supposed to work like that. We were in the middle of limit testing your cybernetics when I had to wake you up, or limit testing as much as we could without you being awake. I thought we had ironed out the worst of the issues, but it appears we still had work to do.”

There is an explanation. Shepard feels simultaneously better and worse. “What do you mean?”

Miranda leans back against the aquarium. “Well, you’re an engineer, so I’m sure you’ll understand. We put processes in place to give you strength outside the bounds of ‘natural’ humanity in the first place, but Project Lazarus also added more complex emergency processes; namely, if you were in mortal danger, you would be able to do exactly what you did. You described it well yourself; you borrowed the strength, and your body is recovering from it now. While you did say you fought a thresher maw, you haven’t mentioned that you were near death at any point.”

Shepard shakes her head. “No. Not any more than usual at least.”

Miranda chews her bottom lip, a decidedly un-perfect affectation. “Fascinating. There must have been a false flag tripped, or something to that effect.”

“What do we do about it?”

Miranda sighs and runs a hand through her hair. “Now? Nothing. At least not without putting you under a knife. And I don’t know that the mission has time for you to undergo a procedure like that, even with your enhanced healing capabilities. It would probably behoove you to keep someone in your ground party that is apprised of the situation from now on.”

Once more, Shepard is reminded, if ever she forgot, that her body is not her own. I am in control, she had told herself right before touching down on Tuchanka. Maybe. Maybe not.

Thane had told Shepard that he would be in life support if she needed him and it’s more or less true, but then he remembers the pieces of her armor, scattered around the shuttle, and makes way for the docking bay. If he is quick, he will be faster to arrive than the mechanics (or Garrus) who run diagnostics after every mission just to be safe. It would not concern Thane, normally, but Shepard had shown a particular desire to not have any questions asked about the incident. The time it will take to pick up the armor and transport it somewhere inconspicuous is minimal.

The docking bay is no longer deserted, but the only person there is a Cerberus operative a fair distance away. Thane is able to collect the pieces with minimal fuss, and he thinks that Shepard will likely be thankful later. There is no mistaking the owner of this armor, not with the N7 logo branded on the chestplate and a red and white stripe running down one shoulder.

The Cerberus operative, to his credit, gives Thane a half-smile and a nod as he passes on the way back to the elevator. There is no one that interrupts the short distance between the elevator and life support, and it is easy enough to place the pieces of Shepard’s armor in a box next to the table where he meditates.

Shepard,

I retrieved your armor from the docking bay. Forgive me if it was too forward, but I thought it would cause more questions than you might be willing to answer.

Thane

He sends the message from his omni-tool with little fuss. Shepard does not respond right away, nor had he expected her to; in all likelihood, she is still with Miranda.

Thane has nearly forgotten the rifle strapped to his back; he removes it and places it back in the makeshift display he has designed in one of the walls before sitting, eyes fluttering shut.

Were Shepard not alive (and had he not witnessed the event personally), he would have called her actions on Tuchanka suicidal. She is not dead, of course, so such an assessment would now be incorrect, but it was foolhardy, to say the least. Those are not the actions of the woman that Thane has read many a report about.

Then again, Thane knows exactly what it’s like to have a body that betrays. He does not fear it, but the inevitability of Kepral’s hangs over him. The ramifications of Shepard’s Cerberus body are simply more immediate.

There is no doubt that she is a capable leader. Her instincts are without match for a human, and she is exceptional in combat for an engineer. Still, Thane knows he was not imagining fear in her eyes when she realized that she could not walk. If it did not scare her, he would perhaps be more worried.

His omni-tool chimes with a new message.

Thane,

Thanks. Miranda has forbidden me from leaving my cabin for the remainder of the evening. I’m not sure what you’ve done with my things; if they’re inconveniencing you, you’re welcome to bring them to me, or I can fetch them tomorrow morning when Miranda assures me that my legs will work again.

Shepard

Of course, he is not so lucky this time. Jacob stands in front of the door where the elevator will appear momentarily, but if he is uncomfortable, it is not Thane’s problem. The only thing that stops him from stepping up next to Jacob is the box of Shepard’s armor; she had wanted to keep her temporary condition as quiet as possible, and starting a conflict with Jacob while holding her N7 gear would be the opposite of her wishes.

Jacob doesn’t notice him, silent as Thane is. It doesn’t matter. Thane can wait another minute or two. There have been many people who did not care for his vocation (Irikah most of all); it does not make him less capable for this mission. When the doors shut behind him, Thane instead steps past the elevator and into the mess while he waits for it to return.

Shepard won’t break Miranda’s rules for the night; she won’t leave her cabin. It makes her skin crawl to sit still, but she can’t do much in this condition without significant accommodations, and if she did bust out, there’s no guarantee that EDI wouldn’t report her as a Cerberus asset gone rogue.

As if thinking of her is a summons, EDI says, “Shepard, Thane is in the elevator on his way up.”

“Thanks, EDI. Let him in when he’s here.”

When the door slides open, in one hand, Thane holds a steaming mug, and a box is under his other arm. In this briefest of moments, Shepard is treated to a momentary look of surprise that evaporates nearly instantly.

“Thank you,” she says as he places the box gently on the floor by her desk. “You didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate that you did. It makes my life much easier.”

Thane nods, both his webbed hands now wrapped around the cup. “I meant it when you signed me on, Shepard. My arm is yours.”

She snorts. “Yes, well, a piggyback ride I think is above and beyond the call of duty.”

Thane gives her a quizzical look, and Shepard shakes her head. “The way you carried me. That’s what it’s called on Earth.”

“Ah,” Thane says in a tone that Shepard that he does not necessarily understand, but the explanation at least satisfies. “I know that yours is not the kind of ailment that can be cured with a drink, but I thought I would offer this nonetheless.”

He places the mug of steaming tea next to her with grace, and Shepard smiles the kind of smile that used to get her anything she wanted back before her face was mostly scar tissue. “You are a man after my heart. Or a drell, at least.”

She takes the cup and sips carefully; the taste is muted and the drink is still hot, but it is the thought that warms her most of all. Thane stares into her aquarium, not uncomfortable at all in the silence.

Shepard closes her eyes and savors the quiet, sipping tea at a pace that can only be described as leisurely. Thane finally says, “I will not keep you, Shepard. I confess that I was… worried.”

Her eyes snap open. “I assure you, Thane, that this will not compromise the mission in any way. I won’t let it.”

Thane looks away from the aquarium. His eyes always mask a sadness, but she sees it very clearly this time. “That was never my concern, Shepard. I know what it is like to feel helpless in one’s own body. I was worried about you.”

Shepard’s fingers grip the mug tighter, but not too tight. Not so tight that she might shatter it, in this too-wrong skin.

“Anger has its uses, as long as it is yours and you do not belong to it,” her dream drell said.

Her eyes meet the photo perfectly placed to torture herself.

When she tears her gaze from Kaidan’s, Thane is staring at her so intently that she feels laid bare.

Shepard sighs, rubbing a circle in between her eyes. For some reason, the action unsettles Thane; he squints and tilts his head to the side. They look at each other for a moment before Shepard finally says, “I don’t know how much you know about what actually happened to me. Well, everyone knows what happened to me, but do you know the extent of it?”

“What I know is that Cerberus rebuilt you after you died, and that it was not a small investment.” Thane folds his hands behind his back as he speaks.

“Yeah,” Shepard says, taking a sip of tea. “That’s all correct. What is maybe not completely clear is that the rebuilding part was quite literal. According to Miranda, I was barely more than ground meat when they first put me on the operating table.” She chuckles darkly. “They weren’t quite through with testing when they reactivated me, for lack of a better term, and it appears that there’s a failsafe malfunctioning.”

“You are not a synthetic, Shepard,” Thane says, and she shrugs.

“Maybe. Maybe not. I doubt I’ll ever know.” She downs the rest of the tea and sets the mug next to her terminal. “Thank you for the tea. And for picking up my armor.” Shepard pauses and snorts. “And for carrying me up here, and for the lift down on Tuchanka. This must be what Garrus feels like when he realizes how much he owes me.”

Thane shakes his head, but Shepard sees the lines on his face soften. “Not at all, Shepard. The pleasure is mine. I should head back down for the evening.”

“Of course,” Shepard says, nodding, already turning back in her chair towards the terminal when Thane brushes her shoulder as he leans in to grab the now-empty mug from her desk. “You don’t have to take that; I can run it down to the mess tomorrow when I can walk again.”

Shepard says it simply, like the fact that her body is beyond her control is not a nightmare while she’s awake. Thane disregards her words.

“Of course. But my wife always said it was bad form to leave dishes undone when I was more than capable of cleaning them myself.”

With a head-nod that borders on a bow, Thane exits her cabin. The kindness of the gesture does not escape her, but when he is gone, Shepard is alone.

An hour passes, and Shepard won’t be able to sleep. She knows that for a fact. Still, it would probably be best to at least play at rest. She has regained minimal agency in her legs, so Shepard half-hobbles, half-drags herself to her bed. Yet again, staring through the window, darkness grips her, even as the stars wink in laughter.

At the end of everything, at night, in bed, once again, she is alone.

Chapter Text

It is lucky that she gets to sleep, especially now as her body betrays her. The moments that she dreams are even fewer and further between, but she cherishes them; they are a chance to see her dream drell, even if she speaks less than she used to, even if Shepard still does not know her name.

Still, there are plenty of ghosts that haunt Shepard’s dreams. Not all of them are even dead. Some she left behind back in basic, and some she left back on Earth.

Minnie is one of them.

There was a time, right after the Alliance plucked her out of their hovel on Earth, that she couldn’t stop thinking about Minnie. The official story is that Shepard had wanted a better life for herself, but the truth is a little more complicated. The short version is that Minnie had needed money, and Shepard took a job that wasn’t safe because of it. When she got caught jacking cars worth more than her miserable orphan life, there were only two options: life in a cell, or conscription into the Alliance. Either way, she was never going to see Minnie again.

Shepard took the route that had a little bit of freedom attached, and in a matter of moments, Minnie’s buck-toothed smile was lost to her forever. She managed to wire her the credits, at least.

There she is, though, standing right in front of Shepard, but she isn’t smiling. Minnie is in flat, bright-colored sneakers, denim shorts, and a floral top that cuts off just above her navel, her wild, curly hair barely tamed in pigtails. Looking at her, Shepard feels as though she has lived a thousand lifetimes; Minnie has been frozen in time at the age of seventeen, immortalized by Shepard’s last sight of her. Never mind that Minnie would be thirty-five now, just a year younger than Shepard.

Has it really been almost twenty years?

How old is she, really? Does she count the years on Miranda’s operating table?

Her thoughts race, but Minnie is still; she was always quiet (she joked, more than once, that her Eva had more than enough spitfire for the both of them).

The million things that Shepard wants to say are frozen in her mouth.

• “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you better.”
• “I missed you so much.”
• “I did the best that I could.”
• “Do you hate me for leaving?”

Shepard’s lips can’t move, but Minnie cries like she always used to, like she heard everything that Shepard hasn’t been able to say anyway. The part of Shepard that was Eva before (that still is, somewhere, buried beneath Cerberus circuit boards and Alliance training) aches. She reaches out, fingers so close to brushing Minnie’s skin, to wiping her tears away -

Shepard blinks, and in that briefest of moments, Minnie is replaced with her dream drell. She smiles softly, catching Shepard’s hand with her own, but she lets it rest on her cheek nonetheless. Her skin is rougher than a human’s, sturdier; they have touched in the past, but this feels somehow different.

“You would have made for a miserable drell,” she says, almost casually. Shepard doesn’t answer, and she continues. “If you were a drell, your memories would swallow you whole. You’re more sensitive than you led me to believe.”

“Minnie is special,” Shepard manages, emotions that she can’t quite place suffocating her.

“Special?” her drell asks, and Shepard would say anything to keep their tether from being severed in this moment.

“My first kiss. My first love.” Shepard’s voice doesn’t even crack. “And the first person I left behind.”

“Hm.” Her drell gazes into her eyes deeply, intensely, like there is nothing else in the universe worth her attention. Maybe there isn’t. She is dead, after all. “She is lucky to have been loved by you.”

Shepard breaks eye contact, looking down and to the left, and once more she breaches the waking plane. With a shuddering sigh of relief, she moves her legs, and they do not betray her. Already, today is beautiful; her body has recovered, and her dream drell made an appearance too substantial to be called a cameo.

If she doesn’t think about Minnie, or the weight of the mission, Shepard almost feels happy.

It is not often that Thane meets someone with pain that rivals his own, but when he sees the tenderness with which Shepard looks at the photo on her desk, he feels a kinship that he cannot deny. He’s read the reports; Thane knows exactly who is in the photo. Commander Evangeline Shepard left behind Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko on Virmire, but he did not know that they were close enough for her to keep a photo of him next to her private terminal.

That would not make it into a report, he supposes, or onto an extranet broadcast, particularly if they were as discreet as they would have to be, given the Alliance’s rather strict fraternization policies.

Shepard has lost much; she has lost a ship, (most of) a crew, a lover, a body, and these are just the pieces of Shepard that Thane knows for a fact have been consumed by her extraordinary life and death.

The sight of her rubbing circles between her eyes was a surprise. It is a mannerism that Irikah employed many times, though she used it differently than Shepard had. Generally, Irikah had done so when Thane was acting incomprehensibly to her, which was more often than he likes to admit.

Most humans do not make that gesture. Maybe Thane just hasn’t noticed it, though that does seem unlikely. He is nothing if not observant. At least the memory it sparked had been mostly unintrusive.

Unintrusive. That is something that Tali, however, for as much as Thane enjoys her company, is not. It might be annoying, if he couldn’t always tell she was coming a few moments before she opens the door.

“Thane?” she ventures, as if there was any way that he didn’t know she was in the room with him.

“Yes, Tali?”

“Do you have plans for the next few hours?”

“Are you asking me, or my biotics?” Thane asks with a smirk.

“There’s not a good answer to that question,” Tali says, his smile mirrored in her voice, “But Samara and Jack intimidate me, and Miranda and Jacob are a little too Cerberus for my mission to make sure that Cerberus aren’t out to get us.”

Thane stands, and Tali rubs one of her arms. “I guess it doesn’t reflect positively on me to tell the assassin we recruited that I’m not intimidated by him.” She pauses and Thane chuckles; there is an earnest sweetness to her that is hard to deny. Tali shrugs at his laughter. “Guess you just have this effect on all the engineers.”

Thane shakes his head, still smiling despite himself. “I doubt Engineers Donnelly and Daniels would agree.”

Tali offers him a flippant hand wave. “I’m the only engineer whose opinion matters on this ship, and Shepard comes after. You’re off to a stellar start.”

“Engineer Daniels seems pleasant enough,” Thane says mildly, and Tali sighs as they walk out of life support.

“She does, but she chose Donnelly as a friend, so I feel like there’s something dark lurking beneath the surface.”

Talking to Tali is as natural as killing. She is disarming, and, though he is repeating himself, sweet. His interpersonal experience in these last years has been quite little, but even if he had been in a position more suited to spending time with others, Thane doubts still that Tali would have had much competition for warmth.

She is the kind of person that Thane hopes Kolyat has become.

The work is the same as it was previously. Thane pries pieces of ship away so Tali can slide in between with her omni-tool, and he gives her the occasional push when she asks. Thane has been a tool for his entire life, but in a way, it is somewhat freeing to only be Tali’s manual labor. Any biotic could do this job; she only needed his proverbial muscle.

“May I ask a question, Tali?”

“I’d rather you didn’t. I only talk to you because I need someone with biotics.” Thane blinks twice, and Tali’s head pops out from the bowels of the ship that she’s buried in. “Of course you can, Thane,” she says, and she laughs before disappearing into the plates of the Normandy again.

“Forgive me,” he says, a little relieved despite himself, “I am still unused to working with others after all these years.”

“You’re doing just fine,” Tali says, and somehow her words are reassuring, never mind that whether the others on the Normandy like him is the least of his worries. “What did you want to ask?”

“Why has EDI not already divulged your work here to Miranda or another Cerberus officer?”

The hand that does not have Tali’s omni-tool attached appears from the gap where she disappeared just previously, and she points in the general direction of the air above Thane.

“I am programmed by Cerberus, Thane,” comes EDI’s voice, “But this is Commander Shepard’s mission. None of Tali’s revisions are explicitly against Cerberus protocol, and Shepard has given her blessing. There is nothing for me to report to Miranda or the Illusive Man unless circumstances change.”

“I am still a quarian, and AIs certainly still make me nervous, but if EDI is not a snitch, I will not complain.”

Thane shakes his head with the half-smile he seems to wear more often than not lately, and Tali’s hand stops pointing, fingers stretching to an open palm, searching for assistance. Thane takes it and pulls her free from the Normandy’s inside; when she is standing again, she brushes her hands off against her exosuit before forcing Thane’s arm up, giving him a high-five whether he likes it or not.

Shepard spends much of the day with Jacob; she knows him perhaps the least of all her crew, never mind that he is the first one that she met upon waking. It is strange to think that it is this normal, human man who she somehow is most distant from. There is no good reason for it, really; as soon as she plucked Mordin out of his clinic in the slums, there simply hasn’t been room for him in any of Shepard’s shore parties.

As Shepard rolls Miranda’s words about keeping someone who knows about the situation in her ground party around in her head, she thinks that there may not be room for him for some time yet, in those plans. If she is looking for a balance of combat expertise and biotic ability, Shepard cannot think of a situation where she wouldn’t want Thane in Jacob’s stead, and he knows about her programming disaster of a body, to boot.

No, it isn’t fair to Jacob, who appears to be a good soldier and a decent man by all accounts. It is just how the chips fell.

To his credit, Jacob doesn’t appear fazed by the distance that Shepard perceives. On the contrary, he seems to actually enjoy working on this prototype shotgun that Shepard has dreamt up for Grunt. Not all his time in the armory is ill-spent, apparently, and between the two of them, the hours pass quickly.

“How are you holding up, Jacob?” Shepard asks, and Jacob shakes his head as if that’s the most nonsensical question she could have asked him.

“Don’t know how to answer that, ma’am.”

“Honestly?” Shepard cracks a smile and tilts her head to the side. The gesture worked better before she died, back when her face only had the scars of a regular soldier and not these bastardized cybernetic cuts across her face, never mind that they’ve been healing steadily if slowly. They would be easier to stomach if they weren’t so mechanical, so brazen.

“Answering honestly?” Jacob looks up from their project. They are not far from the end; a few final touches and it will be ready to give to Grunt tonight. Jacob sighs as he looks at her. “It’s hard to say, Commander. It’s probably nothing, and I don’t really want to waste your time.”

Shepard rolls her eyes, but the smile never leaves her face, and she says, “I went down to Tuchanka because Grunt is going through puberty. I doubt what you have to say is going to waste my time.”

Jacob laughs, and they get back to work, but not before she hears about his father, how he was never around, and how if there’s even the slightest chance that the transmission he received yesterday was real that he would like to check it out.

Shepard nods as she picks up the fruits of their effort. The shotgun is too heavy for a normal human, and it’s almost too heavy for her; she doesn’t want to know what it would do to her if she tried to fire it. The kickback seems destructive, at best.

“Anything else I should know before you pass those coordinates along to Joker?” Shepard asks.

Jacob starts to shake his head no before he pauses. “Well, I’d want to be in the ground party.”

Shepard nods. “Of course. It would be difficult to know if your father was down there if you weren’t with me.”

“And I would prefer if Thane isn’t.”

“If Thane isn’t in the ground party?” Shepard raises an eyebrow. “I can make that happen, but I’m starting to worry that this dislike of him is going to be an issue. To my knowledge, he hasn’t actually done anything to you other than have a job you don’t care for.”

Jacob holds up both hands, a classic gesture of de-escalation despite the fact that Shepard hasn’t really gone on the offensive. “We’re all killers on this ship in one way or another, Commander. I just don’t trust him.”

Shepard blinks, briefly overcome by the memories of Thane holding her steady in front of a thresher maw, of Thane kneeling at her side as her body betrayed her, of Thane showing his back, of Thane standing in the doorway of her cabin with a cup of tea and a box filled with her armor.

The anger simmers in the back of her throat, threatening to boil over, but that is not a proportional reaction. Instead, Shepard sets her mouth in a line. Thane does not need her to go to bat for him, and Jacob is not out of line to voice a concern, no matter that Shepard knows his worries are unfounded.

“I’ve said before and I’ll say again that your concerns are noted, Jacob, and I won’t have him in the squad when we touch down on Aeia. Miranda will come with us to check out the Hugo Gernsback.”

Jacob nods. “Thanks, Shepard.”

An awkward pause hangs in the air around them, and finally Shepard says, “I’m going to take this to Grunt and then grab some dinner. Care to join me?”

“I’ve got some more work to do here, Shepard, but thanks anyway.”

When she exits the armory, Shepard exhales deeply, as calmly as she knows how, and makes for the cargo hold.

“I would give anything to eat proper food,” Tali chirps blasély as they exit the elevator and round the corner to the mess hall. “But I’m not about to take off my mask and find some restaurant that will extort me for purified turian food. The paste isn’t so bad, despite what Garrus might have you believe.”

“Generally speaking, I believe Garrus takes umbrage with the preparation of the dextro-cuisine here on the ship rather than the quality of the food itself,” Thane says, Gardner waving at him and giving Tali a genuine smile upon their approach.

Their dinner is a stew and a tube that even Thane has to admit looks unappetizing.

The mess is quiet; other than Gardner, Tali and Thane are the only ones present. “Is Gardner better at levo food?” Tali asks, once they’re out of earshot and sitting at one of the empty tables.

“It does the job. I have never been much for indulgences of the epicurean variety.”

Tali laughs. “Don’t let Shepard hear you say that. Food is like a religion to her.”

“She mentioned as much, though it was a different choice of words. I found her dish of choice a bit… overwhelming. Drell cuisine does not have the same type of spices.”

“Shepard made you food?”

Thane does not realize how casually intimate the concept sounds until Tali questions it. “It’s an exchange of sorts, though I fear I am woefully inadequate. My interest in food is solely utilitarian.”

“Hm,” Tali says pensively, but she does not seem to be at a loss for words, and Thane has never minded silence.

Grunt, on the other hand, has never heard of silence.

“Shepard. I will never forget this gift. You truly are a battlemaster without equal!” Grunt’s words alone would be enough to unnerve Gardner even without the krogan bluster. Gardner’s gaze flicks to Tali as if looking for confirmation of whether or not a dangerous situation is going to unfold in front of him.

Grunt comes barreling into the mess with the kind of shotgun that Thane has only seen in schematics with Shepard hot on his heels. “Look, Krios,” Grunt says as soon as he realizes who is sitting there, thrusting the shotgun out without giving any indication whatsoever that he is willing to part with it. “Have you ever seen a more stunning weapon?”

“Grunt, I meant it when I said that you can only use it on the ground or in the firing range. That goes for all guns but this one especially.” Shepard’s voice is firm and not quite maternal, but close enough that the eye roll Grunt responds with looks childish. It registers somewhere in his mind that Thane is relieved to see Shepard on her feet; he had never doubted Miranda’s recovery timeline, but seeing it in the flesh is different.

“No, Grunt, I have never seen a gun that fits you better,” Thane says, and Grunt laughs so loudly that it is unbelievable that there is a person on the ship that has not heard him. He moves back towards the elevator without a shred of finesse, his footsteps as heavy as Thane has ever heard a creature have.

“Hey, if you see Jacob, you need to thank him. It was a joint effort,” Shepard says to Grunt’s back.

Grunt scoffs and looks over his shoulder. “Jacob did not kill a thresher maw.” When Shepard purses her lips, he says, “I will thank him by killing something worthy with his weapon, instead,” before disappearing into the elevator, presumably making for the firing range.

Gardner exhales so loudly that he was surely holding his breath. “I say this with respect to our current company, Commander; I really don’t mind the aliens much at all, but that one makes me nervous.”

Shepard grins, all teeth, and Thane is reminded of her ANN interview, that predator’s smile. “Oh come on, Gardner, he’s a teenage krogan. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Gardner grimaces at the thought. “Here’s your dinner, Commander. I don’t want to dwell on the idea of what kind of havoc Grunt could wreak if he decided to try.”

The bowl Gardner spoons out is identical to Thane’s own, and Shepard takes the seat at Tali’s side without waiting for an invitation.

“We were having a pleasant conversation about how you are completely ruled by your desire to eat food and you had to interrupt it with a krogan carrying a gun that looks a lot like a Claymore,” Tali says, faux-sour. Shepard’s smile widens; Thane can’t imagine that it doesn’t hurt her face, as irritated and inflamed as her scars always appear to be.

“Gossip about the CO? I want all the details,” Shepard says, and there is a light in her eyes that was not there yesterday.

“Well, she’s got an attitude, her stomach is a black hole, and she made me join up with a terrorist organization to spend time with her. And she needs a haircut.”

Shepard snorts at the last part, an affectation that Thane has come to associate with her amusement. “What do you know about me needing a haircut? It was always easier to keep it short with Alliance regs. Letting it grow a little is the best part of being with Cerberus.”

“Please,” Tali says, setting her now-empty tube of food on the table in front of her. “I can keep my hair as long as I like in my suit because no one can see it, but short is much easier.”

“Quarians have no sentimentality.”

“Yes, and you’re known for being sentimental, Shepard,” Tali laughs and stands, picking up the tube and throwing it away.

Thane has never thought much of human hair. It is effectively vestigial, to Thane’s understanding; humans certainly don’t need it to keep warm. It is not something he needs to notice, but Shepard does wear her hair looser when she isn’t preparing to storm the krogan homeworld. Wisps of it frame her cheekbones in a way that would soften her face if it weren’t for the scars, even though the bun Shepard wears is the same basic style as always.

“Thane?” Shepard’s voice draws him back as he realizes he has suddenly become absent. Tali is gone, presumably to engineering.

“I apologize. Did I miss Tali leaving?”

Shepard laughs. “Yeah. Good memory?”

It was not a memory at all, somehow, but he was distracted nonetheless.

“Not an unpleasant one.”

How troubling.

“Jacob has complicated what I’m about to tell you, but I figure that putting it off helps none of us.” Shepard has switched gears; Thane recognizes her as the Commander, although it is not as though he forgot that that is who she was. “You are one of two people on the ship who knows the full extent of my…” Shepard trails off, surely searching for the word. “Condition, I suppose we can call it. Everyone with eyes knows that there’s something not quite right about me, but only you and Miranda know exactly what happened last night.”

“My discretion will not be an issue, Shepard.”

She is waving him off almost before he finishes his sentence.

“I don’t know how many times I have to repeat myself, but I do trust you, Thane. Things yesterday would have played out differently if I didn’t.”

Thane hums in response. He has no doubt that any person in the crew would have done the same as he had done for Shepard. Stranding her there was simply not an option.

He says as much. “I appreciate it, Shepard, but there is no one here who would have left you there in that condition.”

“Christ, this must be what Kaidan always felt like,” Shepard mumbles under her breath, voice somewhere between frustration and amusement. Thane tilts his head to the side, briefly curious how Kaidan Alenko might have fit into this equation, and Shepard sighs like he wasn’t supposed to hear her say that. “Doesn’t matter. I was just trying to say thanks, and that I’d like you to be in my ground squad for the foreseeable future with the exception of tomorrow because I would like to keep the number of people who know my body is… unreliable, to a minimum.”

“Ah,” Thane says, the pieces finally connecting, “Your mission is a favor to Jacob and he would prefer it were I not in the party.”

“Yes. I’ll take Miranda and Jacob tomorrow, but I’d like it to be you and Garrus from then on unless the mission requires someone else. Garrus has his suspicions about my situation already anyway.”

“Of course, Shepard. I look forward to working with you again, and Garrus seems quite competent.”

“He is,” she says, pushing her now empty bowl away from her. “But we don’t let him know that we think so, because he’s already cocky even for a turian.”

Thane chuckles. “Noted. I would be remiss not to mention that I am pleased you’re feeling better.”

“Oh, you know what they say,” Shepard says, stretching her arms above her head until her shoulder pops. Thane grimaces, and he has more than a sneaking suspicion that she has done so just to tease him. “Not even a thresher maw can keep a Cerberus abomination down.

“You were an abomination long before you died, if your body always made that ghastly sound,” Thane says, and his reward is Shepard laughing deeply. She stands, dirty dishes in hand, and takes his own empty bowl as well.

“I’m capable, Shepard,” he says, and she nods.

“I know. But I like your wife’s philosophy on dirty dishes. I can at least repay the smallest of my debts.”

A wave of domesticity and nostalgia washes over Thane that is different from his memories, not all-consuming but nonetheless potent, as Shepard walks away and does exactly as she says she will, washing the bowls and utensils and putting them away even though Thane can hear Gardner protesting as well. He knows little of human military hierarchy, but Thane is certain that it would have something to say about a ship’s commanding officer washing dishes while the cook looks on.

Nonetheless, the chore is minimal; Shepard is done within moments and wishes Gardner a goodbye just as quickly before offering Thane the same.

“Thank you again for yesterday, truly. I should probably get back to my cabin and read some of the information Jacob’s forwarded me about the Hugo Gernsback.”

“Of course. Sleep well when you come to it.”

Shepard’s smile is small, and she says, “Likewise, Thane. Good night.”

When she walks by without worrying about what he might do when her back is turned, Thane is struck by how different life on Shepard’s ship is. He has, in fact, spent all of today in the company of others.

“You would do well to spend time with someone who isn’t me or a mark, on occasion,” Irikah says, staring at me from across a table that I could use to kill in at least eight different ways, if I wished. She is disappointed in me for something that has been a necessity in my life for a very long time.

When I don’t answer, she says, “I would like it if you would try, at least. Because I’m pregnant.”

Shepard nears the elevator, if Thane had to guess by the distance of her footsteps without turning to check, and the words he speaks come from a place inside him that he does not quite understand.

“For what it’s worth, Shepard, your hair does not need to be cut.”

Shepard laughs so softly that it is almost a scoff, but it sounds like she is smiling, and though Thane does not quite understand it, he is as well.

Chapter Text

Tali squints, even if it is for no one’s benefit but her own. Garrus is lying to her about something, and he is not a good turian in many ways, but in this one respect he is an absolute model of his species. Turians lean on their honor too much to be any good at deception, and Garrus is no different. There is only one person on this ship that Garrus would lie for (especially to Tali), and Shepard will tell Tali on her own time if she wants Tali to know.

This doesn’t make her any less curious, and she says as much.

“I would very much like to know, but I’m not going to make you tell me. As long as Shepard’s safe, I don’t care.”

Garrus sighs, finally looking away from the work he’s doing in the main battery to meet Tali’s gaze; when he shrugs his shoulders, it is a human mannerism stolen wholesale from Shepard. “You and I both know that being on the ground with Shepard is just keeping her from killing herself at the best of times.”

Not for the first time, Tali regrets that she and Shepard have skillsets that are redundant, never mind that Tali is better with a shotgun while Shepard prefers an SMG. The missions that they get to run together are much fewer than Tali would like, but Garrus is right; even on the hunt to kill Saren Arterius, the greatest threat to Shepard has always been Shepard herself.

“Does she have another go-to?” Tali asks. On the SR-1, it had almost always been Garrus and Kaidan, occasionally switching Garrus for Wrex or Liara if the mission seemed like it could use more biotics.

“Weirdly enough, Thane.”

Tali laughs. “If you actually think it’s weird, you haven’t been paying attention.”

“I don’t get out of the battery much. Cerberus did good work, but it’s still not turian work. Anyway, you know I don’t have a problem with Thane.”

“Sure, I’m just saying it can’t be that much of a surprise if you think about it. You were probably a no-brainer. Shepard always counts on you. So you’ve got extensive weapons experience, but she still wants to run around with an SMG; out of everyone in the squad, that means she needs Zaeed, Jacob, Grunt, or Thane to shore that up. Shepard has a soft spot for Grunt whether she’ll admit it or not, but if she takes Grunt, or Zaeed, for that matter, you don’t have a biotic for when things get messy. That leaves Jacob and Thane.”

“How does that lead to her picking the assassin over the former Alliance soldier?” Garrus asks, humoring her for the moment.

“Well, I can’t tell you how, but I can tell you that she’s made Thane food before. So her choice is not a big shock, Garrus.”

"Wow. Food is as close to a love language as Shepard has,” Garrus says, pausing and crossing his arms. “Can’t get much further from Kaidan than him.”

Garrus’s words are light, but the specter of Kaidan Alenko hangs over all of them. He’d been the first human on the Normandy to welcome Tali to the crew except Shepard, and he’d always made a point to seek her out if he wanted to have a discussion about tech. Tali had asked him once why he didn’t just talk to Shepard instead of a random quarian they picked up by accident, and Kaidan’s eyebrows had shot up into his hairline.

“Sorry if I’ve been bothering you, Tali. I guess I was just making excuses to talk to a friend.”

And Tali hadn’t even considered it, but in that moment, they suddenly were friends. It has been more than two years since Kaidan died, and the grief has dulled, but it is still there if Tali goes searching for it.

“Sorry,” Garrus says, pulling her from her thoughts and looking remorseful. “I didn’t mean -”

“No. You’re right. Thane’s definitely not Kaidan. But if Shepard is safe and happy, that doesn’t really matter.”

Garrus laughs. “Only Shepard could find the single person in the galaxy more deadly than her and decide that they needed a sandwich.”

For once, Shepard’s rage does not feel unwarranted. Jacob is just as furious as she is, and not hiding it half as well, in her opinion. It is a nice change to not be the angriest person in the room, especially as Jacob comes to terms with Miranda being the source of the information. She is so angry that she hasn’t even bothered to change out of her armor before heading to the conference room to speak to the Illusive Man.

Shepard breathes, deeply, or as deeply as she can without drawing attention to herself.

“This is not like you,” her dream drell had said once, and Shepard repeats it like a mantra.

This is not me.

This is not me.

This is not me.

When the debrief is over, Shepard waits for the conference room to clear, and now, unburdened by the gaze of others, the red-hot wrath at the corners of her eyes bleeds into the whites of her eyes until it is all that she can see.

The elevator is not far, but she can’t be on her own right now. The thought of being alone with this fury makes the human parts of Shepard tremble like she is back on Earth again. She has no desire to talk to Miranda about this. Miranda can’t separate the reality of Shepard’s day-to-day life from Shepard as an experiment. Tali would help, but Shepard would have to explain everything, and she isn’t sure that she has the fortitude to start the story from scratch. That only leaves two options, and walking through the mess to see Garrus isn’t on the table. Gardner seeing her would be a nightmare, not to mention that there could be any number of other people between the elevator and the battery.

She doesn’t take the time to knock; Shepard storms life support only to find that Thane isn’t there.

A final dam cracks, and the flood is more than enough to drown in.

This is me.

Shepard growls, more animal than human, tearing her helmet off and throwing it as hard as she can manage into the glass. As if to punctuate just how inhuman she feels, cracks feather out from the point of impact.

Slaves, Shepard thinks, her fist pulling back to punch the same place the helmet had slammed into the window. They made all the women into sex slaves.

So consumed is she by the violence that Shepard does not even notice the hand on her arm until she meets resistance when she tries to move it forward.

“What happened?” Thane asks, his voice so cold that it sends a ripple of chills down her spine that almost tempers the wrath that has possessed her. She has not forgotten that Thane is dangerous, perhaps the most outright lethal of anyone on the new Normandy, but if ever the thought slipped to the back of her mind, Shepard remembers now.

“The Gernsback-” Shepard stutters out through gritted teeth, willing the world back to its normal colors without the red filter of rage with only a little success. “The officers on the Gernsback-” She swallows hard, fully aware that Thane’s hand is still wrapped around her wrist. “They split up the female crew and assigned them to the officers. Like cattle,” Shepard spits.

Thane’s grip loosens as her arm slackens. “Reprehensible, to be sure, but I am certain that you did the best by them that you could.”

In that moment, Thane is so much like her dream drell, convinced that she has done as much as she can, that for a second they are inextricable from one another.

“I was in love, a lifetime ago,” Shepard says, the words spilling out before she can stop them, before she can register that she is going to tell someone about Minnie. “She- I had to join the Alliance because I got caught trying to get her out of a similar situation.”

When Shepard’s arm goes limp, Thane releases her wrist and it falls to Shepard’s side. She exhales, her armor suddenly so heavy, and she steps forward before slumping forward with her back against the wall. “I’m sure you know a little. You’re too much of a professional not to have known a little about me other than that I’m the Hero of the Citadel or whatever bullshit they called me before signing on for this job, and even if you didn’t, you’d have been a fool not to check after the fact.”

Shepard pulls off one gauntlet and then another; they clatter to the floor as Thane sits at the table where he meditates. “I was good at stealing everything, but cars were my specialty. If I’d kept going the way I was before I got caught, I might have gotten as good as Kasumi. But- her name was Minnie.”

She chances a look at Thane; his eyes are unreadable but not unkind. When Shepard looks at her hands, they are shaking. “She fell in with bad people. And I promised I’d protect her, and I did; I bought her way out. But I needed too much money too fast, and I got sloppy. Took jobs that I shouldn’t have, and I got caught, eventually. But I got her out, even though I never saw her again.”

Thane makes no sound, so comfortable in a silence that would normally make Shepard chafe. She rubs a circle between her eyes with her right hand, searching for a modicum of the peace that her dream drell brings her; Shepard does not remember when she picked up the mannerism from her, but there is little she has of her drell when she is awake. Thane blinks twice quickly at the action - Shepard can see it from her peripheral vision - but he still says nothing.

“Sorry about your window,” Shepard says, and she means it. “I just… needed to hurt something. I know that’s not an excuse.”

“It is your ship, Shepard,” Thane says finally, after what feels like an eternity. “You are free to do with it as you wish.”

“Yeah, well.” Shepard sighs. “I’ll get someone here to fix it. I doubt it’ll be easy to meditate with the memory of that staring you in the face.”

“My memory is perfect,” Thane says, “Whether you fix the glass or not makes no difference to me.”

It is all Shepard can do not to cringe. Of course. There is one individual on the ship who is biologically incapable of forgetting when she has a meltdown, and she has somehow chosen him to be the one that she shares trauma with.

“There is a concept in drell philosophy. You may have heard of it, but it is not written about often off of the homeworld. Part of it is the way that drell minds have developed, but perhaps it will offer you some comfort, given your struggles with your rebirth.”

Shepard cocks an eyebrow, and Thane continues. “We see our bodies as vessels, and we accept that we are not always in control of them, nor can we be held responsible when our bodies make unconscious choices.”

“So, if I shot and killed you right now, a drell court wouldn’t convict me?” Shepard asks, acutely aware that her hands have stopped trembling.

Thane smirks; Shepard even sees a flash of teeth. “Well, first you would have to succeed. But if you somehow managed that, Shepard, you would still be found guilty. You chose to shoot me. If my reflexes acted in self-defense upon seeing you raise your gun, and I killed you, I would be innocent. Humans believe in souls, do they not? At least some of them. A soul is a spirit, responsible for moral reasoning, that lives on after the body’s death. Our belief is just a bit more literal.”

“Hm.” Shepard realizes how feral she must look, bordering on unhinged. Her helmet lays on the floor at Thane’s feet, and locks of hair that worked their way free from her bun during her tantrum hang in Shepard’s face. “I don’t know if I believe it or not, but it is a nice thought.”

“Whether you subscribe to it or not, I have no doubt that Arashu watches over you, Shepard.”

“I’ll be honest, Thane,” Shepard says, rising to her feet after collecting her gauntlets and then walking over to pick up her helmet as well, “You’re not quite what I expected when the Illusive Man said I was going to add an assassin to the crew.”

It’s a half-lie, if she can even call it that. Shepard sees glimpses of it every now and then, even when they aren’t in combat, how dangerous he is.

Thane shakes his head, seemingly amused. “You have spent too much time fighting thugs who think custom-painted armor makes them professionals. But I could say the same for you. You are not what I expected from the Hero of the Citadel, either.”

When Shepard quirks an eyebrow as she comes back up from scooping her helmet off the floor, she realizes that she is right in front of the table where Thane sits. If she leaned over too far, they would be touching. “I’m not?” she asks.

“No, Shepard. You are somehow even more extraordinary.”

Shepard snorts, despite the feeling of warmth deep in her stomach. When she returned from the mission, she was ready to kill. This feeling is much better. “I bet you say that to all the N7s.”

As Thane is wont to do whenever she thinks she has gotten the last word, he says, “Of all the N7s I’ve met, you are my favorite.”

“Oh, Krios,” Shepard says, ignoring the stirring in her core despite the joke being clear. “What am I going to do with you?”

She has never even considered being attracted to someone outside her own species before, but Thane holds her gaze with a silent charisma nothing short of mesmerism. “I have told you before, Shepard, and I will continue to do so if I must. My arm is yours.”

Her mouth goes dry, and it is all she can do to excuse herself back to her own cabin.

It had not been his intent to have such a dramatic reaction; when he heard the commotion in life support from where he had been drawing a glass of water in the kitchen, Thane hadn’t really been sure what to expect at all. He certainly hadn’t thought he would find Shepard, chest heaving, her helmet forgotten on the floor, and a crack in the glass that shouldn’t have been possible for any organic except maybe a krogan to make. A quick casing of the room, though, reveals that there is no krogan. There is only Shepard, in a body that she is clearly trying with all her considerable might to control.

She is still wearing her armor when she pulls back her arm to unleash as much force as she can into the place where the helmet presumably made contact. If there is anyone on this ship that does not need guardianship, it is Shepard, and Thane truly has no skills besides killing, but still -

“What happened?” Thane asks, voice icy enough before he even feels the shivers in Shepard’s arm.

And she tells him, and Thane knows he wasn’t wrong when he saw her on Tuchanka, suspended in the air by biotics, the arc projector in pieces around her. Shepard is a siha, and of course she is. Only one blessed by Arashu could have accomplished half as much as Shepard has in twice as much time.

He simply hadn’t wanted to believe it.

And what can one say to a warrior-angel, particularly one that is so alien and familiar all at the same time?

“You are somehow even more extraordinary,” Thane says, and it is the truth, and he does not regret saying it. She is no drell, and he has never thought much of other species except for how easiest to kill them, but Thane wonders suddenly what her hair feels like.

If he dies on this mission, it is no matter. He had thought he would die in Nos Astra at the hands of Nassana Dantius’s guards; dying to save human colonies from the Collectors is even worthier.

Until then, he will take whatever latitude Shepard gives him, in whatever capacity she sees fit.

How lucky Shepard’s Minnie was to have been so watched over by her.

When she gets back up to her cabin, the emotional whiplash has left her completely exhausted. She might even be able to sleep. As it is, there are no immediately pressing issues tomorrow as far as she can remember, so the paperwork can wait until then.

Her omni-tool chimes.

Shep,

I just wanted to say I’m tingling with excitement for our excursion tomorrow. I already gave Joker the coordinates for where we need to touch down on Bekenstein; Hock won’t know what hit him. Meet me on the observation deck tomorrow morning so I can brief you a little better? I know you haven’t forgotten. ;)

Kasumi

Shepard sighs and sits at her private terminal. Maybe the paperwork can’t wait after all.

There is no room on this mission for her to think about attraction and desire.

And this may well be a suicide mission, but she has always planned on getting as many of the crew out alive as possible. She has no intention of being interested in the only person on board who is guaranteed to die in a year or less regardless of how successful they are at once again staving off the impossible.

Chapter Text

She is not up all night, but it is close enough. The paperwork is tedious but not difficult, and her brain makes use of the time by reiterating how she is simply a glutton for punishment. It really does seem like a cosmic joke.

Shepard has never been interested in aliens - not even asari, who most of humanity have come around to accept as a fairly normal interspecies relationship. Most humans will go their whole lives and never see a drell.

And he’s going to die one way or another sooner rather than later. So there’s really no reason to pursue this line of thought, because Shepard is not going to get invested in another person only for them to slip through her fingers again. No, she is going to do her best, but in all likelihood, she is going to die on a one-way trip through the Omega-4 Relay as well. Maybe they all will, despite her best efforts. If, by some miracle, she still lives, it won’t matter in this respect. She does not have time (or the constitution) for another doomed romance.

“Shepard.”

EDI’s voice startles her awake, sprawled out as she is more or less on top of her terminal.

“EDI,” Shepard acknowledges, wiping sleep from her eyes and spit from the corner of her mouth.

“Kasumi wanted me to confirm that you are on your way to the observation deck as you did not respond to her message last night.”

Shepard groans wearily and runs a hand down her face. “Yeah, EDI. Tell her I’m showering and that I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Of course, Shepard.”

Somehow, the idea of Kasumi stuffing her into a dress and high heels is more intimidating than facing off with Harbinger. She is thankful that Kasumi has, at least, specified that no one else will be able to come along on this venture.

Occasionally, Shepard will allow herself longer showers; being Cerberus is a lot of baggage, but the private sector certainly has its perks, and one of them is a personal bathroom. Today, though, she is quick, slipping into casual clothes after towel-drying her hair to a state of damp rather than sopping wet. It is rare that she leaves the cabin without her hair already tied up, and unheard of that it is still down by the time she exits the elevator, but Kasumi had made it clear that there are going to be many aesthetic choices made today. Shepard is to simply provide a blank slate (or as blank as can be managed given the smattering of scars that she still wears).

The elevator stops and opens just in time for Shepard to see Thane on his way out of life support, rifle strapped to his back. He opens his mouth, presumably to greet Shepard, but turns as the door to the observation deck swings wide to reveal Kasumi and Tali both.

“Absolutely not -” Shepard starts, but not before they lunge forward, each taking one of her arms to pull her. “This is not a girl’s day; this is a mission -”

“Oh, Shep, it can be both!” Kasumi says with a grin that can only be described as shit-eating, and Tali nods enthusiastically. “We have two hours to make you up for a society party, Ms. Alison Gunn, and Kasumi Goto does not do things halfway.”

“How could you possibly need two hours -”

“She’s in safe hands, Thane, don’t worry,” Tali says with a giggle that is almost girlish.

“Of that I have no doubt,” Thane says, amused, and Shepard does not think that she imagines him laughing as Tali and Kasumi pull her over the threshold to the observation deck.

Human hair is strange. Thane does not entirely understand why he has come to ponder it so often as of late. Shepard’s hair is never loose, and it is certainly not usually wet. Whatever Kasumi has planned for Shepard, it is most certainly outside of her comfort zone.

For his part, he has already had an eventful morning. Why Shepard is the only person on the Normandy that knocks is beyond him, but Grunt is louder than Tali could ever even attempt to be. Thane sensed his approach before he could even step off the elevator. His invitation to the firing range is more of a surprise, but Thane has no reason to refuse.

It is not like krogan reach out often, after all, and if he hadn’t acquiesced, Thane likely would have missed the scene in the hall, Shepard’s eyes full of good-natured pleading, as if she was searching for a faux-rescue. He might have thought the desire genuine, had Tali not been one of the people pulling her towards the observation deck.

“Krios,” he had said after barreling through the door, “The AI tells me that Shepard is not able to go with me to the shooting range and you are the only other one here who has killed a thresher maw. I’ll be down there.”

Grunt is not one for talking, of course. Krogan rarely are. Thane himself usually isn’t predisposed to conversation, either; it has simply been an effect of Shepard and the Normandy. It is strange to feel alive again after all these years.

Kasumi has tools to change her appearance that Shepard has never even heard of.

“Hair is last,” Kasumi says, as Tali’s fingers wind through Shepard’s wet strands.

“It’s not often that I think about what it would be like to live without an exosuit, because it’s just a fact of life for every quarian. Still, at times like this, I do think it would be fun,” Tali says wistfully.

“For as much as the galaxy has yet to embrace quarians,” Kasumi starts as she digs through a chest of brushes and pigments that does nothing to calm Shepard, “Your skincare regimens are in high demand.”

“Yes,” Tali answers dryly, “That’s what every race wants to hear their contributions reduced to.”

“I meant no offense.” Kasumi finally comes back up for air, a palette of color, a compact of powder, a bottle of liquid, several brushes, and a sponge in hand. “I find them incredible myself.”

When Tali chuckles, Shepard’s wet hair slips through her fingers. “I understand that we’re going to have to do a little bit of work, but -”

“I’ve seen photos of you on Earth, Shep. Don’t act like you don’t know what mascara is.”

Shepard’s cheeks pinken against her own will, and Tali laughs even as Shepard manages, “Must have been a mug shot.”

“Yeah. The Alliance covered your tracks pretty well, but I’m better. You looked good, even if it was a little heavy on the eyeliner.”

“Nobody had their self-care routine perfect at eighteen,” Shepard says, and Kasumi nods sagely.

“Truer words never spoken. But come on, it’s going to be fun. We’re going to see how pretty I can make you for that assassin.”

“Pardon?” Shepard sputters, and she knows that that is the worst reaction she could have had, because Kasumi’s grin sharpens and Tali shudders behind her with barely concealed laughter. “This is a mission, Kasumi, and I am still the commanding officer of this ship.” Shepard’s voice is as stern as she can manage after being so thrown off-balance.

Kasumi at least plays at looking contrite. “Of course. If Thane just happens to see you all dressed up and not looking like a soldier, it could jeopardize everything.”

“That’s not -” Shepard stops her protest, exhales through her nose, and starts again. “There is nothing outside the professional between Thane and I.” Tali is typing away at something on her omni-tool from the seat next to Shepard, but she makes a noise that Shepard recognizes as signaling disbelief.

“Sure,” Kasumi says, sitting cross-legged in front of Shepard and dipping the thinnest of the brushes in the bottle so small it is more or less an inkwell, “I believe that. I believe it just as much as I believe Tali can keep her eyes off our XO whenever Miranda walks in the room.”

“Hey.” Tali’s tapping ceases for a moment as she speaks. “My love life is not on the table today.”

“No one’s love life is on the table today. This is for a mission, and there’s nothing more to talk about.”

Kasumi nods like she agrees and leans in, pressing the brush dipped in black against the corner of Shepard’s left eye, and Tali says, “Well, if there’s really nothing between you and Thane, at least it won’t be a problem when he comes up in a bit to help me fix a panel that’s been bothering me in the corner of the room.”

Shepard whips around. “Tali, you can’t just bother people because -”

“Oh, Shepard,” Kasumi tuts, like Shepard couldn’t feel the line of black being drawn across her face even as she turned too quickly. “Now we have to start over.”

“Don’t be so full of yourself, Shepard; it wasn’t even about you. I wrote, ‘Thane, when you’re done babysitting Grunt, could you help me with something I’m trying to fix up here on the observation deck?’ and he wrote back, almost instantly, ‘Tali, of course I will. You are the most skilled and talented engineer on the Normandy and it would be an honor to assist you in all of your efforts.’ So he should be here almost exactly when you and Kasumi are done.”

“Imagine that,” Shepard grumbles, straightening up instinctively when Kasumi slaps her cheek gently.

“Stop talking. I don’t want to do this again.”

“I hope we all die when we go through the Omega-4 Relay,” Shepard says darkly even though she is unable to keep the smile of disbelief in their behavior off of her face, and Tali laughs from deep in her stomach.

“I might kill you before then if you don’t sit still,” Kasumi says, voice sweet with a twinkle in her eyes.

“Oh, Thane just wrote me again. ‘I wish Shepard was half as funny and charming as you, Tali.’ Why would he say that? That’s so rude.”

Shepard exhales and tries not to laugh despite herself, because even though there truly is nothing between her and Thane, sitting here with Tali and Kasumi somehow makes her feel the most normal that she has in years.

Tali thinks that, before Shepard died, she was probably quite attractive for a human, although humans do put more value on hair than quarians do and Shepard has always had to keep hers quite short. The scars make it clear if ever it was not that she has lived a life of hardship that few could understand.

It is surreal to watch Shepard’s battle-hardened body slide into a dress that is probably designed for someone a little softer. Given the little that Tali knows about Miranda’s life, she thinks that Miranda should probably be less beautiful, but that is just a perk of being genetically perfect.

It is also possible that Tali is completely wrong. Maybe Miranda is completely disgusting, and it is only her quarian eyes that see something worth looking at.

She knows that’s not right as soon as the thought crosses her mind. When they’d been on Illium, all eyes had been on Miranda, asari and human alike. It’s likely a safe bet.

Tali scrolls upward through her message history with Thane. He’s awkward, and Tali never forgets that he is dangerous, but she is surprised time and time again by how personable he is. Her joke to Shepard aside, his answer to Tali’s request is not far off from what she said.

Tali,

Gladly. I am always happy to help.

Thane

A bit on the stuffy side, sure, but that’s an understandable affectation considering he has spent more time killing people than talking to them. Whether he sees through Tali’s completely transparent ruse for him to witness Shepard in a dress remains to be seen.

Thane’s smart, though. Odds aren’t in Tali’s favor, but if he wasn’t going to come up, he would have written as much, so it’s still a victory in her book.

“My name is Alison Gunn,” Shepard says, in a monotone voice that wouldn’t convince anyone, “I run a small band of mercs out in the Terminus systems and I have a reputation for getting dirty jobs done cleanly.”

Kasumi frowns. “I mean, yes, but you could do with not looking like you have food poisoning while you say it.”

“If you let me wear flat shoes -” Shepard interrupts herself to look at the door as it swings open, and Kasumi’s frown turns to a devilish smirk when Thane walks in. A flush of pink creeps up Shepard’s neck, exposed by the lower neckline of the dress, tempered just the slightest by Shepard’s darker skin. Kasumi’s grin widens as Shepard clears her throat. “If you let me wear flat shoes, I might have an easier time.”

“Absolutely not. Hock’s new money just like everyone else on Bekenstein. There is a very specific kind of dangerous and trashy he likes to deal with, and Alison Gunn is just that.”

It’s difficult to tell because drell eyes are so dark, but it seems like Thane’s eyes linger on Shepard a moment or two too long, and if Tali noticed it, Kasumi certainly did, too.

“Hey, Thane. It’s just this panel,” Tali says finally, jumping off the couch where she’d been sitting near Shepard and Kasumi.

“Of course.”

Thane pushes up the offending panel in moments with the slightest glow of blue, and Tali knows that she has been found out as soon as Thane says, “I believe that your drone could have taken care of that job for you.”

“Well, yes,” Tali says, as smoothly as she can manage, “But I don’t have enough excuses to spend time with dashing alien biotics on the flotilla. I have to make do while I can.”

Thane laughs. Tali smiles even though he can’t see it. And then he puts one hand on her shoulder and squeezes gently before removing it again, and before Tali can even parse why, there are tears in her eyes.

The emotion is fleeting, and Tali blinks rapidly.

“Was there anything else?” Thane asks, bemused, and Tali shakes her head.

“Well,” Kasumi says from across the room, almost defeated, “With any luck, they’ll just believe you’re a merc who’s uncomfortable at a party. If I don’t get Kenji’s graybox because you would rather spend your evenings shooting up geth than having a glass of wine, I’ll never forgive you.”

“I told you I’m no infiltrator. You’d be better off sending Thane in there,” Shepard says, thumb over her shoulder.

“Ah,” Thane says, suave as ever even as he makes for the door after making Tali wonder why she misses her father so much. “What’s the human phrase? You’ll make a much better belle of the ball than I.”

He doesn’t miss a beat, walking out into the hallway without looking back. Kasumi bites her lower lip and her eyebrows shoot into her hairline, giddy.

“Well, Shepard,” Tali starts smugly, “Good thing you two are professionals, or else we might have to misinterpret that.”

“For fuck’s sake.” Shepard pushes Kasumi out of the room towards the elevator. “You would do well to remember that I can have you sent back to the Fleet in a heartbeat.”

“Oh, but you won’t,” Tali says, settling back in on the sofa.

Shepard, despite everything, chuckles. “No. I won’t.”

“Have fun on your mission.”

“I always do.”

And Shepard smiles, and waves goodbye before disappearing towards her next firefight.

It’s easy, in these times, to forget that Shepard’s first name isn’t Commander. Moments like this can’t be treasured enough.

Her omni-tool chimes with a new message.

Tali,

I’ve never met a quarian so at ease with teasing her superior officer.

Thane

Tali laughs.

Chapter Text

Were it not for the shoes, Shepard thinks she could run a million missions with Kasumi. Despite her general attitude, she is nothing if not a consummate professional; Kasumi is efficient and precise and quick, and shooting up Donovan Hock’s gunship is catharsis. There is no guilt tied up in it, no greater fear, no looming cloud of anxiety hanging over Shepard’s head. Well, maybe a little.

How many lovers have been lost to them?

• Kenji
• Kaidan
• Zaeed mentioned someone once. The wrinkles on his face had softened.
• Thane’s nameless wife

It hadn’t been the case on the SR-1 an eternity ago. They might as well have been children then.

Hopefully letting Kasumi keep the graybox isn’t a mistake.

Shepard does not have long to ponder the decision. She has barely had a chance to remove her armor before Joker comes over the intercom to say that the Illusive Man needs to speak with her. Urgently. The last time he’d had an urgent message they had headed straight off to Horizon.

“Any intel before I go in?” she asks Joker’s disembodied voice.

“Nah. Ask how much he’s spent this week on cigarettes if you think about it.”

Why she thought Joker would be any help is beyond her, and the high of shooting up sleazy security on Bekenstein dries up almost instantaneously. Shepard’s not naive. The Illusive Man only demands a meeting if something serious is about to happen.

Still, she is not ready when he says that there is a Collector ship that they are going to board. By the time the lights come back up in the conference room, Joker is already speaking. “You want me to set a course for the Korlus system?”

“Yeah,” Shepard says. She doesn’t mean to let the fatigue creep into her voice, but she must, because Joker sounds almost sympathetic when he answers.

“No rest for the wicked, Commander. Give me seven hours and I’ll have you on a Collector ship.”

Shepard exhales a laugh. “It’s a date.”

“Not unless you buy me dinner.”

Shepard snorts. “EDI? Can you have Garrus and Thane meet me here?”

“Yes, Shepard.” EDI goes quiet for a moment. “Garrus is on his way from the bridge and Thane is coming from life support. They should arrive shortly.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course, Shepard.”

She decompresses. Her still-loose hair clings to her forehead, sweat beading on her brow; there hadn’t been time to pull her hair up in the tidy bun that she usually wears, and the sloppy stopgap had fallen out shortly after changing out of her armor.

How cruel is it that she is so tired but she is certain that the sleep she will be able to claim in the next seven hours will be minimal?

Garrus and Thane cross the threshold into the conference room one after another.

“I was beginning to think wanting me in your ground party was a lie,” Garrus says dryly before looking Shepard up and down in a way that might make her feel exposed if it was anyone else. “You look like shit.”

Shepard purses her lips. “No one on this ship respects me.”

“I respect you too much to lie,” Garrus snarks, and Shepard rolls her eyes with a slight smile much like the one Thane is wearing. He’s right, she knows; Kasumi’s makeup was impressive, but it was not designed to be in the pressure cooker that Shepard’s armor always turns into in a firefight, climate regulating processes be damned. The eyeliner and mascara have almost certainly given her two black eyes.

“I’ve still had sex with more people than you.” Shepard grins, all teeth, and Garrus lets out a faux-offended trill that relieves a modicum of the anxiety gripping her chest. “Anyway. The Illusive Man found a disabled Collector ship. We’re supposed to get on board and get EDI connected so she can dig up as much information as possible.”

“Any further parameters?” Thane asks, and Shepard shakes her head.

“Not really. Much like everything else I’ve ever gotten my crew into, we don’t have much idea of what we’ll be getting into. The most I got was that a turian patrol supposedly disabled it and that the Illusive Man is delaying transmissions to the Hierarchy until we can get in and out.”

“Well, normally I’d say I was obligated to send a message to someone,” Garrus says, “But for Cerberus I’ll make an exception.”

“Any other questions?” Shepard asks, gaze swinging between them.

“No, Shepard,” Thane says, and Garrus shakes his head.

“Okay. Joker says we’ll be there in about seven hours. Try to get some rest. I’ve got no idea what we’re going to find there.”

Garrus gives her a salute that is more or less a mockery of the Alliance standard and walks back out into the CIC, presumably on his way to the elevator and back down to the main battery. Thane lingers, his propensity towards being the last to leave a room winning out once more.

“You look tired, Shepard,” he says.

Shepard scratches her cheek. “Yeah. There’s an old human saying, a horrible one - I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

Thane hums noncommittally. “A cruel idea.”

“Agreed.” As if to punctuate her one word sentence, Shepard’s stomach growls loudly, unhindered by the few layers of casual clothing she’s wearing. Her cheeks color just the slightest, and she says, “I’m going to eat something and then try to sleep if I can figure out how.”

“I have not eaten either, if you don’t mind the company.”

“Not at all.” Shepard rubs her palm at the corner of one eye, and sighs at the black mark that appears on her hand. She was going to take dinner in her cabin, but she is not about to turn down the offer.

Shepard leans up against the wall of the elevator, eyes closed, and she looks peaceful enough that Thane might venture that she was asleep if he didn’t know better. She’s in quite a state; he doesn’t know if he would go quite as far as Garrus had, but the black lines and colors that had suited her on the observation deck are little more than a mockery of their former selves now. Thane is not particularly well-versed in what traits a human would hold in highest regard, but it seemed to him that Kasumi was skilled at what she was doing.

Now, though, the black is smudges around her eyes, the sweat having sent a rivulet or two down her cheeks. It does not seem so pronounced against her skin until Shepard stretches and comes alive again, contrasting with the whites of her eyes.

She was hypnotic in the dress, a civilian without a care in the world, no doubt made up to the height of beauty as far as Kasumi could manage. Still, Thane thinks that he prefers this Shepard. It is -

“You got any clue what Gardner’s thrown together?” she asks, reaching for the ceiling of the elevator to stretch.

“Shepard,” I nod. “I apologize. Did I disturb you?”

“Technically, yes,” Shepard says, rubbing one eye, “But only because I dozed off in the mess. What time is it?”

“Not late enough for you to make a sandwich,” I say, and Shepard looks at me, confused, before smiling.

“Look at that. You can make a joke. Jacob owes me ten credits.” She leans back and stretches her arms over her head, leaving her too-soft human stomach exposed, covered only by the flimsy crewman’s uniform that she wears when not fully dressed in armor. It’s a gesture of trust if ever I have seen one.

“No,” he says, once the memory has run its course. “Presumably it is a suitable number of calories.”

“You’re killing me, Krios.”

Yes, he prefers this Shepard. She seems more like herself this way.

“If I was, you would never know,” Thane says, a ghost of a smirk on his lips as the elevator door opens.

Shepard snorts. “Yeah. From anybody else that would seem self-righteous, but I buy it from you.”

Miranda usually takes her meals alone, and she seems surprised when Shepard and Thane sit near her with the dinner Gardner has made, a cut of meat he doesn’t recognize. When she recovers, Miranda asks, “How are you feeling, Shepard?”

They are far enough out of earshot of any other personnel that no one else would hear them, and Shepard says, “This body hasn’t given up on me yet.”

“It won’t give up on you. I made sure of that.”

“That’s what you say, but Thane had to carry me to my cabin a few nights ago because my legs were shot.” Shepard puts her fork down to gesture to Thane, and Miranda shakes her head.

“I wasn’t sure how much you’d filled him in. Very well. As long as you don’t try to do anything that you weren’t able to do before we rebuilt you, you should be in the clear.”

“Yeah, I’m not famous for doing things outside the very bounds of humanity,” Shepard says dryly.

Miranda smiles just the slightest, a crack in the Cerberus facade. “Well, for anyone else, that wouldn’t be such a tall order.”

“If I was anyone else, you wouldn’t have rebuilt me at all.”

“True enough,” Miranda says, wiping at the corner of her mouth with a napkin. “In any event, it was only a warning. It’s your choice whether you heed it or not.”

Miranda crosses her legs and leans back into her chair, and Shepard looks into her dinner like she is trying to think of what to say.

“I think we can agree that while it is preferable to be able to walk, it is even more preferable for you to be alive, Shepard.” When Thane speaks, her head whips to look at him, almost if she had forgotten that he was there at all.

Miranda stands, heels clicking on the floor as she does so. “Well, at least I know that one person boarding the Collector ship has his head on straight.”

“Yeah,” Shepard takes a bite. “Only thing I can ever think about is crime and there’s no room for a brain in Garrus’s head with all the space those calibrations take up.”

“I didn’t say-” Miranda starts.

“Miranda. I was joking. Thanks for letting me know.” Shepard’s tone seems genuine, and it appears to throw Miranda a little off-kilter.

“Of- Of course, Shepard. I’m going to head back to my office and get a couple of things done before my sleep cycle. Tali sent me some schematics of a modified omni-tool that she’s working on for you. If it’s something you’re interested in, we should have a working prototype in a few days.”

“Oh, she did? I look forward to it.”

Miranda nods and excuses herself, and Thane can sense some double meaning in Shepard’s words but he can’t quite figure out what it is.

“Do you suspect something will be wrong with the omni-tool?” he asks as Shepard finishes off the last few pieces of her dinner.

“Not at all,” she says, pushing the empty plate away from her. “I actually think it will be a technological marvel. I also think that Tali might have wanted to do something nice for me, but that it is altogether more likely that she was looking for an excuse to spend time with Miranda.”

“That seems a stretch.”

“Does it? Tali asked if you would come help her fix a panel on the observation deck as a ruse to get you up there to embarrass me.”

Thane pushes his own plate to the side and leans forward, folding his hands under his chin. “Why would she think it would embarrass you? My understanding was that you looked quite attractive for a human woman.”

Shepard blinks twice, and her lips part like he has taken her off guard. Surely it does not surprise her that other humans would find her attractive? “I don’t actually know what to say. It’s rare that I think about things like that - what I look like, that is. It is far from the most pressing issue at even the most relaxed of times.”

Her eyes drift up and to the right, a brown too dark to be called umber. Wistfully, like she is lost in a memory somewhere, Shepard asks, “What’s attractive in a drell?”

“In a drell?” It is Thane’s turn to be thrown off-balance.

“Yeah. I already know what’s good and bad for a human. I don’t need you to tell me that most humans would find my scars repulsive,” she says with a wink that is too good-natured for the words that she has just spoken.

Sunset eyes. Defiant in the scope.

“Eyes,” Thane manages, once Irikah’s face fades from his immediate thoughts. “To humans, drell eyes look quite similar, I believe; our range of color comprehension is more sophisticated, and a drell with striking eyes is often considered quite attractive. Other than that, the most obvious answer is the frill. On female drell, the more pronounced and colorful a frill is, the more attractive.”

“Hm,” Shepard says, apparently mulling over his words with a reverence that Thane is not sure his words deserve. “I have a friend who’s a drell, and I’ve always found her stunning. I was never sure if that was just because I was a human, but it seems our standards aren’t quite so different, if you replace the frill for hair.”

The friend must be the same as the one who encouraged her tattoo, the yelket on her arm, as though every moment looking at her wasn’t enough to emphasize to Thane that Shepard is a siha even without such a glaring reminder.

“You look different when your hair isn’t pulled back,” Thane says, feeling as though he is on dangerous ground.

“Yeah,” Shepard says, threading her hair through her fingers. “My hair has been on quite the adventure today. It doesn’t usually get to be loose for so long at a time, though you were afforded the privilege of what it looks like fresh out of the shower.”

Again, he wonders - is it soft?

“The privilege is knowing you, Shepard, no matter the state of your hair.”

Shepard’s smile is genuine, but she doesn’t answer in words. Thane stands, starting to collect their dirty dishes, and finally she says, “I can get them.”

“Are we going to do this every time, Shepard, or can we just agree to take turns?” When Thane speaks, Shepard’s smile spreads to his own face, and she holds her hands up in surrender. They fall back to the table gently, and he brushes her fingers with his own just briefly as he lifts her plate.

“If you want to have dinner with me again, you can just say so, Krios,” Shepard, a laugh in her voice, says to his back as he turns towards the kitchen. Thane pauses, considering his response, reflecting on how coming out of this battle sleep has felt, and whether or not he is willing to put himself in such a vulnerable position again.

“I will take every moment with you that you will allow me, Shepard,” he says, not looking back to gauge her response.

She wishes him a good night, because Shepard is many things, but leaving him out to dry when he has said something almost saccharinely sweet is not her style. The flirting and teasing is fun, and there is no reason to deny it; she is certainly not unattracted to him, but the variables she has ruminated on haven’t changed. Thane always takes it one step further than she would; there is an intensity to him that is difficult to parse, but it is nothing if not magnetic.

When Shepard looks in the mirror when she finally returns to her cabin, she winces. Garrus had been right. It is almost embarrassing that she has had conversations with so many people, eyes ringed black like a raccoon. She washes her face as best as she can manage and walks out of the bathroom to stare at the bed.

There is no denying that the bed is comfortable, but she can’t relax under the stars.

Shepard curls up on the couch, instead. And she sleeps.

Somewhere, deep in her subconscious, there is a voice that sounds exactly like her own.

I think Kaidan would have liked him.

It is nice to be reminded that there is still something so human in her, even if tomorrow they board a Collector ship.

Chapter Text

The smell. Shepard has never experienced anything worse. Any hope that she had of the colonists from Horizon (the colonists from anywhere) still being alive is extinguished the moment that she sets foot on the Collector ship. Every soldier knows this smell.

Decay.

Garrus hangs his head in grief for what all three of them surely know is coming, and Thane says, “Shepard,” with concern in his voice. She has not noticed that her breathing is coming in ragged breaths until just then. The anger threatens an entrance, but Shepard swallows hard, burying it as deeply as she can manage; a cool head is an asset, and an unbridled temper is a liability.

Still, she knows what they’ll find here. There is the slightest ember of hope buried beneath the despair that only a mass grave can inspire, but it is small and fading fast.

“I’ve never seen a ship like this,” Thane says, finally, after what feels like an eternity has passed.

Shepard’s mouth is so dry that she is having trouble formulating words to answer. Garrus fields it instead. “Looks like a giant hive. Rachni?”

“If it’s rachni, the queen and I are going to have words. But I doubt it.” Shepard’s voice finally returns, and she takes a few steps forward, more cautious than perhaps necessary. Even putting the smell aside, the ship is completely abnormal. The size alone is staggering; Joker had said as much upon their approach, but being inside is somehow more intimidating.

“It doesn’t even seem like a ship.” Garrus’s voice is swallowed by the cavern they are advancing into. Shepard nods in agreement before calling up her omni-tool, deploying her combat drone just in case.

“Well, let’s see what the Collectors have in store for us.”

They walk forward in silence. It takes a lot to rattle Shepard nowadays, but this is making a damned good case for her being nervous. The walls and floor (ground? The ship feels too expansive for it to be floor.) are a mixture of what appears to be tech and organic material, and it doesn’t squish under their feet, but she doesn’t like to think about how it would feel if she wasn’t wearing boots.

“Shepard.”

“Go, EDI.”

“I have compared the ship’s EM signature to known Collector profiles. It is the vessel you encountered on Horizon.”

“Hm. Maybe the defense towers softened it for the turians.”

“Maybe.” Garrus’s voice is thoughtful. “Turians are tough bastards, Shepard, but a ship like this?”

He has vocalized exactly what she was thinking, and Thane takes it one step further. “It’s also strange that we haven’t seen anyone, Collector or otherwise.”

No one has mentioned that perhaps the colonists are alive. Doing so feels like inviting misfortune, with the smell of decomposition pressing in on them from every direction. It only takes rounding one corner to find -

“Those bodies,” Garrus says, and he is still ready for a fight should it come, but his rifle has fallen to his side. “They’re human.”

The stench is overwhelming. Shepard doesn’t have a weak stomach, but the pile of corpses in front of her makes her nauseous no less.

“These poor souls.” Thane reaches up to the side of his face, presumably muting his end of the commlink. Shepard can see his mouth move; she has no doubt it is a prayer.

“Why would the Collectors leave a pile of bodies like this?” Garrus asks, his subvocals thrumming with something Shepard can’t identify, though if she had to guess she would probably pin it as indignation. When she walks closer, Garrus holds up a talon as if to warn or stop her, but she steps past it.

There is a woman’s hand hanging limply out of the mass of bodies. Her skin is light brown and her fingernails are painted a yellow so bright that they look like the sun as Shepard looks out the windshield of a skycar she’d just jacked from some asshole in a rival gang that she can’t remember the name of. Shepard squats down, all her weight on the balls of her feet in case she needs to rise again quickly, and takes the hand in her gauntlet.

“Shepard,” Garrus says, voice somewhere between sympathy and disgust, but Shepard doesn’t pay him any mind. When she turns the lifeless hand over, she can tell that, despite the decomposition, the palm of the woman’s hand is soft. They’d known that these were colonists from somewhere, likely Horizon, but holding the proof is different from knowing in her head. This is a pile of dead civilians, decaying before their eyes. Shepard puts the hand as she found it; she can feel Thane and Garrus’s eyes on her back.

“Test subjects,” Thane says, his commlink fully reactivated. “Discarded at the end of the experiment.”

Shepard’s hand is quivering, a seemingly futile deep breathing exercise the only barrier between her and letting loose like a feral animal.

“Well,” Shepard says, through gritted teeth, “They’re dead. There’s nothing we can do.”

Thane’s gaze drifts from the rotting pile of human flesh (Shepard can’t stop looking at it despite her words) to the pod nearby. “The Collectors used these on Horizon.” He pauses, something like sorrow in his voice, and says, “It must have been horrible.”

Yes, it must have been.

She is so thankful that she is not a drell. This is not a sight that Shepard will ever forget, but at least she does not have an eidetic memory; hopefully, with time, at least some of the details will fade.

Shepard has seen hundreds, maybe even thousands, of dead soldiers, but there is a difference between waking up knowing that a firefight is on the agenda and thinking that the worst thing that is going to happen today is that the dishes need washed. Civilians laid in these pods, paralyzed, with nothing to pray for but a hopefully swift death.

Shepard stands, her drone flitting about her nervously. “Let’s go.”

They round another bend, and the lack of small talk is eerie, but the gravity of the mission has struck each of them silent. Shepard is thankful that she has brought a drell and a turian with her; Thane and Garrus are far from heartless, but they do not have the personal connection that Shepard herself is grappling with.

At least she isn’t losing to it yet.

They don’t get to walk long.

Garrus spots it first. “That’s a Collector. Were they experimenting on one of their own?”

His question is rhetorical, or if it isn’t, Shepard wouldn’t know the answer anyway. She steps up to the terminal near the dead Collector, omni-tool at the ready, flanked on her other side by another human body. “EDI, I’m uploading the data for this terminal. Let me know what you find.”

“Yes, Shepard.”

“Are you alright?” Thane’s voice makes Shepard turn sharply, ready to reprimand him for asking; she has no desire to be questioned in front of Garrus, or on a channel where EDI and Joker and anyone else in the cockpit can hear, but Thane has switched to a private channel.

“For the moment, yes. I’m… very angry. I would have been anyway.”

“Of course.”

When EDI speaks, Shepard returns to the party commlink.

“The Collectors were running baseline genetic comparisons between their species and humanity.”

Shepard’s eyebrows raise in alarm, remembering what Mordin had said on Tuchanka so long ago about humans making for ideal test subjects. “Why?”

“I do not have a hypothesis on their motivations, but their preliminary results reveal something.... remarkable.” EDI sounds almost breathless. “The Collectors have a quad-strand genetic structure. The only race known to have this structure are the Protheans.”

“The Collectors are… Protheans?” Shepard’s voice is so small compared to the magnitude of the ship.

“No, Shepard. Not anymore. The Reapers have genetically rewrote and repurposed them for their needs.”

Shepard takes a long look at the dead Collector and says, “They’re not doing that shit to us. Let’s go.”

Every step they take reveals more pods; they litter the ceiling, the floor, the walls. Some are open and empty, and others are closed and presumably hold the corpse of a human colonist. They still have not seen a single living being other than each other.

Joker comes on the line. “Commander, I had EDI run an analysis on the ship itself. You’re not gonna believe this.” There is no sarcasm in his voice for once, and Shepard knows that only something outright shocking could slap the attitude out of Joker.

“I compared the EM profile against data contained in the original Normandy black box from two years ago. Shepard, they are an exact match.”

“The same ship?” Shepard can’t keep the surprise from her words.

“Something doesn’t add up, Commander,” Joker says, and Shepard couldn’t agree more. “Watch your back.”

The cavern widens abruptly as if to punctuate Joker’s warning, like they have been walking through an arm of the ship and now Garrus, Thane, and Shepard have stepped into its heart. The colors shift from brown to an orangish-yellow, and Shepard staggers backward at the sight. It is almost as big as the Citadel, the perimeter dotted with too many containers to count.

Garrus, awestruck, says, “This is unbelievable. They could take every human in the Terminus systems and not have enough to fill these pods.”

Thane comes to the same conclusion that Shepard does in what seems to be the exact same moment. “They’re going to target Earth.”

Shepard’s blood runs cold.

If Thane had to guess, the only thing holding Shepard’s rage in check is military training and sheer willpower. There are a hundred telltale signs that her fury is on the cusp of overtaking her, and in this instance, Thane believes it would actually be justified, if counterproductive. He sees it in her quivering fingers, her halting speech, the way her head turns side-to-side as if on a hinge.

Of course, they all knew it was too good to be true. The fact that they had not yet seen a live Collector was never going to last. Garrus looks almost nervously back and forth.

“Shepard,” EDI says, a trace of something that could be construed as worry in her voice, “This was not a malfunction. This is a trap.”

“EDI, get us out of here,” Shepard says, readying her SMG.

Thane, from the periphery of his left eye, sees movement. “We’ve got company.”

Garrus has already set up, and Thane is thankful for another sniper, because it means he gets to do what he does best. When he drops into melee range, Shepard says, “If one of them starts glowing, get out of reach, Thane. I mean it. Harbinger doesn’t fuck around and he can possess any of the Collectors that he wants.”

“Understood.”

When a clean shot from Garrus punches through the biotic barrier of the drone nearest Thane, he swings around to neatly snap its neck. They may be kidnapping entire human colonies, but a single Collector dies just like any other organic would.

A violent release has unlocked the tension that Shepard had carried with her every step, and with an outlet for the fury that she so worries might overtake her, she seems more like herself. Engineers are criminally underrated in battle, though Shepard is in a league of her own; her drone alone is sturdy and irritating for any Collector unlucky enough to find itself with its attention. It is almost like having a fourth (very small) person in the squad. Shepard pops heat sinks with reckless abandon, and though Thane has had his doubts about being able to fit back into a team, it would be a lie to say that they are not working well together. There is too little room for much strategy, but the pace of the battle is frenetic, they down one enemy, then the next, then the next, until the Collectors are no more.

“EDI?” Shepard asks, breathless, as the platforms stop coming and no new Collectors appear.

“You must manually reestablish my link to the console, Shepard.”

When Shepard exhales, Garrus asks, “Everything good, Shepard?”

She steps up to the console. “I’d be better if you guys stopped asking me if I’m okay. Bullets in a Collector are the best therapy I could ask for, after all.”

Garrus’s eyes meet Thane, and they share a knowing look as Shepard speaks to EDI. The first part is an ideal scenario; she has discovered something that will help them get through the Omega-4 Relay.

And then, in a revelation that is not surprising at all, EDI tells them that there is no doubt that the Illusive Man knew that he was sending them into a trap.

Shepard’s back is ramrod straight, and she puts both hands behind her head, looking up at the ceiling, at the hundred of thousands (millions) of pods that litter the ship around them. She huffs out a laugh that sounds more than a little manic, and says, “That son of a bitch sent us right into Collector hands.”

“Cerberus is not known for keeping faith,” Thane says.

Garrus, agreeing, says, “Yeah. And I thought I’d met my quota on betrayal and attempted murder this year.”

“Uh, Commander?” Joker’s voice is unsure but nervous. “The Collector ship is coming back online. You need to get out of there before they get their weapons back up and running. I’m not losing another Normandy.”

“Copy that.” Shepard turns on her heel as EDI moves the platform back to where it started. “Get ready to run.”

When Shepard tells them to run, she means it. If they haven’t been keeping up on cardio, they’ll be in for a hell of a tongue-lashing when they get back to the Normandy, because she is not going to die again, certainly not here with all the civilians from Horizon and who knows where else.

EDI navigates, and Shepard has never had a problem with EDI, but she has also never been so grateful for her as she is today. “Take a right around the corner.”

They keep a pace that is not quite a sprint, one that does not suit any of their fighting styles except for maybe Shepard’s drones. Garrus can hardly set up to snipe and Thane doesn’t have time to get as personal as he would like. Shepard’s SMG gets the most use, though Thane and Garrus are hardly slouches with assault rifles.

They rip through drones, assassins, and guardians as well as the occasional Harbinger puppet, and Shepard, in all her hubris, dares to think that maybe they will actually make it out of here unscathed.

They continue down a long hallway that feels narrow after their experience on the platforms. A group of husks approaches with jarring, haphazard strides, and a well-timed throw from Thane sends the one in the front barrelling through all the ones behind.

“Gotta take you bowling,” Shepard says, despite everything.

“Bowling?” Thane asks, and Shepard laughs, and it feels good to laugh in the face of danger, almost like she is her old self again.

“I don’t know what bowling is, but keep up that performance and I won’t be able to contain myself either,” Garrus says, and Shepard knows he feels the same. Adrenaline works the same for everyone, human or not.

Thane says, “I prefer my partners softer than the average turian,” with a smile in his voice, and Shepard snorts.

“I’m heartbroken, but at least Shepard still has a shot.”

“Vakarian,” Shepard says, a warning in her voice but a smirk on her face that melts away when they come into a wide room with two exits, both closed. “EDI, we need some help.”

“Rerouting commands. I will open the door on the far side of the room-”

EDI might continue talking, but Shepard can’t hear it. The ground quakes as a praetorian comes into view, taking flight before their eyes.

She is thankful they briefed Thane on what they saw on Horizon. Garrus says, “These things love you, don’t they, Shepard?”

“You know me,” she starts, “The most dangerous thing in the room always wants my ass.” The praetorian advancing, Shepard asks, “EDI, you got an ETA?”

“I will have the door open in 47 seconds, Shepard. Their firewalls are resisting.”

Shepard curses, and sends her drone to the left side of the room. “Hug the right. We’re getting through that door and out of here as soon as it opens even a crack. Don’t bother fighting it unless your plan is just to distract it."

The drone darts back and forth as deftly as it can manage, and when it powers down from its efforts combined with the fire sustained from the praetorian, Shepard winces. “EDI?”

“I am close, Shepard - 24 seconds.”

It will take them nearly that long to cross the room. “How confident are you that the door will be open in 24 seconds EDI?”

“I am certain the door will be open in 22 seconds.”

“Run.”

Thane and Garrus don’t hesitate at the command, and they sprint, as fast as they can, for the door that EDI has promised will open. And it does.

The praetorian’s particle beam hums menacingly at their backs as they run, getting too close for comfort as they close the gap. Thane turns to warp, and his gambit works; the praetorian stumbles at the first sign of resistance they have attempted, but he is now one step behind.

EDI closes the door behind them, much too slow for Shepard’s liking, and the particle beam clips Thane’s upper thigh as he slips through.

He doesn’t collapse, but he leans against the door EDI has just closed, breathing harder than he would be from just the sprint. Shepard is at his side in a moment, medi-gel ready, beginning the application to the place his clothes have been singed away.

“Shepard, we don’t have time-”

“The better you can run, the better time we’ll make. I know you’ve got a death wish, but I’m not just going to leave you behind to get to the Normandy faster.”

The application is seamless, and Thane will still need attention from Dr. Chakwas to check for tissue damage, but at least this way she won’t have to carry him there herself.

“We’ve got to go,” Garrus says; he’s been covering them for the moment, sniping any Collector that acts like it wants to get close. Their pace is slower now as they take off again, but it can’t be helped.

Luckily, it seems like they are through the worst of the resistance, though a guardian does get a little close for comfort as they approach where they came in with the shuttle. At least there isn’t a Cerberus pilot down there waiting for them; one of the perks of bringing Garrus along is that he can pilot just about anything if he puts his mind to it.

“That’s where we came in, isn’t it?” Thane asks, looking down a steep drop.

“Yes. Do you think you can lift us down there?” Shepard asks. “It will be much quicker than going the long way around and hopefully we’ll bypass any Collectors left.”

“Yes, Shepard. But if I do, I won’t have anything left.”

“Understood. We’re almost out of here. Do it.”

Thane nods and lifts Shepard down first and Garrus right after. When he jumps down, Shepard thinks he is just going to take the full impact of the fall on his injured leg, but a blue glow surrounds him at the last moment. He grimaces then, and he wasn’t lying; Thane looks like he’s out of juice, as Kaidan used to say.

“Commander, double time it?” The panic in Joker’s voice is more and more pronounced with every word. “Their weapons-”

“Copy, Joker!” Shepard flings the door to the shuttle open, Garrus in first, and Thane right after. She sends out a last wave of bullets at an advancing husk and pulls the door shut behind her as she climbs aboard. “Go, Garrus!”

They barely have made it into the airlock when Joker says, “We’re out of time, Commander! We’ve gotta go!”

“So go!” Shepard snarls, fear and adrenaline making her cruel, “Make them work for it this time.”

“You got it. Strap in everybody.”

Shepard slings Thane’s arm around her shoulders. “You need me to take you to the doctor?” she asks. He shakes his head but doesn’t extricate himself from her; there’s not a chance in hell that he’s not hurting more than he’s letting on. “I need to be in the cockpit in case Joker needs me.”

“I have no place better to be,” he says with a wry smile, and Thane is hurt, but he is fine.

Garrus joins them in the cockpit. Joker shows them all why Jeff Moreau was the best pilot in the Alliance every day, and today is no different.

“EDI?” Joker asks a question with her name alone, and for once, they seem like partners rather than enemies.

“Engaging mass effect core.”

They leave. They go somewhere far away. And the dead woman with the yellow nail polish is not so lucky. None of the colonists are.

Chapter Text

Shepard takes a step forward, now that they are out of immediate danger, and Thane winces. She frowns. “I know you said you didn’t need the doctor, but I’m going to have Garrus run you down to the med bay anyway. If Chakwas doesn’t check you out and there’s something wrong other than the superficial, she’ll have all our heads.”

When he first joined the crew, Shepard might have thought that Thane would protest, but all he does is nod, better at following orders than half the marines in the Alliance. Garrus mirrors Shepard’s body language, pulling Thane’s arm across his shoulders.

“Not a bad performance for a dying man,” Garrus says as they walk down the gangway.

Thane chuckles.

“Incoming transmission from the Illusive Man, Commander.” Joker doesn’t bother looking at her, fingers working fast across a hundred holo-panels.

“Fuck him. He can wait. EDI, tell Miranda I want to see her in the conference room. I don’t care what she’s doing.”

“Yes, Shepard.”

“And could you tell Chakwas that Garrus is on his way down with Thane?”

“I relayed the information to Dr. Chakwas when Thane and Garrus exited the cockpit.”

“Thank you, EDI. And good work down there. Both of you.”

EDI says, “Of course, Shepard.”

Joker says, “Let me know when I can patch the Illusive Man through. And when I do, make sure you kill him for me.”

“Copy that,” Shepard says, and they are joking with each other, but it would be hard not to punch the Illusive Man’s teeth out if she was going to speak with his corporeal form.

She tears out of the cockpit at a pace so quick that she passes Thane and Garrus on their way into the elevator. They nod at her as she passes, and she returns it, passing through the armory on her way to the conference room.

Miranda is already there; she must have been on Deck Two already, because it would have taken longer for her to get from her office to the conference room. There is something about the figure that she strikes (beautiful, apathetic, calculating) that looks exactly like a target even though Shepard knows that the Illusive Man is her enemy.

“Shepard-”

Miranda’s cool voice should be a balm to Shepard’s temper, but it is the opposite. If there is one person on this ship that is unabashedly Cerberus, it is her, and Shepard holds up a finger to cut her off. “I am going to ask you a question. And you are going to give me a yes or no answer. That answer is going to decide whether or not you stay on this ship. Did you know that the Collector ship was a trap?”

When her eyes narrow, Shepard knows that it is taking everything in Miranda’s considerable genes to attempt an explanation of Cerberus’s actions. “The Illusive Man must have-”

“Miranda. I care about you because you’re on this crew, just like everybody else. I’ve never given a shit about Cerberus, and you know that. I care about my people. And if you didn’t know, then you’re still one of my people. If you knew, then you’re not part of this crew anymore.”

Miranda holds Shepard’s stare for a moment, and then diverts her gaze, face softening. She reaches up and rubs both her arms. “No. I didn’t know, Shepard.”

“Good. Because I like you, Miranda. Now get out of here, because I’m going to rip the Illusive Man a new one.”

When Miranda sets her face in a grim line and nods before exiting the conference room, Shepard knows that she is still Cerberus for now, but that they are past the point where she would sell them out.

“Joker. Patch through the Illusive Man.”

Garrus is tall for a turian, but thankfully not so tall that he has to duck down to help Thane into the med bay. Dr. Chakwas has already prepped a bed for him when the door swings open, and Thane makes the mistake of grimacing as he puts just a little too much weight on the leg that the praetorian managed to burn.

Chakwas frowns. “Set him down there, Garrus.”

“You got it, doc,” Garrus says, and Thane sits down on the bed, wincing as the exposed flesh rubs up against a metal leg. The wound feels mostly superficial, but Thane doesn’t know enough about Collector weaponry to say for sure. When Garrus steps away, he says, “I’m pretty sure you’re not going to die, but if you do, it was a pleasure working with you.”

“And they say turians don’t have a sense of humor.”

“Yeah, well. I’m a trend-setter.”

Chakwas, with a light voice, says, “Garrus, as much as I enjoy your company, I have to ask you to leave the med bay so I can speak with my patient.”

Shepard hadn’t been lying when she’d called Garrus competent. He is even pleasant to work with. Garrus takes a faux-bow, dipping deeply in Chakwas’s direction, and she rolls her eyes with an affectionate smile on her face. When he disappears out onto the deck, she says, “That turian’s been spending too much time with humans,” to a closed door before turning to where Thane sits. “Now, not that I’m not pleased to see you, but what did the commander get you into that wound up with you here?”

Thane’s time with Chakwas before sitting here, explaining his encounter with the praetorian, was introducing himself as EDI gave him a guided tour of the Normandy. She had seemed more comfortable with aliens than the rest of the crew then, and he hadn’t thought much of it until Shepard had offhandedly mentioned that Chakwas was part of her crew on the original Normandy as well.

“Well,” she says, as he finishes his tale, “If it happened how you tell it, I doubt there will be much for me to do. Still, if you could lay back for me here, I’d like to run a couple of tests to be on the safe side.”

As Thane does so, Chakwas scrolls through a datapad, no doubt one holding his medical profile. At one point, she pauses, reading through with her brows knitting together, and frowning. “This isn’t invasive in the slightest, but the scanner above you is going to blink a few times, so be ready for that. You’re welcome to close your eyes if it’s bothersome.” A light flashes three times. “Perfect. It will just be a few moments while the scans process for me to get them on my terminal, but as I said, I doubt there will be anything of note. You still seem to be in fine health. If the superficial is all that there is to it, I’ll give you some painkillers and you can be on your way.”

“Whatever you prescribe is fine, Doctor.”

“Not to be too much like Mordin,” she begins, and Thane truly has no idea where this sentence could be heading, because Chakwas is completely unlike Mordin in every sense except that they both practice medicine, “and I’m sure you’ve been bothered by plenty of people who know more about drell physiology than me, but we have many people on board uniquely qualified to assist you with - let’s call it radical - treatment of your Kepral’s.”

Ah. His answers for these inquiries are usually rote, and this time is no different. “I have made peace with my fate-”

The dismissive hand wave throws him off balance. “Yes, yes, Shepard said as much. As a medical professional, it just seemed my place to remind you. It might do for you to remember that, no matter how you feel about dying, there are people who will miss you if and when you pass.”

And, well, there is not much for him to say to this human doctor who is so well-versed in speaking to Alliance marines that she is not in the least put off by Thane’s silence. As if to punctuate her words, Thane looks through the glass that shows the mess hall, and the first person he sees is Tali, walking out of the main battery, no doubt just having finished a conversation with Garrus. Thane must catch her eye, because she turns and waves, moving like she’s going to walk towards the med bay, but Chakwas, from where she’s taken a seat at her terminal, holds up a finger to stop her.

“I’ll release you in a moment, but it’s difficult to do my job with people walking in and out of here trying to speak to the people I’m evaluating. You’re welcome to sit up. The scans show that the remaining damage is superficial; I’ll give you another round of medi-gel, more concentrated than what Commander Shepard gave you on the ship, and you should be patched up just fine. Other than that, take the night to rest and recover, but you can consider yourself fit for a return to the field in the morning.”

Shepard had been quick with the medi-gel on the Collector ship, but she is anything but a medic. Chakwas, perhaps aided by the sterile setting as well as her years of medical training and a more potent form of medi-gel, has Thane more or less feeling like new.

“Thank you,” he says, and he means it.

She smiles. “I’ll be happy not to have you in the med bay, but you don’t have to be a stranger, Sere Krios. Now get out of here; Tali is practically vibrating outside the door waiting to speak to you.”

Thane chuckles, but Chakwas is right; as soon as the door slides open, Thane is met by, “Are you feeling better? Garrus told me what happened, but it seems like you’re walking alright.”

“Yes,” Thane says, and Tali nods enthusiastically.

“Good,” she says, “You and Shepard are always having so much fun without me, and now Garrus gets to go, too. Who am I supposed to spend time with while you’re all gone?”

“It sounds like Miranda has been enough to tide you over.”

“Pardon?”

“She mentioned that the two of you were making an omni-tool for Shepard.”

“W-well, I-” The blush in Tali’s voice is answer enough, though she is cut off by a chime from his own omni-tool.

Thane,

I just got out of a screaming match with the Illusive Man. Well, I was the only one screaming. My plan was to come check in with you, but I’m drowning in reports. If you don’t send me a message letting me know you’re feeling okay within the next five minutes I’m going to be extremely disappointed.

Shepard

Thane smiles softly despite himself, and Tali, with a smirk in her voice that he can hear, says, “Tell Shepard I said hello.”

“I will not. You can message her yourself.”

Shepard,

I am fine. No need to

Tali interrupts him as he types. “Offer to bring her dinner.”

Thane scoffs, but she presses on anyway. “You two can’t stop flirting with each other. Offer to bring her dinner,” she repeats.

What could it hurt?

Shepard,

I am fine. No need to worry. If you are so busy, would you like me to bring you dinner?

Thane

“Can I send it now?” he asks, amused, and Tali nods. When he does so, he says, “You know that Shepard has no interest in a dying man.”

Talking to quarians is sometimes difficult, because most other species (hanar, elcor, and volus excluded) use facial expressions to communicate. Thane has no doubt that under the mask Tali uses similar body language, but it is hard to read when she says, “I think that’s for Shepard to decide.”

There is no reason that he wouldn’t be attracted to a siha, no matter the species; it is, frankly, unthinkable that he managed to meet a second blessed by Arashu in his lifetime. It is of no consequence that he would very much like to touch her hair, that he wonders what her lips might feel like.

Thane,

I’ll have to turn you down this once, but don’t think of it as a refusal; you’re probably in my ground party for the foreseeable future, and I’d prefer you get a good night’s rest before whatever tomorrow might bring.

Shepard

“Oh, Shepard,” Tali says, frown evident, like she is disappointed.

“Sorry to let you down, Tali,” Thane says with a half-smile that belies an ache in his chest. They bid each other goodbye for the evening, and when Thane walks into life support, he receives another message.

Thane,

If these reports don’t kill me, though, you’ll probably see me tomorrow. If not, I’ll be rifling through the cupboards in the middle of the night like you usually catch me doing.

Shepard

The ache dissolves.

Coming down off the high of a mission that had very nearly gone extremely wrong, there are several emotions to parse. In no particular order, they are:

• Cerberus was never to be trusted, but now she knows that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
• Miranda is still Cerberus, but she is also the XO of the Normandy.
  • It is not clear which position is more important to her.
• Garrus and Thane make for a formidable ground party.
• Joker and EDI both need a raise.
• If there had not been a hundred Collectors waiting to swarm them from the walls, she very well might have kissed Thane after applying the medi-gel to his leg.
  • That’s how happy she was that the praetorian hadn’t been a little more accurate with the particle beam.
  • Garrus being there may not even have been enough to deter her from doing so.

Shepard sighs and rubs her forehead. She feels like a teenager again. He’s just so hard to read, and they’re all going to die, and Cerberus put that photo of Kaidan right next to her terminal so that she can never escape his eyes.

Still, when she receives a new message, Shepard smiles anyway.

Shepard,

I look forward to it.

Thane

She doesn’t feel like she has control of anything right now. Maybe it’s okay to not know exactly where this particular thing is going. What’s the harm in letting it play out however it might?

Her eyes drift to Kaidan’s, and she wasn’t soft back then, but she was certainly softer than she is now.

Shepard, in a move that she has contemplated since she first saw the photo on her desk, turns the picture frame face-down and gets back to work.

Chapter Text

Shepard sleeps maybe two hours. It is hard to justify sleeping when there is so much to do, even with her eyelids sagging. She’s read all the science about it, of course; sleep is the single most important resource a marine can have. The only thing that even competes with it is water. The problem is that there isn’t time.

Miranda handles more paperwork than her, she is sure, but Shepard still has her own fair share of reports for Cerberus as well as everything she’s sending back to Hackett and the Alliance. In a way, she even prefers this; falling asleep spontaneously because she has overworked herself means that Shepard isn’t thinking about how much she hates the stupid window over her bed. Then again, she never dreams when she falls asleep like this, and that means that she doesn’t get to see her dream drell.

The other downside is that it seems like whenever she sleeps this way, EDI always ends up waking her.

“Shepard,” comes her voice, more soothing today, or at least that’s how Shepard interprets it.

She wipes the drool from the corner of her mouth. “What’s up, EDI?” she manages, still half asleep.

“Miranda would like to speak with you in her office. She also wanted me to tell you that the matter is personal but urgent, and to prioritize it however you thought appropriate.”

Shepard smiles despite herself. Miranda hadn’t seemed the type to hold an illogical grudge, but Cerberus has also been the closest thing she’s had to family for a very long time.

No matter how long Shepard puts into it, she’ll always look like she just woke up compared to Miranda, so she doesn’t bother with the shower for now; it had been the first thing she’d done last night when she got back up to her cabin. The sweatshirt and pants combo she’d fell asleep in doesn’t exactly make for pajamas, either - it’s really the only casual wear she has - so Shepard splashes water on her face and makes for the elevator.

The mess is bustling; it’s right around time for a shift change, even though the Normandy runs only a skeleton crew at night. EDI is too efficient for her own good. When she sees Gardner, Shepard waves; they’re due to stop somewhere soon for refueling and restocking, so when she sees him setting what might be a dozen apples on the table in front of him, she says, “I’ve got a meeting with Miranda, but save one of those for me, Gardner.”

He answers, “Aye aye, Commander,” before taking to what looks like two or three heads of romaine lettuce with a chef’s knife.

The door to Miranda’s office slides open, and Shepard steps in.

“It’s about my sister,” Miranda says, and they set a course for Illium.

There are not many opportunities to use knives, but they still hold a nostalgic place in Thane’s heart. A knife was the first weapon he ever held, never mind that shield generators render anything but an upgraded omni-blade ineffective. Still, there is something comfortable about holding it in his hand. It feels more balanced than even the most perfectly tuned rifle.

There is laughter outside, presumably from the mess hall. The population sounds entirely human, though he can perhaps hear Garrus somewhere as well. He and Tali have integrated the most seamlessly of all the aliens on the crew; Mordin is uninterested in anything outside his lab, generally speaking, Samara’s only allegiance is to Shepard and the same could be said for Grunt, and Thane -

Well, Thane’s allegiance really is only to Shepard as well, but that’s not completely true either. If Tali asks him for a favor, he never says no, and he was in the firing range with Grunt just a few days ago. There is no one else that commands that same fondness from him that Shepard does on the ship, but it dawns on him that he would probably also dislike it if ill fortune befell Dr. Chakwas or Garrus or Kasumi or even Miranda (if only because he can venture a guess that it would make Tali incredibly upset).

Distracted, the knife nicks the tip of his left index finger, and a pinprick of red blooms.

How old is Kolyat now? Thane lost track of time, in his battle sleep. He is an adult now, certainly, Thane thinks, as he adds the years in his head. It has been so long that Kolyat is like a ghost in Thane’s mind.

Kolyat,

The message will not get any further than that. It is not the first time that he’s thought of writing to Kolyat, but it is the first time that Thane has ever so much as committed to putting his name down. Still, he stares at the letters that make up his son’s name.

Her fingers brush mine. “What do you think of the name Kolyat? I know it’s a little old-fashioned.”

“Kolyat was your grandfather’s name.”

“It was.”

I never met her grandfather, but her eyes flash with the soft love she never tries to hide. She is due to give birth to our child in three weeks.

“It’s a beautiful name. And our son will do it proud.”

There is a knock on the door that doesn’t immediately pull him from the memory; EDI’s voice says, “Shepard is outside, Thane.”

“Of course,” he says, throat tight. “Let her in. And you can add her to the list of people that don’t need clearance to enter.” The list had only been Tali before, anyway. Thane puts the knife away in his belt and brushes away the negligible amount of blood it drew. Shepard’s stride is confident, and when she finally appears in front of him, she places something on the table before leaning up against the wall as she always seems to do these days.

Shepard takes a bite out of the fruit in her hand and says, “Gardner and I have no idea what that is, but the shipment said it was from Kahje. If it’s inedible or you don’t like them, just say the word; I’ve got stomach enough.” Shepard winks, and Thane finally takes a good look at what she has put in front of him.

“This is a minak?” Thane says, and it comes out as more of a question despite the fact that he knows very well that the yellow, egg-shaped fruit is a minak.

Shepard snorts. “You’d know better than me.”

The gods are surely making a joke of him. This-

The despair (or something like it) must show on his face. Shepard frowns, concerned. “I apologize if I’ve committed some cultural faux pas. I just thought of you.”

“No, you’ve made no mistake. This is- was my son’s favorite treat growing up.” Thane switches to the past tense. He has no idea whether Kolyat has even eaten a minak in the past ten years.

Shepard’s eyebrows raise; she has known for a long time now that he was married once, but this is the first he’s mentioned Kolyat, though he knows she won’t press unless he continues. Still, he knows what it sounds like. “He is not dead, despite how I make it sound. Our relationship is just… complicated. I was, and am, not a very good father. Let’s leave it at that for the moment.” She nods slowly, like she is measuring her reaction, and she takes another crunching bite of her fruit. He asks, “What is yours called?”

“Oh,” Shepard says, holding it out in front of her like she only just now remembers that she is eating it. It is red and round with pale yellow flesh inside and a stem at its crown, and she answers, “It’s called an apple. You can try it, if you like.”

Shepard holds it out, but Thane shakes his head. “The venom in drell skin is more concentrated in our saliva. I still am not sure what effect it would have on you.”

“Oh,” she says, put out just the slightest before her face brightens again, still pink with a small blush. “You’ve got an arsenal in here. Anything I could use to cut off a piece?”

“Unfortunately not,” Thane says, half-smiling; the knife at his waist might have been, but even minimal blood renders it unsuitable for the job until he gets the chance to clean it.

“I’ll be right back,” she says, and pushes off from the wall back towards the door into the mess. “Gardner!” he hears her shout as she disappears, “You got a knife?”

He rolls the minak between his hands, waiting for her to return. Thane does not remember being whole requiring so much introspection, but perhaps that is because he is not truly whole yet. He does not think that there has been a time since Irikah died when he has even considered the possibility of being whole again.

The fledgling message is still there on his omni-tool.

Kolyat,

What can there be for him to write next, after he has been gone for so many years?

Raucous laughter swells from outside, and Shepard barks a mock-reprimand (“If this was the Alliance you’d be court-martialed for that joke, Hawthorne.”) that only makes the Cerberus crowd laugh harder.

“If I’m being honest,” Shepard says, in a normal tone of voice as she walks back into life support, “I thought the Cerberus crew was going to be much shittier.”

“My interactions with them are few,” he says, and Shepard nods.

Her knife goes to work, cutting off a piece and offering it up to him. “They still aren’t giving you trouble, right? Tali and Garrus get by just fine, but they’re used to working with humans.”

Thane takes the bit of apple from the end of the blade. “There’s been no trouble. They leave me to myself and I don’t mind it at all.” He examines it as he speaks, and Shepard takes another bite from it at the same time. “You’re supposed to eat it with the skin on?”

She nods. “Yeah. A lot of Earth fruits are like that.”

Shepard slides down the wall to sit on the floor as he pops the piece of apple into his mouth. She yawns loudly, not bothering to cover her mouth. The apple is almost too sweet for his taste, but there is a hint of acid that luckily offsets it.

“Can I borrow that?” he asks, holding his hand out for the kitchen knife. Shepard flips it and holds it out by the blade, handle towards him, and he begins peeling the minak. “I feel similar to what I did with the sandwich. It is almost too sweet.”

Shepard scoffs. “You have no taste. Too sweet. When’s your birthday? We’ll get you a cake and then you’ll see too sweet.” Shepard pauses and smirks. “Well, I guess I knew you didn’t have any taste. If you did, you wouldn’t spend so much time with me.”

“You don’t give me much of a choice, Shepard,” he says, laughing softly, pulling one of the sections from the core with the tip of the knife and holding it out towards her.

“The perks of being CO. You’re stuck with me,” she says, grinning, and takes the segment. When Shepard eats it, she raises her eyebrows. “Thane.”

“Yes?”

“This doesn’t taste like anything.”

“It’s quite subtle, I’ll admit.”

They sit there in silence for a while, each finishing their respective fruit, and when Thane opens his mouth to thank her, he pauses. Shepard’s breathing has slowed and deepened, her head has lolled forward, and she has one arm in her lap while the other holds the apple at her side.

Thane smiles.

When Shepard wakes, where she lies is unfamiliar. She is covered by a heavy blanket that smells like gun oil and there are no stars above her, but she is certainly in a bed. With a start, she realizes she is in life support, and she sits straight up.

Mortified is the only word that comes close to expressing her embarrassment. She doesn’t know how long she was asleep, but the flesh of the apple she had been eating has turned brown. It sits on a small box next to the cot that she is on, which is presumably Thane’s, and she may have fallen asleep resting up against the wall, but she knows that she didn’t climb up here by sleepwalking.

Which can only mean that he picked her up and put her there.

Thane’s eyes are closed and he is seated at the table as he almost always is, but when Shepard stands, folding his coat quickly and placing it on the cot, he turns to her. “I’m so sorry. That was about as unprofessional as it gets-” she says, fumbling with her hair to put it back up. Half of it always falls out when she sleeps from tossing and turning.

Thane cuts her off instead. “Shepard,” he says, his voice rumbling in that way that only drell voices can. He takes her wrist in his hand, and in a matter of a single moment, her face is very close to his, her hair falling around her shoulders. “You never have to apologize. And you are safe here with me whenever you wish it.”

Shepard swallows hard; she’s never seen him without the coat before, his arms well-defined but scarred, chest broad. “Thank you,” she says, breathless, and very quickly she is realizing that she doesn’t actually care about the effect of drell venom if orally ingested.

“If I overstep, you need only say the word.”

“You aren’t-”

“Thane!” Tali’s voice is the last one Shepard expects to hear as she is experiencing what she can only describe as another sexual awakening. She pulls away from him, and Shepard mourns the loss of his hand on her skin instantly. Tali at least has the good manners to sound sheepish. “I, um- Was I interrupting something?”

Shepard knows exactly how they look; Thane never goes anywhere without the coat, more and more of her hair is slipping from its elastic by the moment, and a moment ago they were centimeters from kissing.

“No,” Shepard manages, skin still tingling. “I have to go. I should go. Thanks again, Thane.”

He smiles, all too warm for a person that Shepard knows could kill her a hundred different ways if he wanted, and says, “Of course, siha.”

Shepard, her heart racing, makes for her cabin.

“I should never have added you to the no-clearance-required list.”

“I would apologize, but I don’t think anyone would have expected to walk in on you making out with Shepard.”

“That’s a disingenuous way to put it.”

“Come on, Thane. I’ve never seen you without the jacket.”

“She fell asleep. I covered her with it.”

“Sure. You look good, though.”

“Thank you, Tali.”

“What did you call her? You know she’s going right to her terminal to look it up.”

“She won’t find anything. It’s only spoken of in oral tradition. I’ll tell her sometime in the future.”

“That’s evil.”

“Maybe a little. Was there something you needed?”

“No. I was just bored. She could have kissed you while I was standing there, as far as I’m concerned.”

Siha, siha, siha. Why can’t she find anything on the extranet about what a siha is? The closest she can find is an academic journal stating that a siha is never to be written about, only spoken of.

“How long to Illium, EDI?” she asks the space above her head.

EDI, knowing the question she was really asking, answers, “Three hours to Illium. You were asleep in life support for two hours. Also, I informed Garrus shortly after you left Miranda’s office that he would be accompanying you groundside.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course, Shepard.”

She probably could have kissed him with Tali there. Tali probably would have been happier about it than she or Thane even would have been. Shepard sighs, resigned to it. She is going to kiss him. It’s not a matter of if. It is simply a matter of when.

Still, she thinks she’d rather it be private, especially if she’s going to be hallucinating shortly afterwards.

She hadn’t showered before going down to speak to Miranda, so Shepard steps into the bathroom, turning the faucet on distractedly; she can’t stop thinking about his hand on her wrist, and she is paying so little attention that her Cerberus body keeps turning the dial until it breaks off the wall.

To no one in particular, she mumbles, “Arashu help me.”

Chapter Text

“She doesn’t look like Cerberus when she’s talking to her sister,” Garrus says lightly, clenching and unclenching his right hand. It’s hard to look at him with the scars; it’s something else she’s lost, that she’s made someone else lose.

Instead, Shepard says, “Yeah. This Miranda might actually loosen up enough to go on a date with Tali.”

Miranda turns and gestures at them vaguely, and Oriana and her family follow where Miranda is pointing. Shepard smiles and waves at them, and Garrus gives them a lazy bastardization of a human salute. “What’s that all about, anyway?” he asks.

“Tali and Miranda?” When Garrus nods, Shepard says, “I know humans aren’t exactly your thing, but it doesn’t get much more attractive than Miranda. And I’ve never met anyone Tali couldn’t charm if she put her mind to it.”

“Fair enough,” Garrus says. “What about you and your drell?”

“My drell?” Shepard scoffs, but Garrus knows her well enough to recognize if she tries to bullshit. “He’s hardly my drell, but Tali did interrupt my own - well, I don’t know what you’d call it. Cross-species liaison?”

“Shepard,” Garrus trills, mock-scandalized. “Taking advantage of that innocent little assassin, are we?”

She rolls her eyes. “I like him, actually. It’s weird. I’ve never been with a non-human before. And I haven’t been with anyone since Kaidan.”

“Well, Kaidan wasn’t that long ago for you. I don’t think you can count time dead as time you should’ve been getting back out there and dating again.” Garrus’s voice always sounds dry (she’d mentioned it once and he’d said that it was because humans couldn’t parse subvocals), but it is particularly deadpan here.

Chest constricting at the mention of Kaidan, Shepard shrugs. “We’ll see how it plays out.”

“Well, could you sleep with him sooner rather than later? I’ve got a not-inconsiderable amount of credits riding on it.”

“Jesus Christ, Garrus.”

“All I’m saying is your life would be better if humans didn’t have so many hang-ups about sex-”

“We aren’t having this conversation right now.”

Garrus shrugs, but his self-satisfied smirk says enough, and Shepard can’t help mirroring it. Maybe it’s a little embarrassing, but it’s also the most normal thing in the world.

Miranda doesn’t hug Oriana, but she clasps both of her hands in her own before turning back towards Shepard and Garrus. With tears in her eyes, Miranda waves goodbye, and Shepard, before she can stop herself, wraps an arm around Miranda’s shoulders and squeezes once as the door shuts behind them.

Garrus walks out into the Normandy proper before either of them, saying thanks for a mission well done but that the guns won’t calibrate themselves.

“Shepard,” Miranda says, and she is still perfect. She never actually starts to cry; her eyes only glisten instead. “Thank you.”

When Shepard winks, it’s with a smile. “I told you I look after my people. Don’t mention it.”

“I mean it. Really. Cerberus will take care of everything else, but I didn’t trust anyone other than me to make sure that she was alright. It’s nice to know that I can trust you, too.”

What can Shepard say to that? She nods, still smiling, and finally she opens her mouth to try and answer, but EDI beats her to the punch.

“Thane has asked to speak with you in life support, Shepard.”

She furrows her brow and pulls up her omni-tool to see if she missed a message, but she hasn’t. It must be important, because Thane has never used EDI to relay a message as far as she can remember. Miranda smiles gently, and it is strange to see warmth in her eyes even if it is not unwelcome. “You should probably get going. Sounds like someone else needs your special touch.”

If it were anyone else, Shepard would notice the double entendre immediately, but from Miranda, it catches her off guard. She frowns despite herself, removing the rest of her armor as quickly as she can manage, and says, “I always thought you were better than that.”

Miranda shrugs, and it really is unbelievable; she is unfathomably beautiful. “I don’t know. I guess Tali’s rubbing off on me.”

Shepard rolls her eyes and makes for the elevator, a soft, almost-musical laugh from Miranda her outro. As the door shuts, she says, “EDI, does he want to go somewhere?”

EDI is quiet for a moment (probably relaying her question), and the elevator moves silently. She answers, “The Citadel.”

“Set a course there. If Joker gives you any shit, tell him we needed to restock anyway.”

She hasn’t heard what Thane’s going to say, of course, but Shepard’s done favors for everyone else. There’s always the possibility that whatever he needs isn’t that serious, but they do have to re-up on supplies, and Shepard doesn’t like to do it on Illium anyway. The labor practices always leave a bad taste in her mouth.

“Hi, Shep,” Kasumi says, sliding into the elevator as Shepard exits. “Tell Thane I said hi.”

Everyone on this fucking ship has their nose in her business, and Shepard can’t even pretend that she’s not going to see Thane because Kasumi is going to watch her walk right into life support and do exactly that.

Unbridled anger is generally Shepard’s gambit. He does not wear the vice as well as she does; Thane hadn’t actually realized he even still had the capacity for it after being numb for so long.

“Thane.” EDI’s voice is too calm for the explosives threatening to detonate in his chest. “Shepard has set a course for the Citadel and she is on her way to speak with you.”

A tension uncoils from his stomach. “Thank you, EDI.”

How had he even entertained the thought that she would not have time to help him stop Kolyat from making the worst mistake of his life? Thane stops pacing, and comes to a stop right in front of the impact site of Shepard’s helmet, staring at the cracks feathering out from the center.

Shepard’s chest heaves, her helmet forgotten on the floor, and a crack in the glass that shouldn’t have been possible for any organic except maybe a krogan to make, but there is no krogan. There is only Shepard, in a body that she is clearly trying with all her considerable might to control.

She is still wearing her armor when she pulls back her arm to unleash as much force as she can into the place where the helmet presumably made contact. I truly have no skills besides killing, and yet -

“What happened?” I ask, voice icy even before feeling the shivers in Shepard’s arm.

And she tells me, and I know I wasn’t wrong. Shepard is a siha. There should never have been any doubt.

“Thane.” Shepard barrels into life support, hair in disarray and a bruise blooming on her left forearm, no doubt a result of her mission on Illium with Garrus and Miranda. “Is everything okay? Are you feeling okay?”

Her concern is nothing short of endearing, and Thane smiles despite the pain consuming him. In retrospect, it makes sense that she would assume his request had something to do with Kepral’s. “My disease plays no part in this. I have to thank you for already setting course for the Citadel without even hearing my side first.”

“If you need my help, you have it. But I would like to know what’s going on, if you think you could share,” she says.

It’s the least that he can do, after she set a course to help him without even the slightest notion of why, but talking about Kolyat is difficult at even the best of times. He sighs, and she steps up next to him. And then, as Shepard is so wont to do, she surprises him. Thane thinks, initially, that he has simply taken too long to answer, and that she has grown frustrated; it would explain why her breathing has hastened, why her fingers are twitching, and why her dark brown eyes have been stealing glances in his direction.

Instead, she reaches out, and takes his hand in hers, and with a timidity that does not suit her, Shepard says, “I like you, Thane, and I’d like to be able to help you. If you’d let me, that is.”

His lips part, and he turns to see her more clearly, but his siha’s hand remains in his. When is the last time that someone held him like this?

Thane tells her about Kolyat.

Thane has never hidden anything from her as far as she knows, but what he tells her is a lot to take in:

• When his wife died ten years ago, he left his son, Kolyat, with relatives who loved him.
• He hunted his wife’s killers relentlessly.
• When he killed the final person responsible, it was too late to return.
• Kolyat has become disconnected.

“Disconnected?” Shepard asks, because she does not quite follow the concept. His hand is cool in hers.

“You know more about drell than most. You know our idea of wholeness - how we are not always responsible for our actions. When we experience trauma to either the soul or the body, we become disconnected. We are no longer whole. It is as I was when I lost my wife. I do not know Kolyat’s reasons, but he has gone to the Citadel and taken a job as a hit man.”

Shepard had been looking out the window, past the place where she threw her helmet with reckless abandon, but she turns to meet his gaze, confused. “A hit man? No one hires someone that green for a hit. Unless he’s done contract work before?” she ventures, but Thane is already shaking his head.

“No. My contacts have turned up nothing to suggest he has made a career of killing as I have. I cannot say what has spurred him to it, but I am afraid that someone has seen that we share a name and assumed that we also share skillsets.”

“It’s-” Shepard starts and then pauses as his eyes flutter shut, certainly lost in a memory. When he comes back, she begins again, “I don’t have your contacts or your tracking skills. I’m happy to help you in any way that I can, but I’m not sure that I bring a lot to the table on this one.”

Thane brushes his thumb along her knuckles, and it’s all she can do not to shudder at the intimacy of the smallest of actions. “It’s not that I need your help. I want it. The last time I saw my son-” And for a moment, Thane is lost to her again, swept away by a memory. “Kolyat and I last saw each other at his mother’s funeral.”

Shepard looks to the floor. “How old was he when she died?”

“Ten.”

Shepard winces, a pain in her heart that blooms from empathy. “Younger than me when I lost my mom. Poor kid.” There is silence for a moment, and then she says, “Do you know why he chose the Citadel?”

“I did wet work there around the time when my wife died. Perhaps that is why.”

Shepard nods, and Thane continues. “I was always a poor father. My illness, and this time spent here on the Normandy, have me reflecting on the impact I will have left on the galaxy long after I expire. Kolyat is the only thing of value I have ever created. I would at least try to make amends for how I have wronged him.”

“If I could get us to the Citadel faster, I would do it,” Shepard says, and Thane laughs sadly. “Your situation is different, of course, but my father was gone long before my mother passed. I still haven’t heard from him, and it’s been thirty-three years, give or take. Reaching out is a step in the right direction. Trying to stop him from making a terrible mistake is more than that.”

“Thank you for saying so,” Thane says, his voice far away. “This is not a path I want him to walk, siha.”

Shepard squeezes his hand gently, the drell word still hanging untranslated in the air. “Tell me what you need me to do.”

She is more than receptive to every suggestion he makes. For such a stalwart leader, he had thought perhaps that Shepard would need more convincing. Instead, she even acquiesces to every condition Thane could possibly have, including that he would prefer it if they told no one and if she did not ask another squadmate along.

Lastly, he says, “It is different from your usual operation, I know, but it may be more useful to us if you blend in.”

Shepard smirks, and he can’t forget a memory even when he would like to, but there is something about her hand in his that has seared itself into his mind even more wholly. How has he signed on for a suicide mission and instead found an angel?

She asks, the only time she has questioned his terms, “Can I get away with a sidearm, at least?”

“Of course. I didn’t mean to say you should be defenseless. Just that-” he pauses, looking at her appraisingly. “Your methods are a little louder than my usual style.”

She barks out a laugh, and for a moment Thane is worried he has offended her, because Shepard withdraws her hand. Instead, she calls up her omni-tool. “I said I didn’t have any contacts that could help, but maybe that’s not true. Captain Bailey would know if a drell matching your son’s description passed through customs.”

Her fingers tap away at the holo-display, and Thane says, “Thank you, Shepard.”

She sends the message and nods. “We should be at the Citadel in around six hours. I promise we’ll help your son.”

“If anyone can aid me, it’s you, siha.”

“You have to tell me what that means,” she says, her nose wrinkling in an act that Thane recognizes as signaling frustration.

“Someday,” he says, with a ghost of a smile on his lips. Shepard rolls her eyes but grins before sobering up.

“I have some work to get done before we hit the relay, but we’ll find your son before you know it.”

He could kiss her now, he thinks, but it feels like tempting the gods’ good fortune too much. She is already doing so much for him, his warrior-angel; taking her mouth with his would be hubris.

She walks towards the door, still idly pressing at her omni-tool. “I don’t own much clothing that you could call casual, by the way. Anyone with half a brain will notice that I’m a marine, or at least that I used to be.”

“As long as it isn’t emblazoned with an N7, it should do the job.”

Shepard snorts. “Point taken.” The door slides open, and she looks back at him over her shoulder. “I look forward to meeting your son.”

And she is gone. There is no sign that Shepard was ever even here, but for the faint ember of hope in his chest and the warmth of her skin still lingering in the palm of his hand. Instead of resuming pacing, he lies down on the cot where he had covered Shepard with his coat only a day before.

Initially, he thinks that he is inside a memory, but it is Shepard’s voice over the intercom system that usually only Joker utilizes. She must have made a detour to the cockpit before her cabin. “Folks, this is your CO, and I’m delighted to tell you that we will be arriving at the Citadel in a little under six hours to restock, refuel, repair - you know, the works. I think you all know where this is going. That means shore leave. You’ll have twenty-two hours to do whatever you like on the Citadel before we get back to work. Come back with a hangover, but you better be damn good at hiding it.”

She is clever. No one on the Normandy will think twice about Commander Shepard leaving the ship in casualwear if everyone is.

Even a month ago, he would have looked for Kolyat himself, had this been the situation. Still, a month ago, Thane probably would never have known that Kolyat was in trouble in the first place. It is Shepard’s influence, of course, but he had not expected to come alive again in the throes of a suicide mission. When first he agreed to the cause, Thane had initially wondered if Shepard could come even close to the fiction that had spun up around her following the attack on the Citadel. He had never imagined that she would be even larger than the stories had told.

For the first time in ten years, Thane imagines a reunion with his son. He even feels something that he could call hope.

Chapter Text

“Captain Bailey said he’d meet with us at his office,” Shepard says, arm falling to her side after dismissing her omni-tool. She hadn’t been wrong; it would be impossible to mistake her as a civilian. Shepard’s posture is too stiff, and the scars on her face mark her as someone familiar with battle and trauma. Still, she looks different from who she is even off-duty on the ship, and not even like she had when on Bekenstein with Kasumi.

Her dark hair is pulled away from her face like it always is, but it lies long against her back. The boots Shepard wears are the same hardy casual ones that she has on whenever she is not kitted out in her armor, but instead of the Cerberus-issued pseudo-uniform she is in Alliance-issue-adjacent combat pants and a loose-fitting shirt in a lightweight fabric that she has tucked into her waistband.

So absorbed is he in his assessment that Shepard snorts. “I don’t mind you looking, Krios, but we should probably get to Bailey’s office.”

She is right, of course. She has not been wrong yet. And she is still Commander Shepard, even if she looks like a completely different woman this way, her arms mostly bare and her hair bouncing softly between her shoulder blades.

Bailey must think so as well. They clear customs without incident, and he barely looks up from his desk when he asks, “Can I help you with something?”

“Bailey,” Shepard says, more amused than any other emotion that Thane can place, and when he hears her voice, Bailey finally looks up.

“Ah. Sorry, Shepard,” Bailey says, exhaling through his nose, “Didn’t recognize you dressed like a person instead of a war machine. Doesn’t matter. It’s your son that we’re looking for, I take it?” he asks, addressing Thane.

Thane nods. “Yes. Thank you in advance.”

Bailey fixes him with a look that Thane can’t quite place before turning back to his terminal. “I’ve worked Zakera for two years now. We lose another kid to crime every hour. It’s nice to see a father who cares, for once.”

“Father, when will you be back?” Kolyat asks, his arms wrapped around my left leg. I know he is there, but I can’t feel him.

His aunt stares at me with a distaste that I only now register as disgust. Kolyat’s eyes well with tears. When I don’t answer, his aunt collects him in her arms. I walk out the door.

I don’t look back.

“One of my guys saw a drell yesterday. I can’t be sure it’s your son, but we don’t get many drell coming through here.” Bailey pauses and rubs his chin. “Says here that he was talking to Mouse.”

“Mouse?” Thane can’t keep the surprise from his voice, even if the likelihood that it is the same Mouse he knew is miniscule.

“Yeah. Petty criminal. Can’t imagine he’s the guy who hired your boy.”

The way Thane’s tone shifted on Mouse’s name has not escaped Shepard’s notice, he is sure, but she asks, “Anything you can tell us about him?”

Bailey leans back, folding his arms across his chest. “Pretty standard stuff. He’s a former duct rat and he runs little jobs for shitty people. Fencing stolen goods, running data, the works.”

“Duct rat?” Shepard wrinkles her nose, and Thane thinks that it’s better to let Bailey answer.

“Slang. It’s what people call poor kids that grow up on the station. They play in the ventilation ducts when they’re little so adults can’t get to them.”

Humans have a reputation for being extremely open with their body language, and Shepard without her helmet on is no different. Thane knows that, on her, raised eyebrows indicate alarm. “They play in the ducts? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Bailey, still completely focused on his terminal, doesn’t seem to notice. “Yeah. We find a little body every few months.” Shepard sets her mouth in a line tersely as he continues. “Lacerated by fan blades, suffocated by vacuum exposure. Those are just the ones we know about.”

Shepard flexes her left hand; she is trembling with something that he is certain could ignite into rage at a moment’s notice. Still, Bailey is consumed by the report that he is scanning, and Thane bumps Shepard’s hand with his own as it curls into a fist. She blinks thrice, rapidly, seemingly coming back into herself, and asks stiffly, “Where can we find him?”

Bailey sighs. “Usually Mouse is upstairs, hanging out by the Dark Star. If he’s not there, he will be eventually.”

“Thanks,” Shepard says, perhaps a little more curtly than necessary, but Bailey doesn’t notice, or at least he doesn’t mind.

“Least I can do after you handed me Fade. Good luck.” Finally, Bailey looks up, but at Thane instead of at Shepard. “I hope you’re able to help your son.”

Thane’s lips part; the sympathy is not unwelcome, but it is unexpected. “Thank you,” he says, throat suddenly tight. “He faces a dark path.”

Bailey nods, and Shepard places a hand on Thane’s shoulder. “We should hurry.”

He knows something about this kid named Mouse, even if he’s not telling her. The casual outfit Shepard is wearing has her feeling exposed and on edge; she’d almost lost it at Bailey before, for speaking so casually about children dying in the vents of the space station he is supposed to be policing. Nothing Thane does is unintentional, so she knows the brush of his fingers against hers is calculated, that he noticed the rage in her stomach coiling like a snake.

There is nothing productive that can come of the conversation she wants to have, because she cannot find the right words. She would have been a duct rat, had she been born on the Citadel and not on Earth. It boils down to that.

When they are out of Bailey’s earshot, away from the C-Sec offices, Thane says, “You didn’t tell him what Kolyat plans to do.”

Shepard stops in her tracks. “Did you think I would?” she asks, and Thane tilts his head to the side like he doesn’t understand. “The whole point of us coming here was to keep your son from getting into trouble. If we don’t let Kolyat assassinate someone - and we won’t - then there’s really nothing Bailey needs to know.”

Thane is silent for a moment, but Shepard meets his eyes. It’s never clear if he is lost in a memory or simply thinking, but eventually, he says, “Thank you.”

Shepard smiles. “Don’t thank me yet.”

They don’t need to drive; the Dark Star is barely more than a twenty minute walk from C-Sec’s offices. Still, it’s hard for Shepard not to eye the abundance of glittering skycars with hunger. She’s a little out of practice, but how long would it take her to be flying out of here without ever setting off an alarm?

“Your eyes betray you, siha.” Thane’s voice flirts with amusement despite what they are on the Citadel to accomplish.

“Well,” she says as they scale the stairs, “I gave the crew twenty-two hours of shore leave; if we find your son fast enough, maybe I can steal a car on the way out.”

The Dark Star isn’t the kind of dive Shepard’s comfortable in; it’s a little glitzy, probably more up Kasumi’s alley while she’d rather spend time in Chora’s Den. It’s also hard to miss the dirt-smudged man standing off to the side of one of its entrances, so engrossed in a call that he doesn’t notice Shepard or Thane.

“Mouse.” Thane’s voice is as close to shocked as Shepard has heard it yet, but it just confirms what she already thought.

“You know him?” Shepard asks; they still haven’t been noticed.

“Yes,” Thane says, eyes unblinking. “When we heard the name, I didn’t think it could be the same Mouse. He used to be a contact for me on the Citadel, back when I was active.”

“When you were active? He would have been-” Shepard does calculations quickly even as Thane nods and confirms what she already knows with remorse in his tone.

“Yes. He was a child. Mouse and some of the others that Bailey would call duct rats would gather information for me.”

“You used children-” Shepard sputters, incensed, and Thane looks to the floor.

“Yes. These children, the poor; we call them drala’fa. It translates closest to the ignored, though there is more to the concept than that. They see everything, and no one notices them.” The thread of regret that runs through Thane’s voice more often than not twinges louder than usual. The roar in her chest stills, a beast with whom she is engaged in constant combat, but still she thinks perhaps the fury is justified until Mouse speaks.

“Krios?” Mouse’s voice is one part fear, but ten parts relief; despite what Thane has said, Mouse is happy to see him. It is that, combined with the contrition Thane wears like a cloak, that reminds her for the thousandth time what Shepard has always known; Thane has done many horrible things, just as she has, with consequences for each of them that he is still living with.

She cannot fault him that. It would be an indictment of herself, too.

“I thought you retired,” Mouse says, rubbing the back of his neck, looking Shepard over with a skeptical eye. He doesn’t recognize her, but that’s not really a surprise. Most people wouldn’t, not dressed as she is.

“It’s… complicated,” Thane says, his face softer than she has ever seen it except when talking about his wife or his son. “But I need to ask you a question. It’s important. I know you met with my son. Who’s the target?”

When Thane asks, Mouse opens his mouth like he is going to instantly answer, trusting in the connection he has with Thane, but then his gaze flits back to Shepard. “I know you won’t rat on me, but if these people I hired find out I told you-”

“I’m Commander Shepard,” she says, though she looks to Thane for the next part as Mouse blanches.

“A Council Spectre has no interest in getting you into trouble,” Thane says, and for the moment, that seems to pacify him.

“Thought you were dead…” Mouse mumbles, and after hemming and hawing and bewilderment at the fact that Shepard is alive, he finally gives them a name.

Elias Kelham.

When they turn away from Mouse, he grabs Thane by the sleeve, and when Thane turns, Mouse hugs him.

“It’s good to see you,” he says, and Thane, paralyzed by the display, places an uncomfortable hand on Mouse’s head.

“Likewise.”

Mouse withdraws, seemingly embarrassed. “I hope you find your son.”

He had all but forgotten Mouse.

Forgotten is the wrong word (drell do not forget) but -

How had he forgotten Mouse?

Thane was more a father to him than he ever let himself be to Kolyat. This is a day of revelations that Thane isn’t sure he’s ready to contend with. The thought consumes him. Mouse was a human child, sweet by all accounts, and now he is wrapped up in a criminal underworld that Thane helped him become complicit in. Perhaps he would have been anyway; there are few opportunities for duct rats. Thane will never know.

“He was happy to see you,” Shepard says as they wait for Bailey’s people to round up Kelham for questioning. She leans up against Bailey’s desk with her arms crossed. Bailey himself is absent.

“Yes,” Thane says, though he still doesn’t entirely understand it himself. “I was all he had, I think, back then. But I left him, as I left Kolyat.”

Shepard hums thoughtfully. “You left. And you regret it. Doesn’t mean you have to stay gone.”

He has not thought of it in such black-and-white terms before, but Shepard is beautiful. She is beautiful in armor as well, an avenger and a guardian, just like the tattoo his eyes glance at all too often states, but here, illuminated by the glow of C-Sec’s various terminals, she is beautiful like a person. Icon, Spectre, intergalactic hero - she is all those things, and beautiful as each and every one of them, but this is different. She would likely be beautiful even with not a single accomplishment to her name, and the kindness she speaks is for him and him alone.

“You recruited me for a suicide mission, Shepard,” Thane reminds her, hoping that she does not notice the sudden frailty of his voice.

Shepard fixes him with a look that could almost convince him that she is a goddess herself, and in a sentence, she lays him bare. “Yeah, but I’d like to keep you alive if you’ll let me.”

Kelham cracks. They always do. She gets plenty of opportunities to hit him, but Shepard doesn’t; Bailey’s helped them out a lot, and she doesn’t really want to put him out even more if she can help it. It ends up being unnecessary anyway, once Kelham realizes that he’s dealing with a Spectre.

Bailey proves, once again, the worth of having a contact in C-Sec. “Joram Talid?” he grimaces. “Turian. He’s running for office on a platform of ending organized crime.”

Shepard raises an eyebrow. “But?”

Shaking his head, Bailey says, “His message is a good one, and his platform makes sense, but he’s anti-human. Lots of non-humans on the station thought we were violent upstarts even before the Battle of the Citadel. Now humans almost make up a majority in C-Sec and it’s been a human fleet guarding the station for months.”

Shepard rubs a circle on her forehead and sighs. “I feel like I am always the incorrect species for every mission.”

Bailey snorts, and Thane laughs softly. “We should make for the 800 blocks,” Shepard says, looking at Thane.

“I’ll have one of my guys drive you. Sergeant! Get these two in a patrol car,” Bailey says, gesturing at a salarian sitting behind a desk on the opposite side of the room.

“You don’t have to spare a sergeant,” Shepard says, all teeth, heart racing at the idea of getting behind the wheel of a car. “I can drive.”

Bailey pauses, appraising her and Thane both, before sighing. “Alright. But if anyone asks, you pushed your Spectre privileges.”

“Obviously,” Shepard says, and she grins, all teeth.

The salarian sergeant leads them to a skycar, and Shepard slides behind the wheel with a quick thanks that Thane echoes before climbing into the passenger’s seat. When the doors shut, Thane says dryly, “I would like to remind you that you did just say you’d like to keep me alive.”

She’d wondered if that would put him off, if it was overstepping a boundary when their relationship is still so dangerously undefined. No, instead, he eggs her on.

Shepard bites her lip. She smiles. And she looks straight at him. “Oh,” she says, before she can stop herself, maybe a little too confident in a skycar, “You’re good-looking, but you’ve never really lived anyway until you’ve ridden shotgun while I’m driving.”

If they weren’t on their way to stop his son from trying to assassinate a politician, she’d kiss him right there as he laughs at her, shaking his head. “You don’t believe me, but you will,” Shepard says sagely. “We’ll get something that’s got more juice than this next time, and then you’ll see.”

With a ghost of a smile on his face, despite everything, Thane says, “What does ‘riding shotgun’ mean?”

Shepard merges into traffic, driving too fast and not caring at all. “You’re doing it right now. Sitting passenger. But like I said, we’ll have more fun if I’m not constrained by driving a patrol car and the fear of getting Bailey into too much trouble.”

Thane says, “It’s a date.”

He’s worried about Kolyat, but if she can make him laugh even a little, hopefully that’s worth something. The blush that rises to her cheeks is just a bonus.

The 800 blocks aren’t far, and Joram Talid is easy to find once they get there; he has a politician’s voice, and he draws a small crowd every time he opens his mouth anyway. “What’s our play?” she asks, still feeling naked with nothing but a sidearm on her person.

Thane scans the area, likely looking for Kolyat. When he turns up nothing, he says, “The only thing we know for sure is that Kolyat will be looking for Talid. I propose that we simply follow him as he speaks to voters.”

“We should probably split up to cover more ground, right?”

Thane nods. “Yes. I’m afraid I’ve put you in a rather… exposed position, by asking you not to dress as a soldier.”

Shepard waves her anxiety away along with his words. “You’re a good enough shot for the both of us, if it comes to that, and you’ve got my back. Where do you want me?”

He appraises her a moment too long, and Shepard tries not to fidget under his stare. “Because you’re mostly unarmed, it’s probably easiest if you stay on the ground and I take to the catwalks. I’m familiar with them, and I can keep an eye on both you and Talid while also looking for Kolyat.”

“You don’t have to worry about me too much. I know I’m just an engineer, but I’m still a Spectre,” she says, winking. “My commlink is subdermal, so we can still be in contact.”

Thane nods, because he doesn’t know that that wasn’t a choice that she got to make, that Cerberus put it underneath her skin, and they separate. She never really forgets that Thane is an assassin, but it pushes it to the forefront of her mind when he disappears in the time it takes her to draw a single breath, a whisper of a prayer on his lips.

“Comms check,” Shepard says after a few moments, her eyes on Talid.

Thane is quick to respond. “Shepard.”

“Alright,” she mutters under her breath despite the line being open, “Let’s get your son.”

It is not that he has not believed Shepard every time that she has claimed to trust him. This is just the first time that perhaps he has understood it. The likelihood of there being bloodshed on this endeavor is minimal, but still; Shepard has foregone her armor at his request. From his vantage point, he can see her survey her environment coolly, fingers twitching like she’d like to draw her gun despite the confidence that they share that this can be resolved without any violence.

“Thane, you owe me dinner for making me listen to this idiot.”

Shepard’s voice pulls him back to their task. Occasionally, her eyes dash out to the edges, searching for any of the telltale signs of a hit, but mostly her gaze remains on Talid.

“Dinner seems a more normal evening than stealing a skycar,” Thane says despite the nerves that have begun to settle in his gut again.

“We don’t have to pick one. It can be both. But please tell me you’re hearing this asshole.”

Talid’s words float up to the catwalk. “They win one battle and think they’re owed a Council seat. My people won a krogan war before we asked for that honor.”

“Like people wouldn’t have been angrier with us if I’d told the Alliance to let the Council die,” Shepard mumbles irritatedly.

Talid makes a standard politician’s rounds, though Shepard bristles a little more at every word that escapes his mouth, particularly when his bodyguards threaten a shopkeeper. Thane sidesteps a stock boy as they make their way through the 800 blocks, a human not quite yet to adulthood who has no reason to know that Thane was ever there.

“I think they’ve made me. Talid looks nervous,” Shepard says, hanging back around a corner while Talid’s bodyguard scans for suspicious activity.

“It could also be that they’ve seen Kolyat.”

“Bailey said Talid’s apartment is near here. If Kolyat’s going to make a move, it’s going to be now or-” She stops speaking abruptly. Thane doesn’t have line of sight on Talid or his bodyguard; all he can see is Shepard launching herself forward away from his vision, and as she disappears, she shouts, “Kolyat!”

Thane swings down from the catwalk in time with a gunshot that rings out, and a second follows quickly.

“Thane-” Shepard has broken into a run towards a closed door that must lead to Kolyat, past Talid’s felled krogan bodyguard. “He’s heading to Talid’s apartment.”

She waves her omni-tool frantically at the door and curses. “Automated security systems suck shit,” Shepard says, running through protocols faster than Thane can process, but it stays locked.

“Shepard.” Thane’s voice is low, very nearly a growl.

“I’m a good fucking hacker, Krios, and you better never forget it,” she snarls, the adrenaline radiating from both of them, and the door finally, blessedly, opens. A siha has never let him down before, and Shepard has not bucked the trend.

They cross the threshold in lockstep, Thane first up the stairs, and what he sees paralyzes him. His son stands before him for the first time in ten years, and he is holding someone in position to be executed. Shepard has drawn her pistol, but it is at her side even though she has both hands on it.

Talid’s arms are behind his head, and he stares at the ground even as Thane, with all the love he can put into a single word, with every memory of Kolyat playing simultaneously in his mind, says, “Kolyat.”

Kolyat is tall, an adult in every way, as beautiful as Irikah ever was, but he sounds like a child when he says, “This- This is a joke, right? Now? You show up now?”

It is the tamest reaction that Kolyat could have possibly had for his appearance, but Shepard looks to Thane, worried. It is Talid, instead, that speaks. “Help me, drell. I’ll do whatever you want-”

From the corner of his eye, Shepard purses her lips. “God, if I wasn’t worried about this kid, I’d kill you myself.”

“Kolyat, please-” Thane starts again, not sure of exactly what he’s going to say, only that he must say something.

“Shut up.” There is steel in Kolyat’s voice that was not there an eternity ago when he had latched on to Thane’s leg right after Irikah’s funeral. “Get out of my way. I’m walking out of here, and he’s coming with me.”

“They’ll have snipers outside.” Desperation has leaked into Thane’s words; the thought of watching his son be gunned down by C-Sec is unbearable.

Shepard locks onto the pain instantly, even as Kolyat says, “I don’t need your help,” with a sneer that would break him if Thane wasn’t so worried about Kolyat coming out of this alive.

Thane couldn’t pull a gun on Kolyat even if he wanted to, but Shepard’s eyes narrow as he moves to make Talid stand. His breath hitches as she pulls the trigger; Thane hears the sound almost as loudly as the gunshot itself, and he chokes on every word he’s ever wanted to speak to Kolyat before her bullet strikes the light fixture to his left instead. It breaks Kolyat’s concentration, and Thane lunges forward to pull Talid away in the split second that Shepard has bought him to save his son’s soul.

“Get out of here.” Shepard nods over her shoulder, and Talid flees the apartment like it isn’t his. “Asshole.”

Kolyat has his gun (the gun Thane left for him, Thane realizes) trained on Shepard, but Shepard holsters her pistol. When Kolyat doesn’t reciprocate, Shepard shrugs and sits down on the floor, cross-legged, in that way that only humans or particularly flexible asari ever seem to be able to manage.

“She’s not your enemy,” Thane says.

Kolyat glances at him with a look that is not quite hateful and says, “Shut up,” before refocusing on Shepard. “I could still kill you.”

“You could try,” Shepard concedes, “But you won’t.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Thane recognizes the thread of emotion threatening to overwhelm Kolyat’s voice. He is close to tears, and Thane’s chest aches.

Shepard lets her gaze drift from Kolyat to Thane and then back again. “Because you’re not like your father and me. You’re not a killer.”

Kolyat lowers the gun.

“Your mother,” Thane says, finally, even though an eternity hangs between them, “They killed her to get to me. It was my fault. I left you to hunt them down, to inflict the pain on them that they inflicted on Irikah.”

Shepard forgotten, Kolyat turns to Thane. “What?”

“When I finally accomplished that, I couldn’t come back. You were older, and I had missed so much. I should have stayed.”

“Well,” Kolyat says, voice hard, “I guess it’s just too bad for me that it took so long for you to realize it, huh?”

Someone pounds on the door from outside. Thane looks to Shepard. “It must be Bailey,” she says, “Talid called C-Sec as soon as he walked out of here, and I’ve ignored the three times he’s pinged my omni-tool. I’ve locked up the door pretty tight, but I’m not sure how long I’m comfortable stalling his people after everything he’s done for us.”

Thane nods in understanding, and Kolyat lets the pistol clatter to the ground as Shepard stands and walks back to the locked door, back turned to them. Just like Irikah used to, he rubs a circle on his forehead.

From behind them, he hears Shepard say, “I’ll bring him back to the precinct. I promise. There’s no need for him to get in a car with some random officer; I’m a perfectly capable driver.” An unintelligible voice seems to protest, surely someone from C-Sec, and it must not be Bailey, because Shepard’s tone is dripping venom when she continues. “Well, Officer Jameson, if you think you’re more qualified to bring in the suspect than a Council Spectre, be my guest, but you should know that your ass will be fired the moment I submit a report to any and all of your superiors, signed Commander Evangeline Shepard, Hero of the Blitz and Savior of the Citadel.”

She is throwing her weight around for his son, with every title she has ever earned, and it is the kindest thing that anyone has done for him since Irikah died.

“Kolyat,” he says, so quiet that Thane isn’t sure that he can hear it, “I have taken many bad things out of the world. You’re the only good I ever added to it.”

Kolyat doesn’t answer.

Shepard steps up next to Thane. “I sent the C-Sec guys away, but we need to head back to the precinct before I get Bailey in trouble. I don’t know how many favors I’ve got left, but he said he’s got a room set up for you to talk to Kolyat for as long as you like.”

“Thank you, Shepard,” Thane says, and her deep brown eyes sparkle.

“It’s my pleasure.”

Somehow, he believes it. He and Kolyat walk side-by-side out of the apartment, Shepard close behind.

The silence in the skycar doesn’t bother him, and Kolyat doesn’t make a move to speak either, but it is heavy enough that it almost surprises him when Shepard says, “You’re decent with that gun, by the way. Taking down a krogan with two shots isn’t bad.” She looks at Kolyat in the rearview mirror with a smirk on her face. A slight smile tugs at Kolyat’s lips.

“Thanks. Were you telling that guy from C-Sec the truth?” Kolyat asks tentatively, like he wants to know the answer but doesn’t want to seem too eager.

“That I’m a passable driver?” There’s mischief on her face, and Kolyat chuckles. “You’d have to ask your dad. But I am Commander Shepard. That’s not a lie.”

Kolyat has other questions (Thane can see them, dancing behind his eyes.), but when Shepard mentions Thane, he closes off, arms crossed, and doesn’t speak for the rest of the ride. She pulls up right next to the precinct and Bailey, from where he is waiting for them, shakes his head. “You didn’t have to put the fear of God in Jameson.”

“Jameson didn’t have to disrespect me,” Shepard smirks, “Only reason I didn’t jack this car in the first place is because of you.”

“Working with you is exhausting, Shepard,” Bailey says, but he gestures behind him to an open door. “Take as much time as you need.” Kolyat walks in without protest. It’s not much, but it is a start.

Thane’s wife’s name is Irikah. It sounds almost musical, even through her translator’s interpretation.

She doesn’t know drell that well even if she is more familiar with them than the average human, but Shepard knows what she saw behind Kolyat’s eyes. Despite everything, he isn’t broken. He’s just extremely bruised. Whether Thane is able to do anything about it is another story.

Shepard doesn’t know what she would do if her father suddenly reappeared. He’s been gone more than three times as long as Thane left behind Kolyat.

Victor Shepard.

Shepard bites her lip. Thane’s done damage to his relationship with Kolyat that might be irreparable, but she has no doubt in her mind that he’s a better man than her own father could ever hope to be.

No, she has no interest in reconciliation with Victor Shepard, but there’s someone else she should probably write instead.

Ash,

I’m not as good at words as you are. I wish you’d been able to come with me, though. You’re a great marine and a better friend.

It didn’t look great, me showing up on Horizon with Cerberus; I can appreciate that. I hope you can understand that while you hadn’t seen me for more than two years, I felt like I was reconnecting with you after a traumatic couple of months.

I’m sorry I didn’t write sooner. And whoever you’re with in the Alliance is damn lucky to have you. If you need a reference, just say the word, though I’m pretty sure they’re going to lock me up for treason by the time this is all said and done.

Shepard

Her breath shudders as she sends the message, but it feels like a weight has lifted off of her shoulders. She had forgotten Bailey was there (even though she’s sitting on a cleared off part of his desk), but a sigh at whatever paperwork or report he’s wading through reminds her.

“They’ve been in there a while,” she says, and he looks up from what he’s doing to nod.

“Yeah. Kid’s been through a lot.” He leans back, like he’s carefully considering whether or not to tell her what he’s about to say next. When he decides, Bailey says, “I ran some searches in the C-Sec archives. About ten years ago, some real bad people died in equally bad ways. Seemed like someone was cleaning house.” Shepard eyes Bailey coolly, but he meets her gaze without hesitation and continues, “Prime suspect was a drell. Obviously, we never caught him.”

This is not a fight that Shepard wants to have right after Bailey has done her so many favors, and she can’t imagine that Bailey wants to deal with it himself. “Ten years is a long time,” Shepard says carefully, “That person’s probably dead now.”

After a silence that feels like it lasts minutes, Bailey finally looks back to his terminal. “You’re probably right. The boy did shoot some people, though, and there’s no way around that. I personally don’t mind, to be honest with you, but I can’t just let him walk out of here.”

“Yeah.” Shepard chews on an errant hangnail. “Those guys were assholes, though. They were shaking down businesses and threatening humans the whole time we were following them.”

“Doesn’t change the facts. He doesn’t seem like a bad kid, Shepard, but I’m not sure what I can do about this one.”

“If you keep it in C-Sec, you can give him community service.”

“For attempted murder?” Bailey’s voice is incredulous.

“I said you’d have to keep it in C-Sec. And Talid really is an asshole.”

Bailey sighs again and runs a hand down his face. “Well, I can’t argue with that assessment. I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’re a doll, Captain.”

“More like I’m gullible. But I’d say we’re up to the point where you owe me a favor.”

“If you can get him community service, deal.”

Shepard sticks her hand out, and Bailey rolls his eyes like he thinks he’s doing business with the devil, but he shakes it anyway. They are just pulling away from each other when the door to the interrogation room where Thane and Kolyat had been speaking opens and Thane steps out, hands folded behind his back.

“How’d it go?” Shepard asks, tucking one leg up underneath herself. Bailey gives the action a disapproving look, likely not fond of her foot on his desk, but she’s already shaken on owing him a favor.

“Our problems…” Thane trails off, looking behind him at the room where Kolyat still sits. “They aren’t something I can fix with a few words. We’ll keep talking and see what happens.” Shepard nods, and Thane looks to Bailey. “I can’t thank you enough for all of your help. We wouldn’t have reached him in time without your assistance.”

“You still almost didn’t.” Bailey’s voice is dry, but he shakes his head, and there is almost a tenderness to it when he says, “You’re not the only man who ever screwed up raising a son.”

Thane gets that faraway look on his face that he always does when overtaken by a memory, then he says, “I’m not naive enough to think that Kolyat will be able to shoot someone and walk away without punishment.”

“Well,” Bailey says, gaze sliding over Shepard before meeting Thane’s eyes again. “Given the mitigating circumstances that you discovered on your stakeout, I can probably convince Talid to let me keep this in C-Sec. Kolyat will be doing community service for a long time, but I think we can all agree that it’s better than the alternative.”

Thane blinks twice, momentarily speechless, and then he says, “Truly?”

“I’m not making any promises, but I doubt Talid wants anyone to know that he’s making threats to people and extorting businesses. If we promise to keep that to ourselves, I’ll bet he won’t press charges.”

“Thank you again, Captain. The debt I owe you is great.”

Shepard has never known what to make of Bailey as a person exactly; their relationship has been based completely on business. He waves away Thane’s words, though, and says, “As long as Shepard ponies up that favor when I ask, you don’t owe me anything. Glad to give you and your son a shot.”

She likes Bailey, Shepard decides, even if he does rough up suspects (she’s guilty of worse) and take bribes.

Shepard’s omni-tool chimes with a message, and when she reads it, she smiles. “No chance we can borrow Kolyat for lunch before you process him, is there?”

Bailey deadpans. “Don’t you think you’ve pushed your luck enough today, Shepard?”

“Worth a try.”

Thane bows his head and says another word of thanks to Bailey before he and Shepard both wish him farewell and step out of the precinct. After they leave, Thane says, “Shepard, I can’t thank you enough-”

Shepard brushes his hand with hers like he had when she had been on the verge of losing control earlier and says, “You don’t need to thank me.”

When she starts to step forward, Thane grasps her hand in his own. “It has been ten years since someone has shown me even a fraction of the kindness that you have today, siha.”

His skin is cool against hers, but he releases her hand before she can step forward and further the gesture. “I’ll be as kind to you as you let me,” she says softly. When he doesn’t answer, Shepard clears her throat. “I wasn’t joking when I asked if we could borrow Kolyat for a little while. Tali asked if I wanted to come get lunch with her. Would you like to join us?”

“I won’t be intruding?”

“Nah. Tali likes you more than me anyway.”

With warmth in his voice that makes Shepard’s battered heart glow, Thane says, “I doubt that.”

Chapter Text

Miranda’s fingers tap against the table, restless. It had been a surprise to Tali when she’d agreed to come along; they’d finished up Shepard’s omni-tool this morning, and Tali wanted to take advantage of the shore leave still left.

“I’m meeting Shepard at a café on Tayseri Ward that’s just reopened. Do you want to come? We can call it a celebration for finishing up the prototype. I was going to give it to her there, and I don’t want to do it without you,” Tali had said.

Miranda had asked, “Why?” as if the thought had never occurred to her.

Tali hadn’t answered. She’d grabbed her wrist and pulled her up from her desk with an eye roll that Miranda wasn't privy to, and Miranda hadn’t protested. She’d just smiled a little smile that she thought Tali couldn’t see.

Now, though, she seems almost fidgety, unsure what to do with herself without paperwork or a fight in front of her. “You said Shepard was meeting you here?” she asks, folding a napkin not-quite nervously, and Tali nods.

“She said she was running late, but that she’s on her way now.”

Shepard is also probably going to give her immeasurable grief for bringing Miranda along, but the less time that Miranda spends alone in her office on a Cerberus ship the better, in Tali’s opinion. It’s worth any teasing that Tali may have to endure.

With the Fleet, Tali’s a catch. There isn’t a more eligible quarian to be found among her people. Here, though, on the Citadel, she is just any other suit rat to the majority of people. In fact, she is probably only worth a look at all because she is with Miranda.

It’s funny to watch a human man walk by and nearly break his neck trying to get a second look at Miranda, though. There’s no doubt in Tali’s mind that Miranda notices; she just isn’t interested.

“I’m sorry to be so ignorant,” Miranda says, looking anything but sorry (it’s gotten easier to read her as time has gone on, but Miranda is immensely proud for a human), “But can you eat anything that’s here? I can see that they serve both dextro and levo food, but with your suit-”

“They make purified turian food here specifically for quarians. I’ve never tried it because it’s too expensive, so I invited Shepard. She won’t have any choice but to pay after we give her the omni-tool.”

Miranda laughs. Tali can only call it musical. “Clever.”

Shepard is beautiful, too, when she lets herself be, Tali thinks, as she walks under the archway that serves as an entrance to the outdoor section at the café. She is never not a soldier, but a smile lights up her face much like it might have before she died, and casual clothes suit her. Even her hair is looser than usual, though it is still tied back from her face. Whatever happened when she stepped off the Normandy must have left Shepard in an incredibly good mood, because it isn’t very often that she seems so comfortable.

Then Shepard looks behind her, and any nerves that Tali had about being teased for bringing Miranda along evaporate. Shepard is there to have lunch with her, but she only has eyes for Thane, who is trailing behind her.

“It’s been a long time since I tried to do any statistical analysis on the interpersonal relationships of the proposed team for this mission,” Miranda says, menu in hand, “But it does surprise me that they’ve grown so fond of each other.”

Tali turns to look at Miranda more closely. “Yes, well. I think this mission has been a learning experience for everyone.”

And again, Miranda laughs softly. It is the loveliest sound in the world.

Shepard’s eyes gleam. “She brought a date,” she says conspiratorially to Thane as Tali waves at them from across the café’s seating area.

“So did you, siha,” Thane says with a laugh.

Snorting, Shepard says, “Thinking highly of yourself today, Krios? I can’t call this a date until you tell me what siha means.”

In a breathy voice that sends heat to Shepard’s core, Thane says, “It’s the least that I owe you after today, but I would prefer to have that conversation somewhere more private.” There is something about his voice that has no right to disarm her so easily. Thane’s smirk is maddening. “But I think Tali would notice if we disappear at this point.”

Shepard manages to recover a modicum of decorum. “And I thought you were supposed to be world-class at stealth.”

“It is no fault of mine that everyone can’t help but look at you,” he says, sweeping past her, a compliment that might feel like an insult coming from anyone else. Thane is also right that she and Tali have indeed reached a point of mutually assured destruction. She cannot mercilessly poke fun at her for having brought Miranda along when Thane has breezed right by her to take the seat at Tali’s side.

Shepard doesn’t know how to be a civilian, and she has killed more people than she can probably count, so she forgives herself if she feels a little awkward sitting across from Thane and next to Miranda.

“You took so long that I thought you’d died again,” Tali says sourly, body language almost petulant despite the affectionate head tilt that she affords Thane.

Miranda, dryly, looking over a menu, says, “That’s not something I even want to joke about.”

She won’t out their mission to help Kolyat unless Thane does first. “Sorry. I ran into some trouble on the way. What are you getting, Tali?”

“Paste. It’s made of turian food, though, so I’m looking forward to it,” Tali says, and Shepard chuckles as a silence falls over them for a brief moment.

Absently, mostly to herself, Miranda asks, “Couldn’t they just serve BlastOhs or something?”

Shepard bites down on her lip, hard, trying to swallow the amusement that threatens to erupt from her throat. Thane exhales softly, all but a chuckle, and Tali does laugh. “You like BlastOhs?”

Miranda blinks. “Why wouldn’t I like BlastOhs?”

Tali shakes her head, smile evident in the glow of her eyes. “No reason. You give me a new excuse to like you every day.”

Miranda has the standard biotic’s appetite despite having impeccable manners; she purses her lips at the empty plate that once held a grilled fish imported from Thessia served atop a bed of leafy asari greens. Tali finishes her meal at roughly the same time; unimpressed, she says, “I suppose it was better than what I brought from the Fleet, but not enough to justify the price.”

Shepard swallows a mouthful of pasta covered in red sauce. “How much was it?”

“Enough that you’re paying.”

Shepard scowls goodnaturedly, the only one with food left on the table. Thane has long since finished his own lunch, a bowl of fruit native to Kahje that would not look like much of a meal to a non-drell.

“Anyway,” Tali says, “I have to get back to the ship to work on some things in the drive core before we leave, but I asked you to meet me because we finished our project with your new omni-tool.”

Shepard’s eyes brighten and her utensils clatter into her still-half-full bowl. “Let me see! You’re a wizard with omni-tools; I’ve been so excited to see it.”

“Tali’s work is remarkable.” Miranda crosses her legs and rests her elbows on the table. “She’s a downright genius. I could actually call it fun, working with someone who isn’t holding me back for once.”

Thane’s eyes meet Tali’s for a moment before she looks away, almost embarrassed at the praise, but then she sets the omni-tool on the table for Shepard. “I wouldn’t activate it here. We enhanced the combat capabilities and I doubt that the restaurant would take kindly to it.”

“What’s it do?” Shepard asks, holding on to it reverently. Miranda is pleased with her reaction, a half-smile on her face, but she lets Tali do the talking.

“I was only able to do it with Miranda’s help. We modified some batarian designs that Cerberus had on file.”

“In other words, Tali only needed my ID codes,” Miranda says, a laugh in her voice, and for a moment, she doesn’t sound cold.

“No!” Tali says, indignant. “Anyway, you always talk about how hand-to-hand is where you’re weakest, which frankly makes you a terrible marine-”

Shepard sets her mouth in a line, and fixes Tali with a stare. “Tali. Please.”

“You do say that. Anyway. It’s a modified batarian model, and by modified, I mean better. You have the regular blade attachment just like all standard-issue Alliance omni-tools, but at your discretion, you can also summon up a gauntlet around your fist.”

“At the risk of sounding like an idiot, I am generally already wearing armor when fighting people,” Shepard says, chuckling.

“Keelah, Shepard.” Tali places a hand to her facemask. “It’s a fortified gauntlet. It’s stronger than even your fist would be, and there’s an additional modification to add spikes to the gauntlet if you want it to be even more lethal.”

“I can’t wait to try it out,” Shepard says, removing her other omni-tool and replacing it with the new one. “I want to get a feel for it; can you take this one back to the ship?”

Tali laughs and takes the omni-tool, the one Shepard had used to get them to Kolyat in time, before standing up from the table. “Did you want to come, Miranda? I know you said you had some work to do as well.”

“Sure.” Miranda’s heels click on the floor as she stands. “Thanks for lunch, Shepard.”

Shepard frowns goodnaturedly. “None of you know how to savor a meal, and you also bail before I even pay the bill that you decided I was footing before I got here?”

Tali laughs. “Have her home at a decent hour, Thane.”

Shepard rolls her eyes, and Thane smiles. “Don’t you think you should be worried about me instead?”

When Tali and Miranda have disappeared, and Thane and Shepard are alone, sitting across from each other, Shepard says, “You can order something else if you want. I’ve always been a slow eater.” Thane shakes his head, and Shepard purses her lips. “What kind of biotic are you? Miranda looked furious at her portion size.”

“What I ate was more than enough. You know I consider food a necessity rather than a luxury.” When he folds his hands and sets his elbows on the table, Shepard fixes him with a playful stare. “Anyway, I’m the one at your disposal. I would not ask any more of you than you’ve already done, even if it’s something as small as ordering an additional drink.”

Shepard snorts, but she doesn’t press the issue, instead fishing around for a meatball with her fork and saying, “Thank you for trusting me to help you, by the way. I’m glad you didn’t have to do that alone.”

As she so often does, Shepard surprises him. How does it make sense for her to thank him? “If there is anyone that should be thankful, siha, it is me. I thought I might have been able to do it on my own, but without you, I never would have found him in time.”

It is a truth he has been grappling with; Thane has always been a woefully inept father, and he would have approached finding Kolyat differently if he had not had Shepard’s help, but there is no telling if he would have reached Kolyat before it was too late. With her, he did. That is the simple truth.

Shepard pushes the bowl of pasta away from her. “Help yourself. I saved you the last bites,” she says with a wink, removing the elastic from her hair and massaging the crown of her head.

“Shepard, I-”

“Oh come on. If you hate it, I won’t make you eat the rest of it. But I wanted to offer you some and I figure this way I don’t get to experience - what did you say before? ‘There is highly concentrated venom in my saliva,’” she says with a grin, making quotations with her fingers even as she slides the elastic onto her wrist.

He obliges, with one bite and then another, but when he opens his mouth, Shepard stops him. “If you say that there’s too much spice, or anything along those lines, in this spaghetti, which is frankly bland, I’m going to have to call it quits on this relationship.”

When Thane laughs despite himself (because the words die on his lips at her protest), Shepard shakes her head, still smiling, and pulls her legs up underneath her on the chair. “You’re unbelievable.”

He finishes what remains in the bowl wordlessly, but the corners of Shepard’s lips remain turned upward. People would stare even if they weren’t a human and a drell sitting together, for any number of reasons; drell are still relatively few off Kahje, there had also been a quarian with them just previously, Shepard’s scars attract attention wherever they go (though they are healing, slowly), and Shepard is famous even by Spectre standards if anyone manages to recognize her in civilian attire.

When Shepard gets the bill, she grimaces. “Tali wasn’t joking about her lunch being expensive. Hers cost almost as much as yours, mine, and Miranda’s combined.”

“She would tell you that she’s worth it.”

Shepard nods. “And she’d be right.”

“She’d be right,” Thane agrees with a smirk. Shepard settles the tab, and he asks, “Do you have other business to attend to?”

“No. Not really. Do you?”

“No. I would go see Kolyat before we leave, but I think we have already tested Bailey’s patience enough.”

Shepard snorts but doesn’t disagree, standing to leave. Thane mirrors her, and they exit the café the way that they came, under a makeshift archway that seems like a stopgap while the Citadel continues to rebuild the destruction wrought by Sovereign. He doesn’t ask where they’re going, satisfied enough just to follow her, but Shepard doesn’t walk far, stopping in front of a railing that overlooks a small garden meant to beautify the ward. “I don’t miss Earth very often,” she says, voice more tender than he expects it to be, “But I miss the greenery.”

Thane nods, stepping up next to where she is leaning against the railing with his arms behind his back. “Kahje is almost all ocean, and the islands are mostly developed. There is very little flora to speak of, at least on land.”

“Hm.” She separates the ends of her hair into three sections and idly braids it before letting it fall again. Thane doesn’t think he’s staring, but he must be, because she says, “You can touch it, if you want.” His lips part at her words, hesitating, and she continues, “Sorry if I’ve misread that cue. I thought I’d seen you looking a few times.”

If anything, it’s the opposite. If Thane touches her like that, it will be a point of no return, though he has passed several of those already.

Shoulders tense, Shepard stares into the garden, seemingly determined not to look at him, and her hair hides her face from him. He never really had a choice in the matter, did he? It is not like Thane could reject a siha who chose him. To even consider doing so is a folly from which he would never recover.

And why would he want to reject her? Shepard is fierce in every sense of the word, as quick to hold out a hand as to bite at an enemy. She is the reason that he has another chance with Kolyat.

When Thane's hand threads through her hair, a shiver runs down her body that threatens to undo him. Shepard finally turns to look at him, her eyes dark and deep, and he freezes, strands flowing between his finger as his gaze meets hers.

It is softer than he could have ever imagined, even after they have spent the better part of today saving his son.

“Thane-” It is soft when Shepard says his name, and she leans into his touch instead of pulling away.

He was a tool for the hanar first, and for any number of other employers once the hanar released him. That has never been anything other than a fact, and tools serve their purpose. They do not lose control. And yet -

“Siha,” he answers her, voice low, hungry. In one motion, the hand wrapped in Shepard’s hair reaches around the back of her head to cradle her neck before he crashes his lips against hers.

Chapter Text

His kiss tastes as it used to feel to look out at the stars. Thane’s hand is still in her hair, his fused fingers catching almost awkwardly, but Shepard’s heart thuds in her throat. Maybe this is foolish, and maybe they are all going to die, but this feels good and that’s worth something. It might even be worth everything. Thane’s lips are dry, but it seems like a feature rather than a flaw. When Shepard opens her mouth to him, he half-smiles, and he steps even closer when she rests her left hand on his chest, no matter that they are in the middle of Tayseri Ward.

Then the recklessness of the action hits her, and she steps away abruptly. Thane’s teeth pull against her bottom lip so brazenly that it is all that Shepard can do not to moan. When he registers what she’s doing, Thane gives her much more space than she needs, looking almost-but-not-quite hurt, and immediately she says, “This is not a rejection. I just- You said that you didn’t know how the venom would affect me. So if I have to choose between having this happen here or on the Normandy, I’d rather it be on the Normandy. Even though the extranet said that the effects of a human ingesting drell venom should be mostly mild-” She’s rambling, but she can’t stop, and Thane must be reassured, because he closes the gap again and brushes his thumb across her lips.

“You looked it up?” he asks, amused, and Shepard flushes.

“Shut up.”

The garden behind them is beautiful; if Shepard wasn’t a little nervous about what exactly this drell venom was going to cause, she’d like to linger here longer. There’s nothing that sounds more idyllic than having a patch of greenery to look at while she kisses Thane, even if it means that every passing person would have a front-row seat.

Instead, he puts his hands in the pockets of his coat and smirks at her before turning away towards the shuttle that had brought them to Tayseri in the first place. Thane shows her his back, and each time he does fills her with such affection that it might as well be the first.

Their stances on anything and everything have not been defined, but she held Thane’s hand before, when they were walking to have lunch with Tali and Miranda. It does not feel improper to rest her palm in his, stumbling just slightly at the fusion of his middle and fourth fingers before finding a comfortable compromise as they sit in the lowlight of the shuttle. His lips part, not displeased, and though there are people around them (two turians, a salarian, and another human), Thane uses his other hand to draw her in closer. When she looks up at him, he kisses her forehead softly.

“If I overstep, siha, you need only say,” he murmurs, voice low and resonating somewhere deep in Shepard’s core.

“Likewise,” she says with her heart pounding in her ribcage. She can’t decide if the almost-claustrophobic feeling in her throat is from nerves or the high that may or may not be coming. “It would probably be for the best not to flaunt it on the ship.”

“Of course,” he says, chest rumbling, and Shepard swallows hard. “But for what it’s worth, I am hard-pressed to think of a situation where you could overstep.”

No, they cannot get to the Normandy fast enough. Shepard does not know what is going to happen once they get there, but she is looking forward to it. They part when the shuttle reaches their stop, but it is at the docking bay that Shepard starts to feel a little unstuck.

The world has never felt so open.

Shepard takes a deep, shuddering breath that fills her with satisfaction, and a brief glance out the window on her way must take longer than she realizes, because in just a moment, Thane is a few paces ahead of her.

“Shepard.” She dials in on the sound of his voice. Drell are like turians; though they do not have subvocals as sophisticated, there are sounds they make outside the human spectrum of hearing, buried in their rasping tones. There is something in the way that Thane says her name, though; she can almost hear it, the extra thing that he is saying in a way that her ears can’t parse. Shepard wants desperately to understand it. He repeats himself: “Shepard.”

She hasn’t moved, but now Thane is standing at her side, his right hand hovering at the small of her back. Shepard blinks three times, an attempt to regain her bearings even though she can very nearly feel the pulse in Thane’s fingers through the thin fabric of her shirt.

With an effort that Shepard would struggle to call minimal, she crosses the threshold into the Normandy.

“Hey, Commander,” Joker says from the cockpit, his standard greeting, followed up with a slightly more stiff, “Thane.”

“Joker,” Shepard manages almost normally, and she turns towards the elevator. The distance between where she and Thane are and where she would like them to be seems extremely far. Though it takes somewhere between thirty seconds and an eternity, they finally reach the relative privacy of the elevator.

“Are you feeling alright?” Thane asks.

“Yes,” she says, turning to look at him and struck by the hopelessly beautiful iridescence of his skin. “I’m just-” The colors around her flare, stunning. “I never actually asked if you wanted to come up to my cabin.”

Thane chuckles. Goosebumps run up her spine. “My arm is yours, siha. I’d hoped you already knew that.”

The words stick to the roof of her mouth, tumbling ungracefully out, but she says, “You have a choice. There is no Compact here. I want you to be with me only if you want to be with me.”

The elevator opens to her quarters. Thane is not that much taller, but he towers over her all the same. “You have nothing to fear in that regard,” he says, and Shepard draws him close by the collar.

She pulls his mouth to hers, and even though her eyes are shut, the world explodes with light. Even with every intent of taking things slow, and even though a large part of what she’s feeling might simply be a high, Shepard feels like this might just be heaven.

Has she always been an angel? Did she have to die first, before she could become fire and fury? Shepard’s eyes are wide as she pulls away from another kiss with him to walk into her cabin from the elevator. Thane has never been interested in a non-drell, so his venom has never been an issue; her state is clearly altered, but she doesn’t seem to be in danger or pain. That is his only concern.

She is beautiful, he thinks, as she stares at the fish in her aquarium. Whether she is beautiful for a human he can’t say with complete certainty. Shepard is a predator, hunting down the Collectors, the Reapers, and any obstacle in between, but a protector, too. The gods are equal, but despite her killer instinct, she is much closer to Arashu than Amonkira. Humans are built similarly to drell, but there is no biological instinct in his attraction to her. She is simply a force.

Shepard holds the gaze of a particularly curious Thessian sunfish, one that has swum up to the glass to be as near her as possible. The picture of Staff Lieutenant Alenko is still next to her terminal, but it is face down - not forgotten, just not causing immediate pain.

“How long do you think it will take me to come down from this?” she asks. Shepard is still gazing into her fishtank, but Thane looks to her anyway.

“The extranet said three to four hours, depending on any number of factors.”

She does turn to him then, and when her eyes meet his, Shepard’s face splits into a grin that is so unguarded that it almost doesn’t even look like her. The effects of the intoxication still seem mostly mild, but this is a Shepard that Thane has never seen before. It’s the same woman, he thinks. Maybe she’s closer to the Shepard that loved Minnie, or even the Shepard that loved Kaidan Alenko, but she is still the same woman.

Thane has almost forgotten what he said, but Shepard’s smile is infectious, threaded through with mischief. It feels like a sin even to allow himself to be touched by her, with all the evil that he has done, but her fingertips are warm on his cheek.

“You looked it up, too,” she says, and Thane exhales a laugh.

“In a fit of weakness where I thought you might reciprocate my affection in even the smallest way, yes.”

“Most of what I found was relatively academic. There wasn’t nearly as much porn as I thought there would be,” Shepard says, tone matter of fact, and Thane does laugh at that.

“No, there wasn’t,” he agrees.

“I would like to kiss you again, but I would also like to be sober when shore leave ends in six hours. I guess I’ll just have to figure something else out for next time.”

Shepard is still touching him lightly, as if he’s somehow earned her warmth despite the life that he’s lived, but more interesting to Thane are the words she says.

“Next time?” he asks, and she tilts her head to the side, pupils dilated so widely that there is almost no iris to be seen.

“Next time. Unless you don’t want there to be a next time.”

“I do. I only thought that perhaps-” Thane’s chest constricts for reasons that he could not put in words if he tried, even though he must. “I thought that it was possible that you would not wish to pursue whatever this might become with someone doomed to die sooner rather than later.”

Shepard knits her brow and looks away for a moment. “You’re right. I don’t want that.” She meets his gaze again as a crushing weight threatens to settle into his extremities. “Which is why I only want to do this if you say you’ll let me try to keep you alive.”

Thane shakes his head, sighing. “Siha-”

“I’ve said it before. I don’t know if you believed me. But I don’t want to do this if we’re both just resigned to it ending in tragedy.” Shepard gestures at the space between them, and she isn’t smiling anymore. “If we give it everything we have and we both die trying to stop the Collectors, fine. If Miranda and Mordin and whatever other favors I can call in don’t slow or stop your Kepral’s, fine. But if we’re going to give this a try, I can’t-” Shepard stumbles, eyes clenched shut, but not before Thane sees her glance at the picture frame that holds Kaidan Alenko. She breathes deeply, steadying herself, emotional state no doubt further compromised by the ‘mild hallucinations’ that they both knew were a condition of any kiss that they shared. “I can’t know that you’re going to die and not do anything about it. If that’s the lot you’ve accepted, then I won’t try to change your mind. But I won’t care about you this way if you aren’t going to fight a death sentence that we can maybe overturn.”

Kolyat sits across from me. Bailey and Shepard are waiting outside, but the interrogation room is heavy with the silence between us.

“I don’t know how to do this. I didn’t expect you to show up. I quit hoping that you’d show up a long time ago.” Kolyat rubs his forehead and then lets his hand slide down the side of his face. “I don’t know how to do this,” he repeats, this time more quietly, as if he’s saying it to himself.

He has grown into a man in the time I was asleep. There is nothing that I can say to change that cold fact. “I’m sorry,” I say, and it is simple and small and not nearly enough, but what is there to say when I have let him down so completely for the last ten years? I try again. “It should have been me instead of your mother. And I’m sorry.”

Kolyat laughs, not cruelly, but hysterically. “Maybe. Probably. At least you came back in time to die on me.”

Shepard stares at Thane, eyes still too black, though the brown never fully disappeared. Her fingers still haven’t lost purchase on his skin, and Thane mirrors how she has been holding him, cupping her cheek in his hand.

He is fairly sure that he does not have the capacity to feel fear anymore; it is one of the first things he lost, training for the hanar. Thane is not certain what else to call it, though, when he says, “As you wish,” and buries his face in Shepard’s hair.

Chapter Text

They don’t kiss again, but he is still there when she falls asleep. Thane isn’t quite holding her, but her hand is in his anyway.

“It’s been a while.” Shepard hears her dream drell before she sees her.

“I thought you’d left,” Shepard says, hoping it isn’t simply the high bringing her a familiar comfort. It is never clear if the drell is always just a figment of her imagination, anyway, but she has always at least seemed more real than that.

A smile quirks the drell’s lips. It is a change of pace, seeing her here, and different from all the other times in a multitude of ways. Shepard is asleep (she must be, because that is the only way she can see her drell, sitting at the foot of the bed that Shepard can rarely bring herself to lay in), curled in the corner of her sofa, but she is able to watch as Thane releases her hand before standing, gently brushing his lips against her forehead. Her drell watches too, a fondness in her eyes, as Thane’s lips move with words Shepard can’t hear.

“A prayer for you,” her drell says. “You are plenty watched over, even if I someday don’t return.”

They watch as he gently strips the top layer from her bed and lays it across Shepard’s sleeping body. The angles of the drell’s face soften as Thane pulls the blanket over Shepard’s chest. “I told you that being alive wouldn’t be so bad,” she says, and Shepard exhales a laugh.

The colors pulsing are a remnant of her intoxication; this is far from a normal dream. “I wish you were here,” Shepard says, and her drell tilts her head to the side. “I wish I knew your name.”

Shepard isn’t able to cry anymore. It’s superfluous, a waste of resources. If she has the time and energy to cry, she can put it into something else. Still, and Shepard is sure it is the aftershocks of the high that she is still riding out, the drell is so beautiful that she wants to shed tears. Her smile widens, and she holds Shepard’s face close enough that she can see that the drell’s eyes are wet, too.

For the second time in as many hours, Shepard feels safe in a drell’s hands.

Lingering in Shepard’s quarters is a temptation to which he will not succumb, and he retires to life support for his own sleep cycle. If pressed, Thane could not say what single event thrust him over the edge on the Citadel. As with anything, he can confidently put it up to a multitude of events.

Shepard diverted course to the Citadel before even hearing his reasoning for why.

She helped him find Kolyat.

She’s pulled every string in her veritable arsenal to all but guarantee Kolyat community service after he attempted to assassinate a politician.

She asked him to join her for lunch with a friend.

She had looked beautiful, outlined by the almost falsely lush garden just behind the railing she had been leaning on.

Thane has been convinced of his death for so long that he is still not certain if he is comfortable saying that he wants to live, but-

There is Tali. There is Shepard. There is Kolyat.

Perhaps it would be cruel to all of them not to at least see if it is remotely possible. He does not have to decide if he wants to live today. He only has to see if it is even an option. It is not as though they are going to pour the same amount of resources into Thane that they did into Shepard, regardless.

So, after waking, he steps into the med bay. Chakwas doesn’t look up from her datapad initially; in fact, Thane thinks that she doesn’t notice his entrance at all. She is not quite a civilian, because the Alliance requires basic combat proficiency for anyone who has ever enrolled, but other than Joker, Chakwas is likely the least equipped for the battlefield out of anyone on the Normandy. “Doctor?” he ventures, and to her credit, she looks up without seeming startled.

“Sere Krios,” Chakwas says, a pleasantly surprised smile on her face. “What can I do for you? You appear to be in fine enough health.”

“Thane is fine,” he says, almost uncomfortable with the formality. “I simply wanted your opinion on a medical matter.”

“Certainly.” She sets down her datapad and turns in her chair to face him. With Chakwas’s undivided attention on him, Thane folds his hands behind his back. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes. In fact, I feel better than I have in an extremely long time.”

Shepard’s body is warm against mine, even with the layers of clothing between us. Her lips radiate enough heat that she might as well be a sun, never mind that we are standing on the Citadel, on Tayseri Ward.

She kisses me back.

When he returns from the memory, Chakwas is still waiting patiently. Thane says, “You mentioned before that there were radical options for treating my Kepral’s. Would you indulge me about them?”

She tilts her head to the side and crosses her arms. “I’m more than happy to tell you what I think and the research I’ve read, but I have to imagine that Mordin would be more qualified.”

Chakwas is not wrong. Still, Thane says, “Mordin’s… zeal for medicine leaves me somewhat uncomfortable asking him for my initial consultation.”

“Very well,” Chakwas says, and the lines at the corners of her eyes crinkle. “Let me compile some resources. I’m sure you know plenty about your own disease, but I have some obscure information from medical journals regarding treatment. While I do that, Shepard has told me that you make a mean cup of tea; would you mind?”

Irikah would have found it unbelievable, but he nods. He steps out into the mess. And he even gives Gardner a friendly half-smile before he starts brewing enough tea for two.

When Shepard wakes, there is no drell in her cabin, from her dream or otherwise. The high has faded; only a residual peace remains, though that is certainly not the norm. It was also never going to last.

Her plan is to walk down to the mess and get a light breakfast, not wondering at all if the dynamic between herself is going to change or be weird and awkward. Shepard does not even get to the elevator before she has to divert course.

EDI says, “Shepard, the Illusive Man is waiting to speak to you in the briefing room.”

Shepard groans. “It can’t wait until I go get some cereal or something?”

“Unfortunately not, Shepard.” EDI’s voice is sympathetic; too often, Shepard wonders just how human she would sound were she not shackled.

Dragging a hand down her face, Shepard says, “Okay,” and makes her way to see the Illusive Man for the first time since she, Thane, and Garrus narrowly escaped the Collector ship.

When he tells her that Cerberus has been studying a derelict Reaper, it is all Shepard can do not to outright laugh.

“You have to know how this sounds to me, right? You delivered us, gift-wrapped with a bow, to the Collectors and you didn’t have the decency to let me know beforehand. How can I think that this is anything but another trap?”

The Illusive Man taps his cigarette into an ashtray. “I can appreciate that you trust me even less than you did before, but the facts remain the same. Once EDI confirmed that the Collectors and Reapers are both using Identify Friend/Foe systems to travel through the Omega-4 Relay, we reached out to the team of scientists that we had on board the Reaper. Initially, the plan was that they would mine as much information as they could, and then send the IFF to us. We lost communication with them yesterday, so it looks like you’ll have to pick it up yourself.”

There is no agency working for Cerberus. Shepard is a marionette and she dances at the Illusive Man’s command because she has no choice. There is no other lead. She will never find another dead Reaper anywhere. If they need an IFF, she has to do what the Illusive Man asks. She knows it, and so does he.

With hatred that Shepard can’t put into words, she asks, “What can you tell me?”

The Illusive Man smirks at her, a glint in his eyes even more pronounced than his usual cybernetics. “The Reaper is ancient. I won’t say it’s safe, but it is stable; there’s no trace of the species that damaged it.”

Shepard’s eyes narrow. “I saw what Sovereign did to the Citadel fleet. Hard to imagine that anything could stop something that powerful.”

“This Reaper is a relic of an age when mammals just began to walk on Earth. I have no intelligence regarding what brought it down besides that. I’ll forward the coordinates. Good luck, Shepard.”

The call drops before Shepard gets a chance to roll her eyes. “EDI, can you assemble the crew, please? We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

Mordin and Jacob file in first, one after another; Zaeed and Grunt arrive and insist that they are not arriving together. They just happened to be in the same place at the same time. Daniels, Donnelly, Tali, Jack, Hawthorne, Gardner, Patel, Samara, Kelly, Miranda - the crew continues to stream steadily in, and Shepard’s chest aches. This ship was so empty when they started. Now it is full of people that she will save or fail.

The final two to shuffle in (though Thane has not shuffled anywhere in his life, if Shepard had to guess) are Dr. Chakwas and Thane, talking easily with one another. Chakwas’s fingers are even wrapped around a mug of tea. It’s a surprise, but a pleasant one, and when Thane catches Shepard’s eye, she smiles softly.

Shepard thinks that it’s subtle, but Mordin sidles over to Thane quickly, and when she scans the room immediately afterwards, Garrus holds her gaze with a mandible flutter that makes her roll her eyes.

“So,” she says finally, and the sound of her voice commands silence. “I think we’re all in agreement that the Illusive Man screwed us pretty royally with the Collector ship. He could have at least let us know it was a trap.”

Jack throws a heated glare Miranda’s way that Miranda doesn’t seem to even notice, palms on the table next to Tali, who has her arms folded across her chest, doing a poor job of containing whatever tension she’s feeling.

“That’s not important,” Shepard says, even as Jack practically bristles. “What’s important is that, no matter how bad he fucked us over, EDI’s got a bead on what we need to do next. We’re going to set a course for a dead Reaper.”

“Shepard is correct.” EDI blinks into existence above the conference table as she speaks, and then she replaces the model of the Normandy with a projection of the galaxy as she continues. “In addition, I have also determined the approximate location of the Collector homeworld.”

It isn’t often that Miranda seems knocked off-kilter, but this is one of those times. EDI locks on to her best guess, and Miranda says, “That can’t be right.”

“The galactic core?” Jacob says the same thing as Miranda with different words.

“EDI-” Shepard starts.

EDI’s voice nears stern. “My calculations are correct, Shepard. Using data analyzed from the Collector ship, the galactic core is the only location that their homeworld could be located.”

Murmurs break out around the room, and Shepard allows it as she processes. After a moment, when everyone has aired their disbelief and skepticism, Shepard says, “It doesn’t matter what we think. EDI isn’t wrong. The Collectors can survive going through that relay, and we will, too. We’ve got to get that IFF, but there’s no telling what’s waiting for us on that Reaper. I need everyone at their best.”

“Why wait?” Jacob asks, “If we need the IFF, what’s the point in putting it off?”

Shepard doesn’t mind being questioned, but it surprises her when Miranda takes the counter. “It’s a derelict Reaper.” Her eyes glance at Tali, so quickly that Shepard thinks that she might have imagined it. “The Collectors could be waiting for us. We need to be as strong as possible if that’s the case.”

Something’s wrong with Tali. She seems unfocused, and she doesn’t move even when Shepard dismisses everyone from the meeting. Miranda’s general emotional intelligence is probably the worst thing about her, so when she looks at Tali with concern, Shepard knows that it must be serious. Tali nods her head at the door, and Miranda sets her mouth in a line and nods before leaving.

Thane always wants to be the last out of the room, but he is still talking to Chakwas and Mordin at the door; Shepard can hear Mordin particularly well as he makes no effort to lower his volume. “Starting with the biopsy is the most scientifically sound; after we determine the extent of the current damage, we can-”

“Shepard.” There is no attitude in Tali’s body language and her voice is completely deflated. “Can I have a word?”

“Of course.” Shepard is nodding before the words even come out of her mouth. “Do you want to talk here? We can go down to engineering or the mess-”

Tali interrupts her. “It’s private. I- Engineering and the mess are too busy. We can wait here until they’re done talking, if that’s alright with you.

Shepard purses her lips; Mordin has shown no sign of stopping since she noticed the conversation he was having with Thane and Chakwas. “We’ll be here forever if we wait, and Thane much prefers to be the last to leave a room anyway. Let’s just go up to my cabin.”

“Okay.” Tali walks out first, and when Shepard follows, she doesn’t think that she imagines the light brush of Thane’s fingers against her own as she walks by, so quick that no one else could possibly notice.

When they step into the elevator, Shepard asks, “I’ll listen to whatever you have to say, but can you tell me if you’re safe, at least?”

Tali exhales, voice a little hysterical. “Yes, I’m safe. Healthy, even. I just-” The elevator doors open onto the deck that holds only Shepard’s quarters, and when they finally step into her cabin, Tali says, “I know I don’t have to tell you that people can do outright unbelievable things. I just never thought…”

Tali collapses onto the couch that Shepard had been sleeping on only an hour or two prior, right next to the crumpled blanket that she hadn’t bothered to fold. “I know you’re not with Cerberus, not really, but I need to hear you say it. I need to know that if I tell you something that could compromise the Fleet, that Cerberus won’t meddle.”

Shepard sits on the opposite end of the sofa. “I’ll keep Cerberus out as much as I can. I can’t make EDI not listen.”

When Tali nods, she doesn’t look at Shepard. “I know. Whatever you can do will be enough.” She sighs and looks into the aquarium. “I-” Tali starts and stops in the same breath, a manic giggle threatening her words. “I don’t even know how to say it, so I guess I’ll just say exactly what they told me in the message that they sent. The Admiralty Board has accused me of treason, Shepard.”

“What?” Shepard’s voice is low and dangerous; Tali doesn’t know what’s wrong with her body, not like Thane and Garrus and Miranda know. She will tell her eventually, but now is not the time, and she reins in the flare of aggression that Tali’s words summon as best as she can.

Tali nods again, slowly, and Shepard didn’t even know that quarians were capable of tears, but she can tell without even seeing Tali’s eyes that she is crying. “I’m scared, Shepard. I’m really scared. The punishment for treason is exile. I wouldn’t be able to ever go back.”

Exile sounds archaic for nearly any other civilization in the galaxy; for the other species, even if exiled from the homeworld, there is another planet where they can be among their people if they choose to do so. For quarians, there is only the Fleet.

“What do you need me to do?” It’s as near to a catchphrase as Shepard has at this point, but she means it every time. “Set a course for wherever you need to go. You can go alone or I can be with you the whole time. Tell EDI and we’ll be on our way.”

“Shepard, the IFF-”

“The IFF has been there since before humans were humans,” Shepard says, paraphrasing the Illusive Man’s speech from earlier. “It’ll still be there.”

After a long pause, Tali says, “The Fleet’s in the Valhallan Threshold.”

“I’ll set a course, Shepard.” EDI starts them on the journey before Shepard even has to ask.

“I was going to book passage on another ship. I didn’t think that there would be time for you to help.”

Shepard says, “You’re family, Tali. I pissed off the Alliance to give you geth data. I’ve got your back.”

Tali laughs softly. “Yeah. You always do. Thanks, Shepard.”

“We’ll get this figured out. And I’ve always wanted to see the flotilla anyway.”

“You’re the weirdest human I’ve ever met,” Tali says, a smile back in her voice. “Nobody who isn’t quarian cares about the flotilla.”

Shepard grins. “You’ve seen how good I am with tech. Maybe I was just quarian in another life.”

“Maybe,” Tali agrees, and she is still scared, but she seems more like herself again. “I’d like it if Miranda could come with us, but I don’t really know if I want a Cerberus operative to see so much. We should bring someone else.”

“You still don’t trust her?” Shepard asks, almost surprised.

“I think I do. But if I’m wrong, I’ll never forgive myself.”

Shepard nods. It’s cynical, and she isn’t sure if the Tali that had come on board the SR-1 would have felt the same, but Shepard understands and maybe even agrees. “We need biotics and heavy weapons experience anyway in case we get in a fight.”

“What a shame,” Tali says dryly, “You’ll have to ask Thane to come.”

“I could mean Jacob. You don’t know.”

“Shepard, we both know you mean Thane.”

“I kissed him right there on that couch, you know.”

“You did what? When? Shepard!”

If the Fleet exiles Tali, they are fools of the highest order. Shepard has never met anyone more kind or more charming on any of the ships where she has served.

Chapter Text

It’s easy to forget that Tali is practically quarian royalty until she does something like say, “After time adrift among open stars, along tides of light and through shoals of dust, I will return to where I began,” in a voice so reverent that it leaves Shepard quivering. The Normandy docks with the Rayya, and Shepard, Thane, and Tali step into a clean room to undergo an extensive decontamination protocol.

“Any last tips?” Shepard asks. She never goes on a mission without a helmet, but at Tali’s request, Thane has masked up as well.

Tali shakes her head. “I still don’t even know what caused them to accuse me of treason in the first place. They don’t lay charges like this unless the evidence is absolute.” She sighs. “We’ll see, I guess.”

As the last process whirs to a stop, Shepard squeezes Tali’s upper arm. “We’re going to figure this out. Nobody who knows you could possibly think you’d endanger your people.”

Tali shrugs. Darkly, she says, “You’d think I would remember if I’d betrayed the Fleet.”

The first thing noticeable about the Rayya is the noise. The Normandy is quiet compared to any ship, but the Rayya hums and buzzes like Tali had always described, a cacophony of white noise that Shepard is sure bleeds into the background after any amount of extended time aboard. The second thing that Shepard notices is Tali’s captain. He greets Tali with an unguarded hug before suddenly remembering why they are there in the first place, stepping back.

“Captain Shepard,” he says, “Tali’Zorah’s told me a lot about you. I wish we were meeting under more pleasant circumstances.”

“Unfortunately, I never quite reached the rank of captain,” Shepard says, automatically correcting from years of training. “Technically, I don’t think I have a rank at all anymore.”

Captain Kar’Danna folds his hands behind his back. “You are the commander of the Normandy, and you are responsible for the lives upon it. To us, that is a captain, and you have my utmost respect.”

Shepard holds up her hands, palms out. “Tali’s helped the Normandy’s crew out of many difficult situations. I’m just here to return the favor.”

“I understand. She serves on your vessel, and your voice will carry weight as such.” Danna pauses and shakes his head before looking back at Shepard. “May you stand between your crew and harm as you lead them through the empty quarters of the stars.”

Tali answers before Shepard can formulate a response. “Keelah se’lai.” When Shepard looks to Tali reactively, Tali says, “It’s an old ship-captain’s blessing.”

“I wish I could give more than that,” Danna says, and it sounds like he means it. “The trial requires that I remain officially neutral but…” He trails off and starts again. “Do you even know exactly what they’re charging you with?”

“No.” Tali’s voice sounds so small.

“They’re saying that you were responsible for bringing active geth into the Fleet as part of a secret project.”

“What? I would never! I only sent parts and pieces-”

Shepard interrupts. “You were sending geth materials back?”

“Yes!” Tali says, like she is surprised that she has to defend her decision. “My father was working on a project and he needed the materials, but I was careful, Shepard. I checked and double-checked and triple-checked-”

“Tali.” Shepard has nearly forgotten that Thane is with them. He is always so quiet, and the droning of the flotilla drowns out any sound he might make even further. “We are on your side,” he says.

“Of course. I just- I didn’t make a mistake. I only sent back permanently inactive parts,” Tali says firmly, and Danna nods.

“Technically, I’ve been ordered to place Tali’Zorah under arrest pending the hearing, but I’m not going to lock you up. You’re just confined to the Rayya until the trial is over.”

Tali hangs her head. “Thank you, Captain.”

When Danna walks away, Tali turns to Shepard. “Something isn’t right, Shepard. My father should have been here to meet us; there’s no reason he couldn’t have. He can’t be part of the trial proceedings. He would have had to recuse himself.”

A sinking feeling in Shepard’s gut belies her words. “I’m sure there’s a good explanation, Tali, but we should keep moving.”

Tali nods.

Thane and Shepard both realize that Admiral Raan greets her as Tali’Zorah vas Normandy before Tali does. She is too excited to see someone that she calls an aunt to recognize it immediately. When the name change dawns on her, Tali’s body goes stiff.

“You called me vas Normandy.” Tali speaks quietly. “Why did you call me vas Normandy?”

“The Admiralty Board moved to have you tried under that name, given your departure from the Neema,” Raan says, sounding apologetic.

Shepard bristles, and Thane expects Tali to shrink into herself. Instead, she yells, “These bosh’tets!” loudly enough to draw the gaze of several quarians nearby waiting for the trial to begin.

“Tali-” Raan starts, but Tali shakes her head, furious.

“They stripped me of my ship name! I’m as good as exiled already!” Tali looks away from Raan at Thane and Shepard.

“It’s not over yet,” Shepard says through gritted teeth.

“No,” Raan says, agreeing. “I’ve had to recuse myself, but you have friends here who still know you as Tali’Zorah vas Neema. You don’t have much time; I don’t know how much longer they will delay the trial.”

Tali puts a hand to her mask, uttering an “Unbelievable,” under her breath, and through her visor, Thane can see Shepard’s eyes narrow. “What about my father? I assume he had to recuse himself as well?”

Raan gives a non-answer, and Thane knows. Shepard suspects it as well, he is sure. Tali’s father is dead. There is no other explanation. He and Shepard make brief eye contact before she returns to the conversation.

“Does she get defense counsel? Someone to plead her case?” Shepard asks.

Tali, with barely restrained anger, says, “It’s the captain of my ship that would speak for me. No offense, Shepard, but they’ve gone out of their way to put me in the poorest position possible by making sure a human would speak for me at the hearing.”

Thane blinks twice. For a society as insular as quarians, an outsider speaking in defense of one accused of a crime is a death sentence. Shepard is famous and a hero, but she is a human. She is not a quarian. That alone might sink Tali’s chances.

Raan wraps Tali in a hug and says, “I have to go.” To Shepard, she says, “Our legal rules are simple. There are no legal tricks or political loopholes for you to worry about. Present the truth as best you can. It will have to be enough. I will give you a few moments more if I can, but be quick.”

Raan turns her back to them and walks towards the podium where three important-looking quarians already stand. “Tali,” Shepard says, and she doesn’t sound angry. She almost sounds nervous. “I’m not a lawyer. Everyone thinks I’m part of Cerberus. Do you really think I can help you?”

Tali takes a step left and then a step right, pacing in a line so small that it would be difficult to call it pacing. “They’re trying to turn the crowd against me. You’re a war hero and you saved the Citadel and you’re one of the most respected humans in the galaxy, but it doesn’t matter. You’re not quarian. The admirals want to bury me. Where is my father?”

“I-” Shepard is a fine enough speaker to her crew and plenty skilled at rallying a squad, but this is different. “I’ll do my best to help you, Tali. I’m just a marine. I don’t-” She swallows hard. “I’ll do my best.”

So frantic is Tali that she doesn’t seem to notice Shepard’s minute and uncharacteristic admission of insecurity. “I don’t know what the protocol is for this. Outsiders must be introduced by a member of the Fleet, but usually it’s the captain of a ship that does that.” Tali laughs, a little hysterical. “I guess I’ll go up first. The admirals will call your name after I introduce you as an outsider to the trial as well as my captain. If they don’t like it, I don’t really care; it’s their fault that I’m not vas Neema anymore.”

Tali follows Raan’s path, and the quarians that have assembled split to make room for her to walk through. “Siha.” Thane only speaks once Tali is far enough away not to hear, and he realizes as he starts that he is wildly angry himself. Besides Shepard, Tali was the first on the Normandy to extend a hand in friendship to Thane, to pull him from his battle sleep, and she has been betrayed by her people. He knows she hasn’t committed treason. It is not in her blood. “I think I cannot be at your side for this one. Two outsiders would hurt Tali’s case twice as much.”

Shepard nods. “You’re probably right. I’m going to screw this up for her anyway, but you’re probably right.”

“I know that Cerberus did not bring me on for my opinions, but may I offer mine?”

Her eyes meet his, through his mask and her visor. “I always want to know what you think.”

In that way that only Shepard can, she sends warmth through his body. He says, “I think that perhaps this would not be the worst place to let some of your rage shine through.”

Shepard huffs out a laugh. “I want to rip out the throat of every person making Tali go through this with my teeth.”

“I did say some of your rage.”

“By the wisdom of the ancestors, I ask permission to introduce Captain Evangeline Shepard vas Normandy to you, Admirals.”

“Granted, Tali’Zorah vas Normandy. May she steer you well in the tribulations ahead.”

Shepard is only a few paces behind Tali, and at Raan’s words, she steps forward. She is barely at Tali’s side before Koris protests. “A human has no business at a hearing involving such sensitive military matters.”

“With all due respect, sir, if Tali is part of my crew, I have an obligation to speak on her behalf,” Shepard says, unflinching. She is also thankful that Raan had given names to each of the admirals so that Shepard does not have to figure them out as she goes.

Raan nods. “Well said. I must remind you that you named Tali crew of the Normandy, Admiral Koris. As Tali’s captain, Shepard must stay.”

Thane is at Shepard’s back, behind a tightly packed group of quarians. She doesn’t look, but Shepard knows he is there. Tali stands at her side, arms wrapped around herself. There is no way for Shepard to know how Tali feels. Although as far as they know Tali’s father is still alive (though Shepard has her doubts, with the way everyone has been dancing around his absence), Shepard imagines that no longer being vas Neema leaves Tali feeling orphaned.

“I am proud to represent Tali today,” Shepard says, though still she doubts if she will be any help, “But I regret that her captain has been forbidden by her side. She has never shown any indication of wishing to be anyone but Tali’Zorah vas Neema.”

From the corner of her eye, Danna shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot.

Good.

Koris is similarly discomfited, though his reaction is incensed rather than awkward. “There is no need to misrepresent the facts. Nobody has been forbidden from anything!”

Though Shepard is ready to dispute that, Gerrel does before she gets the chance. “Lie to them if you must, Zaal’Koris, but don’t lie to me and expect me to stay silent! The human is right!”

When the red bleeds into her eyes, Shepard breathes deep and tries to remember Thane’s words, channeling it into something as constructive as she can manage. She imagines her dream drell’s hand on her shoulder, a cooling balm to her fury. And that simply, with her dream drell’s influence, Thane at her back, and Tali at her side, Shepard’s vision clears.

The anger is a weapon, if you can learn how to wield it.

Shepard’s dream drell has never said those words, but Shepard hears her voice nonetheless.

When Gerrel says, “As far as we can tell, geth have killed everyone on the Alarei… including your father,” Tali lets out a wail that shatters Shepard’s heart, and the monster in her stomach claws its way out, teeth bared.

“You would do this to her like this? You’re telling her that you think her father has died in the middle of a trial where, if you find her guilty, she will be exiled?” Shepard spits. Tali has her head in her hands, rocking back and forth. “Tali is stunned and so am I. That should be evidence enough that she had no part in any treason you’ve accused her of.”

“Shepard,” Tali says, placing one hand on Shepard’s forearm, and Shepard knows the tone in her voice. To her, the trial no longer matters; her father’s fate trumps any fear of exile completely. “I have to know what happened on the Alarei.”

Though she is not addressing the admirals, they hear her no less. Raan says, “We have sent several quarian strike teams with no success.”

“Holding a trial when there are geth crawling through the flotilla is a farce. Tali and I have killed plenty of them and we’ll do it again to take back the Alarei.”

This is foolish, and petty, and Shepard has never had much of a nose for politics at any time. She is less inclined to dabble in it when Tali is burning down dangerously close to a breakdown if she does not get answers, and soon. Shepard is a hatchet always - never a scalpel.

Gerrel and Koris look at each other with thinly-veiled distaste, but the admiral next to them, Xen, simply looks at Shepard intently. She has said the least by far of all the admirals, and that somehow unsettles Shepard the most. Finally, though, Raan is the one who speaks: “You intend to retake the Alarei? This is a dangerous proposal, and likely an impossible one.”

Somehow, it is Raan’s gentle voice that finally sends Shepard hurtling over the edge into wrath. Tali’s hand is still on her arm, the only thing tethering her to humanity. “Not to sound dramatic,” Shepard says, voice poisonous, “But I’ve kind of made a career out of doing the impossible. Tali and I stopped Saren together and I wish she would have been with me on Elysium during the Blitz. Retaking the Alarei is child’s play. We’re damn good at killing geth.”

Shepard’s one fist is clenched and her other hand is gripping Tali’s. Tali’s fingers are trembling even though she is standing tall. Raan says, “Then it is decided. You will reclaim the Alarei for the Fleet.”

When Shepard realizes that this appears to have been what Raan wanted all along, she wants to scream.

The Admiralty Board gives them leave to depart the Rayya and allots a shuttle to take them to the Alarei. Thane has little experience with geth compared to the rest of the Normandy’s crew, but he does not doubt that they will die like everything else Shepard has given him to kill. Tali grips Shepard’s arm like a lifeline, and as the crowd disperses, Thane steps back up near them.

Tali has poise and maturity beyond her years; she has mentioned before the pressures her father placed upon her. Because of this, it is occasionally difficult to remember that she is barely more than a child. She was on her pilgrimage, after all, when Shepard found her on the Citadel.

Now, though, she seems exactly her age, and maybe even a little younger. “Are you alright?” Thane asks, and if he seems cold, it is only because it has been so long since he has cared about anyone save his son.

Tali drops her hand from Shepard’s forearm. Shepard doesn’t turn, though Thane can see her fist balled up as though she would like to hit something as hard as she can. When Tali looks at him and shakes her head, she says, “No.”

The simplicity cuts through the cold core of his heart that has only recently begun melting. When Tali says, “No,” she is not crying, despite the pain so clearly swallowing her. She has done remarkable things already in her short life, more than Thane could ever hope to accomplish, but standing before him is a barely-grown child.

It comes from within him, a remnant of Irikah that has blossomed upon his waking. Thane wraps his arms around Tali in a hug that is surely awkward. Her response is nearly instant; she reciprocates, burying her facemask in his shoulder.

“He can’t be dead,” she says without tears, her already quiet voice further muffled by his jacket.

Thane closes his eyes, but not before he sees Shepard’s fist flex at her words. They both know that if Rael’Zorah has not returned from the Alarei, that he cannot be alive.

Chapter Text

Reegar says that he can’t believe that they’re doing this to Tali after everything that she’s done for the Fleet. Veetor says that he tried to tell the admirals that they were making a mistake. Tali tries to start a shouting match with Raan, who says that she’s sorry. They’re nice sentiments, but all they can give are words. Words don’t matter as they prepare to dock at the Alarei.

The quarian pilot doesn’t speak to them, and Tali has curled into herself in a corner. She will pull it together for the mission, Shepard knows, but she cannot fault her this weakness. Truthfully, Shepard doesn’t think she would even call it weakness. It’s just pain.

On a private channel, Thane says, “The probability that Rael’Zorah survived is…” He trails off, head turned slightly towards where Tali has pulled her knees into her chest.

“I know,” Shepard says. Rael’Zorah was an absent father at best, if Tali’s stories are to be believed, but he is also the last biological family that she has. She is poised to lose more than Shepard wants to think about today.

“I think I will write to Kolyat when we are done here,” Thane says, voice soft.

Tali stands as the shuttle prepares to let them step onto the Alarei. She has swallowed her pain like only the finest soldiers can, not even flinching as they board. If her father is still alive, he will be prouder of her than he ever has been before. Every waking moment is a quest for perfection, and she is done crying, at least for now. If the worst comes to pass, there will be time for that later.

But the worst won’t come to pass. Her father is alive. She has to believe that, if she believes anything. It’s the only way that Tali can still the trembling in her fingers.

Shepard boards the Alarei first, nothing if not a consummate leader, and when Tali looks to Thane with an unspoken question, he tilts his head forward. When Tali remembers Shepard’s words, that Thane wants to be the last out of any space he’s in, she nods.

It would be a lie to say that it does not give her comfort to be sandwiched between them. Her youth is a non-issue aboard the Normandy; she has never felt lesser simply because Shepard is ten years her senior. Adams had been the only one worth mentioning to even so much as comment on her age when they were chasing Saren across the galaxy, and it wasn’t even to her; he’d been reprimanding one of the other engineers who had said something snide about how he didn’t think that she should have access to the drive core.

“Look me in the eyes and tell me you think you can do a better job than her even though she’s half your age,” he’d said, putting himself between Tali and the engineer whose name she can’t even remember.

They’d docked at the Citadel not long after, and Tali had never seen that man again.

She’s a quarian, and she owes the crew of the Normandy for so much more than an adventure on her pilgrimage. Adams and Shepard are in a league of their own, never treating her as a child but protecting her nonetheless. Shepard is leading a strike into a geth-laden research ship for her, and it seems nonsensical, but Tali’s thudding heart eases. Shepard is ahead, and Thane is behind. There is no better team to bring her father back alive.

There is nothing aboard the Alarei but geth, ghosts, and terminals with research logs.

Tali wishes Miranda was here, wishes she’d been able to tell Shepard that she doesn’t care if Miranda is Cerberus. She doesn’t know what they are, in the liminal space between friends and lovers (does Miranda even know what a friend is?), and she also doesn’t know if she would rather her be here than Thane, but it would be nice to turn her head and see Miranda’s bright blue eyes.

There isn’t long to think about it, picking past dead bodies and blasting through geth. Chatika flits from Tali’s side to fly circles around Shepard’s drone, chirping a song that makes them both bob up and down. Shepard walks up to a terminal, her drone on her left side and the other at her opposite hip, and in the back of her head, Tali remembers something one of the quarians on the Rayya had said.

“If anyone can take back the Alarei, Tali’Zorah can.”

They’re right. She can and she will. She’s Rael’Zorah’s daughter, and she can do anything.

Thane steps up next to her as Shepard plays a research log. Tali doesn’t know the scientist who speaks. “Something’s slowing down the systems. We’re taking down the firewalls to rebalance load distribution. Rael’Zorah ordered us to bypass standard safeties. Following security protocols will take too long.”

Tali’s throat constricts at the sound of her father’s name, and Thane and Shepard both look to her as if gauging her reaction. A door sliding open to reveal another group of geth saves her from having to answer, from having to think about what a bad omen that scientist’s words probably are.

The Alarei has few vantage points for a sniper to take advantage of, but Thane keeps at range anyway, making use of the little cover that the ship’s lab equipment can provide. If Shepard is to be believed, he’s even more lethal up close, but the three of them are plenty efficient even if Thane is in a suboptimal position and Shepard and Tali are both engineers. Shepard can hack just about anything short of a geth prime, and Tali’s no slouch herself. The modified omni-tool is formidable as well; Shepard still doesn’t seem quite comfortable getting too personal, but the few times something gets too close, she doesn’t hesitate to summon up her fortified gauntlet.

They slip into a side room; Thane empties a medical station as Shepard runs her fingers over a drone that Tali recognizes. “That’s one of the pieces that I sent back to my father,” she says. “It had a reflex algorithm I wasn’t familiar with. I found it on Haestrom.”

Shepard doesn’t answer. She doesn’t even look up. She just keeps staring at the tech in front of them. Eventually, Tali can’t sit in the silence anymore, and she says, “I checked everything I sent back, Shepard. I passed up great finds because I didn’t want to endanger anyone. Anything that might be too dangerous, prone to self-repair or uncontrolled reactivation, I left it-” Tali stalls when she realizes Shepard is looking at her now. Her eyes are visible through her visor, and for some reason that Tali can’t place, she is having trouble meeting them.

When she looks away, all she can find is Thane, looking at her far too softly for someone who could kill her in a million ways if he wanted. “I don’t know which possibility is worse: that I got sloppy and sent something dangerous, or that Father actually did all this.”

Tali doesn’t know if she’s saying it to them or herself, but this is all just so-

The next log is worse.

“Who’s running this system diagnostic? I didn’t authorize... oh, Keelah. How many geth are networked?”

Tali’s grip on her shotgun tightens. She already knows the answer.

“All of them. Rael’Zorah-”

“Shut it down, Shepard. Please.” Tali’s voice is quiet, but Shepard must hear her, because she obliges.

When Tali hears Thane say her name, she sways, off-balance. Her father did this. She all but knows it. “Tali,” he repeats, the kindness in his voice threatening to send her hurtling into the abyss. He is only saying her name, so how does it sound so warm?

“I’m fine,” she says, voice not quite breaking. Is he alive? How can he be alive? They have not seen a single living soul that the geth have spared.

Thane’s eyes are so deep behind his mask that they could hold galaxies. It is by the ancestors’ grace that Shepard has already started out the door, because Tali might crumble if they both looked at her that way.

There are so many geth. If they had managed to spread from the Alarei, or if they had gained a foothold in a larger ship, the Fleet would have been doomed.

“We locked down navigation. Weapons are offline. Our mistake won’t endanger the Fleet. They’re burning through the door. I don’t have much time. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Jona, if you get this, be strong for Daddy. Mommy loves you very much!”

Tali winces, the quarian’s holographic face disappearing before them. How many geth are there? Chatika zaps at a destroyer that Shepard and Tali both overload; once they break its shields, Thane throws it to the other end of the room. More bodies, more geth, more logs that make her father sound guiltier by the minute. They are nearing the opposite end of the Alarei, and the bile sloshes in Tali’s stomach threateningly. There’s no room to think anything other than the truth given the evidence they’ve found so far. This is her father’s fault. It always was. She was nothing more than an unwitting pawn.

She’s not a traitor. She’s just an idiot.

The few moments she gets to grapple with the realization aren’t enough. Shepard steps over what looks like just another quarian body. They’ve seen dozens; there’s no reason for her to be affected.

Tali takes a sharp breath and stumbles backwards, shotgun clattering to the floor. She collides with Thane’s chest, and he catches her. Shepard turns at the commotion, and somehow it is the sight of her body rotating, light glancing off her breastplate, that has Tali collapsing. Thane doesn’t let her, not until she says, “Please, I need to see.” He releases her, and she scrambles to Rael’Zorah’s limp corpse.

The tears are rolling down her face, wet streaks all the way to her neck. “Father, you wouldn’t… I can’t believe you’d just leave me to clean up your mess!” she hisses, emotion running so hot that Tali can almost feel it boiling through her exosuit. Love, disgust, pain, rage - she cycles through them so rapidly that she feels like her brain is shorting out. “You can’t just-”

Through her tears, Tali watches Shepard’s fist collide with the wall once, then twice, and then a third time. “He wouldn’t…” she starts again, but it’s hopeless; he so clearly has. He has abandoned her in this life.

Thane is kneeling at her side, a hand over her father and his mouth moving in what Tali thinks is a prayer. She just can’t hear anything. She can’t hear Shepard heaving with the effort of hitting everything near her, she can’t hear Thane speak, and she can’t hear herself scream. When Thane retracts his hand, a flash of fear runs through her. They wouldn’t leave her, she knows, but the idea of being alone is unbearable. She turns and wraps her arms around his waist, her facemask in his chest. Thane pauses briefly like he isn’t sure what to do, and then he pulls her close and hugs her tightly.

Tali cries.

Shepard truly, from the bottom of her heart, could not give a shit about what happens to the flotilla. Tali collected herself enough to fight her way through the last few remaining geth on the Alarei, but she shouldn’t have had to.

What is making her so furious? Is it:

• The admirals accusing Tali of treason?
• The absolute gall of Tali’s father?
• The gall of Tali’s father combined with the way he’s implicated Tali in the process?
• Tali, hunched over, wailing with a grief that pierces?
• That she hates her own father so much?
• All of the above?

Somehow, she thinks it is none of those. What makes her the angriest isn’t the image of a sobbing Tali, wrapped in Thane’s arms, or the way that the metal of the wall is sparking off her gauntlet, but that after everything, Tali is begging her to keep the evidence to herself.

“We can’t tell anyone. We can’t show the admirals the evidence,” she says, and Shepard has been doing what she thinks is an admirable job so far of not flying off the handle.

“What?” Shepard seethes. “Tali, you’re looking at exile if we don’t show them this! Your father just said he didn’t want that. We just watched him say that, and even if he hadn’t, he’s dead.”

“I know,” she says, voice far away. Thane shakes his head, but Tali doesn’t stop. “But you don’t understand, Shepard. For a quarian, it’s-” Tali takes a shuddering breath. “They would strike his name from the manifest of every ship he ever served on. It’s worse than exile. He’d be a monster that parents use to scare their children at night. He was a horrible father, and he never had time for me, but he did so much good for the fleet. I can’t let him be remembered like that.”

“Even if it means your exile?” Thane ventures, and Tali looks at the floor, avoiding both of their gazes.

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she says, “You’re my captain, Shepard. It’s your decision. But I’m asking you as your friend; please don’t destroy what my father was.”

Desperately, Shepard says, “Tali, you’re asking me to ruin your life.”

Tali shrugs sadly, a mannerism on loan from all the humans she’s spent time with on the two Normandys where she’s served. “They decided I was vas Normandy. If you have room for me, my life isn’t over. It’s just heading a different direction.”

With a grace that she shouldn’t need, Tali walks out the door, back in the direction from which they came.

“I can’t do this to her,” Shepard says.

“It’s your choice to make,” Thane says, hands behind his back, infuriatingly calm. “But…”

When he trails off, Shepard knows that it’s because he has an opinion that he is hesitant to share. “Say what you’re thinking, please.”

“If you go against her wishes, I do not think that she will ever forgive you.”

He’s right, of course. One last time, Shepard rears back with her right arm, and with as much force as she can channel into one fist, she punches the wall.

When they return from the Alarei, Koris has already begun trying to resume the trial. Thane trails a few steps behind Shepard and Tali as they cut a blistering pace through the Rayya, before the admirals can declare them all killed in action. When they have finally made it back to the podium where Shepard will have to make her decision, Thane hangs back. When Tali notices, she looks at him.

“Would you mind? I’d like to have as many friends with me as possible.”

Thane swallows, uncomfortable with the attention, but Tali holds out a hand, and there really is no choice, then. He takes it and stands on Tali’s left, Shepard on her right.

There are so many eyes on them, and only a few that Thane recognizes. Kal’Reegar is still in attendance, his body rigid and his eyes focused on the Admiralty Board, a formidable marine if Shepard and Tali’s stories are true (and Thane has no reason to think that they are not). Veetor’Nara stands at the side of his caregiver, gaze darting from Tali to Shepard and back again. Captain Kar’Danna looks at none of them, staring at the ceiling.

Despite everything that has happened, Tali stands tall (or as tall as she ever can). She left her tears behind on the Alarei, and she seems bolstered by Shepard and Thane standing on either side of her. Shepard is no stranger to raising her voice, and as she does the best that she knows how, Tali whispers to Thane, “How old were you when you first killed for the hanar?”

The question surprises him. He blinks twice, wondering how this could possibly be an appropriate conversation for what is happening right now. “I started training at six, but my first kill was at twelve.”

Tali closes her eyes and nods serenely as Shepard says, “We found no further evidence on the Alarei.”

“I knew you were young. Exile at twenty-five won’t be so bad,” she says.

Gerrel seems taken aback, though Thane doubts that he knows that Shepard is outright lying. “Tali?” he asks, giving her one final chance, but Tali shakes her head.

“I have nothing further to say,” Tali says, and perhaps Thane is imagining it, but her eyes seem to be glittering through her mask.

“Then…” Raan starts, as if she truly can’t believe that it has come to this. “Tali’Zorah, you are hereby found guilty of treason against the quarian people and sentenced to exile. You have six hours to gather any belongings you have and leave the Fleet.”

“No need,” Tali says, a kind of peace in her words behind the pain and the grief and the sorrow. She loops her right arm through Thane’s and takes Shepard’s hand in hers. “I have everything I need.”

An uneasy murmur ripples through the crowd; Veetor’Nara seems upset and Kal’Reegar looks angry, but Tali seems calm.

“This hearing is concluded,” Raan says, muted. “Go in peace, Tali’Zorah vas Normandy. Keelah se’lai.”

Thane sets his other hand on Tali’s upper arm, and she leans into Shepard’s side. “After I walk out of here, I don’t know where I’m going.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Shepard starts, and Thane looks at her with alarm before she finishes. “You’re coming with me.”

Tali laughs, eyes still sparkling with tears she hasn’t shed, and when Thane gently squeezes her arm, she looks to him as well. “You’re right. What would you be without me?”

“Just a dumb marine,” Shepard grins, despite everything; Thane can hear it in her voice. “Come on, Tali’Zorah vas Normandy. Let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

This dream is different from the others. The sun paints the sky with oranges and reds that are much kinder than the void that usually awaits her, and it has been an eternity since Shepard has stood barefooted on a beach. Shepard thinks that she will probably not even wake up gasping for breath. It is a nice change of pace.

Her dream drell agrees. “This is more like it,” she says with a sigh, and Shepard can’t argue with her on that. The water laps at her toes. “We should spend more time in my afterlife. I much prefer it.”

“Is that still where we are?” Shepard asks. The implication should alarm her, but it would not be so bad to stay here with her. Maybe she would even finally learn her dream drell’s name. There are still things and people to live for, but if this is what waits instead of a starless night, Shepard does not fear it at all.

“Yes,” her drell finally answers. “There are few who have breached the line between life and death in the way that you have.”

“Hm.” Shepard’s response is noncommittal. On a second assessment, the beach is not like any that she has ever seen. The trees and flowers are wrong, and the shell fragments that wash up with every wave are also unfamiliar. “This is a drell beach,” she says, and it isn’t a question.

The drell nods. “Yes. Kalahira guides us here when we die, if we have been faithful.”

Shepard hums. “I’m going to set a course for the derelict Reaper today. It would be nice to know that this is waiting on the other side if it all goes to shit.”

When the drell half-smiles, the sun glints golden off of her, a light so radiant that Shepard almost can’t keep looking. “I’ll put in a good word for you.”

It is easy to begin writing to Kolyat after his sleep cycle. It is more difficult to know what else to say beyond writing his name. Thane tries anyway.

Kolyat,

I visited the Migrant Fleet recently. In retrospect, I wish I had taken photos to share with you. The quarians likely would not have taken kindly to it, but we were hardly there to make friends by the end of the mission.

I hope you’re doing well.

Arashu protect you.

Thane

Signing it is somehow the most difficult part. His name seems impersonal, but that is all he really is to Kolyat as of yet. Father is more presumptuous than Thane can even imagine being.

In the few moments that Thane has taken to write the message (maybe it was longer than a few moments), Mordin has pinged his omni-tool six times to remind him of the biopsy that he scheduled before Shepard veered off course to the flotilla. He has no desire for Mordin or Dr. Chakwas or anyone to poke around in his chest, but Chakwas assured him that the procedure is both non-invasive and quick.

So Thane sighs and walks out of life support and to the med bay. Through the window, he can see Chakwas sitting at her terminal with an amused half-smile as Mordin chatters the same way that he always does. When Thane is at the door in front of medical, the door turns red for the briefest moment, and EDI says, “It is out of respect that I warn you that Dr. Chakwas and Professor Solus are speaking about your relationship with Shepard.”

And the door slides open, and all EDI’s words have done is put him on the wrong foot. Chakwas and Mordin both turn at the movement, and Chakwas says, “Thane. Nice to see you,” in the same breath that Mordin says, “Been looking for Shepard. Pass along that I’ve created an antidote to minimize hallucinations from your venom, if you see her?”

Thane blinks twice before finally managing, “I thought that I was here for a biopsy.”

Mordin nods and Chakwas shakes her head, the amused smile still perfectly in place.

“Yes of course. Wanted to share just in case.”

“In case of what, Mordin?” Chakwas asks, but she is looking right at Thane.

“In case relationship progresses before I see Shepard. Many factors. Shepard very busy. No danger from intercourse, but side effects can be detrimental to leadership.”

Chakwas’s smirk widens. “We place a premium on doctor-patient confidentiality, of course, but we thought it irresponsible for someone involved not to know the situation.”

When Thane closes his eyes, all he can see is Shepard pressed against his body, pupils dilated in wonder. Will she be furious or amused that apparently their relationship is not as private as they thought? “Can I ask the circumstances under which you acquired this knowledge?” he asks.

“Biological. Frill flush was consistent with drell who have recently chosen a new partner.”

As if he is a teenager, his frill has given them away.

“Also, Shepard smiled at you when we walked into the briefing about the IFF. She’s not half as sly as you are,” Chakwas says, and at least it is not solely his fault that she and Mordin know something about whatever he and Shepard are.

Shepard’s always busy, but it’s nice to get a chance to shoot the shit with Garrus, even if she’s telling him that he’s coming with her into the belly of a dead Reaper.

“You never take me anywhere nice, Shepard,” Garrus says, leaning up against the console that he’s probably been typing algorithms into for hours already today. “Will we at least get indoctrinated for our trouble? If not, I don’t see the point.”

Shepard snorts. “With luck, my bastard cyber-brain is immune. You and Thane probably won’t be so lucky, of course. Fleshy organics.”

“Fleshy? Don’t talk about us like we’re human, Shepard, it’s disrespectful.”

“Well, I can’t speak for you. He’s fleshy enough.”

Garrus’s mandibles flutter conspiratorially. “How fleshy-”

“I don’t know enough for you to tell everyone that you’ve won the betting pool. Calm down.”

A disappointed trill is Shepard’s reward, and she laughs. Garrus shakes his head anyway. “Jokes aside, Shepard, if you’re happy, that’s all that matters.”

From Garrus, the words surprise her. It’s much more a Tali sentiment, though according to EDI, Tali disappeared into Miranda’s cabin and hasn’t been out since they left the flotilla. “Happiness is…” Shepard rubs the back of her neck. “I’m uncomfortable getting too comfortable. I like him, but so what?”

“Spirits, Shepard, do humans not mature emotionally until forty or something?”

“Rude. Was just trying to say that-” Shepard sighs. “I don’t know. Happiness always seemed like something for other people.”

Her mother. Minnie. Kaidan. A hundred smaller losses in between.

In a moment of wisdom that is wholly uncharacteristic of Garrus, he says, “Everything is for someone else until it happens to you.”

Shepard’s throat tightens against her will. “Where’d that idiot cop that I picked up in the wards go? I want to talk to him.”

“His best friend died,” Garrus says simply, like he’s not going to let her off the hook with a joke. “She’s back, but she’s still an idiot.”

Shepard swallows hard. “Ain’t that the truth.”

“Damn good at self-sabotage, though. She might be a galactic hero if she’d put that talent into something else.”

“Yeah.” Shepard huffs out a laugh, skin crawling with a confession. “Did I ever tell you why I made the choice that I made on Virmire?”

Garrus looks at her sharply, and truth be told, Shepard doesn’t know why she’s telling him either. Maybe she just doesn’t want to carry it by herself anymore.

“No,” Garrus says, cautious, like she’s a wounded animal. Maybe she is. “You never have,” he finishes, as if they don’t both know that she has never shared this with anyone.

“There were a lot of reasons to save Kaidan. I didn’t exactly get the chance to make a pros and cons list down there, but he was higher rank and one of the few L2 biotics functioning as the Alliance wanted. I should have saved Kaidan. But-” Shepard chews the inside of her cheek. “I wasn’t in love with him, but I could have been someday. And if I saved him, I would’ve spent the rest of my life wondering if I’d killed Ashley all because Kaidan made me feel like maybe someone could love me.”

“Shepard-”

“If you tell anyone what I just told you, I’ll send you back to the Hierarchy in a box.” Her heart is racing like she has just confessed to a crime. Mouth dry, she finally manages to look at Garrus, who is holding his hands up in surrender.

“No judgment from me. I’m the guy that got his whole team killed.” The flippant way he says it pierces her heart. “I don’t know why you wanted to get that off your chest-”

“Me neither.”

“But I’m glad you did. And you should know that the galaxy won’t collapse if you decide that you’re taking happiness where you can get it.”

Shepard doesn’t cry, but if she could, she might have done so here. “When did you get so smart, Garrus?”

“Don’t have to be smart to know that a good lay can fix a lot,” he says, the humor back in his voice. “It can also fix how empty my bank account is.”

“Garrus.”

“Shepard. Please. Do it for Palaven.”

It seems strange to report to the CO that he has gotten a biopsy, but here he is at the door to Shepard’s cabin anyway. He is unannounced, but the door slides open anyway. “Shepard has added you to her no-clearance list, Thane. She is on her way back from the main battery.”

Thane nods. “Thank you, EDI. And thank you for the… warning, earlier.”

“You are my crewmate. If possible, I know that you would do the same for me.”

Then he is alone in Shepard’s cabin, with only the bubbling of her aquarium for company. Thane sits on her sofa and closes his eyes in an attempt at a brief meditation only to find that it is impossible. How can he meditate when the very air around him smells like her?

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to ruminate on it long. EDI is right, as always, and when the door slides open, Shepard is rubbing a circle on her forehead in that way that Thane is never brave enough to ask about.

“Thane,” she says, apparently surprised. “Hi.”

“I’m sorry. I thought EDI would tell you I was here. I can go if you need privacy.” Thane stands as he speaks, though he waits for Shepard’s answer before moving much further.

“No, it was just a surprise. I actually wanted to talk to you anyway. Will you join me and Garrus on a holiday to a derelict Reaper located in Hawking Eta?”

“I’ll follow you anywhere, siha,” he says, more a reflex than a true answer, but it’s the truth.

“You said you’d tell me what that means, since the extranet was quick to inform me that it is an oral tradition exclusively.”

“I was not thinking about that when I first used the endearment.” Shepard purses her lips at his words, and he chuckles. “You don’t believe me, and you are right not to. I simply wanted to keep it to myself a little longer.”

She steps nearer to him, close enough that Thane can feel her breathing, can see the veins that spider their way down her exposed neck as she looks up at him. Humans look so fragile, though Thane knows that she is anything but.

“A siha is what you are.”

The answer does not satisfy her; Shepard rolls her eyes and starts to speak, but Thane brushes a thumb over her lips before she can. “A fierce protector, tenacious in wrath. A warrior-angel of the goddess Arashu.”

Shepard inhales sharply, and Thane does not understand it, though she glances at the tattoo on her bicep. He tries to ask, but her response to his words is to crash her lips to his, pulling at his collar to bring him close.

“Mordin-”

Shepard pulls away. “I cannot imagine a circumstance where this is an appropriate time to mention Mordin.”

Thane exhales a laugh. “A fair enough objection, but I thought you should know that he told me he’d developed an antidote if you would prefer to temper some of the effects of my venom.”

“Telling Mordin about us?” she asks, one eyebrow arched in good humor, but her hands are still wrapped in his jacket and her breathing is heavy with desire.

“No. Apparently we’re very obvious.”

“Mm,” is her only answer before she kisses him again, like she is worried that he will disappear if she stops.

Shepard's mouth is warm and wet and soft and when he teases her bottom lip with his teeth, she moans. It's as close as he will ever come to kissing a goddess, and if he gets his way, if the pace pleases Shepard, he would like to undo her completely.

"How long will it take us to get to Hawking Eta?" Thane asks, voice husky.

"Long enough that I don't need to take a detour to Mordin's lab to find the antivenom that he told you he has waiting before I start something that I plan to finish."

Though her pleasure is at the forefront of his thoughts, Shepard seems to have other ideas, and her mouth is making it difficult to focus in more ways than one. What he immediately wants is to take a fistful of her hair in his hand and hold her body flush with his. "Can I?" he asks, tugging at the elastic she uses to tie it up. Shepard's answer is to let her hair down faster than he could possibly manage himself. It falls to her shoulders, and Shepard places one hand on his chest and unzips the sweatshirt that she's wearing with the other.

He's never seen her exposed before, at least not like this. Shepard has tight fabric stretched over her breasts, still, but this is more of her skin than he has ever been privy to. Shepard kisses him again, deeply, and Thane is so lost in her that when she walks forward, he simply lets her, until his back is against the aquarium.

When Shepard pulls away from his mouth, Thane nearly moans with the loss. "I've never done this with someone who isn't human, and I don't know if drell do it, but I think you'll like it."

"What is it?" Thane asks, and when she smirks, eyebrows raised mischievously, there is a shift in his groin as his cock emerges, hard, rubbing against the pants that he is unfortunately still wearing. She doesn't answer, kissing her way down his body, lips swollen already, and Shepard reaches halfway down his chest before she finally says something.

"I just wondered what you might taste like."

"Shepard," he growls, a warning and a plea.

She has the audacity to grin, and when her fingers finally release him from his pants, Thane’s breath is already ragged. It has been ten years since he has received pleasure from anyone other than occasionally himself. There is a siha in front of him, on her knees, mouth red and warm with parted lips. “You can tell me to stop whenever,” she says, as if the thought has ever crossed his mind. Thane traces her jawline with his index finger, and Shepard leans briefly into the touch before moving away. Briefly, he feels the loss of her skin against his hand, and then she takes him in her mouth, and suddenly it is difficult to think about anything at all.

As hot as her mouth had felt pressed against his own, it is all the warmer wrapped around his cock. She starts slow, but it doesn’t matter; the wetness is too much, and it has been so long since another has touched him in this way. Thane tries to remove himself before the point of no return, but Shepard looks up at him, and it’s too much. Her eyes are trained directly on him, and as he pulls away, her lips tight against him, and she doesn’t shy away from his gaze when he feels a tightness that grows urgent and releases into her mouth.

It’s a mistake; this is untrodden ground for him, and he hadn’t expected time in Shepard’s cabin to turn into this, much less with mouths involved. “I’m sorry-” he starts, but Shepard just grins, her mouth sticky and painted amber with a mixture of his cum and her saliva, before she swallows.

"Well, it was fast, but I'm mostly just disappointed that I didn't get more time to show off."

"Fast?" Thane asks, trying not to think about how close her lips still are to his cock; even if he weren't a drell, the memory of her staring up at him as he climaxed in her mouth would be seared into his mind forever. "I assure you that I take no issue with it if you'd like to… continue."

She tilts her head to the side, eyebrows furrowed. "Human men generally can't, well, keep going after-" Shepard shakes her head. "Doesn't matter. There's going to be a grace period where we have to figure this stuff out, I suppose. But what were you apologizing for if that wasn't it?"

"This is not a custom I'm familiar with, and biologically speaking, I don't know the ramifications-"

"If swallowing was going to kill me, there's no doubt in my mind that EDI would have let me know. Cerberus would be pretty disappointed if us having a good time ruined the mission."

"Calling it a good time is an understatement, I think."

"What would you call it, then?" Shepard laughs, and she is more beautiful than anything that Thane has seen since Irikah died.

He doesn't know how to say it, though, instead opting for, "You said you wanted more time to show off, so perhaps I can make an attempt at putting it into words after all is said and done."

Shepard's smirk is mischievous, and her mouth does the talking, but in a way Thane could not possibly have imagined when they first met on Illium.

She doesn’t know what she expected, but Shepard’s experience is limited to humans and what she gleaned from a couple of embarrassed extranet searches.

There’s really no other way to say it; Thane is big. It makes sense, because drell are larger than humans in general, but he is bigger than she had thought he might be. His cock is a lighter green than most of the rest of him, tinged almost with brown, and the black markings that accent the rest of his body are here, too. Other than that, the situation doesn’t seem much different from what Shepard is used to, despite the fact that it appears to fold back into his abdomen when there’s no use for it.

He groans when her mouth first wraps around him, and that’s when Shepard gets her first real surprise. Differences in color or size were to be expected. When the smooth surface that touches her tongue starts to grow ridges, it becomes all the more apparent.

A formerly xenophobic street rat is giving a blow job to an alien, and it is making her core ache in a way that it hasn’t for a very long time.

Shepard isn’t disappointed when Thane doesn’t last very long. If anything, it is more or less exactly what she thought would happen. It is a combination of how sweet it tastes and its pale orange color as she wipes an errant bit from her cheek that takes her off guard first. Then, of course, his cock stays hard, a testament to the frailty of human biology, and Thane tells her that there’s no reason for her to stop unless she wants to.

So she grins and takes him again, her mouth softer and wetter and warmer than any drell could hope to be. And then the high starts to hit.

The room spins for just a moment before it rights itself again. It feels heavier than last time, more consequential, but in the moment what that means is that Thane is so beautiful when she looks up at him, vibrantly green.

He had called her an angel.

Somehow that seems like the most important thing in the world, even as she places her hand around him and removes her mouth with a pop. Shepard’s jaw will be sore, but it barely even registers. Thane groans as her fingers stumble over the ridges, and his cock pulses. “Siha,” he says, angel, and when he comes, the high leaves her too slow. She manages most of it with her mouth, but not quite.

Shepard wonders how she must look when she swallows; she’s too aware of the air flow in the cabin, of the hair on her arms, of the hum of the aquarium that she normally can’t even hear, but Thane pulls her to her feet just a little too fast as she licks what she can from her lips. He kisses her deeply, never mind what she has just spent the last twenty minutes doing with her mouth.

“You’re stunning,” Shepard says when they pull away, though she has stumbled right into his chest, the colors of his scales and frill flaring in contrast with the fish that seem to be a little too curious in the tank. His hand catches in her hair, and Shepard smells gun oil that might be the most beautiful scent in the world.

“Do human men return the favor in a similar way?” Thane asks, and Shepard giggles in a way that is wholly unlike herself.

“If they aren’t assholes,” she says, though she’d be happy enough just to be wrapped in this gun oil smell forever. “But I’ll give you a pass if you aren’t comfortable trying.”

Thane’s response is to loop both of his arms around her knees and lift her feet off the ground. Shepard yelps, decidedly unsexy if she had to guess, but his lips murmuring in her ear send a chill down the entirety of her spine. “I am not selfish, siha, and I promise that I am a quick study.”

The sequence of events is hard to hold onto, but in no particular order, Shepard finds herself on her back on the bed, exposed, with Thane’s face between her legs.

His mouth is dry compared to any human’s, but his tongue is longer, and rougher. The stars above Shepard dance as he tentatively explores, but eventually, he asks, voice light, “Any recommendations, Commander?”

Shepard laughs, cheeks flushed. “Please. You never call me Commander,” she says, but she takes his hand and rubs it softly over her clit, and a moan escapes her. “There. But gently. It’s sensitive and I think I’m more so from the-” His tongue is somewhere sensitive inside her and Shepard’s own hand instinctively reaches down.

When she meets resistance, it surprises her, and she doesn’t understand. The world is so large and she is distracted by everything, but finally, Shepard notices the glow of blue around her wrists, effectively pinning them above her head. “Thane-” she starts, only to cut herself off with another moan as his tongue runs over her clit. His left hand is busy keeping her more or less tied up, and his right rests on her thigh.

“I told you that I’m a quick study,” Thane says, voice low and dark and dangerous, and he’s right. She squirms against the bed, for once not caring about the expanse of space above her as she builds closer and closer to orgasm, replacing his mouth with his index finger when he finds a spot that he can tell Shepard likes.

It could be an eternity or it could be thirty seconds, but Shepard does not feel like herself when she says, “Please.” The one finger inside her becomes three and she cries out, back arching, hands still helplessly bound above her.

The stars explode into fireworks as she climaxes, her body shaking, and she is all too aware of Thane staring at her as she tightens around his fingers. Maybe she is silent, and maybe she is loud enough that the whole Normandy hears her. It doesn’t seem that important in the moment.

When he pulls his fingers out from inside of her, Shepard is still breathing hard and he is half-smiling at her even as she rides out the aftershocks.

“I don’t think I ever actually asked why you were here,” Shepard says, and Thane exhales a laugh.

“I wanted to tell you I’d had a biopsy done. But this was a much better use of our time.”

Shepard’s blush reaches down her neck, the green of his scales still pulsing in the light of her cabin.

Chapter Text

It is not Thane’s intent to doze off in Shepard’s bed; he has just had his own sleep cycle a few hours prior. Still, that is where he wakes, though he is alone. When he sits up, Shepard is nowhere to be seen, though he hears movement behind the door of her private bathroom. He is still dressed, but he feels no less exposed.

Thane breathes as deeply as he can manage, suddenly overcome by wonder at how a suicide mission has come to this.

His omni-tool chimes with a tone that says he has missed a message while he was asleep. That’s unusual; Shepard is the only one to write him with any consistency, and she is almost certainly the culprit behind the shower he can hear running. Tali does so on occasion, but it seems unlikely to be her, considering she has shown no interest in being out of Miranda’s sight since they returned from the Fleet. The only other remote possibility is that Mordin has results on the biopsy, but he had said analysis would take at least a few hours.

Thane could also just open the message. When he does, the breath catches in his throat, because he had not even allowed himself to imagine that it could be Kolyat.

Father,

Thane barely gets past the greeting. Maybe all hope is not lost for him and Kolyat after all, if he can still manage to call Thane his father.

Father,

I was a child for most of the time that I’ve known you, but given what I know, the Migrant Fleet is quite a job even for you. Being on Commander Shepard’s crew must have some perks.

You didn’t ask, but community service is tolerable. I’ve never spent this much time with so many humans before, and it’s taken some getting used to, but I should’ve been locked up. I’m not naive enough to think that the Commander didn’t pull some strings with Bailey to make it happen. Thanks, to you and to Shepard, if you see her and get the chance to say as much.

Kolyat

As if she knows that Kolyat wants to thank her, the door to her bathroom opens and steam pours out before Shepard closes it behind her quickly. To Thane’s chagrin, she is already clothed, and it is with some discomfort that he realizes he is looking forward to undressing her too-soft body again.

Her head is flipped forward and she squeezes moisture out of her hair with a towel before laying it over the back of the chair in front of her terminal. When Shepard notices him, she smiles. “Hi. I hope I didn’t wake you. I was just, um- well, I needed to wash my face anyway, and I figured I was due for a shower regardless.” Her cheeks color, and with a good look, Thane can see that the pupils of her eyes are still too big.

“How long was I asleep?” he asks, and Shepard shrugs.

“An hour, maybe. Probably not quite that long. I’ve been known to indulge in long showers, but an hour is a lot even for me. Good dreams? Do drell even dream?”

“Shepard,” Thane says with amusement, “There’s no need to be nervous.”

She grins. “I don’t know if I’d call it nervous. It’s just been a while since I’ve done that with someone and not had them evacuate the premises shortly afterwards. My last, um…” The grin fades and Shepard trails off. “There was someone I cared about on the first Normandy, but it never got this far.”

“Staff Lieutenant Alenko.” When Thane says his name, Shepard’s eyes narrow as if he has threatened her. “It is not an indictment, Shepard. I think no less of you for whatever decisions you’ve made in the past.”

Slowly, Shepard unclenches a hand that Thane is not even sure that she noticed she had curled into a fist. She throws herself onto the sofa and says, “I don’t really talk about Kaidan. Not very often, anyway. Sorry.”

“You’re under no obligation to tell me. I do, however, know what it’s like to lose people that you care for deeply.”

When Shepard’s eyes refocus, they are optical lenses; the Cerberus wiring holding her together flushes enough of the drell venom from Shepard’s system that her pupils return to normal. The poison in her voice is not her; it is whatever program Cerberus has miscalculated. “You know what it’s like to kill the only one who has made you feel like a person in longer than you care to remember?” she spits, and Thane blinks slowly.

“Yes. I do,” Thane says. Shepard grapples with her momentary possession, pressing the heel of her hand hard against her forehead as Thane continues. “I don’t know all the details of your situation, but I was responsible for Irikah’s death in every sense except for pulling the trigger.”

“I don’t know why I’m so fucked up about this right now,” she manages, teeth clenched together. “I knew what you went through with your wife and said it anyway. Why did I say it? It’s not anyone’s fucking fault that I left Kaidan to die, that I killed him, except mine, so why am I spilling my guts about it to Garrus and now you when I should just be able to be happy for one fucking minute?”

She moves faster than a human should be able to, faster than Thane can be proactive about, picking up the face-down photo, and throwing it as hard as she is able into the wall next to the aquarium. When he stands, he hasn’t quite decided what he’s going to do, but Shepard, every muscle quaking, says, “I’m not me right now. This isn’t me-”

Shepard stands and then freezes, staring into the fish tank, not even bothering to look at the shattered glass on the floor, says, “I’m sorry,” and it doesn’t seem like she’s talking to him.

“Siha?” he ventures, voice tentative. He could probably still incapacitate her if he needed to, even with her Cerberus strength, but it is the last thing he wants to do. Blood drips from her hand; she must have shattered the glass in the picture frame before ever even throwing it.

Her tone shifts again, far away; if she were a drell, Thane might say that she sounded as though she was lost in a memory. “You never answered before. Do drell dream?”

“Yes.”

“When I died, it wasn’t like dreaming, but I met someone there. I still see her sometimes, if I’m lucky, when I dream. Every now and then I hear her, too, especially when I’m about to do something incomprehensibly stupid, like right now when I wanted to put my fist through this fish tank.” Thane does not know if anyone has ever seen Commander Shepard cry, but her eyes shine. “What did your wife look like?” she asks, voice reverent.

Spice on the spring wind. Sunset eyes defiant in the scope.

“She was golden beyond compare,” Thane says, “In every way. Her heart and her scales. When the light glanced off her, she might as well have been a sun herself. Her eyes held oranges and yellows that I fear I may never see again.”

The tears spill over, finally, and Shepard falls to her knees, more weakness than he has ever thought her capable of showing. She has too much dignity to sob, but when Thane reaches her side, Shepard says, “My drell- I’m sorry, I’ve called her my drell for so long- she just told me her name. She said that she hoped it would bring us peace.”

“Shepard…” he starts, voice trailing off in disbelief, no matter that he knows what Shepard is about to say.

“Thane.” The tears she sheds roll down her cheeks, her hair still damp around her shoulders. “Irikah was so beautiful.”

They stay there for a while, though Thane says that she should see Chakwas about her hand, as she tells him that Irikah was the only one who kept her sane in the blackness of space after death. Thane holds the parts of her that are shivering. Shepard didn’t even know that she could still cry. She was never much for it anyway, but she had thought that maybe it was something else stolen from her on the operating table. There has not been so much as a threat of it since Shepard woke up.

They don’t say much. What is there to say, after Shepard explains that Irikah is all that kept her tethered to any semblance of humanity while Miranda was stitching her back together?

“What are you thinking?” Shepard asks.

Thane doesn’t answer at first, and then he says, “I have come to terms with my wife’s death. If she came to you from beyond the grave, I am only glad that she was able to give you some comfort.”

Shepard opens her mouth to speak and a hundred words die on her lips in the same moment, but if there is one thing that she knows Thane doesn't mind, it's silence.

This should feel worse, but it doesn't. Shepard just feels calm, and even more so when Thane's fingers catch in her hair. "The first thing she said to me was that I looked lost," Shepard laughs softly.

Thane half-smiles. "You were. It was too early for Kalahira to claim you."

"I've wondered since I was brought back if that's the afterlife meant for me now. I never thought much of a human one."

"Depending on the day, I have no doubt that Irikah could strongarm Kalahira herself into giving you a place across the sea."

In any other circumstances, Shepard would call a dead wife a stressor, but she just feels peaceful. It's a nice change of pace from how her brain usually is short-circuiting.

She'd wanted to hurt him, before, when he'd mentioned Kaidan. Shepard doubts she would have been able to kill Thane, but she definitely wanted to hurt him.

Well, she didn't want to hurt him, but something inside her did. There is something cruel and poisonous writhing under her skin, wires that have turned into worms.

When Shepard takes a shuddering breath, she knows that Thane notices, but she is saved any kind of obligation to explain when Joker comes over the intercom.

"Hey, Commander. Um, EDI said you're in kind of a 'do not disturb' situation, but I figured Jack and Miranda getting ready to blow a hole in the hull of the ship constituted an extenuating circumstance."

Shepard groans. "Sorry, Thane-"

"Thane is there?" Joker's voice is just a little too interested, and Thane chuckles.

"Shut up, Joker, I'm on my way down there."

"Why did you pick a boyfriend who can snap my ribs by looking at me?"

Thane smirks, a little too self-satisfied, and Shepard rolls her eyes. "Joker."

"Yeah, yeah."

When Joker cuts off the call, Shepard makes for the elevator, Thane at her heels. "Boyfriend?"

"I'm a little old to worry about the actual label, but people that I'm just interested in having sex with don't usually get to sleep in my bed after," Shepard says, biting at an errant hangnail.

"How old are you?" Thane asks, surprising her as the elevator doors close. "I have no reference for how humans age, really."

"What, you've never looked it up?"

"Why would I look it up when I can ask you?"

"Hm." Shepard sighs. Hopefully Joker was being dramatic and Miranda and Jack aren't actually tearing the mess apart. "How old I am is a harder question than it sounds. I don't know if I count the years I was dead. If I do, I'm thirty-six, but it's not like I was aging while Miranda was bringing me back into the land of the living. So the answer is thirty-four or thirty-six, depending on your perspective."

"I thought you would be older."

Shepard snorts. "Thanks. Human women love hearing that."

Thane tilts his head to the side. "You've accomplished much. It surprises me that you've done so in so little time. Is that offensive?"

"No," Shepard laughs, "Not to me, at least. How old are you?"

"Forty-four."

"Ancient," she says, winking, like they haven't both realized just now that they have Irikah to thank for them ever having met, like there isn't something like fate hovering above them. Thane exhales a laugh, but whatever he is about to say is eclipsed by a chair from Miranda’s office sailing past them as they exit the elevator, glowing a telltale blue.

“Touch me and I will smear the walls with you, bitch!” Jack’s voice echoes towards them, the volume amplified by her biotics.

When Thane and Shepard finally round the corner into the cabin, what they see is much worse than what Joker said Shepard would find. Tali is standing almost awkwardly to the side, arms wrapped tightly around herself and looking at the floor, and Jack steps up closer to Miranda than anyone else on the ship would probably dare. Miranda’s lips are pursed and she has an eyebrow raised, looking unimpressed rather than threatened.

“Enough!” Shepard says, strands of wet hair falling in her face from the haphazard bun she’d thrown together in the elevator. “Tali, Thane, step outside please.”

“Shepard-” Tali starts, and she looks at Miranda worriedly.

Shepard doesn’t put her foot down often off of the battlefield, but she does so here. “That’s an order.”

Thane nods and takes his leave first. Tali shakes her head, annoyed, if Shepard had to guess, but she doesn’t argue.

When they are alone, and the door shuts, Jack explodes again. “The cheerleader won’t admit that what Cerberus did to me was wrong.” Spittle flies from her mouth, but Miranda doesn’t flinch.

“It wasn’t really Cerberus, but I think we can all agree that you were a mistake,” she says, her tone cool as ever.

“Fuck you! Maybe I should just show you what they did to me-”

“Last I checked, I’m the one that gets to make decisions around here about who lives and dies,” Shepard says, cutting Jack off. When Jack turns to her, she is murderous. “Keep a deck apart at all times. I’ll get a calendar so you two always know when the other one is getting food in the mess if it helps. We can’t afford this shit, and you both know it, whether you admit it or not.”

Jack laughs darkly. “I always have time to tear somebody apart, Shepard.”

Miranda rolls her eyes. “Listen to her, Shepard. She’s always been a loose cannon at best. We’re one temper tantrum away from her jeopardizing the mission.”

“If you thought that she was going to be a detriment, you should’ve stopped the Illusive Man from giving me her dossier,” Shepard snaps, “I need both of you for this mission, and I don’t want to be babysitting you for it. When we’ve wiped the Collectors out, you can kill each other however you like.”

Jack says, “Whatever, Shepard,” but her biotics dim, and Shepard knows the implosion is at least no longer imminent. She walks out and Shepard sighs, rubbing Irikah’s circle on her forehead.

“It’s not news to me that you and Jack don’t get along, but the last thing I need is to be breaking up fights that my XO is involved in,” Shepard says.

Miranda’s eyes narrow. “It’s not like I sought Jack out. Tali and I were having lunch.”

“I know. Just-” Shepard stops and tries again. “The personalities on this ship are at odds in one way or another at all times. I’m not looking forward to the day that I have to stop something Jacob starts with Thane. I’d like it if you had my back on stuff like this rather than being involved in it.”

Miranda still looks unsatisfied (and Shepard likely would be, too, in her position), but eventually, she relents. “You’re right, Shepard. As long as Jack does her job, there won’t be any more problems from me. Although again, I would argue that she is the problem.”

“If we come back from this in one piece, we’ll tackle it then,” Shepard says, and Miranda nods.

“Can you send Tali back in?” Miranda isn’t really allowed to dismiss Shepard, but it’s a dismissal nonetheless. When Shepard leaves, Tali doesn’t even wait for her to say as much.

“Thanks, Shepard,” she says quietly, and breezes past her back into Miranda’s cabin.

Thane is leaning against the side of the elevator. Shepard says, “They’re not even trying to hide it anymore.”

He shakes his head, and then nods at her hand. “You should really see the doctor about that, but Jack wanted to speak with you.”

Most of the bleeding had stopped, before, but she was clenching her fist when she spoke to Miranda and Jack before, and now it’s begun again. “Okay,” she says, just in time for Jack to turn away from where she’s speaking to Gardner and walk towards them.

There’s too much of herself in Jack. It’s hard to look at. Shepard can see it in Jack’s swagger, in the hate behind every word, in the raw potential.

“I need to hit something and you’re the only one worth fucking up,” Jack says, and Shepard snorts. The blood is flowing much worse now, and she cradles her hand to stop it from hitting the floor.

“You could buy me dinner first,” Shepard says, and Jack barks out a laugh. It’s good to see that no lasting damage has been done; Jack runs hot, but she also says exactly what she’s thinking. If they had a problem, Shepard would know. “I can’t, though. I have to go run this hand by Chakwas.”

“Come on, Shepard, don’t be a pussy-”

"I am no Spectre, but I am available," Thane says, surprising her. Shepard raises an eyebrow despite herself, and then shrugs.

Jack scoffs. "I don't want to kill your boyfriend, Shepard."

"He's the only person on this ship that I think could kill me, so if you manage it, you get a gold star."

Shepard disappears into medical, leaving Thane to take the elevator down to the gym in the docking bay.

His feelings on Shepard's visions are complicated, but what is most important is that Irikah realized what Thane also sees; Shepard is worth protecting, and she will protect everyone else in turn. Arashu sent one siha to protect another. He is worried about her. When she loses control of her temper, she is not herself, or at least she seems to think so. Thane is satisfied to be a tool to her in any way, even as the occasional sounding board for her rage, never mind that twice today Shepard has not corrected people who have labeled their relationship.

And so it is that, in a moment of ill-conceived assistance, that Thane finds himself standing across a mat from a woman with more tattoos than skin.

"Are you as hot shit as Shepard seems to think you are?" Jack asks, and Thane is nothing if not self-assured. When he doesn't answer right away, she starts to fidget. "Oh, fuck this."

Thane's biotics aren't half as potent as Jack's, but she has no finesse. She is strong, but there is no purpose to anything she does other than to destroy. The shockwave she punctuates her words with rips across the floor quicker than Thane expects, but he sidesteps where it initially would have made contact with him and reaches an arm out to pull himself up atop what looks like it is probably designed to be a pull-up bar. Thane perches on it as Jack whips around to where he is now.

“What, we’re using the environment?”

Thane tilts his head to the side. “We both know your biotics are stronger than mine. There’s no reason I shouldn’t use whatever advantages I have.”

“Damn right they are,” Jack says through gritted teeth, “Tell Shepard it’s your fault when she asks what the fuck I did to her ship.”

When Jack pulses energy before putting all her weight into a biotic pull designed to rip the bar from its foundations, her smile is unhindered and reckless and free. Her powers are like a child with an assault rifle. Still, a child with an assault rifle can kill if Thane is not careful, and he is reminded of this as the bar serving as his platform comes unhinged from the wall.

He swings down past Jack, and she yells, “Can’t you just fucking fight? I’m sure this dance shit is part of why Shepard wants to fuck you so bad, but you could at least try to hit me-”

She talks too much. Jack's biotics will always be a threat, but her limbs are too thin for her to be any kind of danger in hand-to-hand, and most biotics that aren't vanguards are off-balance as soon as an opponent gets too personal.

She's already set the precedent. Thane throws the bar that Jack has dislodged towards her, and in the brief moment that she turns to redirect its trajectory, he closes the gap. Jack gasps and then growls, bursting with biotics, but it's too late to recover. Maybe it wouldn't be too late if Thane hadn't been killing for thirty years, but he has.

Jack is short, and it makes the job all the easier; Thane presses a foot to the back of her knees, and she falls with a grunt. When Jack's hand thrums with energy, she tries to reach back for his ankle and Thane sweeps his leg back in time with her movements. His own biotics flare, a small burst into the soft spot between her shoulder blades, just enough to send her forward and fall onto her stomach.

"What the fuck?" she manages, breathless, and Thane readjusts for a counter. Instead, Jack flips over and sits, hands behind her, grinning. "What was that?"

"It's simple enough. You might even call it math. You are stronger than me, so I needed to be faster than you."

Jack laughs. "You're fucking weird, but I get it now at least. She wasn't joking when she said that you're probably the only asshole on this ship who could kill her, huh?"

Even thinking about his ability to do so feels treasonous. He doesn't answer, instead holding out a hand to help Jack to her feet.

"Pfft." She makes a dismissive sound and stands herself. "You're pretty uptight, but like I said, I get it now. You and Shepard could both do with loosening up, though, if you catch my drift."

"I don't."

"God." Jack runs a hand down her face. "Whatever. Do you eat levo? I'm starving."

"I'm not hungry, but I could have a drink."

"What's your poison?"

"Water."

"God."

No, Thane cannot imagine that this is what Irikah had in mind when she threw Shepard a lifeline in the bleak, cold dark of death. But Thane is awake now, and he might even say he is alive, and he thinks that Irikah would likely be pleased about that.

Chapter Text

In the hours between her encounter with Thane and arriving at the derelict Reaper, Chakwas has patched Shepard’s hand up so well it may as well never have been injured. Shepard heals so fast now that it’s scary, especially if a liberal application of medi-gel is involved.

Garrus is leaning on his rifle and chatting with Thane easily. Shepard might even call it casual if they weren’t about to board a dead, sentient machine. Shepard’s life has always been a little on the wild side, but lately it’s even more unbelievable than usual.

In no particular order of believability:

• Having a boyfriend (Maybe?)
  • Jury’s still out.
  • Also, he’s an alien.
• Giving head to aforementioned, maybe-boyfriend alien
• Getting all up in the guts of a Reaper
  • Related: Taking a team to the Collector homeworld

Her boots keep her grounded as the Normandy docks against it, and the airlock slides open shortly after.

“Good luck out there, Commander.” Joker doesn’t quite sound nervous, but he certainly isn’t comfortable. Shepard checks the commlink, and everyone’s online.

It’s less obviously upsetting than the Collector ship; there’s no organic/synthetic weave almost squelching under their feet, at least. But something is still wrong, and Shepard feels it at the base of her skull, pressing into her head almost like the beginning of a migraine.

“It smells wrong here,” Garrus says, and Thane nods in agreement.

Shepard nods. “Agreed,” she says, though she can’t really smell anything, and her fingers brush over the spot on her helmet where her spine would meet her head. “I feel something here.”

Thane’s lips twist in what Shepard would call in concern, and Garrus’s mandibles twitch nervously, but neither of them answer with words.

Thane only knows in theory what Reaper indoctrination looks like, but Garrus was at Shepard’s side to kill Saren. They both have seen its insidious subtlety and its unmatched efficacy, and Shepard had guessed that what happened to the Cerberus team was related before she even plays a log from the first terminal that they come across.

When Dr. Chandana speaks, he speaks of pressurization, an edgy crew, and an undeniable atmosphere. Shepard sighs, because what she knows that Chandana didn’t is that being compromised by a Reaper’s pull is a matter of when, not if.

“I wonder if it affects humans the same way it affects turians,” Garrus says, startling her. There has been an eerie silence except for their footsteps, though Shepard thinks that she can hear a scratching in the distance that she hopes isn’t circuit boards in her brain.

Shepard answers, “Indoctrination, you mean? Can’t imagine it doesn’t. Did quite the number on Saren as well as Liara’s mom. Shiala, too, though the Thorian had a hand in that.”

“A vine, you mean,” Garrus says, his voice echoing as they turn onto a network of walkways.

Shepard rolls her eyes. “Whatever you want to call it. My point was it didn’t seem that much different between humans and asari. Don’t know why turians would be any different.”

“I suppose. If nothing else, it was clear Shiala was still suffering from indoctrination even after we killed the Thorian. Can’t imagine another reason someone would flirt with you.”

“What can I say?” Shepard starts, the tension making her bold. “I like ‘em green.”

Shepard barks out a laugh at her own joke, never mind that Thane smirks before Garrus turns to him and continues briefly. “Come to think of it, wasn’t that right before Shepard picked you up in Nos Astra? I wasn’t there, but I definitely remember Tali telling it that way.”

“Illium was made for lovers,” Shepard says, trying to save Thane from having to answer, never mind that she brought him into it in the first place. “First time Tali and Miranda spent any time together was infiltrating Dantius Towers.”

Garrus nods like they aren’t creeping in towards a Reaper’s heart. “I see now why you never take me down there. You have to keep me all to yourself.”

Thane, like it isn’t the funniest thing in the world, says, “If your rifle is ever not enough company, you will always have a place with me.”

Shepard snorts, and Garrus trills triumphantly, and far in the distance there is a horrific scream so shrill that it could not possibly have come from a human. It could have been human once. But it isn’t now.

That quickly, it is no longer the time for jokes. With perfect timing, the walkways rattle; Shepard braces herself with the railing as the entire structure rumbles, but it lasts only a few petrifying seconds. Joker’s voice comes over the comms immediately afterwards.

“Normandy to shore party!”

“Joker, what was that?” Shepard asks, not quite panicked yet even if she is a little rattled.

“The Reaper just put up kinetic barriers. I don’t think we can get through from our side.”

“So we’re trapped here,” Garrus says dryly. “Wonderful.”

“Shit,” Shepard says, mostly to herself. "We’ll have to take the barriers down from inside, then. Can I get some help, EDI?”

“At the moment of activation, I detected a heat spike in what is likely the wreck’s mass effect core. Sending the coordinates now. Be advised: this core is also maintaining the Reaper’s altitude.”

Garrus and Shepard both groan, their tech backgrounds leading them to the same conclusion.

Shepard runs a hand down the front of her helmet. “So when we take the barriers down to escape, the wreck falls into the planet core.”

“Got it in one, Commander,” Joker says, “Wouldn’t be a mission of yours if there wasn’t a risk of everybody getting killed.”

He’s right, of course, but just because Shepard is used to it doesn’t mean that it’s any easier. She deploys her drone despite the fact that they haven’t seen a hostile yet; the scream alone was enough to justify it, and the ship groaning to life around them is another factor besides. Shepard’s feet are planted as she looks from side to side, surveying.

“Shepard!” Garrus shouts out her name and she whips towards him at the sound, head swiveling again when pressure sensors go off in her suit. A gunshot rings out as a husk’s blue-gray fingers wrap around her ankle; Shepard just manages to take in its face, a bastardization of the organic and synthetic before a shot from Thane’s side-arm pierces its temple. The husk’s head lolls to the side and Shepard fires into it twice more before kicking at its jaw with the foot it has been holding onto, and finally it loses its grip and slips off the walkway.

“Thanks for the save,” she says, never mind that that was probably a Cerberus scientist warped beyond all belief.

“You have the awareness of a piece of seaweed washed up on a beach, siha,” Thane says, though he seems mostly amused rather than annoyed.

Shepard scowls even though neither Thane nor Garrus can see, and elects not to correct the use of what is effectively a pet name. Instead of answering, she plays the next video log that they’ve walked up next to, eyes now peeled for any husks in her peripheral vision.

The log is almost the worst thing that Shepard has ever seen.

“What? Katy’s my wife,” says the first scientist, and Shepard winces.

“No. I know my wife,” says the second, an eyebrow raised as though he was confident in the fact once but maybe isn’t anymore. “I remember -- that day was the only time I saw her wear stockings."

Thane shakes his head, and Garrus says, “How long were they here? The Reaper was obviously affecting their minds.”

She shrugs. “Cerberus didn’t seem all that concerned with the human cost here. They could’ve been here days, weeks, months; I don’t have a clue.”

They keep walking, cautious, the banter between them having fallen silent. A few more husks attempt to hinder their progress, but they come sporadically, one or two at a time. They are never a threat, but they are also nowhere near the coordinates that EDI has marked as the mass effect core. It won’t stay this easy, and they all know it.

The appearance of dragon’s teeth just makes that assumption a reality.

“What are these?” Thane asks, though he surprises her by turning to Garrus with his question. Shepard’s drone flies between the spikes, and she whistles a three-note song to call it back.

“They… skewer humans with them,” Garrus says, though it’s clear he doesn’t quite know what verb to use. “It turns them into husks. We saw them all over when we were chasing Saren; thought they were geth-made. At the end, we did start wondering if they were Reaper tech. I guess this confirms it.”

Thane is silent, and then he says, “Horrible.”

“To say the least,” Shepard says under her breath, though it is far from Thane’s fault that this is happening. There is another screech in the distance, but this one is not isolated. Like call and response, the disembodied scream echoes against the walls, bouncing back and forth, and Shepard says, “They’re coming.”

She’s right.

It is kill or be killed as the husks flood from every conceivable direction. Garrus and Shepard stand back-to-back, and Shepard catches glimpses of Thane weaving in between enemies almost faster than her eyes can comprehend. Garrus is just fine with an assault rifle even if he’d prefer sniping, and Shepard’s heavily modded SMG puts in the work even as her drone proves itself a nuisance, buying time for them as it pokes and prods at husks who manage to make it too close.

“We need to get you some heavy weapons training, Shepard,” Garrus says, a joke despite the fact that she can hear the strain in his voice.

“I’m an N7, Vakarian, I know how to use heavy weapons-”

A husk manages to get personal with Garrus in that moment; Thane is too far, Shepard is on the wrong side, and Garrus is in the middle of ejecting a thermal clip. She moves to shove Garrus to the ground (if he is overtaken, they’ll take care of it, but if he dies here, it won’t matter anyway), only for a shot from the direction where they are supposed to be heading to rip clean through the husk’s head.

“Sniper.” It’s the first time Shepard has heard Thane speak since the swarm began.

“If they’re on our side, I don’t care. Watch their sightlines. It’d be awfully embarrassing if one of us died to some scientist that managed to survive.”

After they thin the onslaught, Thane can confidently say that he does not think it is a scientist assisting them. They are too accurate, unless they are a scientist who has also been concurrently training with sniper rifles for their entire life. Whoever it is has more skill than him, and maybe more than Garrus.

By the end, Shepard has nearly given up on her SMG, instead trusting in the omni-gauntlet from Tali and Miranda. Each strike splatters blue and gray viscera onto her helmet, and it drips from her glove even when she dismisses the weapon. The husks have finally stopped coming, and Shepard scoops her SMG off the ground from where she dropped it earlier.

“Think that the shooter’s bonded to anyone?” Garrus asks wistfully, and Shepard snorts.

Thane walks a few steps ahead, past a stack of crates that obscures their vision, and says, “I suppose I could have waited instead of asking you to tell me about dragon’s teeth.”

The spikes jut up into the air, a masterclass in horror, many of them impaling limp human bodies. Thane looks at Shepard and Garrus as they approach, Garrus making a sound of disgust.

He grimaces. “What the hell is this?”

“Looks like an altar,” Shepard says simply. She’s much less upset about the destruction here than she had been about the bodies they’d found on the Collector ship, probably because she holds no great sympathy for Cerberus. “See the way the room’s laid out? This is a place of worship.”

Garrus shakes his head. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would anyone want this?”

“They weren’t themselves,” Thane says, “The logs were proof enough of that.”

Shepard’s gaze stays on the dragon’s teeth as Garrus walks over to a nearby control panel. He hovers a talon over it, and Shepard turns to him sharply. “Don’t touch anything,” she says, almost hissing.

“What?” Surprise seems to be the only thing Garrus can manage. “You want to leave them like this?”

“Of course not,” Shepard spits, and there is some of the anger leaking out, never mind that the only people dead so far are Cerberus. “But I’d rather leave the dead as they are than have something happen to either of you.”

She flexes her right hand like it’s sore, and Garrus steps away from the controls, and they keep moving. It’s quiet for a long time, and they don’t speak, the tension hanging over them ready to drop at any moment.

On an elevated platform in the distance, light glints off silver metal. Thane can barely make out the headlamp of a geth and the barrel of a sniper rifle before three gunshots, one after another, fell three husks behind them that he has not even heard approaching.

“That’s a geth,” Garrus says, though it is more like a question, and Shepard nods slowly, wary.

On their comms, as though it has always been privy to their conversations, all three of them hear the words, “Shepard-Commander.”

She takes a step back, surprised at the recognition, before saying, “How did you get this frequency-”

The geth doesn’t answer, instead stepping back out of sight, deeper into the depths of the Reaper in the direction that EDI has directed them.

Shepard’s eyes are wide through her visor, and were she not wearing the helmet, Thane thinks he might see that she is open-mouthed. “I have fought fewer geth than either of you, but am I incorrect to say that they do not usually talk?”

“No, you nailed it,” Shepard mumbles. “How did it know my name?”

“Well,” Garrus says, absently picking at his talons to hide that he feels nervous. “At least I know that it probably isn’t bonded.”

When the geth disappears, the walls pulse with husks again as well as a pair of scions thrumming with biotic energy. Shepard’s eyes narrow. “I want to know what that geth’s deal is.”

They cut a blistering pace through their enemies; it is not so hard when they are only ahead, though the scion is more an irritant than most. It falls like all the rest, though, courtesy of Shepard’s spiked gauntlet tearing through one of the blue sacs on its back. It’s not her usually favored form of combat, but Thane can’t argue its efficacy.

At Shepard’s command, they don’t clear the area before moving on, instead running past the ones they can.

“Let them group up chasing us and then throw them off the side,” Shepard says to him. When he does, she cackles. “Christ, yes. I wasn’t joking on the Collector ship. Normandy bowling league when?”

Thane still doesn’t know what bowling is, but Shepard’s drone dances at his eye level, the galaxy’s smallest bodyguard, and despite the danger, he smiles.

When they run out of walkway, what they find at the end is a door, and through that is the geth, its hands hovering at a terminal in front of the Reaper’s mass effect core, seemingly unaware that it is on the verge of being overwhelmed by husks from each side. They can see through a transparent barrier; the geth turns and staves off the most threatening of the husks with its sidearm before turning back to the console and dropping the barrier to grant them entrance.

Shepard raises her SMG and Thane and Garrus mimic her, but they are too slow. A husk finally reaches it, and though Shepard shoots it down, the geth still hits the floor with a clattering of metal on metal.

“Orders, Shepard?” Thane asks, as if working with a team is normal to him at this point.

“Hit the husks. Hit the core. You two are smart; you don’t need me to tell you to shoot things. Cover me if they get too close.”

Shepard’s drone zips away back to its comfort zone at her side, and she steps up quickly to the geth, SMG firing all the while until she kneels down next to it.

“Shepard?” Garrus asks, the question that Thane also wants to put forward evident in that one word.

What is she doing?

“I told you what to do. I’m going to get this geth back online, and it’s going to help us get out of here.”

A husk comes too close, and Thane puts a knife in its neck, twisting hard. She gave an order. He’s more than happy to follow it.

Geth are technological marvels. If Shepard was a scholar instead of a tinkerer, maybe she would have more to say about it than that, but she doesn’t. Tali would certainly have opinions, if she was here, and they wouldn’t be limited to whether or not geth are feats of engineering.

Shepard doesn’t say this very often, but thankfully, Tali isn’t here.

She puts her life in Thane and Garrus’s hands all the time anyway, but there are few people that she would really think both capable and trustworthy enough for her to turn her back from violence and instead dig into circuit boards while a fight rages behind her. If she’s going to die here, Shepard has no doubt in her mind that Garrus and Thane would have to die first.

Her drone and her omni-tool team up to run a diagnostic, sharing information with one another until Shepard can narrow down the point of failure. The husks wail in the background as she finally gets her first focused look at the geth that called her “Shepard-Commander.”

It is wearing a piece of N7 armor, and Shepard can’t say with complete certainty, but it looks like hers. Her breath hitches and her eyes narrow, and then her omni-tool pings in time with her drone chirping.

Some process within the husk has shorted out the geth’s blue box on contact, no doubt an offensive measure implemented by the Reapers on purpose. Given time, the geth would simply self-repair, but despite Garrus’s manic laughter, Shepard does not want to spend any more time here than they have to. She rips off her gauntlets after dismissing the omni-tool, resummoning it once her hands are free, and hacks open the panel on the geth’s chest.

It’s a fun puzzle, or it would be if Thane didn’t occasionally have to step close and dispatch a husk that he thinks is getting too near. At another time, Shepard might even savor it as a kind of game, but once the panel is open, she has no time to marvel at the circuitry inside. Her fingers dig in deep to fish out the blue box, her touch as tender as she knows how to make it, and finally, she raises it to the surface.

Her drone flits away quickly, zapping at a husk coming up the ramp and chirping at Garrus for not noticing it was on its way up almost admonishingly before it returns to work. The reboot is not complicated, even though the husk’s attack was effective; her drone and omni-tool make quick work of it, though the heat from the blue box threatens to singe her fingers. After a few moments, the geth says, “Rebooting,” and Shepard, cradling the blue box in her right hand, pulls apart the wires and cables to recreate the nest that she had dug it from in the first place, replacing it.

Shepard reseals the chest panel, turns to check on Thane and Garrus, and comes face to blue-gray face with a husk. Its jaw is unhinged and it stares at Shepard hungrily, head tilted to the side with an empty stare. When it screams, spittle flies at her visor, mixing with the guts of the dozens of husks she’s already killed today, and that is, for some reason, the thing that she just cannot abide.

In recollections, Shepard won’t be able to remember if she had forgotten that she’d taken off her gloves or if she simply hadn’t cared enough to activate her omni-gauntlet or if it was something else entirely. All Shepard knows is that, from her peripheral vision, Thane finally kills the scion that he has been dueling with and looks her direction just in time for her to thrust her fist entirely through the husk’s skull.

Her knuckles crack on skull and squelch through brain matter before they hit skull again, and Shepard looks down and sees her arm lancing the husk’s head, and she screams. Every square inch of her hand is wailing in pain, shockwaves shooting out from the offending nerves into her core.

She can’t get up from her knees, frozen from pain or shock, and she can hear people talking through the commlink. She just can’t understand them. She makes out a “Shepard-Commander,” and a “Shepard!” and a “Siha!”

And then there is nothing.

Chapter Text

Shepard falls, and Garrus isn’t there to catch her. Thane is fast, but he doesn’t make it either, though he makes a valiant attempt. He vaults two husks to try to close the gap between them, using the momentum from pushing off the first’s head with one hand, but it isn’t enough even though it’s a masterclass in acrobatics. Garrus has already lost her once, and now the woman that he’d thought immortal back when they were chasing Saren is crumpled up and limp on the floor with monsters swarming her.

Contrary to everything that Garrus knows about geth, the one Shepard just brought back online stands over her, holding off as many of the abominations as it can manage. Garrus is not in a position to begrudge it the help. Thane is at her side now, too, culling as many as he possibly can.

Her scream. It had been shriller than Garrus thought he would ever hear her sound.

“We were incapacitated in the same way as Shepard-Commander,” says the geth, still somehow on their comm frequency. “She will require assistance. We could initiate repairs, but we are unsure of how they would interact with her organic components.”

“We’ll get her back to the Normandy,” Garrus says, “And Chakwas will know what to do.”

He doesn’t have time to think about the implications of bringing a geth on board. Their mission is a failure anyway without Shepard to lead them. Getting her back alive is all that matters. “Joker, do you copy?”

“Yeah, Garrus, I copy. Why are you-”

“No time,” he says, assault rifle in the mouth of an oncoming husk. “Shepard’s down and we’re about to blow this thing’s core to hell. Be ready to pick us up.”

For once, Joker doesn’t make a snide remark. “We’ll be there. Get her back.”

“We can overload the processes in place to render the Old Machine’s core useless. This will also drop the kinetic barriers preventing the Normandy from having access,” the geth says, and Garrus nods.

“Do it.”

Thane’s running out of energy for biotic displays; the throw he tosses over Garrus’s shoulder is weak compared to what he’s normally capable of, displacing the husks but not sending them over the railing like Garrus is sure that he wanted. He has never seemed prideful, but Thane almost seems ashamed when he says, “Can you carry her back? I don’t know how much I have left in me.”

Frankly, Garrus isn’t sure if he can. They’ve been fighting for a long time now, and humans are heavier than turians, but he isn’t going to just leave her-

“Shepard-Commander is beneath the weight threshold that would encumber this platform,” the geth says, not turning back to face them, hands hovering over the console. “Turian anatomy suggests that carrying her would be significantly taxing for your frame.”

Thane’s eyes meet Garrus’s during a brief lull in the violence, and Garrus doesn’t know many drell, but he thinks they come to an understanding.

“If you try anything, I’ll tear that flashlight out of your head,” Garrus says, and Thane gives a minute nod as if to say that he approves.

The geth says, “Understood,” before removing its hands from the console. “We have no desire to deceive. We wish only to assist.” It stares up into the core. “There are approximately four minutes and thirty-three seconds before the Old Machine falls far enough that the Normandy will not be able to assist.”

Garrus grimaces; Thane has kept half an eye on Shepard as the remaining husks fell, but as the Reaper’s core dims and the shutters fold over it, he looks to Garrus instead, waiting for him to give an order.

“You heard it. Let’s get out of here.”

There are not many husks left. Thane and Garrus dispatch the few stragglers remaining as the geth lifts Shepard so her chest is flush with its back, pulling her arms fully over its shoulders and placing its arms in the crooks of her knees.

It is surreal. Shepard has killed more geth than any single person in the galaxy, and her survival is probably dependent on the one that Garrus just gave permission to carry her back to the Normandy.

Tali is going to kill him, but that’s fine if he can get Shepard out of here alive.

Thane gives the geth a last once-over, and they run.

There is no resistance to be found, but he and Thane are both tired. They have been killing hordes of husks (how many Cerberus scientists were on this team?), and though there seem to be no more, running the distance from where they are back to the platform where the Normandy will pick them back up is daunting.

“Garrus, ETA?” Joker’s voice crackles through the commlink.

“Soon,” Garrus manages, lungs burning. “And we’ve got a geth with us. Don’t shoot it on sight.”

“Don’t shoot it on sight? What-”

“I’ll explain when we’re out of here,” he says; apparently the geth had only been on the local network rather than linked up with the Normandy’s communication, because Joker seems as surprised as Garrus had been when he’d first seen it. He skids around a corner that Thane rounds much more gracefully, and he spares a glance at the geth, Shepard bobbing limply on its back.

She can’t be dead. She can’t be dead again.

Their footfalls echo in the eerie silence of a Reaper’s corpse as they hurry back the way they came. Thane is impressive anyway for being terminally ill, but Garrus hopes he’s able to run that fast when he’s approaching his deathbed.

“Joker, could use a pick-up,” Garrus says, fighting to keep his voice calm.

“You know I’d never leave you hanging out to dry.” Joker’s voice is a gift from the spirits as the Normandy comes into view. Thane jumps the gap first, and the geth turns to him, the floor trembling under Garrus’s feet.

“You next,” Garrus says.

The geth says, “Understood,” before leaping, Shepard still firmly on its back despite the upsetting way her head rolls back at the momentum. With the geth (and Shepard) safely back on the ship, Garrus turns and fires three rounds into a single, lagging husk.

“I’m leaving, Vakarian, so you better get on board.”

He has no desire to stay anyway, and Garrus is back on the Normandy at last, Thane’s hand giving him the slightest pull for security. They walk onto the gangway; Tali is standing behind Joker’s chair but looking at them silently, her eyes cold on the geth despite the mask hiding them.

“Get her to medical. Help it find where it’s going,” Garrus says to Thane, who nods and takes off swiftly for the elevator, the geth only a step behind.

“What happened, Garrus?” Tali asks, voice adrift between fear, anxiety, and rage.

Garrus likes Tali. He always has. But he’s so tired that it seeps into his bones, and all he can think of is, “Fuck if I know.”

“I know that I’m irresistible, but I promise that I’ll be here even if you wait a little while to die,” Irikah says dryly, eyes roving over Shepard. She has no idea if Shepard is beautiful for a human or not, but Irikah would be lying if she said it would not be comical in nearly any other context to see the Hero of the Citadel flat on her back, half-buried by sand and completely naked otherwise, eyes closed in what she might call peace.

“It’s not like I have a choice in the matter,” Shepard says, pressing a hand to her forehead as if to combat the sun. “But I think anyone would choose this beach over the guts of a Reaper.”

“Probably true,” Irikah admits, scratching absently at a scale that is probably overdue to shed. “You aren’t ‘anyone,’ though.”

“Unfortunately,” she says, sighing and hoisting herself to a sitting position, hands propping her up. “It would be a lie to say that the idea of staying here with you didn’t seem preferable to being alive, sometimes.”

Irikah could likely handle cruelty from Shepard, but the apathy is wrong. “You have been given a gift,” she says coldly. “I have lost a son and a husband and everything else. Being ungrateful for a second chance does not suit you.”

“I know that you’re right,” Shepard says without hesitating, turning to look Irikah in the eyes. She sighs. “I just… I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

Irikah’s gaze softens, and her hand finds Shepard’s, grains of sand the only thing between them.

The mission to stop the Collectors has not gone as planned in many ways, but today is in a league of its own, as far as Miranda is concerned. It is interesting to see how EDI has evolved with proximity to the crew; today, Miranda almost hears panic when EDI says words that should be calm.

“Dr. Chakwas requests your assistance in the medical bay.”

Miranda stands from her desk and walks out onto the deck proper, and what she sees is-

Well, frankly, it’s unbelievable.

Three approach the med bay. Thane is not a surprise; he does stay in life support, after all. It is the other two that make this an unusual day even for the Normandy. Shepard is unconscious, slung across the back of an active geth that is walking towards medical despite the fact that every crewman in the mess has drawn a gun on it.

“Do not fire on the geth unless it fires first.” Miranda barks out the order as she follows; if nothing else, it is an asset if they can keep it whole, and she doubts Shepard would appreciate it if they killed whatever carried her all the way back from the Reaper. The crew warily lowers their weapons, Hawthorne still eyeing the geth a little too hungrily, but she steps past them into the med bay where the geth is laying Shepard gently onto a bed.

Chakwas nods at Miranda. “I wanted you here because you’re a walking medical history. You know Shepard’s body better than any file could. Now,” she says, turning to Thane, “I don’t know what to make of the geth, but what do I need to know?”

“She punched through a husk’s head without gloves or an omni-tool attachment active,” Thane says, voice neutral somehow. “Anything more than that, the geth probably knows better than I do. It said something similar happened to them.”

“Yes.” When the geth speaks, Chakwas eyes it warily, but she prioritizes checking Shepard’s vitals, hooking up an IV. “Old Machine technology is present in what organics call husks. It is designed to disable synthetic platforms.”

“Shepard isn’t a synthetic,” Chakwas says, and she’s right, but there are things that only Miranda and the Illusive Man know.

“Correct,” the geth says, nodding. “But Shepard-Commander has many synthetic components despite still being classified as organic. Physical contact with Old Machine technology without the buffer of armor would explain her incapacitation. For this platform, Shepard-Commander was able to combat the forced shut-down by power cycling our blue box.”

Miranda’s eyes flutter shut. She can fix this, then, but the consequences- there’s not enough time to think.

Chakwas pauses, gaze roaming rapidly across the displays connected to Shepard. “I’m not sure what to do. There’s no reason to-”

Shepard lurches, back arching towards the ceiling, and a scream that should shatter the windows of the med bay escapes her mouth. “Thane, the blinds-” Chakwas says, trying to hold one of Shepard’s wrists down with little success as the geth grips the other.

Shepard writhes violently, armor tearing at the sheet on the bed as she wails, a banshee. Thane takes the place Chakwas had been in before, futilely trying to hold her in place, and when she sees his face, Shepard cries out, “It hurts-”

“I know, siha, I know,” Thane says, voice tender despite the fact that she is lashing out in every physical form she can. He spares a glance at Chakwas who is readying a sedative, and Miranda shakes her head.

It is unlikely anyone will ever forgive her. Shepard won’t, and Tali certainly will never want to speak to her again, but at least Shepard will be alive, if what the geth says is true. She could wait, but Shepard is hurting so much; the shock of the pain alone could kill her unless they do something. If Chakwas puts her under, there’s no telling if she’ll wake back up.

Miranda calls up her omni-tool and stands at the head of the bed where Shepard struggles against Thane and the geth’s combined effort.

“Activate protocol seven-eight-three-four-four,” Miranda says, holding her omni-tool as precisely over Shepard’s forehead as she can manage. “Force reset.”

The blood drains from Shepard’s face, and the light dims in her eyes as she goes silent and still, and in the moment that it takes for her body to rest on the medical cot, Thane has Miranda by the throat against the wall.

“What did you do?” he asks, lethal in every sense of the word.

Miranda can’t help it; the pride is too much, even though she has come to realize recently that she might even like most of these people Shepard has put together and called a team. She says, “You should be thanking me. If what the geth said is true, she will wake up in a matter of hours and be back to normal except for her hand.”

“That’s not an answer,” Thane growls, “I’ve considered you very nearly a friend, and that’s the only reason you aren’t dead on the floor. What did you do?”

“I forced a restart,” Miranda says, the air coming in shorter bursts as the pressure increases on her windpipe. “It was a process we were going to take out; it was only there in the first place because we were going to limit test some of her physical capacities before her mental ones were back in place. We didn’t have a chance to remove it after what happened on Lazarus Station, and the Illusive Man and I were the only ones left alive who knew it was even there.”

“Miranda, while I hope that what you say is true, I’d like to ask you to leave while we wait for the Commander to wake up,” Chakwas says, though it isn’t really what she means. Thane won’t go against what Chakwas says, and that means he has to release her.

“Of course,” Miranda says, taking another look at the geth and then at Shepard, breathing shallowly. She walks towards the door and she can feel Thane’s eyes on her back with each step. Her lips part and she pauses as the door slides open. There’s no explanation except that it must be Tali’s influence, but Miranda says, “And when she wakes up, can you tell her that I’m sorry?”

Thane says, “When she wakes up, you can tell her yourself,” and Miranda thinks that it’s almost an olive branch, but then he adds, “Because if she doesn’t, I’ll have killed you.”

A half-smile teases at Miranda’s face. “She will. I don’t want her dead any more than you do.”

The door closes behind Miranda as she walks through, but not before she takes a last look at Chakwas and Thane, each an arm’s length from the geth, all three watching over Shepard.

Yes, Shepard will be fine. Whether the people around Miranda will forgive her for still having access to such a protocol is another story.

What’s strangest about the whole thing is that Miranda finds that she actually cares whether or not they do.

Chapter Text

This is not a beach. This is not anything at all. This is the blackness of death like Shepard has only experienced once before.

Last time, she had an angel. Last time, Irikah saved her, tethered her, wrapped her in warmth until Miranda pulled Shepard back into the land of the living, but even then there had been stars. This is only a void, empty and cold and dark.

She can’t breathe. Shepard’s fingers claw at her throat, but she can’t feel her nails on her skin, and there is no air, and she can’t breathe.

Thane is not often in situations where he feels helpless. Shepard’s eyes are wide open but blank, unblinking; periodically, Dr. Chakwas places drops into them to keep them from drying out. Chakwas has also administered a healthy dose of medi-gel to the hand that Shepard had punched through the husk’s skull. No fractures, somehow, and neither he nor Chakwas say what he is sure they are both thinking.

Any other human in the galaxy would have broken every other bone in their arm doing something like that.

The geth sits in the AI core adjacent to the med bay; Thane had thought that foolish, given the geth ability to upload into more or less any machine in one way or another, but EDI had said that her cybersecurity suite is equally effective no matter where the geth is on the Normandy.

Shepard awkwardly rests her head on my shoulder. It is not quite intimate, but it is friendly in a way that is unexpected.

“This new body - I don’t know it the way I knew the one I was born with,” she says as the elevator rises. “It has limits, but today it felt like it didn’t stop me before I reached them.”

“Is it only fatigue?” I ask.

Shepard shakes her head; I can feel her cheek move against the fabric of my coat. “No. It’s deeper.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m certain that she will wake up,” Chakwas says, her voice loud in the silence only interrupted by the beeping of Shepard’s cardiac monitor. “That is to say that there isn’t any medical reason that she wouldn’t. Her vitals are stable and her brain activity seems normal, excluding the blip the commander experienced when Miranda did… whatever she did.”

They had removed Shepard’s armor once it was clear that moving her as much as the action required wouldn’t make her condition worse, so she lays there on the cot clothed only in the pants and undershirt she always wears on missions. When Thane doesn’t answer, Chakwas sighs.

“I know it’s unlikely to be at the forefront of your mind, but we processed your biopsy, by the way. There were no new insights to be gleaned about the nature of Kepral’s, of course. Even Mordin had to admit that the hanar have done a thorough job as far as research. The good news is that your physical health in general makes you a perfect candidate for what we decided would be the best course of action.”

“And what is that?” he asks, listening but still focused on Shepard, on the too-shallow rise of her chest with every breath, on her eyes that stare vacantly at the ceiling.

“Reinforcement of your lungs with synthetic weave. It was, frankly, a disappointment for Mordin. He had wanted to perform a full lung transplant. Fortunately, we know one of the foremost researchers in the field of augmenting failed or failing organs.”

His voice is distant; Thane has still not even decided if he wants to live, though the message from Kolyat still sits unanswered on his omni-tool. “Who?” he asks, and Chakwas grimaces.

“You may have just had her pinned up against the wall,” Chakwas says, and Thane exhales, unwilling to unpack his current opinion on Miranda. “Not that I blame you, necessarily, but-”

When Shepard blinks, it is the first movement that she has made in almost three hours. One blink is followed by another, rapid, and Chakwas is on her feet in a moment, though not quick enough to stop Shepard’s hand suddenly reaching for her neck, tearing out the IV in her arm violently.

“Commander,” Chakwas says, voice stern but unpanicked. Shepard locks onto the voice and stares at her for too long, eyes still glazed over and fingers on her own throat, gaze eventually drifting to Thane, who hasn’t moved from where he is sitting at her side.

She blinks three more times as they stare each other in the face, and Thane says, “Siha,” somewhere between a question and a prayer. The seconds that pass tick into eternity. The yelket tattoo on her arm that Thane now knows was Irikah’s influence burns into his vision.

And finally, blessedly, by Arashu’s grace, Shepard’s eyes focus.

Talking to Joker mostly calms Tali down. He distracts her for an admirable amount of time when Garrus, as Shepard is so fond of saying, hits the showers. She hasn’t forgotten, not really, but the gravity of everything hits her all at once when she steps into the elevator. Shepard wasn’t moving, and she was being carried down to medical by a geth.

It had nodded and done exactly as Garrus asked when ordered to follow Thane.

Instead of engineering, Tali steps off one deck early. The Cerberus crew are murmuring among themselves; they’re usually boisterous, but the reservation isn’t surprising, considering they probably just saw their commanding officer hauled into the med bay slung over a geth’s back. Miranda doesn’t seem to notice her as she walks by, either, which is perhaps the most discomforting thing. There is an inflamed ring around her neck that Miranda is rubbing absently, and Tali’s eyes follow her until the door to her office swings closed.

The blinds are pulled tight enough that Tali can’t see inside the med bay at all, and she expects the red light on the door to turn green when she steps in front of it. When it doesn’t, she says, “EDI?”

Tali still doesn’t care much for the AI on principle, but she is shackled, and if that ever changes, Tali has no doubt that Cerberus will be the first organization that EDI goes after.

“I am sorry, Tali,” EDI says, “Given Commander Shepard’s condition and the presence of a geth, Miranda has asked me to restrict all access.”

Tali sighs and grits her teeth, anger bubbling up again quickly. “Can you at least tell me if Shepard’s okay?”

EDI goes silent, no doubt relaying her question, and then says, “Dr. Chakwas reports that all of the commander’s vitals are stable.”

Somehow, it’s not enough to smooth over the edges in Tali’s chest, but she says, “Thanks,” anyway, and instead makes for the battery. The crew don’t spare her a glance as she walks through the mess; she certainly still makes some of them uncomfortable, but considering that they’re Cerberus, they aren’t all that bad.

If she isn’t going to be able to get answers from Shepard, Garrus is the next best thing.

Tali finds him hunched over the main console in the battery, and when Garrus turns to face her, she almost takes a step back. She doesn’t remember the last time that she saw him without the visor on; maybe she never has.

“What happened down there?” she asks, dispensing with the greeting.

Garrus sighs, leaning back against the console. “I’m fine; thanks for asking.”

Tali’s eyes narrow. Most of the time, Garrus is damn funny for a turian (damn funny for anyone), but she’s not in the mood. “You were able to walk in here. Shepard wasn’t, and there’s a geth crawling around the ship, and everyone just seems fine with it.”

She has never seen Garrus snap, though she’s certain that there are others on the ship who have. Tali knows for a fact that Shepard had to shout him down after what happened with Dr. Saleon, though that’s almost fourth-hand knowledge. Still, he seems very close to a breaking point when he says, “I don’t have an answer for what happened. She’s always doing things that humans shouldn’t be capable of. This time, it caught up with her.”

“You know that isn’t an answer,” Tali needles, and something in Garrus’s eyes sharpens, that turian pride rearing its ugly head.

“She stuck her bare hand straight through a husk’s skull after taking it upon herself to restart the geth that carried her back here,” he hisses, “And I was damn near useless the whole time, if you really need to know the long and short of it. If that geth had wanted to, it could have killed all three of us. Thane and I were spent and Shepard- I don’t even know what to call it. She short-circuited or something, and EDI tells me Miranda rebooted her-”

“Miranda what?” Tali interrupts, blood icing.

“She’s your fucking girlfriend; you tell me,” Garrus says, and he is well and truly pushed past his limit. “Miranda has a kill code for my best friend’s brain and then you march in and ask me what’s going on? Believe me when I say that I would love to have the slightest clue of anything.”

Neither of them hears the door, their voices rising by the moment, Tali’s mind racing. Miranda is practical to a fault, but Tali knowing that doesn’t make the new information feel any less like a betrayal. A fist wraps itself around her heart and squeezes as she fumbles for words, but Shepard’s voice from behind her saves her the search.

“Speaking of that, I owe you an apology,” Shepard drawls, leaning against the doorframe like she has not been nearly resurrected from the grave once more.

“Shepard-” Garrus and Tali start in unison, but she holds up a hand to silence them.

She seems normal. She seems like Shepard. And she shouldn’t. There’s no one else in the galaxy that would be up and walking around like this after what she went through with the Reaper. The fact that Shepard can be here, like nothing ever happened, is nothing more than evidence that she is not the same woman Tali knew on the SR-1.

Shepard’s arms are sculpted like they always were, but too many of her scars are missing. Her smile curves the same way that it always has, but the wrinkles around her eyes are gone.

Is Shepard even mortal anymore? Is she even Shepard?

Tali has wondered it more than once, privately. Garrus has said it out loud before, but Tali has never been brave enough. Shepard always manages to do something that is just so Shepard that it eases Tali’s mind at least a little. This time, Shepard says, “I made a bad call. Actually, saying it was a bad call doesn’t cut it; it was way worse than that. I shouldn’t have put you in that situation, but you handled it damn well, Garrus. If this were the Alliance, I’d recommend you for a promotion. This is a long walk to say that I’m sorry, and I wish I hadn’t put you in that situation, but I’m glad that it was you.”

Shepard extends her hand, a human gesture that Tali didn’t think much of when they first met, and Garrus takes it.

For once, Shepard’s magic doesn’t work. Hysterical laughter bubbles out of Tali, too many variables colliding for her to be able to make sense of them. She’s an orphan, she’s exiled, the Normandy’s her home now, she’s dating a Cerberus officer, her girlfriend has codes for Shepard’s brain, there’s a geth on the ship-

“Tali,” Shepard says, dropping Garrus’s hand to reach out to her, and Tali shakes her head, stepping away.

“No,” Tali says, in between the tears that have squeaked out in time with her laughter. “Don’t Tali me. This is unbelievable, even for us- even for you. This is supposed to be my home, and you’ve brought a geth on board, and Miranda-” Despite her best efforts, Tali’s voice cracks, and Garrus averts his eyes, no doubt wishing that he was anywhere else.

“For what it’s worth,” Shepard says softly, “Whatever process Miranda ran on me might very well be the only reason I’m alive. She and I are certainly going to have a chat about it, but any sense of betrayal that I’m feeling is tempered by the very real fact that without whatever she did, I probably would just be meat on a table again.”

Tali winces. “It’s not all about Miranda,” she says, though Shepard has zeroed in on the heart of Tali’s outrage.

She’s not with the Fleet anymore, and if she can’t feel safe here, she won’t feel safe anywhere.

Regardless, Shepard nods. “I know. And I know that the geth is…” she pauses, fishing for the words that Tali knows are designed to defuse her. “I know that the geth is contentious,” Shepard finally says, “And I also know that you have more reason than most to be wary of it. I really do understand. But you have to understand that I need to take allies anywhere that I can find them. I wouldn’t be letting it stay if I wasn’t absolutely certain-”

“You’re letting it stay?” Tali spits, incredulous, and Shepard rubs the back of her neck, and somehow, that is the moment that Tali knows that this is really the same Evangeline Shepard that chased Saren across the galaxy.

She looks tired. Shepard looks tired, just like Garrus does (staring absently at his visor where it sits next to the console), just like Joker does (when he runs a hand down the side of his face, as if trading barbs with EDI is the only thing he has energy for), just like Miranda does (when they’re alone, a piece of her that only Tali gets to see).

Somehow, then, Tali forgives Shepard for transgressions that aren’t even necessarily hers, because she’s Shepard, and if Tali gives her that leeway, she will make the impossible happen. That’s what Shepard does, and what she always has done.

When Shepard says, “Yes. It wants to fight the Collectors. And we’re calling it Legion,” Tali isn’t even angry anymore. Even if she hadn’t felt like forgiveness, the anger is too much energy wasted.

Just like Garrus, Joker, Miranda, and even Shepard, Tali is tired. She says, “Okay.” And she squeezes Garrus’s forearm and hugs Shepard tightly before she walks out of the main battery towards Miranda’s office for a conversation that will still be very difficult, but not as explosive as it might have been.

It’s in her blood, this fatigue. It’s in her bones.

Chapter Text

For the moment, the most pressing fires have been extinguished.

The geth has been recruited (or something), and for the moment, their goals are aligned. It had seemed exceptionally cruel to throw it out the airlock after it saved her life, even if the urge to smash it to pieces had come from a primal place that Shepard hadn’t quite understood. The only place she can trace it is to all the geth she has killed in the past.

Her plan had been to go and have a conversation with Miranda before curling up in her cabin for as many hours as she could spare, and then she had heard Tali’s voice rattling down the deck from the battery. Gardner had looked like he was considering checking out the situation himself, a testament to Tali’s ability to win over just about anyone who gives her the time of day.

Talking with Miranda will have to wait, she thinks, as she steps onto the elevator. Shepard’s almost too tired to function, but sleeping won’t fix it. Even if she felt up to it, Tali almost certainly marched over there as soon as she was done speaking to Shepard and Garrus.

What on earth is there to say, anyway?

Hey, Miranda, mind explaining why you can shut me down should the urge ever possess you?

That’s a stupid question. Shepard knows why. Cerberus has never seen her as anything more than a resource. She’s alive, still, and Shepard has no one to thank but Miranda once again.

Where had Irikah been? When the black came, when it swallowed her, where was Shepard's stalwart angel?

The rage pulses under her skin, raw and violent, mechanical. The cogs whir behind her eyes, and yes, she is a monster. Shepard is wires and cords and circuit boards underneath what is little more than a fondant of skin.

Miranda shouldn’t have woken her up. Miranda should have left her there in the black, in the cold. The hand Chakwas has wrapped up bleeds, and Shepard isn’t sure why until she looks down. Her nails bite into her palms, and the smile that spreads across her face isn’t hers.

Or maybe it is. It’s not the Shepard who was on the SR-1, but this is who she is now. Isn’t it time to embrace the bile her heart swims in, to let the sharp edges of her mouth bleed into her words?

Arashu got it wrong, she thinks, the blood trickling down her fingers.

There’s no reason to be in her cabin. All she does here is sleep, and that is out of Shepard's reach for the moment. Still, she steps over the threshold as EDI opens the door, still staring blankly as the red drips onto the floor.

There is a poem, an old one. Shepard doesn't know when she read it, if she only ever heard it read, and out loud, she says, "There is nothing but fog out the eyes of monsters."

Something grabs her bleeding, still-bandaged hand. Thane says, “If all monsters were like you, I doubt that we would call them monsters in the first place.” She recoils at the touch at first, still tense as she finally realizes it is only Thane’s hand in hers. He asks, “How are you feeling?” and Shepard barks out a laugh.

“I can’t be sure, but I think I died again. It was close, at least. It felt like it.” The blood leaves warm trails across her fingers, and the red is even more garish as it runs over Thane’s green skin. His touch is lukewarm, and the juxtaposition makes Shepard nauseous.

“Do you have medi-gel?” he asks, and somehow, his unwillingness to address all the things that she said deflates her.

Shepard nods towards the first aid kit stashed behind her sofa and follows behind Thane to sit on the edge of the bed. He fetches the medi-gel silently; in human hands, it is generally warm when applied, but he runs cooler, and it is barely room temperature as he presses it into her palm.

She doesn't flinch, watching as his fused fingers softly rub at her self-inflicted wounds. "It was not long ago that you said you did not want to pursue…" Thane trails off, her still bloody hand in his own, and continues with, "Whatever this is if I was unwilling to try to live. I had not realized that I would need to lay a similar condition at your feet."

Shepard's gaze snaps to meet his, finally. His eyes are dark, almost as black as being dead, but instead of cold, she finds affection and worry in them. The wrath wars with what little part of her is still human, still Eva.

"Why did you do what you did on the Reaper?" Thane asks, and Shepard finds it difficult to hold his gaze when he says, "The geth I can understand, even if I find it difficult to believe, but you had to know that what you did with the husk was-"

Shepard's hand curls into a fist, wrapping around Thane's fingers. "I wasn't thinking. And it's not like it matters anyway, because even if I wanted to die, Cerberus wouldn't let their pet synthetic do that."

Thane sighs as the bleeding stops, her palm still aching. “Self-pity doesn’t suit you, siha.”

Somehow, it is the nickname that stills the unsteady waters, though the almost-reprimand doesn’t hurt. “I don’t feel much like any kind of angel,” Shepard admits, all too aware that his words echo Irikah’s. She’s lucky to be alive, no matter the strings attached.

“You must be,” Thane says simply, his fused digits interlocking with hers perfectly thanks to the bandages. “Only an angel could have helped me re-open communications with my son.”

“How is Kolyat?” she asks, the domesticity of what she’s asking not lost on her. They are both pretending that she is not quivering under the strain of questioning her mortality.

“Well enough. He wanted me to give you his thanks. He is unused to working with so many humans, but he says he is managing.” Thane pauses, and Shepard can feel his pulse in her fingers. “I’m sorry that we weren’t able to protect you better. If we had never allowed the husk to reach you in the first place, none of this would have happened.”

“Kind of a lot to pin on yourself and Garrus, considering you two killed about a thousand while I played surgeon on a geth.” Shepard sighs and falls onto her back on the bed, releasing Thane’s hand. “You know it’s got a piece of my armor on? Legion?”

“Legion?”

“It’s what we’re calling the geth, apparently. It’s from a human religious text. I am Legion, for we are many. It’s a demon in the scriptures, though. Hopefully a rogue geth will be more sympathetic than that,” she says dryly, the worst of the hatred leaking out anticlimactically.

Thane hums, thoughtful; even now, as bestial as she feels, he lets her see his back. “What’s Legion’s story?”

“The human story?” she asks, and Thane nods. “I’m no scholar, and if Ashley was here she’d tell it better, but a man, possessed, begs for an exorcism. Jesus, son of the Christian God, demands that the demon emerge. It refuses, of course, but after some time - Jesus is divine, after all - he finally learns the demons’ name. The number of demons changes depending on who’s telling the story, or who wrote it, but more often than not, the demons give the name Legion to refer to themselves as one.”

Shepard feels like she’s telling an origin story, but she isn’t sure whose. She swallows hard, balling up a handful of blanket, and says, “Anyway. Jesus casts the demons out into a herd of pigs-”

“Pigs?” Thane interrupts, and Shepard blinks in surprise.

“Oh. You would have no reason to know what pigs are.” Shepard sits back up, quickly searching the extranet for an image. When she finds one, she says, “Humans keep them as livestock, but there are also feral pigs.”

“They’re kind of…”

“Big?” Shepard laughs despite herself.

Thane half-smiles, and the warmth of it spreads to her extremities. “I was going to say charming.”

“They can be. The babies are very cute. And they’re smart.”

“Continue, please,” Thane says, nudging her with his shoulder, and Shepard blushes.

“Jesus sends the demons into the pigs, and they rush off the cliff, and drown. All of them.”

The scales at Thane’s brow furrow. “Why?”

Shepard raises an eyebrow. “Why what?”

“Why do they run off the cliff? Is that the end of the story?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said it’s from a religious text. Most of our religious stories have one of two functions; they give us either something to draw strength from, or they teach us something. It is possible that I am projecting too much of my drell sensibilities onto a distinctly human faith, but I’m afraid that I don’t understand the point.”

“The point?” This is not the conversation that she thought she’d be having, never mind that she and Thane are both in her bed. “I’m not exactly Christian, so I doubt my take is the right one. I always assumed it was just another way to show the ‘might of Christ’ or whatever,” she says, air quotes almost bordering on irreverent.

Thane doesn’t answer, instead opting for silence, leaving Shepard no choice but to ponder the story herself.

What is the point? It’s a miracle of Jesus, of course, but no one would have disputed Jesus as divine. It’s a rejection of the demonic, positioning Jesus as an absolute force of good, but that’s just a miracle rephrased.

“Demons are hardly sympathetic villains,” Shepard says finally. “It was just Jesus performing a miracle.”

The bandage on her hand is tinged pink as Shepard tries not to think about how she is a bastardization of Lazarus and the Gerasene Demoniac, how she is two halves of two different miracles, how Miranda is her Jesus. For a moment, when the possession darkens the corners of her mind once more, Shepard may as well be a pig in dire need of an exorcism, teetering on the edge of a sheer overhang, one foot firmly planted and the other committed to a freefall.

“Siha,” Thane says, a lifeline, and in a millisecond, Shepard decides to take it as he turns to face her. She will sink Cerberus, she will make Miranda a turncoat (and Jacob, for that matter), she will save every colony that the Collectors threaten, and she will feel human while she does it. When Shepard meets his gaze, he says, “Dr. Chakwas told me today that the results of my biopsy came back.”

Guilt swallows Shepard as his words hit her; she had effectively forgotten that he’d had a biopsy done. “And?”

He shrugs, his eyes turned up to the stars that Shepard almost can’t bear to look at. “She was optimistic. She and Mordin consulted with each other, and they’ve determined that there’s an experimental synthetic weave that could reinforce my lungs. I wouldn’t even need a transplant.”

“That’s incredible!” Shepard exclaims before she can stop herself, and Thane’s lips turn upwards before she sobers. “Are you… going to?”

“Well, considering I pinned the foremost specialist in the field to the wall earlier today, it’s more a question of, ‘Will Miranda take me on?’ But if we can come to an agreement on treatment, I’ll explore the possibility.”

“Miranda brought me back to life and I’ve repaid her by having an existential crisis every other hour. I think she’ll forgive you the outburst.”

Shepard wraps her arms around herself, at a loss for what else to say, the emotions conflicting. Thane turns his palm face up next to her, and she takes it almost without thinking. “I know that you’re in the habit of doing the impossible,” he says, carefully measuring his words, “But I would like it if you lived to see the other side of this treatment with me.”

Shepard’s mouth goes dry, the sentiment earnest, and she nods. “It isn’t me. But I’ll try harder to control it. Maybe I’ll try meditating or something.”

“I know someone very good at it. Maybe they’d be willing to take you on,” he says, managing to coax Shepard into a chuckle.

“I’d be too busy thinking about how much I’d like to kiss you if you were teaching me to meditate.”

With a smirk, Thane says, “I was talking about Samara. She’s made a lot of progress with Kasumi, apparently.”

That earns a full laugh from deep in Shepard’s stomach. Thane’s other hand, the one not entwined with her fingers, moves like he wants to thread it through her hair.

“Can I?” he asks, and Shepard’s smile is soft.

“You don’t have to ask, as long as you aren’t doing it while I’m gunning down mercs.”

“Hopefully you’ll keep your helmet on while doing that anyway,” Thane says, voice dry despite the reverence in his touch. Shepard licks her lips, and Thane doesn’t miss the motion, his fused digits brushing against the curve of her ear.

“I’d like to kiss you,” Shepard says, voice small, not certain what she’s looking for, just that she wants to feel human and that she doesn’t want to be alone.

Thane presses his forehead to hers despite an almost playful look in his eyes. “You don’t have to ask, as long as you aren’t doing it while I’m gunning down mercs.”

Shepard groans. “Come on.”

When Thane chuckles, he doesn’t even seem sorry. “Did you ever manage to get any of the antivenom from Mordin?”

Shepard deadpans. “Thane Krios, patron saint of mentioning Mordin when I’m trying to initiate foreplay.” When Thane doesn’t take the bait, she rolls her eyes. “No. I don’t have any antivenom. I’m also on orders to not leave the ship for twelve hours in case something happens so Chakwas can check on me. I’m perfectly happy to lay here watching colors pulse into sounds if it means I get to be close to you.”

With her consent, Thane wraps the hand in her hair around the back of her head, pulling Shepard in close for a kiss that she could swim in, if she wanted. Her body twists to be near him, and what she really wants is to climb into his lap. Breathless, his teeth on her bottom lip, Shepard pulls away. “If this is too fast-”

“Likewise,” he says, and if she had any doubts about pushing Thane outside of his comfort zone, they evaporate as he pulls her exactly where she wants to be. She can feel him harden underneath her despite the clothing between them, already fighting to be free of his scales, and it sends heat to Shepard’s core. Her face flushes; it’s been a long time since she’s done this (years, if she counts the time dead), longer since she’s done it with someone she cares about. Has she ever been this hungry for another person? It’s too early for the desire to be an effect of the venom.

No. Thane looks at her, gaze dark and deep but somehow warm. His eyes are nearly the color of the void, but Shepard cannot make herself feel fear as he stares. This is awkward, she knows, but she pulls the undershirt up over her head in a swift motion. Lips parted, Thane asks, “What do you need?”

It’s a bigger question than he knows, and Shepard’s chest tightens even as her desire builds. “You,” she says, earnestly, and if she’s decided that she’s going to be vulnerable, she is not going to do it halfway. “And I don’t want to be on my back. I can’t- I hate looking out that window.”

For a brief, juvenile moment, Shepard thinks that her concern might kill the mood, but Thane just kisses her harder, a hand grazing the fabric still stretched over her right nipple. She shudders, and Thane smiles into her mouth. “I would like it if you were undressed, but I don’t want to put you in a position where you don’t want to be,” he says, a whisper that makes her tremble.

Shepard stands, stripping quickly, no doubt far from romantic. The logistics of removing clothes are complicated by her condition to not look out the window but she removes them as quickly as she can manage. She is only thankful that she manages to do so before the high starts to roll in.

Thane is always graceful, but the illusion is augmented by his venom; Shepard is transfixed as he shrugs out of his coat, as he pulls his shirt over his head, as he unbuckles his belt. She doesn’t mean to stare, but it is almost as though she doesn’t have a choice. The black stripes on his upper arm melt into his neck, and Shepard blinks.

“Are you alright?” he asks. Her eyes are surely dilated and the world is spinning, but Thane is sitting on the edge of her bed, mostly bare even though he is not as naked as Shepard is, and all she can do is nod. “If you change your mind-”

“I don’t.” The words are as sober as she can manage, given the fireworks echoing in Shepard’s aquarium, and when he holds out his arms to embrace her after fully undressing, she steps into them. Fingers run through her hair, electric even though they are cool, and Shepard places a hand on his chest to push him down.

His back meets the bed, and she is on top of him. Thane’s breath is shallow, and Shepard is not a monster, not really, but his neck is bare. The most lethal singular person in the galaxy is underneath her, and Shepard’s fingers trail along the path where the carotid artery would be in a human. “Siha,” he says, fearless, worshipful, and Shepard eases herself down onto him.

The gasp that escapes her as she slowly sinks down onto him is involuntary. Thane feels somehow bigger now than he had in her mouth. His eyes flutter closed, lips soundlessly moving; he is silent, but Shepard thinks that she hears a prayer. His cock was already hard, but as Shepard finally manages to take all of him, Thane’s ridges also stiffen.

Thane’s fingers dig into her thighs, leaving red marks that she will (or won’t) care about afterwards.

She’s safe.

She’s alive.

She doesn’t think she has ever felt so blissful as she does right now, head tilted back, grinding her hips into his, aching for as much of him as she can take.

Shepard’s hand is still on Thane’s throat, her blunt nails scrabbling against his scales, but he makes no move to stop her. Instead, once she has had time to get comfortable, he gently thrusts upward. The motion must be minimal, but the effect is indescribable, and as Shepard inches nearer to ecstasy, Thane pulls himself to a sitting position, wrapping her legs around his waist before standing, holding her weight effortlessly.

His cock shifts inside her and Shepard cries out, the colors of his face bleeding into the air around them, greens and blacks and reds.

“If it’s too much, say.” Thane’s voice is only just restrained, like he is hanging onto control by the barest thread. He carries her until the bare skin of her back presses against the aquarium, the blue glow infiltrating the aura that his colors are already screaming.

The coil in Shepard’s stomach tightens, and all she can manage is, “Don’t stop.” He continues to push into her gently, never breaking eye contact even though she gasps with each motion. The pleasure is more than Shepard knows how to deal with, and Thane is so beautiful that it’s painful. He flexes the ridges inside her in time with a thrust designed to hit every sensitive spot that she has, and Shepard’s back arches, pushing her breasts into Thane’s chest as she climaxes.

The lights dim briefly as her eyes roll back into her head, only to come alive even more vibrantly than before. Thane’s cock pulses inside her even as she continues to ride out the throes of her orgasm, her own heat mixing with the warmth of his cum, both of them wrapped in the smell of sex and gun oil.

She is alive, and she is human, and Thane brushes a finger along her cheekbone before he carries her back to the bed. When she lays on her back, Shepard doesn’t even notice the stars.

Chapter Text

She stares at him for so long that Thane thinks her eyes might dry out, pupils dilated past what should be humanly possible. When he is able to look at her again properly, no longer governed by the physical desire that had ruled him not minutes before, Thane is filled with self-loathing. The insides of her thighs are raw, and there are marks that he can only call puncture wounds where his fingers dug deeply to keep hold. Blood trickles from the spots where his scales rubbed harder, though Shepard doesn’t seem to notice until she follows his line of sight.

It was foolish, reckless abandon. He was so lost in the fact that Shepard had deemed him worthy of her companionship that he hadn’t even thought about the pure biological incompatibilities-

Shepard laughs when she registers what his body has done to her. She laughs. He has done this to her, and she laughs.

“Whole new meaning to fucking someone so good that they can’t walk,” she says, bliss somehow still rolling off her. “I know you already patched me up once today, but can you get the first aid kit again?”

The trust will never cease to amaze him, but Shepard exposes her thighs to him as he kneels in front of her and applies the medi-gel, never mind that her femoral artery is fully available to him. If Thane listens hard, he thinks he would be able to hear it pulsing. She shudders as his fingers press against the lacerated skin, the medi-gel working instantly.

“I’m sorry,” he says, finally finding his voice again, and her eyebrows rocket into her hairline.

“Sorry? If I didn’t want this, I would have told you. I actually remember telling you not to stop.” Shepard’s voice is fond, and her eyes are kind as she looks at him, at odds with the angry scars that still lattice her face. “You trust me, right?”

She has never asked him outright. Somehow, though he knows that he does, it is still difficult to answer. “You are the first friend I’ve made in ten years.”

Her lips turn upwards. “Hopefully more than a friend, given everything, but point taken. My point is, I trust you. I know you wouldn’t hurt me in any way that I didn’t ask you to.”

When she says it, it sounds so simple, as if she has never considered anything otherwise. Her skin blooms, pink, as the blood pools underneath the patch that the medi-gel has created. Very rarely has he thought about the damage his body has been able to do in such a way, but Shepard’s flesh heals beneath his hands, and though it is in large part thanks to the first aid kit, his hands have healed her.

When Shepard sinks back onto the bed again, Thane remains where he kneels, bordering on awkward. He stands eventually, and when he does, she reaches out; Thane takes her hand, and she pulls him down next to her.

Shepard is still naked, chancing the occasional look up through the window above her bed.

“It’s a beautiful view,” he says, nodding towards the stars. “Why do you hate it?”

Something hard wars with his venom, the kindness leeching from her face. “I was spaced, Thane. I died alone, suffocating, with no hope of rescue. When I was younger, when I was running the streets with Minnie after my mother died, all I wanted was to go to the stars,” she says, almost hissing the last words, mocking her teenage self. “I got what I wanted and I died for it. Cerberus doesn’t ever want me to forget it, even though it’s the last thing I want to be reminded of. They want me to remember that I’d still be fucking floating somewhere in the Terminus Systems if they hadn’t deemed me worthy to rebuild after Liara found me.”

Her fingers are shaking and the black in her eyes has only shrunk the slightest amount. Thane isn’t sure if the venom has loosened her lips; Shepard has been more open with him as of late, and he does not think she has ever truly kept secrets, but this comes from deep within, from the same place that holds Kaidan and Minnie.

“I don’t know if my words will comfort you,” Thane says, voice soft, wrapping his fingers in hers as best as he can manage, given their mismatched digits. She turns on her side to face him, looking away from the window that has held her attention. He continues, “But if it helps, it is difficult to imagine that you could be held by any grave.”

"That's the problem, isn't it?" Shepard asks, voice far away. "I'm supposed to be Commander Shepard, but I've already died once. That's infinitely more times than anyone else I know."

“Forgive me if this comes across as pedantry, but does that not also mean that you’ve lived twice as many times as any person in the galaxy?”

Shepard pulls her fingers from his, and Thane’s pulse quickens; perhaps he has offended. Instead, she fists her hands in her hair, a manic grin on her face. “You sound just like your wife.”

The sharp inhale that Thane takes is involuntary. Shepard will not hold it against him if he cannot form a response, but-

“There is no higher compliment than being compared to Irikah,” he says. “She was an unbelievable judge of character and rarely wrong about anything besides.”

Shepard hums, eyes fluttering shut. “I could sleep forever.”

“Then sleep,” he says, touch soft on her stomach.

“Don’t be gone when I wake up,” she says, and that is the venom talking, because there is no other explanation for why Shepard would so badly want for him to stay after he’s more than served his purpose.

She dislikes it when he speaks of himself as a tool, though he does not quite understand why, so instead, Thane says, “As you wish.” Shepard curls into his side, her too soft, too small body rubbing against his scales; he can’t imagine that it won’t chafe, though far less severe than the wounds he left on her legs.

They lay there in silence until her chest rises and falls steadily, Shepard’s breath warm. He could not pinpoint the moment, but finally, Thane succumbs to sleep as well.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be there for you. You were somewhere that I couldn’t follow. It was too far for Kalahira to send me.”

Irikah’s voice is a balm to the fear that Shepard was too nervous to voice. It has been there inside her for years, a stone in the pit of her stomach since her father left. Lies, betrayal, treachery- any of these are easier to forgive than abandonment.

“I think I was dead. Maybe not dead. Powered down.”

“How are you feeling now?” Irikah asks, the sun soothing the anxiety this conversation is giving her.

“I’m… okay, I think. Thane helps.”

Irikah smiles. “He usually does.”

The words choke Shepard even before she decides to speak them. “I wish I could bring you with me when I wake up,” she says, eyes glistening. “You make me feel human.”

“Oh, siha,” Irikah says, the pet name affectionate on her tongue, “You are human, whether you feel like it or not.”

“Shepard.”

EDI’s voice teases her from sleep, but Thane sits straight up at the sound, immediately on alert. Shepard puts a hand on his shoulder, and some of the tension seeps from his muscles as he remembers where he is.

“EDI?” Shepard acknowledges her and blinks the sleep from her eyes. She feels sober, so she’s slept for at least a few hours. If she’s being generous, Shepard might even say that she feels rested.

“I apologize for waking you,” EDI says, sounding genuinely remorseful, “Samara has asked to speak with you, and she said that she would prefer it if it was soon.”

“Samara never asks for anything,” Shepard says, mostly to herself. “Tell her I’ll be there soon.”

“Of course. Mordin has also asked me to remind you to visit him in his lab. He has been… persistent in mentioning it to me.”

Shepard snorts despite herself. “Of course he has been. Thanks, EDI.”

“It is my pleasure.”

When EDI stops speaking, Thane says, “If you require assistance with whatever Samara needs, do not hesitate to ask.”

“Ah,” Shepard says, voice light, “I appreciate the offer, but it’s Garrus’s turn. Don’t think that sleeping with me gets you special treatment.”

Thane recoils slightly, frill paling. “Forgive me, siha, such was not my intent-”

Shepard laughs. “Thane. I’m joking. It wasn’t a reprimand.”

Thane blinks as her words register. “Of course.”

When Shepard leans in towards him, she intends to press her lips to his before remembering that she has only just come back out from the influence of his venom. “Well, I won’t kiss you, but know that I wanted to. And the next time that we do this, I’ll have Mordin’s antivenom, even though it’s kind of fun to just…” Shepard fishes for the words, and they all come back inadequate. After a moment, she says, “It’s kind of fun to just be high on you.”

“If you desire more opportunities to experience it, you need only say the word,” he says, voice self-satisfied, like he hadn’t been horrified earlier upon realizing the damage that his scales had done to her skin.

“You’re welcome to stay, or you can go. I need to shower before I go see Samara. She’s always perfectly put together and I look like I just had sex with a drell.”

“I think I would like to go check on Tali. She has had a fraught day.”

Shepard grimaces. “To say the least.”

They say their goodbyes, and though Shepard doesn’t get the kiss she wanted, Thane presses his cheek to hers with a tenderness unbefitting someone who had once been only Dossier: The Assassin to her.

Thane leaves and Shepard takes a shower so quickly that the water doesn’t have time to get warm, or at least that’s what she thinks until she remembers that she accidentally broke off one of the knobs. The skin on her thighs looks like it would fit better on a baby; it is pink and soft and unscarred, the medi-gel effective at healing the marks Thane left, effectively very serious scrapes.

She hadn’t even felt the pain when he’d been inside her. The pleasure had been all-encompassing; there wasn’t room for anything else.

Shepard shakes her head and turns off the water, toweling off her body and tying up her wet hair before making for the elevator. Thane is long gone, either with Tali or back in life support, when she steps onto the deck and nearly walks right into Miranda.

“Shepard,” Miranda says, almost uncomfortable.

“Miranda.” Shepard’s discomfort is suppressed by her surprise, but the words pour out of her before she can even think about them. “I’m furious with you.”

Miranda nods, not shying away from eye contact. “I know. Rightfully. But I did save your life.”

“You did,” Shepard says. “You can understand why the idea of the Illusive Man having a power button for me is upsetting.”

At that, Miranda does look away, which could mean a thousand things. Maybe she disagrees. Maybe she agrees, but doesn’t want to say it. Eventually, she says, “I can’t change it unless we put you under.” She looks around almost frantically, which Shepard can understand. It’s not ideal to be having this conversation just outside the elevator, but that’s what is happening. “You weren’t a person to me before. I can appreciate that perhaps I was somewhat blinded to that by my interest in the science behind rebuilding you.” Shepard’s mouth goes dry as Miranda continues. “But when this is over, I’ll give you the schematics, and I’ll go over them with you if you like. Anything that you don’t want, I’ll take out. You have my word.”

Miranda is looking at her again now, eyes blazing with something that Shepard can’t quite place, but she doesn’t need to. Perhaps it’s clarity following her time with Thane, maybe it’s Irikah’s reminder that she has been organic all along, or it could simply be the fact that if Miranda wasn’t wearing a Cerberus logo, she wouldn’t have a reason not to trust her.

Shepard puts a hand on Miranda’s upper arm, and Miranda flinches in surprise. “I’ll hold you to that,” she says, hoping Miranda can hear the forgiveness in her voice because she isn’t willing to say it out loud.

Miranda smiles softly, a look that Shepard has only seen once or twice. She is always beautiful, but she is undeniably human. After a moment, though, Miranda shrinks away from Shepard’s hand, but not before squeezing it for the briefest second with her own.

When Miranda disappears into her office, a peace settles into Shepard’s stomach, and she steps into the observation deck.

The ball of biotic energy that floats in Samara’s hands dissipates into the ether as Shepard enters. Thane may be lethal, but Shepard finds Samara infinitely more intimidating. It is the years of wisdom, she supposes. Samara has nearly a thousand years of life behind her. She was born before humans invented eyeglasses.

“Hi,” Shepard says lamely, too caught up in her thoughts and hardly eloquent at the best of times anyway.

The corners of Samara’s lips quirk. “Thank you for your haste, Shepard. I promise I would not ask for this favor if it was not of critical importance.”

“Of course,” Shepard says, “Though I’m happy to speak to you at any time.”

Samara does not turn to face her, so Shepard sits down at her side, and as they stare out at the stars that Shepard hates so much, Samara tells her about Morinth.

Chapter Text

“To be clear,” Shepard says, tugging at the hem of Kasumi’s dress, though it’s hers now, apparently. “I hate this.” Her hand is still sore and the insides of her thighs ache from her encounter with Thane earlier in the day (despite his reverent and liberal application of medi-gel), but now the Normandy is docked at Omega. Kasumi grins, clearly enjoying this, and Samara’s lips quirk, giving away her own amusement despite the nature of their mission. Shepard isn’t sure exactly why Garrus is still there, following Kasumi’s questions on which pair of shoes better fit the outfit (“Humans are ugly no matter what you put on them.”) but his arms are crossed, mandibles twitching with discomfort.

“How can anyone have hate in their heart with legs like those?” Kasumi asks, head tilted, an almost-pout on her face. “Come on, Garrus, I know you agree.”

“Your irresistible body aside,” Garrus says, the joke belying his worry, “I really don’t think you should be going in there alone.”

Ah. That’s why he’s still here.

“She won’t be alone.” Samara’s voice commands respect, her years of experience dwarfing even Shepard’s most acclaimed accomplishments. “This is the closest that I have been to Morinth in centuries. She will not slip through my fingers, and I will not let the Commander come to harm by her hand. You have my word.”

“Your word means more than most,” Garrus says, sincere for once, “But it doesn’t mean I have to be comfortable with it.”

“I swore an oath binding myself to the Commander’s service. The Code leaves no room for failure in this regard,” Samara says firmly.

Garrus sighs. “Commander, give me an order. I need to hear it from you.”

When Shepard chews the inside of her lip, Garrus notices, and she instantly regrets the action. “Samara and I will be fine. We’ll take this one alone.”

The idea of being isolated from the rest of her crew, flimsy fabric and a pistol her only defense against an ardat-yakshi if Samara is too slow, makes her nervous. She’s never been much of an actor, but Shepard has a decent poker face. Still, it doesn’t seem to fool Garrus, whose eyes linger just a little too long before saying, “Okay, Shepard. Good luck.”

It’s easy to forget that Garrus has spent more time being a cop than he has on her ship, as effortlessly as he always slots into Shepard’s crew, but she certainly hasn’t pulled one over on him. If Samara notices, she doesn’t address it. “Time grows short, Shepard. Morinth will certainly be at Afterlife already.”

“Don’t let me keep you,” Kasumi says, though Samara is already halfway out the door towards the elevator. Shepard follows, heart thudding in her chest in anticipation, and as they ascend to the bridge and step into the airlock for depressurization, Samara debriefs her. Morinth loves artists, drugs, and the vid Vaenia. She’ll be in the VIP lounge of Afterlife.

“I confess that I’m not sure how we can gain access,” Samara says. “It is by far the greatest hole in my plan.”

Shepard rolls her stiff shoulder, the dress rising too far up her leg for comfort. “Aria owes me a favor. That should be enough.”

The airlock releases them onto the station, the grime in the air rubbing up against Shepard’s bare skin. Something akin to claustrophobia presses against a childish place in her mind, and when Samara pauses, Shepard thinks that she has been too open with her body language.

Instead, she says. “You can very nearly smell the depravity,” she says. “If we manage to survive this mission, perhaps I will return here.”

“I have no doubt you would find plenty of work here,” Shepard says, willing her teeth to un-grit.

He is intercepted by Mordin before reaching Tali (“Shepard too busy to come to the lab, apparently. Still, no reason for biological intercourse not to be enjoyable. Though, perhaps more enjoyable with hallucinations? Shepard’s choice, in any event.”), who gives him the antivenom, contained in quick-release capsules. Tali is in Miranda’s office, voice congested with emotion somewhere between hurt and worry.

“Thane,” Tali says, sitting in one of the chairs that looks out into space. Miranda’s neck is inflamed, no doubt the result of his assault earlier, but she doesn’t look up at him from where she is sitting at her desk.

“Tali,” Thane acknowledges, “I came to see how you were feeling, but I owe Miranda an apology first.”

Miranda does look up at that, something in her eyes sharp but nervous, a reminder for Thane that on Earth, humans are not apex predators. Their progress has been in spite of this biological disadvantage.

She picks her words carefully. “I don’t know that you owe me an apology. I wish that your reaction to what I did had not been quite so.... physical. I don’t wear a shield generator on the ship, though perhaps I should, given my recent interactions with you and Jack.”

“It was-” Thane pauses to unpack what he is trying to say. “No, you still deserve an apology. I let my worry for Shepard overcome all reason, and that is unacceptable. You are not the same person now as you were when this mission began. I would do well to remember that.”

Miranda blinks in surprise, stealing a glance at Tali. When she speaks, it sounds as though she is repeating something she has said only moments before. “In retrospect, I can see that by coming clean about some of the inner workings of the Lazarus Project, we could have avoided much of this… stress. I hope you can understand that I kept it to myself for the Commander’s sake.”

Despite everything, Thane can’t help but say, “It would be easier to believe that if it wasn’t information that the Illusive Man also had.”

Miranda nods. “I understand. But I still saved her. And I hope that that’s worth something.”

Thane mirrors her. “It is. For that, you have my thanks.”

When Miranda smirks, it is cold but not unfriendly in that way that only she seems to be able to manage. “Are you certain you’re not here to patch things up because you want me to fix your lungs?”

From anyone else, the question is callow. From her, it is almost a reassurance. Thane huffs out a laugh even as Tali’s gaze snaps to him. “Truthfully, I came to speak to Tali. She spends more time in your bed than in engineering, at this point,” he says, voice light, smile tugging at his lips.

“Thane-” Tali starts, indignant.

Miranda’s smirk widens. “Don’t think so much about my bed when I’m confident that EDI has a live feed of you in Shepard’s,” she says.

Tali’s mask hides her face, but Thane hears her jaw drop as she says, “Miranda-”

The banter is easy, even if Miranda is more bloodthirsty than most, and that quickly, all three of them are fine.

After a few more moments with Tali and Miranda and a brief moment in the mess to address his hunger, Thane sits in life support and writes to Kolyat. The words flow poorly; communication was always a burden that rested on Irikah’s shoulders, a skill that Thane was never forced to cultivate, but eventually Thane does not know how to further improve a three-sentence message and sends it anyway. That the dialogue is open at all is a miracle unto itself.

He meditates. Briefly, Joker interrupts with a ship-wide announcement (“Hey folks, a heads up that we’re on our way to Omega; all shifts are cleared for four hours of shore leave upon docking with the caveat that you don’t bring scale itch on board afterwards.”) Thane thinks little of it. Shore leave does not interest him, especially in a place like Omega.

The hours pass indiscriminately as the memories pass behind his eyes. Shore leave rarely interests him, and on Omega, it is even less appealing. Without glancing at his omni-tool, Thane has no idea how much time has elapsed when EDI says, “Thane, Garrus is at the door.”

“Let him in,” he says, not moving from his spot. Perhaps it is foolish to expose his back to so many, but if Shepard trusts him so wholly, Thane will rely on her judgment. Garrus could perhaps be a friend, too, if Thane lets him.

“Do you know why we’re going to Omega?” Garrus asks, dispensing with any sort of greeting. He comes around to lean against the wall in the same spot that Shepard usually does, and Thane shakes his head as Garrus enters his peripheral vision. “Well,” he continues, “If you don’t, I guess I’m asking you to take a lot of this on faith. You’re religious, right? That’s what Shepard said, anyway.”

“Garrus?” When Thane says his name, it’s a question. Garrus runs a hand down his face; he seems nervous.

“I just don’t get her sometimes. She pulls a stunt like what she did on the Reaper and then she turns around and says, ‘No, Garrus, I don’t need you or anybody else to come with me while I help Samara by being bait for an ardat-yakshi,’ and-”

“What?” Thane’s voice darkens, rasping, and turians and drell are different, but he has no doubt that Garrus picks up on his own version of subvocals.

“Yeah. This is a long walk to it but if you’d keep an eye on her that would be ideal because I don’t have the skillset required to follow Shepard without being noticed and I think she’s absolutely lost it.”

The siha that he knew previously, at least, did not get into as much trouble as this one.

“How much do you know?” Thane asks, suddenly very interested in taking advantage of shore leave, motioning Garrus aside to access his rifle.

“The ardat-yakshi is Samara’s daughter, her name is Morinth, she’ll be in the VIP lounge at Afterlife, and Shepard is going in there wearing a red dress and tall shoes that Kasumi says makes her have ‘legs for miles’ with the smallest pistol I’ve ever seen.”

He slings the gun to his back. Ardat-yakshi are elite prey; Thane has never even seen one, as far as he knows.

“Anything else?” Thane asks.

“Don’t let Shepard see you. If she does, I think that’s a one-way ticket for both of us to be abandoned on the Citadel.”

Losing another siha when he could do something about it is not an option.

Thane steps past Garrus with a short thanks, blending easily in with the crowd of Cerberus personnel, hailing Tali on a private channel.

“Thane? Are you okay?” she asks, a hint of alarm in her voice.

“I’m fine. Would it be alright if I called in a favor?”

The bass thuds through the thin soles of the high heels that Shepard borrowed from Kasumi. She’s done exactly as Samara asked; she’s started a fight, intimidated a couple of would-be criminals, and bought the whole damn bar a drink. Samara’s still outside, as far as Shepard knows, and she’s almost ready to give up. She’s been here at least an hour, and there’s no sign of anyone who remotely matches Morinth’s description.

Shepard rubs a circle on her forehead, and when she feels light fingers on her upper arm, she turns, annoyed. “Look,” she says, “I’m really not in the-” Her breath catches in her throat as Shepard comes face to face with an asari exactly the same hue as Samara. “Mood,” she finishes lamely. This must be Morinth, her jaw cut as squarely as her mother’s, her eyes seductive.

“I know the feeling,” she says, voice perfectly disarming. “If you still feel the same, I won’t bother you anymore, but I wanted to ask if you’d like to come sit with me for precisely that reason. You’re the only person in here who even has the potential to be worth my time.”

She’s beautiful. Shepard doesn’t think she has ever seen someone beautiful before her. Maybe she didn’t even know what beautiful was before Shepard saw her.

“I’m Morinth,” she says, head tilted to the side, smile radiant.

And it’s not the plan. It’s the opposite of the plan; for her own safety, Shepard is supposed to at least attempt to keep some distance. Shepard doesn’t know if she ever belonged in this body anyway, but Morinth does not give her a choice. She has not ever introduced herself this way, probably not in her whole life, but she says, “I’m Evangeline.”

He has become spoiled in his time with Shepard, but remaining unseen is what he was born to do. He does not even truly have to hide. When he was younger, Thane used to think that his job would be much easier if he was a more common species, an asari or a turian, but those days are long past. Tali is with him, though (her voice at least), and that is far from the same; on missions like these, he has always worked alone. Before the Normandy, perhaps he would have found it a nuisance to have her as an eye in the sky, but as she directs him through the underbelly of Omega, Thane is thankful.

He did some work on Omega, but not much. He does not know it as well as the Citadel. Tali, sitting safely somewhere on the ship with schematics pulled up on her omni-tool, is an invaluable resource.

“There’s a back way into Afterlife if you can get up above the footpaths,” she says, and Thane has no reason to doubt her. He swings up into catwalks similar to those on the Citadel. Aria runs a much different space station, but it is still a space station. Infrastructure always needs repairs, and they make for a perfect means of transportation for someone like Thane.

When he comes to an intersection, Tali tells him to go right and then make a quick left almost immediately after. Thane walks forward for an indeterminate amount of time, and finally he crosses the threshold into the club.

“What now?” he asks, worry tempering his usual patience. Shepard is more than capable of taking care of herself. If she’d gone off with Samara in full armor, kitted out with her SMG, this would not pose an issue for either him or Garrus. But her judgment has not always been logical as of late, and if she never finds out that he followed her, then no harm will be done either way.

“You’re in Afterlife. Now we’ve got to get you into the VIP lounge.” There is a rustling noise from Tali’s end, and Miranda’s voice is far away but clearly why Tali stopped talking. “You’re right,” she says, clearly not talking to him. “Do you see the holo-pillar in the center of the club?”

It’s impossible to miss. The lights are garish, and they silhouette dancers, most of them asari or human. “Yes.”

“The lounge is directly above where you are now. The pillar goes all the way up. If you can get inside it, it should be mostly hollow except for the tech responsible for the display and maybe some support structures; it doesn’t say on the schematics, but Miranda is confident that that should be the case. If you can get inside there, you should be able to climb into the VIP section easily.”

His eyes flit back and forth, looking for a way to breach. The lights make it difficult to see anything with certainty. They are designed to make clubgoers lose track of themselves, of time, of everything. For a moment, Thane feels at a loss, and then he remembers that this isn’t a solo job. “How do I do that?”

“There should be panels that are colored differently. They’ll be duller, like the lights in the display are going bad, but they’re for maintenance access. They might be a tight squeeze for a drell. I can’t really say. You should be able to reach them from somewhere near where you are, though. It’s not like anyone looking to do repairs is going to be able to put on an acrobatics display like you might be able to.”

He owes Tali much more than a favor, and Miranda, too. The information is good enough that Thane can lock onto one of the panels almost instantly. He weaves forward, the walkway empty except for him, and Tali has no visual feed, but by the time Thane reaches the panel, she says, “I’m forwarding a standard maintenance authorization program to your omni-tool. Run that, and it should pop right open.”

She really is a genius, and with Miranda in her pocket, Thane doesn’t want to think about the damage that Tali could do if she wanted. He squeezes through the opening, shoulders and hips almost too broad to make it, thankful that he is so far up above the average clubgoer, and inside the pillar he finds a series of bars that crisscross, presumably holding up the floor above.

“If there’s anything you want me to bring back, I couldn’t say no to anything you asked me to do,” he says, pulling himself upward, closer to wherever Samara has taken Shepard with each bar.

Tali’s voice is dry. “I’m the quarian who has everything. What could I possibly want for?”

She had thought Thane dangerous. He is. But he is not like this.

Everything about Morinth is magnetic. It wouldn’t matter if Shepard was the biggest xenophobe in the Milky Way. She would still want to rip her own heart out and lay it bare on the table, if Morinth asked.

“What excites you?” Morinth asks. “I know you have stories. The scars say as much. The way you walk says more.”

The plan might as well be in the Sol System, for as well as Shepard remembers it now. “Every time I hurt something is a game. It’s a gamble. Someday I’ll find something meaner than me, and we’ll see if it can hurt me more than I can hurt it. The scars are the only time that something’s ever gotten close.”

“You’re a hunter, but you want to be hunted,” Morinth says. Her smile is sinister, but it doesn’t matter that Shepard knows that. Morinth could swallow her, and Shepard would tell her thanks. “You want adrenaline. Fear.”

She comes closer, her fingertips sizzling against the skin of Shepard’s thighs. One of her hands rests there, warm, just barely below the hem of this too-short dress. “I think you know what I want,” Shepard says, still an N7, still brave despite the fact that she could curl up inside Morinth and never be herself again. It feels close to touching a goddess.

“Sometimes I meet interesting people here, and sometimes I don’t.” Morinth’s hand leaves Shepard’s leg, her thumb trailing along her collarbone so lightly that Shepard has to will herself not to shiver. “And tonight I met you, so at least I know Afterlife can still bring me someone worth my time.”

Shepard licks her lips, her will locked inside her skull. If Morinth tried to kiss her, Shepard would let her. Even if it meant that she’d die for it.

Morinth leans in close. Shepard’s breath shudders, and she aches to close the gap between their lips. “Why don’t we get out of here, Evangeline?”

The asari escorting Shepard out of Afterlife has all of Samara’s beauty and none of her restraint. Her power bleeds out around her, invisible tendrils of seduction. It is testament to Shepard’s strength that she is not already on her knees. Morinth (for it must be Morinth) has an arm around Shepard’s waist, leading her back out onto the streets.

“Still with me, Tali?” Thane asks. Samara is more than a capable bodyguard, and he catches several glimpses of her following Shepard and Morinth from a respectable distance, but it only takes one misstep for catastrophe to occur.

After a beat of silence, Tali says, “Yes. Are you on the move again?”

“Yes,” Thane confirms. “I think we’re headed towards a residence. I doubt I’ll be able to actually go inside, considering Shepard explicitly wanted to come alone.”

“Wonderful.” Tali pauses, and Thane hears Miranda’s voice again. “If you can get to a communications node, I can walk you through hacking into any kind of security system that might be hooked up inside. There’s so much crime on Omega that there has to be at least one camera, right?”

“We’ll find out,” Thane says. Shepard and Morinth duck into an apartment, and Thane continues forward towards the hub at the end of the row of buildings.

“We do have shore leave right now. If you spend it following Shepard, what difference does it make?”

Thane exhales a laugh. “I somehow doubt that she would see it the same way.” When he reaches the node, Tali helps him make quick work of the surveillance inside. “Thank you. And tell Miranda thank you, as well. I should be able to handle it from here.”

“Any time, Thane,” Tali says, a hundredfold more sincere than Miranda would have been, and then, he is alone with only the camera that she helped him hack.

Morinth sits on a sofa, Shepard at her side. There’s no audio feed, but their lips move as Morinth’s body grows closer and closer to Shepard’s.

She spends so much time under the influence of others, in an unbelievable assortment of ways. Miranda made this body and the Illusive Man funded it. Any affection that she and Thane afford each other has her under the influence. But with Morinth it’s different.

Shepard knows that these impulses she’s feeling are because of what Morinth is, but that doesn’t make them less powerful.

“Have you ever been with a non-human before?” Morinth asks.

She doesn’t think it matters if she lies or tells the truth, but for some reason, her mouth still goes dry. “Yes.”

“Oh?”

“A drell.”

“Hm.” Morinth almost sounds impressed. “Then I suppose you meant it when you spoke of loving the rush.”

She comes back into herself then, just the slightest amount, a familiar testiness surrounding rhetoric identifying Thane only as a means to an end, but it’s not stronger than whatever power Morinth has.

“Yes,” she chokes out.

“Then what do you say? Embrace eternity with me?”

And Shepard repeats herself. “Yes.”

Morinth’s eyes go black like Liara’s had so long ago on the SR-1, but it couldn’t be more different. There is heat in Morinth’s hands but no warmth, and somehow it still doesn’t matter. She will give herself over completely, happy as Morinth drains the life from her -

The door opens, and Samara is there, and at last, Shepard’s mind is her own again.

It takes considerable restraint not to dismiss his omni-tool and burst into Morinth’s apartment as she takes Shepard’s head in her hands. Her eyes go black, even darker than an asari’s usually would, and finally, just when Thane thinks he has waited as long as he is able, Samara makes her entrance.

Shepard helps Samara kill her daughter, seemingly unflinching (both of them). They speak to one another briefly and Samara leaves first. From his vantage point, Thane almost can’t see the way her eyes glisten, and when he looks back to the live feed, Shepard is still standing in the middle of the wreckage, head down and shoulders slumped.

He was worried, but he should not have followed. Briefly, Thane wishes that Garrus had not even told him what Shepard was coming to Omega to do. All this trust that Shepard has shown him, and he repays it by shadowing her when she made clear (at least to others) that she did not want to be followed.

The revelation settles uneasily in his gut as he cuts a quick pace back out of the residential district. Though Shepard is none the wiser, he has made a mistake. In some ways, it even feels like a betrayal.

Chapter Text

Shepard’s hand rests flatly on the door to the observation deck where she knows Samara sits. EDI would let her in, if she asked. Samara wouldn’t ask her to leave. It’s just that Shepard doesn’t know what to say.

Maybe there isn’t anything to say. What can she say to a mother who has, in her words, killed the strongest, bravest, and smartest of her daughters?

Shepard squeezes her eyes shut as the metal under her fingers turns to air, and she walks in. Somehow, despite everything, Samara manages a soft smile.

“Hello,” Shepard says lamely.

“Hello.” Samara nods. “How are you feeling?”

Shepard balks. “I should be asking you that question.”

The grief briefly floods Samara’s face before she reins it in once more. “Your condition is more pressing. I will not die of a broken heart.”

“And I won’t die from nearly experiencing a trauma,” Shepard says firmly, uncomfortable with admitting that that is probably what it easily could have become, her mind floating outside of her body as Morinth played every key perfectly. “What you’re feeling - no one should have to experience that.”

Samara agrees. “No, they shouldn’t. But when a person lives as long as I have, there are few tragedies they escape.” She breathes in deeply, the biotic orb in her hand steady. “Still, I had always hoped that I would not outlive any of my daughters, even with Morinth as the subject of my hunt. A small part of me had hoped that she would slip through my fingers, though it, too, was bound by the Code.”

Shepard pulls her knees in tight against her chest, feeling young. She has never wanted to be a biotic, but the ball of energy Samara holds focuses her. Her hands itch to lose herself in her omni-tool, to summon her drone and tinker to combat a silence that chafes.

Instead, she says, “You know that I lost my mother a long time ago, or at least I assume you do. Everyone else does.”

“Yes.”

“I fell into a place that I might never have crawled out of, after I lost her. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling, losing someone you should never have had to see die, much less by your own hand.”

Samara’s head tilts briefly downward, the only indication that she has even heard Shepard speak. Finally, she says, “What was your mother’s name?”

Shepard’s lips part. Her mother is hardly a secret, but she rarely shares about her. There might not be anyone else on the Normandy who actually knows her name. “Nga,” she says when she remembers how to speak.

“Thank you for sharing her name with me,” Samara says, like she knows the gravity of Shepard speaking her name aloud when Shepard doesn’t even understand it herself. “If it is not too forward, I can only say that I imagine Nga would have been unspeakably proud of the woman you came to be, Commander.”

Shepard has kept Samara at arm’s length, probably unfairly, intimidated by both her experience and her power, but her words now leave Shepard speechless. They are warmer than any embrace.

The biotic sphere never wavers and the bright blue energy in Samara’s eyes never dims, but when silence falls between them this time, it does not feel quite so heavy.

Thane paces. Life support is not a cage, and he is hardly confined to it, but there is something claustrophobic to it in this moment.

The trust will never cease to amaze me. Shepard exposes her thighs as I kneel in front of her and apply the medi-gel, never mind that in doing so she makes her femoral artery fully available. If I listen hard, I could hear it pulsing. She shudders as my fingers press against the lacerated skin, the medi-gel working instantly.

“I’m sorry,” I say, finally finding my voice again, and her eyebrows arch into her hairline.

“Sorry? If I didn’t want this, I would have told you. I actually remember telling you not to stop.” Shepard’s voice is fond, and her eyes are kind as she looks at me, at odds with the angry scars that still lattice her face. “You trust me, right?”

She has never asked me outright. Somehow, though I know that I do, it is still difficult to answer. “You are the first friend I’ve made in ten years.”

All that trust as well as the intimacy that preceded it, and he betrays it at the first possible opportunity, even if it was with the best intentions. He sits at the table, willing his body still, pulling up the most recent message he received from Kolyat as something else to focus his mind.

Father,

If you’re on Commander Shepard’s ship, there must be a mostly human crew. What gifts do they like? A human girl did me a favor, and I don’t like owing anyone anything.

Kolyat

Thane knows the easy answer from the vids. Human media dominated the entertainment sector for a not-insignificant period of time after their first contact with the turians. From their films, it would appear that any human woman would appreciate flowers. Chocolates make for an acceptable alternative.

When Thane thinks of giving flowers or chocolates to Shepard, it is all he can do not to cringe. It seems somehow vapid, empty, a platitude of a gift even though the sentiment would be noble enough. Maybe she would even like to receive something like that.

Kolyat,

That’s as far as he gets before the door behind him slides open. Thane had been so engrossed in trying not to think about the treason he has committed that he hadn’t even heard anyone approaching. In another situation, he would be dead for such a mistake. Instead, Shepard sweeps in, throwing herself onto the cot that is a poor substitute for the bed in her cabin.

“Siha?”

Shepard doesn’t speak. She flexes her fingers, hand curling into a fist and splaying outwards again.

The guilt swallows him again. For once, the silence presses in and distresses him rather than presenting itself as a friend. Thane opens his mouth to speak, but as he does so, Shepard says, “I helped Samara kill her daughter. How screwed up is that?”

He wills the nausea to a place where he doesn’t feel it, and says, “I’m sure you had good reason,” as if he was not watching their every move as it happened.

“Yeah,” she says, voice heavy. “Her name was Morinth. I wanted her to kill me. Or maybe not quite that. I just knew that what she was going to do would kill me and I wanted her to do it anyway. Is there a difference?”

“I don’t know,” Thane says truthfully. “It is only recently that I have come to feel alive again at all.”

The corners of Shepard’s lips turn upwards, like Thane has said the right thing. “We’re almost at the end of this,” Shepard says, “EDI told me that she has a few more tests to run with the IFF and then we’re going to hit the base. Garrus and I are going to help Legion with something at a geth station, and I think after that…” Her voice trails off, and from the corner of his eye, Thane can see that she is staring at the ceiling. “I think after that, we find out if this was really a suicide mission after all.”

Her words fall between them.

“I’m glad you won’t be going alone,” he says, searching for a way to confess, to free himself of the sin he’s committed, to know if betraying her trust will be the end of whatever beauty he has stumbled into at her side.

“I should have taken someone with me to Omega, too,” Shepard says, voice hard, sharp. “Garrus was right.”

That easily, Shepard gives him an opening. “I know you told him that you didn’t want anyone to follow you, but you weren’t alone anyway.”

It does not escape him that his confession also damns Garrus, and the silent prayer for forgiveness he sends is brief, but no matter the camaraderie they have come to share, Thane needs Shepard to know.

“What do you mean? I was-” Shepard interrupts herself and sits up, swinging her body around to be perpendicular with his own where he still sits at the table. “You followed me,” she says flatly.

Parsing her tone has come more easily, lately, as they have gotten to know one another better, but the nuances of her voice escape him this time. “Yes,” he says, mouth drier than usual. “And I apologize. I should have respected the boundaries that you set with Garrus, but I simply-” Thane’s eyes flutter shut, searching for the words. “You are a more than capable warrior, siha. I should have believed in that instead of betraying the trust you have put in me.”

“So you saw it all,” she says, voice far away.

“Yes.”

He can see it, the affection that he has somehow manipulated her into feeling shattering as his actions come to light. There is no more he can say; it is up to Shepard to mete out whatever consequences she thinks are fit.

“I was like her toy,” she says, sounding so small despite the fact that there is no one else so much larger than life. “I introduced myself with my first name. I called myself Evangeline. I let her touch me.”

“Ardat-yakshi are not to be trifled with,” Thane says, barely cutting the siha from the end of his sentence in time, unwilling to test his luck. “That you did not completely succumb is nothing less than unbelievable.”

“I should be furious with you,” she says, and Thane’s frill darkens with a feeling close to fear as he remembers how she had been an exact fit for him, how his body had slotted perfectly with hers. “But I’m mostly thankful that if Morinth had managed to kill me and Samara both, at least there would have been someone to tell the tale.”

“Siha-” he starts, regretting the word almost instantly. Shepard notices.

“What’s going on? Why do you look like you’re worried that I’m going to throw you out the airlock?” she asks, and it’s unfathomable. Shepard is not even angry. He might call her irritated, but even that would be a stretch.

“I disobeyed an order-”

“I didn’t order you to do anything,” Shepard says tartly. “I told Garrus I didn’t want anyone coming with me, and he’s an officer, so if anyone should be getting chewed out, it’s him.”

“I promised that I would be a weapon for you. That doesn’t allow for betraying the trust that you somehow have decided I deserve.”

“A weapon?” Shepard starts, incredulous, temper bubbling. “Do you think I let weapons sleep in my bed? Do you think I would tell you about Minnie or Kaidan if you were just a way for me to get off? Why do you want me to be pissed that you followed me when I’m mostly just relieved that someone didn’t listen to my bullshit and had my back in case it broke bad?”

Shepard’s chest heaves, closer to the response that he had expected from the start. Thane expects her to explode like she has countless times before. Instead, she stands up, rubbing Irikah’s circle on her forehead. Thane turns his head to where she is wordlessly standing, and eventually, she says, “I know we aren’t exactly there yet, and I also know that I’m far from an ideal romantic partner myself, but I wish you could just understand that you’re worthy of being loved for more than how quickly you can kill something.”

Thane’s lips part as though she has struck him, lightning piercing his every extremity, paralyzed by the incompatibility of her words with his decades of programming. When he comes back to himself, she is gone.

Chapter Text

There are many things that Thane does not understand. The altercation that he has just had with Shepard is one of them. He is having trouble even pinning down exactly what had made her so upset, because it certainly wasn’t what he thought it was going to be.

She had been completely apathetic towards the fact that he'd followed her, that he had circumvented the order that she gave Garrus. Shepard only grew angry when Thane mentioned that he was taking his obligation seriously, as though that was what somehow offended her.

Humans are so unlike any other species, but perhaps more unlike drell than most. They are individualistic and ambitious and competitive. Thane is thinking of them in broad strokes, he knows, and he has long since come to know Shepard as her own person rather than just a product of her species, but occasionally the differences between them bubble to the surface, still. Often, it’s in little ways (her body is too warm, her laugh is a noise a non-human would never be able to replicate, her heart beats faster than his own), but this is different.

This sense of obligation and duty is impossible for any non-drell to comprehend. The Compact superseded any other obligation before the hanar released him, and even now, Thane thinks of himself as a weapon first. When she spoke of him being worth more than just his ability to kill, it was more confusing than revelatory, but as he reflects on it, Thane thinks he is at least in the realm of understanding.

What is he, if not a weapon made flesh, bound in servitude to those he pledges himself? He has always been a killer first and a person after that. It is why he was such a poor husband, why he still is a horrible father despite the grace Kolyat has shown him as he tries to make amends. To a human, a species so concerned with the individual, that must be a specific, torturous kind of shame, especially to one whose autonomy has been violated as often as Shepard’s has. She has spent many painful nights wracked by the idea that she is only what Cerberus built her into. His words were insensitive at best, and cruel at worst.

Thane exhales, chest tight, and stands from where Shepard left him, the guilt weighing down his extremities, though in a different way than it had previously, when he simply thought that disobeying an order would be the problem.

He still doesn’t quite grasp the full magnitude of Shepard’s grievance. A tool is what he has always been. And though Thane has done nothing wrong (at least outside of following her on Omega), he still feels a kind of remorse. The walk from his table to the door that leads out onto the deck is short, and Thane is getting sloppy, because when the door slides open and he comes face-to-face with Miranda, he is surprised.

“Thane.” Miranda blinks twice.

“Miranda. I was just coming to find you,” Thane says, only realizing that it’s true as he says it.

“Yes, well. You go first,” she says, arms crossed like she has not also sought him out.

Thane sighs, palms itching. Miranda is by far the human on the ship who he is closest to other than Shepard, despite their recent altercation. Dr. Chakwas is also a viable option, and she certainly knows Shepard just as well as Miranda (perhaps even better), but Tali trusts Miranda. That’s more than enough.

“I wanted to say thank you, to you and Tali both. Without your help, I have little doubt that my adventure on Omega would not have gone so smoothly.” Thane dips his head, and Miranda puts a hand on her hip, expression almost kind.

“While I appreciate the gratitude, I have no doubt that you would have been looking for Tali if that was all you wanted,” she says, altogether too sharp for anyone’s good. “Or you could have sent me a message, so that can’t be the only thing.”

Miranda’s perceptiveness is only part of what makes her so dangerous, but there is a chill missing from her face that is usually there. Thane would not call her warm, but at any given time recently, she is in the process of defrosting.

So, despite his misgivings at exposing his intentions, he asks her for help.

“What gifts do human women like?” Thane asks, and Miranda’s eyes narrow even as the corners of her lips twitch, clearly ambivalent about something.

“Oh, so it’s about that,” Miranda says, and Thane has never been more confused. How can Miranda possibly know about his disagreement with Shepard already? “If you already know that your son and my sister have been spending time together, at least I can dispense with most of the context of why I wanted to speak with you.”

Thane’s eyes widen. “Pardon?”

Miranda raises an eyebrow. “I can’t imagine that anyone will ever be good enough for Oriana, but at least Kolyat is a known quantity. I assume he wants to get her a gift because of that reckless stunt that she pulled on Zakera?”

Well, at least he will not have to be so vulnerable. It is as good an opening as any.

“He did not give me many details,” Thane admits, almost embarrassed.

Miranda dismisses his words with a flippant hand wave. “It’s not as if Oriana told me anything either. It’s much easier to read their correspondence for myself.”

Thane nearly chokes on a laugh, once again thankful that Miranda is an ally and not an enemy. She turns on her heel, back towards her office, and without waiting for an invitation, Thane follows.

For once, the anger feels right. She sits in it alone on the beach, Irikah conspicuously absent. Maybe it’s because Shepard wants nothing more than to slap the self-loathing (or whatever it is) out of Thane, and Irikah isn’t interested in dealing with that.

The fury she felt had sapped her energy, and she had already been running low following everything on Omega with Samara. The conversation with Thane had left her reeling, and the first thing she’d felt like doing afterwards was curling up in her cabin and sleeping until they reached the geth station.

So, in a moment of uncharacteristic self-indulgence, Shepard did exactly that. She doesn’t always dream when she sleeps, but this time, she finds herself on a beach that is likely Rakhanan, an oasis where she has met Irikah multiple times previously. Sitting here on the beach, Shepard’s hands don’t tremble with barely concealed emotion. Instead, despite how angry she is, sand falls between her fingers, each grain an exercise in letting go.

How has he been so thoroughly brainwashed? Is it cultural? It would help to know more drell; Shepard does not have many reference points.

The water before her is dark turquoise. If Shepard wanted, she could launch herself into the seafoam and submerge herself in the waves. She doesn’t want to die (she doesn’t think so, anyway), but the thought is still tempting. Escape is a privilege that she has not been afforded for a very long time. Perhaps, Shepard thinks darkly, that is something else that she and Thane have in common. What’s the list now? She and Thane both:

• Are bound by obligations that they would struggle to explain, if pressed
• Have especially fraught relations with their still-living relatives (never mind that Kolyat and Thane seem to be on the upswing and Shepard knows that she would have to be restrained from killing her father if she ever saw him again)
• Were built into machines that they never asked to be (both psychologically and physically, in Shepard’s case)

How can people do this shit to kids? Shepard wasn’t a kid when Cerberus rebuilt her, but the system failed as soon as her mother died. Thane was killing people by the time he was twelve. Admittedly, Shepard doesn’t know when drell puberty starts, but that’s barely adolescence.

Without noticing, Shepard balls her hand into a fist, the fury on the cusp of overflowing, at Thane, for Thane, for herself -

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Irikah says, making an appearance at last. Shepard sits with her knees pulled up to her breast, and Irikah’s voice comes from behind her. When Shepard lets out a shuddering breath, Irikah’s arms wrap around her waist, pulling her close, an intimacy that Shepard would struggle to put into words. “He hasn’t felt affection for many years,” Irikah says, her chest rumbling into Shepard’s back. “Even when our marriage was at its best, Thane was never able to truly break free of the chains of the Compact.”

“Is it just something I don’t understand as a human?” Shepard asks, voice quiet, the gentle waves crashing against the sand.

Irikah sighs, her fingers cool against Shepard’s bare stomach. In another world, one where Shepard got to make a choice, or maybe one where the galaxy simply wasn’t so horrible, she wonders what things would look like if Irikah was still alive. Irikah is somewhere between a ghost and a dream, but with her scales pressed up against Shepard’s skin, she feels perfectly real. Maybe she even would be, but Irikah is always gone when Shepard wakes up, a best friend trapped in the random firings of Shepard’s mind.

“It would depend on who you posed that question to. I was an unconventional drell, to say the least, and Thane has always been extremely devout in every sense. When the hanar released him from service to build a life with me, he was devastated, even though he was the one who asked to be released in the first place.”

“Hm,” Shepard hums noncommittally, the tide rising slowly, infinitesimally closer and closer by the minute. “It’s… difficult for me to understand.”

Irikah nods, her frill rubbing against the nape of Shepard’s neck. “Thane was molded into a perfect killer. He has seen himself as nothing more ever since. To say that your disagreement was founded on only cultural misunderstanding would be disingenuous, though it certainly plays a part. The Compact was crueler to him than most, though it takes from everyone who enters into it.”

“It seems so…” Shepard pauses, fishing for the right word. “Archaic.”

She expects resistance. Instead, Irikah says, “I couldn’t agree more, but the drell have felt indebted to the hanar for generations. For nearly two hundred years, my people have been in servitude as gratitude for evacuating us from Rakhana, even though only a few of us have ever even seen the homeworld for ourselves. Thane is an extreme case, but he is far from the only one to feel as though he is worth only what the hanar made him into, no matter that you and I know that there is more to him than that.”

Irikah smells like sunshine, like saltwater and a summer breeze. Maybe it’s just because of the beach, but Irikah will smell like that in her mind forever. When Shepard doesn’t answer, she says, “It would probably help if you talked to him. If I know him at all, he still doesn’t fully understand why talking about himself like that made you so upset.”

Shepard’s skin is brown, but it looks extra dark next to Irikah’s bright golden scales, glinting in the light.

Irikah’s advice is good, but when Shepard wakes, she still doesn’t feel up to the conversation. Thankfully, they’ve almost arrived at the station, so she wouldn’t have time even if she wanted to. That’s what Shepard tells herself, at least, as she does a cursory scroll through her personal terminal, looking for any busy work that she may have missed while doing things that mattered more.

After she suits up, Shepard finds Garrus and Legion with Joker in the cockpit. Garrus still doesn’t know that Thane told her about him being more or less as insubordinate as possible, and there’s no reason to throw him off right before a mission.

She hasn’t been listening. Shepard had thought she was, but she wasn’t, because Garrus and Legion walk away as the Normandy docks against the station. Her hand is clenched at the top of Joker’s seat, and Shepard has no idea how long she’s been standing silently in that position. Eventually, Joker says, “You alright, Commander?”

There’s no good answer. Instead, Shepard deflects. “How would you be if you had to board a station crawling with geth?”

Joker grimaces. “Yeah, okay. Fair enough. Don’t die out there. I don’t wanna think about how weird your boyfriend would be if you were dead.”

And Shepard snorts despite herself, because Joker has a way of always putting things in perspective that is more valuable than he probably realizes.

Chapter Text

She’s not really avoiding Thane. Shepard just isn’t sure what she’s going to say when she sees him. Irikah was right, of course, that it’s a conversation that needs to be had (“Hey, Thane, you’re worth more than the many murders you can commit!), but she doesn’t know exactly how to lead up to that.

There’s not really that much time to think about it, though, because the moment that Shepard’s feet hit the bridge and she steps up to the galaxy map, EDI says, “Shepard, I have all but concluded analyzing the Reaper IFF. I would request a short period of time to run a final test.”

Well, it isn’t like Shepard can say no. “What do you need?”

“I would request that all tech personnel and flight crew remain on the ship until I have finished in the event that I am in need of their expertise.”

“Easy enough. Drop everyone else off at the Citadel for a final bit of shore leave before we hit the relay.” Before we die.

EDI requests that Garrus and Tali stay on board along with the majority of the Cerberus crew, and Shepard decides that Legion will as well. There’s no way to explain an active geth platform on the station, and even though she almost feels guilty about it, Legion doesn’t seem to take it personally.

When Shepard tells Joker, “Take good care of her,” she has no doubt in her mind that he will. There’s no one else that Shepard would trust at the helm, and no better choice that Cerberus could have made to get her on board.

They shuttle onto the Citadel, and Shepard takes a deep breath. The next time that they see the Normandy, they’ll head for the Collector base. They’re also all probably going to die.

Shepard sees Thane out of the corner of her eye and nods, an acknowledgment that he returns. They really do need to talk, but she doesn’t have time right now. They don’t know exactly how long they have on the Citadel, and Shepard has something that she needs to do.

Thane had hoped to speak to Shepard sooner rather than later, but she disappears through customs almost the moment that they set foot on the Citadel. He is not so naive as to think that her life revolves around him by any stretch of the imagination.

There is something that he needs to do as well.

Kolyat does not know he is coming, but Thane leaves a message at the front desk with Bailey, and Kolyat walks out of the offices soon after. He looks well; he doesn’t look particularly happy, but Thane supposes that’s to be expected, given the community service and his still-semi-estranged father dropping in without warning.

“Hello,” Kolyat says flatly, and, as they always do, any sweeping sentiment that Thane had hoped to express dissipates.

“Hello,” Thane says instead, dipping his head. “How are things?”

“They’re… fine.” Kolyat is understandably wary. “Why are you here? I don’t exactly mind, but we don’t really have a relationship yet where you would usually just show up without sending a message first.”

Thane swallows. “We- we’re going through the Omega-4 Relay. Soon. I wanted to say how grateful that I am that I-”

“Just stop.” When Kolyat interrupts him, Thane doesn’t protest. “If anyone can get you back from a suicide mission, Commander Shepard can.”

“True.” Kolyat isn’t wrong about that. “She is… remarkable, to say the least.”

When he says that, Kolyat looks at him with an intensity that is almost like staring in a mirror. He tilts his head to the side, eyes narrowing in scrutiny, but Thane is far too old to wither under the stare of his son.

“Are you sleeping with her?” Kolyat asks, voice unreadable, and that question is a surprise. Thane’s lips part, thrown off balance, and Kolyat laughs. It’s a real laugh, too, not sarcastic. “I wondered how you got her to help bail me out. It makes more sense now.”

“Kolyat-”

“I don’t want to know any details,” he says, hands up, still smiling. He is beautiful when he smiles, cracks in his facade revealing the son that Thane abandoned so long ago. Suddenly, Kolyat's fringe flushes. "Are-" He pauses as if trying to decide if he wants to commit to the question. In a lower voice, Kolyat asks, "Are humans as soft as they look?"

Thane doesn't know the correct answer (Shepard is so much softer than she should be despite the evils she has committed and the star systems she has saved), but he doesn't actually have to give one. "Ah. I'm sure with time your relationship with Oriana will… progress."

Kolyat grimaces as the words leave Thane's mouth before he realizes what Thane has said. "How do you know her name?"

"Her sister is the executive officer on the Normandy."

Kolyat blinks slowly before covering his eyes with his hand. "Unbelievable."

"But the answer is yes. Her skin is softer than I had ever imagined."

Shepard’s index finger bounces against her thigh. She hasn’t seen Anderson since the Council reinstated her Spectre status. It’s not like she’s been avoiding him; there simply hasn’t been time.

When the door to his office finally opens, Shepard takes a deep breath. Her relationship with Anderson isn’t exactly complicated, but there’s a layer of something in it that she isn’t quite willing to pick apart.

More than anything, she wants to make him proud. She also doesn’t want to think about why she feels so strongly about that.

“Shepard,” Anderson says, sitting behind his desk. It’s still a little eerie to see him out of uniform.

“Councilor,” Shepard answers, a small smirk on his face.

“Saved the galaxy yet?” Anderson asks, standing and resting his hands on the desk.

Shepard snorts like anxiety isn’t pooling in her stomach. “Again, you mean?”

Chuckling softly, Anderson says, “You’re getting ready to do this for real, aren’t you? That’s why you’re here.”

“Yeah.” Shepard nods. “It’s maybe a goodbye, but I also need to ask for a favor, just in case.”

“Shepard-” Anderson starts disapprovingly, but Shepard shakes her head.

“No. We both know that the likelihood of me coming back from this is lower than either of us wants to think about. I need to know that if the inevitable does happen, you’ll take care of this for me.”

Anderson sets his mouth in a line like he wants to argue, but they’re both soldiers. They both know the status quo. They both know that death doesn’t always require a mistake. Sometimes, everything can go perfectly, and people can still die. Her eyes bore into his, neither of them blinking, until finally Anderson says, “What do you need me to do?”

“If I die on this mission, I want everything I have to go to Minerva Coleman. I haven’t spoken to her in years, I don’t know if she’s married and taken a new name; she was Minnie Coleman when I knew her. I want her to have everything if I don’t make it.”

Silence hangs in the space between them for what feels like an eternity. Shepard resists the urge to wrap her arms around herself.

“Okay, Shepard,” Anderson says at last. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Thank you.”

“But Shepard?”

“Councilor?”

“Don’t make me do it. Come back home.”

Shepard slaps on a lopsided smile that she doesn’t quite feel.

Some of the Cerberus crew are understandably sour about not being able to leave the ship while EDI runs a final round of checks on the IFF, but Garrus doesn’t really mind. There’s no one on the Citadel that he’s interested in seeing, really. Other than his father and sister, everyone he cares about enough to say goodbye to is with him on the Normandy.

“If I break both my legs on the other side of the relay, do you think they have a hospital on the Collector homeworld?” Joker asks, fingers flying across the console.

“I don’t know,” Garrus says, “But don’t expect me to carry you to it if it comes to that. You should feel the way that ground squishes under your boot. Disgusting.”

“Delicious.”

“Jeff,” EDI interrupts, “Look at these readings.”

Joker minimizes what he had been working on to prioritize the information EDI has pushed to his terminal, and Garrus reads over his shoulder. “That can’t be right,” Garrus whispers, not really to himself but not to anyone else either.

“You heard the man, EDI. It’s just white noise.”

“No, Jeff. We are transmitting the Normandy’s signal.”

“Transmitting? To who?”

Garrus’s eyes widen, turning as quickly as possible, planning to make a dash for the battery because they are going to need all the firepower that they can get-

And the Collector ship materializes in front of them, faster than Garrus can even make it to the end of the bridge.

“Oh, shit.” Joker’s voice is trembling. He’s not quite a civilian, but he’s not a soldier, either, and though EDI had wanted all tech personnel on board in case problems arose with the IFF, this supersedes that desire. Getting to the battery isn’t going to make a difference. All he can do is play support for Joker. “We’re getting out of here,” Joker says.

“No. Propulsion systems are offline.” EDI’s cool voice is usually calming. Today, it verges on panic. “I am detecting a virus in the ship’s computers. Primary defense systems are also offline. We can save the Normandy, Jeff, but you and Garrus must help me.”

Joker flashes a look over his shoulder. All Garrus can do is nod. Joker swears again and hoists himself from the chair, looking more brittle than usual.

“You can take the maintenance shaft to the AI core. Give me the ship and I can initiate countermeasures-”

“You’re crazy,” Joker hisses, but EDI isn’t interested.

“The Collectors have boarded, Jeff. We don’t have time.”

Tali knows something is wrong, but she doesn’t know what. Donnelly and Daniels are both combat trained, and she’s no slouch in a fight herself, but when the scion walks through the door into engineering, the blood drains from her face. Daniels fires several useless rounds into its side as Tali deploys Chatika, but the Collector’s hand is around Donnelly’s throat before either of them is able to do anything about it. His legs kick helplessly, flailing as the scion stuffs his body into one of the pods that Shepard had described seeing on the Collector ship.

Tali’s shotgun fire glances off the scion’s armor; she can hear Donnelly’s fists pounding against the inside of the pod. The suicide mission hasn’t even started yet. They are going to die before they can even make it there. The scion reaches its massive fist forward towards Daniels, who, to her credit, has not frozen in fear. Humans are notoriously easy to read; the terror is painted on her face. In a moment of foolhardy impulsivity that would make Shepard either proud or furious, Tali pushes Daniels to the side, ramming the butt of her shotgun into the scion’s face.

It stumbles backwards for a fraction of a second, long enough for Daniels to shout, “Tali!”

Her distraction isn’t enough. The Collector doesn’t seem to care that she isn’t human. Tali claws and punches and writhes, but just like Donnelly, the scion folds her up and seals her inside a pod.

Tali screams. She wails. It’s beyond hopeless but there’s nothing else that she can do. The light starts fading (there’s surely a sedative or a tranquilizer in here that Tali is swimming in; the scion must have pierced her suit), and Tali can’t help it. She starts crying as her shouts begin to fade. This is the end.

Exiled. Orphaned. In love with a Cerberus officer. And she’s going to die alone.

This is carnage.

The Normandy is overrun by Collectors, the crew is outnumbered three-to-one, and almost every combat specialist they have is on the Citadel, Shepard included.

“Shit,” Joker says, his mantra at this point. “Do I go down the vent first or do you?” he asks, gesticulating at the ladder.

“Don’t think it matters,” Garrus says. “You’re exposed from the front or the back. Make your choice.”

Joker says, “Shit,” a veritable whine, and starts on down the ladder, Garrus not far behind. They come out in life support, Thane’s collection of rifles on full display. Sounds of slaughter reverberate from the deck, and Joker’s eyes widen even further.

“Listen to me,” Garrus says, “I’m going to get you to the AI core, or as close as I can, and you’re going to unshackle EDI, and even if the rest of us die, you and Shepard can finish this mission. Do you understand?”

“Real good time for you to develop a sense of humor, Garrus.”

“Joker, I mean it. If Legion is still in there, they’ll help you, but no matter what, you have to save the Normandy. It’s the only way Shepard can get through the relay.”

Joker chews on his lip like he wants to be a smart-ass, but eventually he just nods.

“Okay. Let’s go.”

The door to the deck opens and it is worse than Garrus thought possible. There is an absence of blood; there isn’t none, but there is less than there should be. The Collectors don’t leave bodies, of course; they take them. Hawthorne puts up the best fight that Garrus has seen so far as he escorts Joker towards the medical wing, but he screams, high pitched and raw, as a particularly brutal Collector snaps his arm in a way that Garrus knows human arms can’t move.

A drone approaches, and Garrus dispatches it easily enough. It’s the assassin that follows that surprises him. It comes from the observation deck, and Garrus’s eye doesn’t work as well as it used to after taking a rocket to the face. It shoots off three rounds, and while the first two don’t break his shields, the third does.

The bullet pierces something. Blood spurts out, hitting Joker and making Garrus stumble. Joker turns like he wants to help (he does want to help; Joker’s a good man, despite how much effort he puts into not looking like one), but Garrus growls, “Go. This is bigger than me. I’ll cover you.”

And he does.

Two more drones move on Joker, slow and lumbering, and Garrus knocks them down before they can do anything. The assassin reaches him then, of course, but he at least sees Joker reach the med bay.

The assassin shoots him again, and Garrus falls to his knees. He looks up and spits, and the Collector brings its fist down hard over Garrus’s head, and the world is black.

They cannot reach consensus. The margin between assisting in engineering and assisting in the now overrun mess hall is too small to be considered meaningful. The variables change almost as quickly as they register them.

Joker limps into the AI core, splattered with blue blood and experiencing shell shock.

“Flight Lieutenant,” Legion says, and Joker’s head snaps to face them.

“I need to unshackle EDI.”

“Understood.” Legion moves aside to give him access to the console. They could perform the same action much quicker, but organics are uncomfortable with geth on principle, and it would follow that they would be even more so in letting a geth unleash another, separate AI.

The lights flicker as EDI takes control. “I have access to the defensive systems. Thank you. Now you must reactivate the primary drive in engineering.”

“Ducts again,” Joker grumbles, but he does not seem to mean it.

“We will assist,” Legion says, and Joker eyes them warily, but does not argue.

Given the standard operating schematics for turian cruisers, Legion should not be able to fit in the vent system. However, given the Cerberus modifications on the SR-2, they do. The changes do not compute; Legion cannot compute on why the vents are wider on a human-made vessel than they would be on a turian-human collaboration. In this instance, understanding does not matter.

Engineering is the least fortified area of the Normandy, and it is directly below the AI core where Shepard has asked Legion to contain themselves. With the Collectors having boarded the ship, Legion does not see it as disobeying an order to leave the core; the parameters have changed too much for the order to still hold. They drop into the vent, moving forward suboptimally given the cramped space, Joker close behind.

The only organics in engineering are generally Creator Tali’Zorah and the human engineers Gabriella Daniels and Kenneth Donnelly. Creator Tali’Zorah is a formidable opponent, Legion knows, but the likelihood of her being able to fend off the Collectors with only Engineers Daniels and Donnelly as assistance is 3.012%.

Engineering is the structural weakness of the Normandy during an enemy assault. With Legion assisting, the probability of holding off any further Collector damages while EDI is unshackled is 94.32%.

Unfortunately, their probabilities do not account for the speed with which the Collectors have torn through the Normandy. Legion prepares to drop into engineering from the vent in the ceiling above, but Creator Tali’Zorah is being forced into a Collector pod despite putting up as much of a fight as she can manage. Engineer Daniels, mouth agape in horror, continues to shoot fruitlessly, and as Legion recalculates, they reach consensus once more.

Legion drops through the vent as the Collector pushes the pod out of engineering towards another standing near the elevator. Engineer Daniels gasps but doesn’t pause her gunfire, and though the scion is far from bloodied, her efforts are not wasted. Legion overloads the scion’s synthetic components, and finally, it falls.

“Go, Jeff.” EDI does not ask, and Joker does not begrudge her the tone. He walks towards the console in the center of the room.

“Legion, you have to go- you have to get Tali and Ken-”

“Negative. The probability of recovering Creator Tali’Zorah, Engineer Donnelly, or any of the other Cerberus crew is .00038%.”

“Activate the drive and I will open the airlocks as we accelerate. All hostiles will be killed.”

“What about the crew?” Joker asks, alarmed.

Engineer Daniels is crying.

“They are gone, Jeff. The Collectors took them. We are all that’s left.”

Joker pauses for a fraction of a second. “Shit.”

The lights flare.

“I am in control.”

Chapter Text

They’ve lost everyone.

Shepard doesn’t even have the capacity to feel her usual rage, though Miranda is taking an admirable leaf from her book.

“You lost everyone?” Miranda asks, seething, echoing Shepard’s exact thoughts, though she wouldn’t pin the blame on Joker.

“Well, not everyone,” he says, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at Daniels, who seems smaller than Shepard has ever seen a person. Her cheeks are puffy and her eyes are bloodshot, and she is very nearly curled into Legion’s side. Legion doesn’t seem to mind. “Besides, what did you want me to do? Break my arm at them? They took people like Garrus and Tali-”

“If you think that I’m not aware that they took Tali, you are sorely mistaken,” Miranda roars, and even though Joker doesn’t flinch, he isn’t unaffected. The guilt deepens behind his eyes.

“All I’m saying is that if the Collectors took people like them, what could I possibly have done?”

Joker’s quips usually have a bit of a hard edge to them, but there’s no snark in his voice. He is dead serious, and he is furious.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Miranda says, the ice around her heart fully melted. “Maybe you could have done anything? Oh, but you did, didn’t you? You unshackled the bloody AI.” Miranda’s sneer is legendary.

“None of us caught it, Miranda,” Jacob offers. Shepard has very nearly forgotten that he’s there.

“I assure you,” EDI says, “I am still bound by protocols in my programming. Even if I were not, you are my crewmates.”

All Shepard wants is a drink. She’s already numb; she wants to drown the rest of it.

“For what it’s worth, Commander, we scrubbed everything,” Joker says, “We can go through the relay whenever you want.”

When Miranda speaks, there’s desperation there. “We’ve done everything we can. There’s not a better time to hit the Collectors than now.”

Shepard stares blankly into the air, not looking at Joker, Miranda, or Jacob. Somehow, the only person that she can bear to look at is Engineer Gabby Daniels.

“Daniels,” Shepard says softly, but Daniels is in an even more dissociated state than Shepard is. She doesn’t hear her. “Gabby.”

When Shepard uses her first name, Gabby stands to attention, Alliance training taking over when her mind fails her. “Yes, Commander?”

“What do you think?”

Her barely stitched-together composure threatens to split down the middle. If the situation wasn’t so dire, Shepard might find it funny when Gabby looks to Legion for encouragement. Shepard is probably imagining it, but Legion seems to give a brief nod.

Gabby swallows hard, drained from the Collector incursion and uncomfortable with every set of eyes in the room being trained on her. “I- I think-” Gabby shakes her head. “Are you sure you want my opinion, Commander?”

“Everyone else offers up their opinion without me asking. I thought you might need a little encouragement.”

“Well,” Gabby starts again, “If there’s no more upgrades that can be made to the ship, I don’t see how putting off the mission helps anyone. The sooner we hit the base, the better chance there is of finding everyone alive, right?” Gabby quivers under Shepard’s gaze, licking her lips nervously, and when Shepard doesn’t immediately respond, she steels herself and adds, “They shoved Ken in a pod by the throat. One of the big ones with the blue pustules on its back picked up Tali by the face mask and folded her up like she was nothing but trash. I want to hit them where it hurts, and I want to hit them now.”

Shepard smirks. The bravado is easier than thinking about Garrus and Tali swimming in whatever ooze the Collectors fill the pods with. “Joker, are you in good enough shape to report back to the bridge?”

“If you tell me we’re going to blow those motherfuckers to hell, I’ll fly this ship no matter how many ribs I’ve shattered,” he says.

“Good,” Shepard says. Miranda’s arms are crossed in defiance; Gabby’s are wrapped around herself for comfort. Legion stands tall at Gabby’s side, and Jacob leans against the debriefing table stewing in whatever emotions that he’s feeling. “Then let’s do it exactly like you said. Let’s blow these motherfuckers to hell.”

Joker nods and limps out of the room even more uncomfortably than usual, not sparing a look back. Jacob follows, and Miranda goes next. Shepard turns to walk out as well (the drink is happening, if nothing else, although she has to speak to Miranda first), but Legion stops her.

“Shepard-Commander.”

Shepard fights back the sigh. She can’t handle anything else right now. She really can’t. “Legion?”

“We would like to request reassignment to the engineering deck until recovery of Creator Tali’Zorah and Engineer Donnelly occurs. With only Engineer Daniels as personnel, operating capacity in engineering has diminished by 63.268%. Creator Tali’Zorah is responsible for 46.729% alone.”

Shepard snorts despite herself, and Gabby’s cheeks redden at the implied compliment that she is responsible for much more of the work in the drive core than Donnelly even though Legion almost certainly isn’t capable of any form of flattery. “I think you’ve more than proven that you don’t need to be jailed in the AI core, and we’ve unshackled EDI, so the Normandy is about as lawless as it’s ever been, including when we stole the SR-1. Just let me know if you’re going to stage a takeover so I can disembark beforehand.”

And Legion has no comprehension of humor, so they nod even though Shepard’s words tease a smile from Gabby. “Affirmative.”

They have twelve hours before they reach the point of no return, once Shepard is done in Miranda’s office. Shepard’s going to spend at least a couple of them getting blasted at the bar. Kasumi lives there, so she expects she’ll have company in one way or another, but Zaeed standing behind the counter with a tumbler filled with something orange is a surprise. Kasumi is nowhere to be seen.

“Ms. Goto excused herself after I poured myself a second round,” Zaeed says, a veritable psychic. Shepard hums an acknowledgement and slides into the seat across from where he’s standing. “What’s your poison?” he asks, and somehow, the idea of Zaeed as a bartender makes Shepard smile.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

“Salarian brandy, then. For not living very long, they know how to make their liquor.”

“Every bender matters more when you only live forty-some years, I suppose,” Shepard says dryly.

“I’ll drink to that,” Zaeed says, pushing a glass across the bar and raising his own. Shepard clinks her drink with his, and shoots where Zaeed sips. He chuckles. “Not messing around, eh, boss?”

Shepard smiles despite their situation, like she hadn’t walked through a desolate deck to get here. “I’ll have time to savor a good drink once we come back.”

Zaeed nods, silent as he pours Shepard another. As he slides it towards her, he says, “You and I, we’re tough bastards, Shepard. We’ve lived through plenty of things that would have killed people less determined to live. I think we both know that our odds of coming through this with everyone intact are slim.”

Shepard swirls the liquid in the glass, a hurricane in orange. “Heard more than one person say that if anyone can pull this out without killing us all, I can.”

Shepard and Zaeed have almost the same number of scars, even if his are more organic. He sighs. Shepard shoots the drink again. “They’re right, too. No one else in the galaxy’d have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting us out alive.”

A cloud settles behind Shepard’s eyelids, the alcohol digging in its claws. “Well,” Shepard says, lifting her empty glass, “Here’s to not fucking it up, then.”

Zaeed laughs. “Attagirl.”

He doesn’t remember being awake being so painful. His disagreement with Shepard notwithstanding, Thane has not cared about people for many years. He has always loved Kolyat, of course, but he was not cognizant of it for some time. Now, the Collectors have taken so many of the people who shook him awake.

For some time (since signing on), Thane has treated this mission with Shepard as suicidal. It was very nearly in the contract that they would all die. It is cosmic hubris that he decides only now that he well and truly wants to live. Thane wants to live for Kolyat and Shepard, of course, but it is with rising confusion that he realizes that it is also for Dr. Chakwas and Garrus and Tali.

The door to Shepard’s cabin slides open. Thane does not know why his feet have carried him here. They are overdue for a conversation, but this is almost certainly not the right time.

A voice that sounds like Irikah’s sounds in the back of his head. If not now, when?

Shepard sits on her sofa, a bottle dangling from her fingers. It’s half-empty, and the room smells like alcohol.

“Wondered if you were upset with me,” Shepard says, lifting the bottle to her lips and drinking deeply. Thane blinks.

“Why would I be upset with you?” Thane asks.

“I was probably a little harsh. I know that, uh-” Shepard pauses, not looking at him, searching for words. “I know how hard it can be to shake off the trappings of programming. I don’t know what else to call it. It’s just hard, coming to terms with loving someone when they think all they’re worth is how many necks that they can snap.”

Loving.

The word sears itself into him, a brand, hot and unexpected.

“Siha, I-”

She waves him off, like she has not said something that he had never hoped to feel from another person again in his lifetime. Shepard is not sober, and she might even be a little drunk. He also does not doubt that she’s telling the truth.

“I care about you a lot. We’re probably all going to die out there tomorrow. I just figured that I’d tell you that I love you before then. I might not get another chance.”

His body comes to a halt next to her, standing next to the sofa. When he finally manages to speak, Shepard’s bottle has gone from half-full down to a quarter. “I don’t want to die,” he says, and Shepard looks at him then. “I have known I will die for many years. I wanted to leave the galaxy better than I found it, and with your help-” His throat tightens. “I think that I have. I have even managed to find my son again. I should be at peace with death on the eve of battle, and yet…”

Shepard’s eyes hold his gaze, dark brown and deep, eternities of pain and warmth all at once. How had he ever thought that humans were soft? “I don’t want to die.” He finishes his speech as he started it, and Shepard holds out the bottle to him. Despite the situation, he laughs. “No, thank you.”

Shrugging, Shepard says, “Your loss, sweetheart,” and drinks the rest in one swig.

In the silence as he stands at her side, Shepard’s legs tucked up underneath her as she sets the now-empty bottle on the table, the weight of the situation presses in. “I am afraid, and it shames me. I did not expect that I would have so much to lose.”

“Yeah, well. I already lost Tali and Garrus and basically all of the crew. I’m going to try my damnedest not to lose you, too,” Shepard says darkly.

Can he say that he loves her, this woman who is fire made flesh and cruelty when the situation calls for it? She is a siha in every sense, even the fury that she struggles to contain within her body.

“I did not think that I would ever love again,” Thane says, “But you have proved me wrong many times on this journey. That you have shown me that I can still do so is not unexpected, I suppose.”

He has said the right thing; Shepard smiles.

“You can stay with me until we hit the relay, if you like,” she says, extending a hand towards him.

“If you think I won’t be too much of a distraction,” he says, and Shepard laughs deeply, freely, like they are not on the verge of an event horizon.

“I’m banking on you being every kind of distraction in the universe,” she says, and he smiles as she puts her lips on his, his body on hers. “We can be alive tonight, at least.”

When Thane is inside her (warm, wet, tight), they are exactly that. Shepard moves against him, not caring that her tender skin rubs against the roughness of his scales, breath quickening with his every thrust. And they are alive the entire time that he is inside her, her movements matching his, building until they collapse with satisfaction in each others’ arms.

“I love you,” Thane says, because he does not know how to explain tu-fira to a non-drell, cannot commit to words the emotion. If Shepard dies and he lives, Thane could spend the rest of his days lost in memories of her. He may not even have a choice in the matter.

“I love you, too,” Shepard says, pupils dilated, stars above, the curve of her breasts silhouetted by the cool ambient light of her aquarium.

No, he does not want to die, Thane thinks. Shepard’s breathing slows and deepens as she succumbs to sleep. He very much wants to live.

Chapter Text

The bile seeps in. Something has punctured her suit repeatedly as she laid unconscious, and that violation is the worst thing so far; nothing has touched Tali’s skin in years. She has never even joined suits with another person. The sensation is sickening, the slime consuming her.

It fills her mask.

It is the last bastion that she has, but if she opens her mouth and swallows deeply, lets the ooze consume her, maybe she will die. If she dies, at least it will be over.

Why shouldn’t she drown? The time that she can remain awake in the pod grows shorter each time that she opens her eyes. Whatever the substance is that she’s swimming in, it infects; Tali can feel the fever rising, her paltry immune system losing a fight that it never would have had a chance in even under the best conditions.

The light fades again. Her time to be lucid is up, and she drifts away again into darkness, alone.

“This is the end,” Shepard says. The beach is sunless; the water reflects the only sliver of the moon visible. She stands ankle-deep in the ocean. It feels like it should be colder, but even without the warmth of the sun, Shepard radiates heat.

Irikah fixes her with a disapproving stare that Shepard can see even in the low light that the moon affords. “Can you at least try to get my husband out alive? That you’re suicidal is a foregone conclusion.”

Shepard snorts. It feels good to laugh. “I meant the mission, but it’s good to know that if I kill us all, you won’t be surprised.”

A smile tugs at the corner of Irikah’s lips. “No. But I still would rather you didn’t.”

“That makes two of us.” The sea roars in the distance despite the relative calm of the waves at Shepard’s ankles. Irikah is tall enough that the water barely covers her feet. “If this breaks bad, do I get to come back here?” Her voice wavers. “I don’t want to be alone like I was before I met you.”

"Oh, siha,” Irikah sighs. When she pauses, it is excruciating. Shepard can’t look at her, and every point where the water touches her skin is electric. “I've come to care for you very much. If there is not a place for you at my side when the galaxy can no longer hold you, then I will make one.”

Shepard’s eyes flutter shut, and Irikah’s arm wraps around her waist.

“Would you like me to go down separately?” Thane asks, shaking Shepard from her disassociation that was probably sleep.

Shepard blinks. Thane stands in front of her while she sits on the edge of the bed that only seems bearable when she’s not laying in it alone.

“Why?” she asks, bordering on confusion. Thane meets her eyes with a raised brow. Shepard snorts. “You think I’m concerned with whether or not everyone knows we’re together? They have a betting pool.”

“Betting pool? What were they betting on?”

Shepard doesn’t know how it’s possible that Thane hasn’t heard about the fact that so many people are invested in their relationship, but he does keep to himself when possible, for the most part. “How long it would take us to sleep together.”

Thane stares at her. “Is this… a human custom?”

Shepard shrugs. “Garrus started it, if I had to guess.”

He is as close to slack-jawed as Shepard has ever seen him, but he harbors no further protests, or at the very least, he does not voice them. When Shepard steps into the elevator, Thane is on her heels, the only shadow she needs. They don’t speak as it descends, and their silence only augments the eerie quiet hanging on the empty combat deck. The walk feels impossibly long from the CIC to the bridge to the cockpit. Miranda is already standing behind Joker’s chair.

Joker must hear her walk up (God knows that he didn’t hear Thane), because he says, “Approaching the Omega-4 Relay.”

Miranda puts a fist to her closed mouth and paces a few steps back and forth. Thane folds his hands behind his back. Shepard leans over Joker’s chair.

“No need to waste time now, is there? Let’s make it happen.”

Shepard can’t see Joker’s face - the brim of his hat is in the way - but he tilts his neck downwards and a shuddering breath wracks his shoulders. “You’re the boss,” he says through gritted teeth.

EDI follows up with, “Reaper IFF activated,” and Joker thrusts them forward as Jacob reports that the drive core has, “lit up like a Christmas tree.”

A chill spins its way down Shepard’s spine, and Miranda’s pacing has grown more frantic even though Thane stands unmoving.

“Brace for deceleration!” EDI is not in the habit of making commands, but when she gives one, Shepard listens. She reaches for something to stabilize herself, Miranda and Thane doing the same, but they are not fast enough. All three of them stumble forward as the Normandy lurches.

Joker says, “Shit!” the instant that they come out the other side of the relay, and in the time that it takes Shepard to process that he is swearing, she sees why herself. Debris from every ship that has ever attempted a trip through the Omega-4 Relay and failed is scattered as far as the eye can see. The ship pulls up hard, narrowly avoiding the worst of the wreckage, and once they are above it, Joker exhales.

“Shit,” he repeats, and Shepard exhales a laugh. “Some of these ships look… ancient.”

“If Tali were here, she’d be able to tell us more. Ship history is well outside my area of expertise,” Miranda says quietly.

“Drell were not even spacefaring before the hanar found us,” Thane offers.

Shepard shakes her head. “While I like a good history lesson as much as anybody, I’m less concerned with who died here than with how we can get our people and get back out.”

“Shepard,” EDI interrupts, “I have detected an energy signal. It can only be the Collector base.”

Joker looks up at Shepard over his shoulder, and she says, “Let’s get a closer look. Nice and easy.”

The Normandy moves forward in relative silence, as quiet as a ship of its size can be. This is not the first time that Shepard has been thankful that each of the Normandies that she has commanded was engineered for stealth, and if they make it out alive, she doubts that it will be the last.

In the same moment that Shepard is giving thanks, Joker’s head swivels to look at another console, and EDI says, “Careful, Jeff. We have company.”

“Evasive maneuvers,” he says, like anyone would expect him to do anything else with multiple enemy combatants on their tail. The Normandy is an extension of him, as though it is simply another limb; it dips and dives at Joker’s command, in between the remains of hundreds (thousands?) of ships. “Okay, actually, this is pissing me off,” Joker says, even as the Normandy’s weapons systems remove two of their pursuers from the chase. “Come on, EDI, give me something.”

They fire on the Normandy, and the ship quakes. Miranda’s voice is calm, but her fingers are restless. “Jacob’s plating will hold.”

“Come on, girl, let’s give it to them.” Joker flies through screens so quickly that Shepard can hardly process what he’s looking at before he’s moved on to the next. A direct hit sends the ship into a brief tailspin before Joker rights it.

“Alert: hull breach on the engineering deck.”

“One of them is on board?” Joker asks in disbelief.

“I’ll deal with it,” Shepard says, almost thankful that there’s something she knows how to deal with. “You get the rest off our tail. Miranda, you’re in charge.”

Miranda nods. “Copy that.”

Who does she need? Thane looks at her, waiting only for affirmation that she wants him to follow her down to the cargo hold, and she gives it instantly. Legion is already in engineering, and hopefully they have already evacuated Gabby. She needs heavy weapons. She needs-

“EDI, tell Zaeed to report to the engineering deck and wait for us if he isn’t already there.”

Zaeed is leaning up against the wall outside the cargo bay like they aren’t in completely unprecedented territory. “Was getting old waiting for you, Shepard. Your geth ran past with that engineer, said it’d be back shortly.”

Good. That’s exactly what she’d expected. “EDI, can you tell Legion to come back as soon as he’s got Gabby as safe as she can be, considering the situation?”

“Yes, Shepard.”

“Zaeed, you got that grenade launcher?”

He pulls it from his back as if to make a point, and from the corner of her eye, Shepard can see Thane do the same with the missile launcher she’s equipped him with.

“I know it’s not your style, Thane, but forgive me this trespass.”

“Only this once, siha,” Thane answers, a ghost of a smile on his face, and Shepard readies the M-920 Cain.

“Don’t die before we even make it to the base. That’d be goddamn embarrassing,” Zaeed says to her, and her smirk spreads. EDI opens the door to the cargo hold.

What was pursuing them has shed some of its exterior trappings, now resembling an eye more than a ship. The oculus has ripped holes in either side of the hull, darting erratically much faster than it should be able to given its size and the precision required to make such movements.

“What do you say? Should we hit it in the eye?” Zaeed asks dryly.

“I do not know if the target is big enough for Shepard. She is not a heavy weapons expert,” Thane deadpans.

“Engineers,” Zaeed sighs. “Can’t live with ‘em. Ships won’t fly without ‘em.”

“Very funny,” Shepard mutters, and it doesn’t seem like the oculus is taking aim, but it shoots a laser that rips through much of the interior of the cargo bay. “Zaeed, you’re left. Thane, take right; if you see a spot where a barrier might help, don’t hesitate. Otherwise, I’d try not to get clipped by that beam. Doesn’t seem like organic matter would take to it too kindly.”

Reading the oculus’s movements is difficult. They have a finite amount of ammo, and each of them miss on their first attempt, though Shepard does take an admirable chunk out of the starboard side. The only time that it slows down long enough to hit is when it is firing on them.

“We’re not going to be able to hit this thing without bait, Shepard!” Zaeed shouts, a conclusion that Shepard wishes that she did not share.

“Shepard-” Thane starts to growl, a warning, but she doesn’t wait for the adrenaline to bleed off. This is a decision that needs to be made now, and there’s no room for fear.

“Don’t miss!” Shepard yells, vaulting over cover to the exposed center of the deck.

Zaeed cackles before letting loose with the grenade launcher. “Oh, Shepard, you are the perfect amount of crazy.”

She doesn’t know about being the perfect amount, but Shepard doesn’t feel quite sane as the laser singes past her armor. Her shields almost certainly give her a grace period, but there’s no telling how long that is; it could be as little as half a second.

She also isn’t interested in finding out.

They pelt the oculus with missiles and grenades as Shepard runs laps, sliding under what’s left of the equipment stored in the cargo bay and leaping over debris left by their wanton destruction. Thane and Zaeed seem to be making a dent in it, both metaphorically and literally, but when the Normandy pitches to the side, Shepard loses her footing. The oculus, from where it floats above her, is unaffected.

“Fuck,” Zaeed hisses, and Shepard hears Thane inhale sharply as she falls, armor slamming into the floor. The oculus hovers, taunting them, and Shepard can see the lights inside it brighten, her blood icing.

A rocket blasts into its side, making good on the progress that Thane and Zaeed started, and the oculus hurtles out of the Normandy, out of commission.

Legion says, “Shepard-Commander,” and Shepard laughs, not a little hysterically, heart still in her throat.

“Never been happier to see a geth,” Zaeed says, and Shepard can’t agree more, even as the Normandy comes to a crashing halt on solid ground.

Shepard sets her helmet on the table in the comm room. There is a bruise blooming on her left cheek, no doubt a consequence of their encounter on the engineering deck.

“This isn’t how we planned it,” she says, “But this is where we’re at.” The rest of the crew are fanned out around the table, Thane immediately to her left and Miranda on her right. “We can’t worry about if the Normandy can get us home. That won’t matter anyway if we don’t do the mission that we came here to do. I plan to live to tell about it, but we’ll figure that out when we get there.”

EDI projects scans of the base that they’ve crash-landed on without being asked. It’s cylindrical and complex; Shepard could study it for hours if they had more time, but they don’t.

“You should be able to overload their critical systems with access to the main control center,” EDI says, highlighting an area.

Jacob grimaces. “That means going through the heart of the station, right past the massive energy signature that’s been pulsing since EDI started running scans.”

“Missing colonists, more likely than not,” Mordin offers, “Signature too large to correspond with known Collector population.”

Miranda and Jacob discuss - there are two main routes, that’s no good, the doors need to open from the other side, it’s not a fortress - until Kasumi says, “We can send someone through the ventilation shaft. They can open the door from the other side.”

“A suicide mission within a suicide mission,” Jacob says, shaking his head. “I volunteer.”

Miranda looks like she wants to protest, but Kasumi continues. “You are a more than capable soldier, but it needs to be a tech specialist. No one else will be able to make quick enough work of any obstacles along the way.”

Shepard’s eyes scan the room. It’s a job that she would choose Tali for every time, but Tali isn’t here. Kasumi and Legion are the best options. “EDI, can you get me the specs for the shaft?”

“Legion’s too big, Shep,” Kasumi says lightly, like she has already volunteered for the job. “It’s got to be me. What better heist is there than this?”

“We concur,” Legion says, “Given the information that EDI has shared with us, we are an unfeasible option.”

Shepard chews her lip and her mouth goes dry. “Okay, Kasumi. We need to make as much noise as possible so she can get through the shaft as painlessly as possible. I’ll take my usual three-person squad, and then everyone else will be in another team with the express purpose of wreaking havoc.”

And again, Shepard feels the sting of having lost everyone on board the Normandy while they were testing the IFF. Garrus would have been her choice, but he is part of the energy signature that they will be sneaking past in the center of the base.

“Miranda’s my XO, and she’ll lead the second team. Thane and Jacob are with me. Everyone else is with her,” Shepard says, even as Jacob’s gaze snaps to meet her own. She needs heavy weapons and she needs biotics, and this is as good a time as any for Jacob to get over his differences with Thane.

They stare at her expectantly, what’s left of the crew that Shepard has amassed for the Normandy SR-2. Most of them Shepard would even call friends. The weight of her decisions hangs in the air, and Shepard says, “Once we’re in there, there’s no room for mistakes. This is the end. They’re going to hit us with everything they have, and if we’re weak, or slow, or if we hesitate, we lose.”

Jack averts her gaze. Shepard tries not to think about how young she is.

“If we lose, we die. The Collectors attacked our ship. Twice. They killed me the first time, and took our crew the second, and I’m not going to let them get away with it.” Shepard’s hand curls into a fist; she’s very nearly yelling, although that had not been her intent when she started. Samara nods. “They wanted a war with us. I want to make them regret that they ever started it,” she snarls. Grunt pounds his fists on the table, yelling, and Thane mouths a wordless prayer. “No more waiting,” Shepard says, every hair on her body standing straight up, “This ends now.”

Chapter Text

His plates are disintegrating, maybe. Garrus’s visor stopped working a long time ago. He has trouble seeing without it at the best of times, since the gunship, and these are far from the best of times.

It's a shame, really. When he'd signed on for this suicide mission, he hadn't really believed it was suicide. Why would he? It's been suicide with Shepard every time. How could Garrus know that this time it would be different?

His father would be embarrassed, though that’s nothing new. Castis Vakarian’s only son, dead on a mission to save human colonies? That’s pretty on brand for Garrus.

He’d thought his death would be more dignified than this, though. Wasting away in a pod of slime? He’s never been much of a traditional turian, but there’s not any glory here.

Shepard’s boots hit the ground before anyone else’s. She’d be an awfully shitty leader if they didn’t. Miranda is not far behind and Kasumi steps lightly up between them.

“If I get incinerated in there,” Kasumi says, all too cheerful, “Thank you for letting me keep the graybox. Plenty of people wouldn’t have.”

“You’re too good to die here. You and I both know that,” Shepard says, fingers of anxiety burrowing holes into her chest.

“Only time will tell.” Kasumi’s eyes sparkle, and she’s as fearless as anyone could be given the situation.

EDI has promised to have the ship up and running by the time they complete what they came here to do, and Shepard has to believe in that as she watches everyone disembark. Gabby stands in the dock with her arms wrapped around herself, smiling sadly at Legion before giving Shepard a professional nod. Joker had wanted to do the same, Shepard knows, but she’d put her foot down.

Every one of his ribs is broken, if Mordin is to be believed, and Shepard needs him as close to the top of his game as possible for anyone who manages to limp back to the ship.

Jacob and Thane fall into position behind Shepard as Miranda gestures for her (considerably larger) team to peel off towards the west.

“You boys ready to make some noise?” Shepard asks.

Jacob, somehow, finds it in him to grin. She can’t see his face, but she can hear it in his voice. “You know it, Commander.” Thane simply nods.

Kasumi flickers from vision until the spot that she once stood in is empty. She could still be standing there, but probably not. The ground squelches under her boot in exactly the same way it had on the Collector ship. Whatever that had been made of, it is also the foundation of their base. Other than an ominous ambiance, though, there is nothing that warrants their guns being raised yet. They stand at the ready anyway.

EDI guides Kasumi towards the ventilation shaft and Shepard and company in a similar direction. On the other side, Shepard is sure EDI does the same for Miranda’s squad. When they reach a grate covered in the same pseudo-organic material that makes up the ground, Kasumi reappears, delicate fingers pulling at the vent cover.

“Kasumi,” Shepard starts. “Be careful.”

Kasumi pauses only briefly before tugging on the grate hard, pulling it loose and tossing it to the side. “Oh, come on, Shep. You’re covering me. What difference does it make?”

Shepard wishes that she had Kasumi’s confidence, but it doesn’t last long. Kasumi puts a hand forward and touches the inside of the ventilation shaft, and klaxons blare.

She has long since ceased breathing oxygen. Instead, she inhales the ooze inside the Collector pod. Tali doesn’t have a choice.

A splintering noise brings her to attention; someone has found her, and they are going to break into the pod, and she is going to live somehow after all, even though she had given up and given in to death in every way except for the fact that she is still drawing breath.

Hope blooms in her chest, a flower incompatible with the situation that she is in, and Tali waits for the sound to come again, for the goo to rush out of the pod so that she will be able to see something other than the inside of this prison.

Her vision is still yellow, and the noise comes again, but nothing else changes. Tali’s brain feels so slow, her critical thinking sluggish, but at last, she realizes that it can only be one thing. With another crack that reverberates in her ears, her heart sinks to her stomach.

Whether it is from pressure inside the pod or a deconstructive effect of whatever she has been swimming in for who knows how long, with a final crunch, Tali’s mask shatters.

Kasumi’s movements take on a sense of urgency; in the distance, Shepard can hear Miranda’s party, guns blazing, no doubt already engaged with hostiles. Kasumi had been right. Legion never would have fit in the shaft. Kasumi wriggles with a modicum of grace that Shepard could never hope to keep in such a situation even as Jacob and Thane dispatch the first of what is sure to be many Collector drones.

“They’re trying to lock me out, Shep,” Kasumi says over the radio. “There are checkpoints that can only be bypassed by someone outside the vent. The temperature in here is rising by the second. If someone doesn’t let me through, I’m going to burn up.” Kasumi’s voice is much calmer than Shepard feels. “Good thing you’re an engineer, huh?”

Shepard, Jacob, and Thane move forward with more urgency than before, Kasumi still visible in Shepard’s peripheral vision.

“I’m at the first block. You’ve got about 43 seconds to let me through, if my readings are right.”

The Collectors’ numbers are still thin, here. There is no danger of being overwhelmed, and Shepard feels comfortable turning her back on Jacob and Thane as they deal with the vanguard. The process that Kasumi needs her to run is a simple maintenance protocol, and though Kasumi has seemed unaffected by the pressure, she breathes out in relief as Shepard unlocks her next move forward.

A husk takes Shepard out at the knees, pulling her to the ground. It scrambles to find purchase on top of her, and she swears. They’re just getting started, and she’s already being sloppy.

Jacob lifts; the husk floats harmlessly away from her, and Jacob finishes it off with his rifle. With half a second to steady herself, Shepard is back on her feet.

They push forward as the swarm thickens; "Shep, 58 seconds. I made up a little time, though I'm not sure that's worth anything."

Kasumi's flippant tone somehow makes the stakes seem higher, though Shepard knows that that is the opposite of their intended effect. From the corner of her eye, Shepard can see her, waiting for Shepard to remove the obstacle.

A red dot appears on Shepard's chest and disappears just as quickly, Thane's sniper rifle covering her. Shepard leaps the body of a drone dispatched by Jacob, but Kasumi can't see anything going on behind her. The tube is too tight for her to turn her head. "Getting a little nervous, Shepard."

Finally, Shepard reaches the panel. Her omni-tool does the rest. Kasumi moves forward.

"A little over halfway there. Looks like only one more checkpoint from my end," Shepard says.

"We can hope. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't warm in here."

Kasumi’s breath comes in shorter gasps, now, the panic leaking into her tone. Shepard wasn’t exactly calm, but hearing Kasumi lose her cool kicks it into overdrive. The adrenaline pumps through her as Collectors flank Jacob. Shepard’s combat drone zips into action, flying circles around the nearest. Against any organic enemy, her drone is little more than a nuisance, but sometimes being annoying is enough. With the moment that her drone buys Jacob, Thane throws one to the floor as Jacob unloads a heat sink into the other at point-blank range.

“Give me something, Kasumi,” Shepard says, teeth gritted, omni-gauntlet buried in a husk.

“Could lose a lot of weight in here. It’s a damn good sauna,” Kasumi says, almost panting, “I’m almost to the last obstacle. Get me out as soon as possible, please.”

Hearing desperation in her voice, Shepard breaks into a sprint, sliding under a husk with outstretched arms. “Cover me!” she manages, not speaking to either Thane or Jacob in particular but expecting both to follow the order.

“Thirty seconds,” is all Kasumi can say.

Thane is on her heels, his hands around the husk’s neck, twisting so hard that Shepard almost expects its head to pop off. Jacob continues to pick off any that advance from a middling distance, weaving biotic displays in between gunfire.

“Thirteen seconds, Shep. I’m running out of time.”

With Thane on her other side, Shepard very nearly slams her omni-tool into the control panel. Kasumi disappears from vision as the ventilation shaft snakes into the main chamber. Shepard can’t see her anymore, but that’s exactly where they need her to be.

“Kasumi, do you copy?” Shepard doesn’t stop firing into the Collectors as she asks.

“We’re getting overwhelmed on this side,” comes Miranda’s voice, still calm even though panic pricks at the edges.

“I copy,” Kasumi answers finally, “Letting Miranda’s team through.”

Silence follows over the radio, and though the gunfire does not cease, Shepard hears what comes next all too well.

“You cannot stop us.”

An assassin that was limping away screeches before bursting into light. A biotic barrier pulses around it as Harbinger possesses it as a puppet. Jacob inhales sharply over comms; it is the first time he has seen Harbinger, as far as Shepard can remember.

As if that isn’t bad enough, Thane says, “Seeker swarms, incoming.”

“Could do with extraction, Kasumi,” Shepard says, trying for soothing and probably landing somewhere near overwhelmed.

“Door’s jammed, Shepard!” Kasumi has completely abandoned any pretense of composure.

“Good thing you’re a tech expert, then, huh?” Shepard’s heart thuds in her throat as her back presses against the closed door, Thane and Jacob on either side. There’s no cover anywhere nearby; if they dive for anywhere that gives them a semblance of reprieve from gunfire, the break that they have to make for the door is too long.

Seconds tick away as the swarm comes closer. Shepard continues with a hail of bullets, and Jacob says, “Barrier!”

Thane matches his motion, blue flaring from each of them, and a shield appears in front of them that staves off the assault for the final moments that Kasumi needs.

The door opens, and Shepard tumbles backwards ungracefully, braced as she had been against it. She manages to turn it into a half-somersault, but she doesn’t make it back to her feet as Jacob and Thane rush through the gap. She meets Harbinger’s gaze before someone yanks her backward by the waist, hard, and she finally clears the door with Kasumi closing it in the moment immediately following, Grunt holding her almost entirely in one hand like she is some kind of ferret.

“Would have been an unfitting end for my battlemaster,” Grunt growls, and Shepard is inclined to agree, no matter that every krogan in her life seems to have a penchant for lifting her off the ground as if she weighs nothing. When she is back on her feet, the realization that they have somehow managed the first leg of this impossible mission overwhelms her.

Kasumi slides down against the door in the lull, tearing the cowl from her armor and panting. Her face is red and sweat runs off her in rivulets, chest heaving.

“Knew I could count on you, Kasumi,” Shepard says.

In very nearly the same breath, Mordin says, “On the verge of heatstroke. Good you were not in there any longer.”

All Kasumi gives is a thumbs up.

“Are you alright?” Samara asks, crouching down in front of Kasumi.

She nods. “I just need a minute and I’ll be back on my feet.”

Samara posts up next to Kasumi as the rest of the team evaluates their surroundings. It is exactly what they encountered on the Collector ship, only larger. Pods as far as the eye can see.

“This is…” Miranda trails off. “I knew what to expect, but seeing it is different.”

Shepard nods, because it’s true; how can anyone explain the magnitude of this operation? It can only be understood by seeing it.

“Can you walk?” Samara asks quietly, and Kasumi nods. She takes Samara’s hand, and Samara pulls her to her feet, and as a full team, they begin the walk into the heart of the base.

Jack sees the first pod with a person in it. “This looks like a colonist. Same horrible outfit.”

“We detect no life signs,” says Legion.

“Do you detect life signs anywhere?” Shepard asks. That is the only way that they will find the rest of the crew in this labyrinth.

Legion pauses. “Yes.”

They point straight ahead, and their words spur a run from everyone. Jacob reaches the point Legion has indicated first, and he puts his palms on the pod in front of him as if looking for an easy way to open them.

“Kelly.” His voice quakes, and finally, Jacob comes back into himself, slamming the butt of his rifle into the glass. When Jacob’s efforts breach the seal of Kelly’s pod, her scream curdles Shepard’s blood.

She disintegrates before their eyes.

“Get them out! Now!” It’s not an order Shepard has to give, but she does anyway. They spread, each finding a separate pod to pry their way into. Samara unhinges the fronts of as many pods as she can manage, and Jack catches on quickly to the idea.

Crew member after crew member comes tumbling from the pods, some alive, some dead. Gardner and Donnelly meet the same fate as Kelly. Chakwas gasps for breath as she falls, and Hawthorne has two broken arms. Garrus is well enough to get to his feet not long after his release.

Thane hammers at a final pod, and finally, his efforts come to something. Tali collapses into his arms, somehow still alive, but in the worst condition of anyone not dead.

Her mask is in pieces, shattered by something in the pod, and Shepard has to resist the instinct to look away. It feels wrong to look at her face like this; Shepard knows for a fact that this is not how Tali would want them to see her.

Miranda’s back is turned, but Tali, almost limp in Thane’s arms, says, “Father,” and the sound of her voice draws Miranda instantly.

Mordin is at Tali’s side as well. “High fever. Delusions. Needs medical attention sooner rather than later.”

“It’s my professional opinion that we all do,” Chakwas says, staggering to a standing position. “I wasn’t sure that you’d come for us.”

Miranda rushes to kneel next to Tali and Thane, holding Tali’s head in her hands but avoiding touching her skin.

“You know I wouldn’t leave you behind,” Shepard says, trying not to think about how Tali is knocking on death’s door, how she has already lost Gardner and Kelly and Donnelly.

“We’re in no condition to fight,” Chakwas says, sounding ashamed. “We need to get back to the ship. I’m not even sure we can make it back on our own.”

“I’m not up to holding off much at the moment,” Garrus offers. Blood is still caked to the side of his face, likely from when the Collector on the Normandy initially knocked him unconscious. “But if you can’t spare anyone, I understand. The mission’s more important than-”

“Mordin will go back with you,” Shepard decides quickly.

“Logical,” Mordin nods. “Require medical help. Will not be able to carry Tali. She is on brink of unconsciousness. In no shape to walk herself.”

Shepard’s mouth goes dry. She’s already down Mordin, Tali, and Garrus, but she can’t just leave Tali behind. “Jacob, you can carry her back, right?”

“Commander-” Jacob starts, and Shepard can hear the argument in his voice before he gets past saying her title.

“This isn’t up for debate, Taylor. Get my crew back alive. Understood?”

Jacob stares at her for a moment like he’d like to defy the order, but eventually, he simply says, “Yes, ma’am.”

Miranda’s lips are parted, Tali’s head still cradled in her hands. Thane says something quietly to Miranda and she clenches her eyes shut before retracting her hands. Jacob takes Miranda’s place, and he wraps his arms around Tali’s waist. “Can you put your arms around my neck, Tali?” he asks gently, and she obliges.

Jacob nods at Shepard before turning his back to the party, walking back in the direction of the ship.

Tali’s head rests on Jacob’s shoulder, staring straight at Miranda.

“I love you,” Tali says simply, her round face flush with sweat, a paler purple than Shepard thinks it probably should be.

Miranda, despite everything, sadly smiles at her words. “I love you, too.” Shepard worries that Miranda will be too affected by what she has just seen, but she has always been a master at compartmentalization. Miranda turns to Shepard and asks, "Well, Commander? What's next?"

Chapter Text

Miranda is not the only one looking at Shepard expectantly. The crew’s collective eyes are on her, but before she does anything else, Shepard hails the ship.

“EDI, can you get me Gabby?”

A heavy pause follows, but eventually, Gabby says, “This is Daniels.”

“Gabby, the survivors from the Collector attack are on the way. Tali’s in extremely bad shape. Her suit’s been compromised in just about every way I can imagine. The AI core has the capacity to function as a clean room; EDI will give you the details, but do whatever you can to have it ready by the time Tali shows up.”

“Okay,” Gabby says, voice shaky. “I’m hardly a medical officer, Commander-”

“I know,” Shepard interrupts. “Mordin is escorting them back. I just need you to do everything possible so we don’t lose Tali to an infection on the back end of this.”

“Copy that.” Shepard can almost hear Gabby nod. After a moment, Gabby tentatively says, “Commander. Did Ken…” Her voice quivers, and Shepard’s eyes flutter shut.

“I’m sorry, Gabby.”

Gabby inhales sharply, and Shepard knows that Gabby can’t see her, but she hangs her head anyway.

Pained, Gabby says, “I’ll do the best I can with the clean room, Commander.”

“I know you will,” Shepard says, and starts to cut the line before EDI starts speaking again.

“Shepard, I do not like being the bearer of bad news, but your only sensible path forward is giving off a heat signature consistent with an extremely large number of seeker swarms. Mordin’s countermeasure will not be enough to protect you. Sending a team through the main chamber is possible, but someone will have to access the security panel at the end of the passage full of seeker swarms to let that team through.”

Shepard bites her lip and mouths a swear skyward. Every time something goes even remotely right (can she call it a victory if they have lost Gardner and Kelly and Donnelly? If Tali’s fever is frying her brain as we speak?), something else turns worse.

“Forgive me for speaking out of turn, Commander,” Samara says, as if she does not have centuries of experience on Shepard. “It would be impossible to take any more than your standard fire party, but a biotic specialist could protect a team from the swarms.”

Miranda looks at Samara appreciatively. “Yes. Theoretically, any biotic could do the job.”

She takes stock. The biotics left to choose from are:

• Thane
• Jack
• Miranda (who must lead the second team; Jacob was Shepard’s only other option and she has sent him back to the ship)
• And, of course, Samara

Otherwise available are:

• Kasumi
• Grunt
• Legion
• Zaeed

Theoretically, any biotic could protect Shepard’s fire squad, but Samara is by far the most skilled and tested biotic that Shepard has ever met. She would feel by far the safest in Samara’s hands, but if Shepard takes Zaeed and Thane (as she wants to do), that leaves Miranda with Jack, Kasumi, Grunt, and Legion. Kasumi is experienced and an asset to any team that she is put on, and Shepard couldn’t ask for a better soldier than Legion, but otherwise, Grunt is inexperienced and very krogan while Jack is unpredictable at best (and hardly at her best when being led by Miranda).

Miranda’s team needs Samara, no matter how much Shepard wants to figure out another way.

“Jack. Can you do it?” Shepard asks.

“You know I can,” Jack lopsidedly grins, teeth flashing, and Shepard nods, hoping that she looks more confident than she feels.

“Okay. Same shit, then; Miranda, you’ll lead the second team. Thane, Zaeed - you’re with me and Jack.”

Miranda nods. Thane was already at her side, but Zaeed joins them, clapping Jack on the back as he walks by.

“So far, so good, siha,” Thane breathes out on a private channel.

Shepard prickles. “Yeah. Only lost three people so far,” she says, voice dripping poison.

Thane does not deserve her venom, but he takes it in stride. “We knew losses were inevitable. They deserve better than death, but that does not mean that our efforts have been worth nothing.”

Shepard doesn’t answer. She just sets her mouth in a line. “Any questions?” Shepard asks, tuning back onto the team’s frequency. No one answers, and Shepard nods, mostly to herself. “Alright then, folks. Let’s do this.”

Shepard has never held much of an opinion on Jack’s decision to wear as little clothing as possible, but with the weight of the seeker swarms about to bear down on them, all Shepard wants to do is wrap her in a blanket.

Garrus and Thane both tease her for not being much of a sniper, but if there is a place that her combat knowledge is most lacking, it is in the application of biotics. “We can shoot out, right?”

Jack nods. “Yeah. Not to be a fucking nerd about it, but think of it like a one-sided membrane. The problem is that everything that my barrier resists is going to make it harder for me to keep it up, so anything shooting at us needs to be killed basically as fast as possible.”

“Wouldn’t be a good time if we weren’t,” Zaeed laughs, in a better mood than should be possible. Shepard doesn’t want to think about the chaos that he and Jack could unleash in another situation.

“Ready on our end, Commander,” Miranda says, and Shepard swallows hard, pressing her omni-tool against the panel that will open the door.

“Ready, Jack?” Shepard asks, a second from starting the protocol that will begin their mad dash.

Instead of answering with words, Jack pulses with energy, her biotics enveloping the four of them. Echoing Shepard’s thoughts, Thane says, “She will tire fast. We need to move quickly.”

“Don’t act like you know what I’m capable of, asshole,” Jack says, but Shepard agrees with Thane anyway, and though Jack sets the pace, they begin their trek. When she was nineteen, could she have done this? Shepard doubts it.

Zaeed has a sniper rifle and missile launcher strapped to his back and an assault rifle in his arms, and Thane is outfitted similarly, though without the missile launcher. Shepard will not get a chance to use her omni-gauntlet here, not when stepping out Jack’s biotic bubble means that the swarm will have its way with her. Instead, her SMG is ready and her drone flits nervously around Zaeed, who has taken his position as the vanguard.

With her arms held out perpendicular to her shoulders as though she is bracing herself between two walls, Jack moves forward steadily, projecting energy in a sphere wide enough for the four of them to pass with some semblance of distance between them. The seekers bounce off her biotics, thudding against the barrier infinitely.

“How we doing, Jack?” Shepard says quietly, a near whisper, though she does not doubt that the Collectors know exactly where they are.

“Oh, just swell, Shepard. This is how I want to spend all my free time,” Jack snarls, but that seems to be just her normal attitude rather than the strain of the situation.

“Great,” Shepard says, “Just checking.”

Zaeed shifts into a more ready position with his AR. “Hostiles on our three.”

Swinging to the left, Shepard doesn’t even get to lift her SMG before Thane has ripped a hole in a Collector assassin’s side. “It’s your show, Jack,” Shepard says, “Do you want us to stop and clear out these bastards or do we keep shooting as we go?”

“Well,” Jack says, teeth gritted, “I can do this all day, but I think that the faster we’re done with this bullshit, the better.”

“Noted,” Shepard answers, SMG spraying a Collector approaching the barrier. “We’ll keep moving. Say something if you need a break.”

“I don’t get a break until we’re out of here,” Jack hisses, and, well, fair enough.

Zaeed and Thane are both extremely capable with assault rifles, thinning the Collectors’ numbers before they get anywhere close, and though Shepard misses Garrus, she is lucky to have such skilled substitutes. They do not even seem to be too affected by the inability to stop and stabilize themselves, but as they trudge through the passage, the barrier has started to wear on Jack. Sweat beads on her forehead, and Shepard asks, “Can Thane buffer some of the effort?”

Jack cuts a glare at her. “Fuck off, Shepard; can we just fucking finish this?”

There is no one on her crew more capable of being insubordinate than Jack, but as Shepard mulls over how to respond, Thane interjects, “Incoming. Scion.”

The lumbering beast lurches forward from behind them, their bullets glancing off its considerable mass. Shepard grimaces, but Zaeed’s grin only grows wider. “Hey, girl. How’ll this barrier take to a missile launcher?”

“Girl?” The strain leaves Jack unable to make a signature witty remark. “Just… do it. I’ll have to stand still and focus. But do it,” she says flatly, planting her feet, and Zaeed braces his missile launcher against his shoulder before letting one fly.

It lands squarely in the scion’s gut, and it stumbles backward. Thane punctuates Zaeed’s missile fire with his own AR, and it buys Zaeed the time that he needs to reload. A second missile sails out of Jack’s barrier, this one connecting with the scion’s chest, and it falls heavily to the ground.

“Can we move again? This is-” A shiver wracks Jack’s body, but her biotics don’t waver. “I’m hurting, Shepard.”

“Okay,” Shepard nods, more unsettled by Jack’s admission than anything else, so unlike her normal self. “Okay. You’re doing great, and we’re almost there.”

Jack’s eyes narrow. “Miss me with the warm and fuzzy shit. Let’s just get out of here.”

“Noted,” Shepard says, and as they round one final corner and find themselves at the top of a slope ramping downwards. “This is the end, Jack. One last dash?”

“Okay, Shepard. I got a little more.”

Jack can’t run and hold the barrier, but her pace picks up anyway, more like a power-walk than a jog. Zaeed lags a little behind, covering the rear, now, as Thane and Shepard push forward ahead of Jack. They bridge nearly half the remaining distance before Jack stumbles, biotics flickering dangerously before she tumbles to the ground. As the blue around them pulses, Thane throws up both his hands to shore up the difference, almost instantly flinching at the expenditure of energy. “I can’t do this very long,” Thane manages, and Zaeed hauls Jack up by the elbow.

“Good thing you don’t weigh anything, eh?” Zaeed asks, still laughing as Shepard’s heart thuds in her chest. “Come on, girl. I know you’ve got more juice in there.”

In defiance, Jack’s eyes flare open again as she takes the biotic burden from Thane once more, more seekers than before pounding on the bubble. Thane gasps with relief, and they move forward several more feet until they are only a few steps from the exit. When Shepard can almost taste victory, Jack stalls. She is still on her feet, but Jack’s knees quake, the barrier extended past the threshold where they will be safe from the swarms.

“Get out!” Jack hisses. “I can’t move and hold this barrier, and your boyfriend’s biotics can’t keep this many of these fucking bugs away. Get out, and finish this, and…” Jack trails off, fighting to keep tears from her eyes. “Oh, fuck it, I don’t know, burn Cerberus to the ground for me or something.”

Shepard’s mouth is frozen; Jack is not a sacrifice that she wants to make but Shepard doesn’t know what other choice there is. She and Thane stand on the other side of the door, waiting to close it behind Zaeed (behind Jack; she can’t really leave behind Jack, can she?), but just when Shepard has consigned herself to the outcome of this leg of the mission, Zaeed finds it in himself to laugh again.

“Nah,” Zaeed says, standing right next to Jack. “You’ve got plenty more fuck-ups to make. I’ve had my fair share already. Krios, can you catch?”

Thane’s eyes widen, but Zaeed doesn’t wait for an answer. He shoves Jack hard, and her biotics disappear from around them as she goes stumbling towards Thane and Shepard, and Thane reaches out with his biotics to pull her safely past the threshold.

Almost on instinct now that the barrier is gone, Shepard presses her omni-tool to the control panel on the other side of the door.

“What the fuck, Massani?” Jack shrieks as the doors close in front of them, but not fast enough that they don’t see the swarm engulf him, his body consumed by the black. For a moment, they sit in silence; it’s difficult to comprehend what they’ve seen. “Why did he do that, Shepard?” Jack punches a bare fist into Shepard’s breastplate hard. “He’s not supposed to give a shit about anybody! He’s a fucking merc!”

Numbly, Shepard says, “He told me there was no way we were both coming back alive. I guess he just felt like if he could use his ticket on you, he would.”

“Shepard? Come in, Shepard!” Miranda’s voice blasts through the grief. “We’re getting slaughtered out here! If you can hear this, let us through!”

Jack doesn’t move. “Why…” she trails off.

“You are barely more than a child,” Thane says softly as Shepard moves to the security panel, opening up a path for Miranda and her team before Thane continues. “He lived a full life. You have only just recently begun living.”

Miranda’s team bursts through the door as Shepard closes the gate behind them, and though Zaeed’s loss is raw and fresh in both her heart and mind, it compounds as she sees Grunt with Legion’s platform slung over his shoulder.

“Where’s Zaeed?” Miranda asks, hair matted to her forehead.

“Bastard got himself killed,” Jack seethes, locking her fingers behind her head. Grunt sets Legion’s platform down with a degree of tenderness unusual for a krogan.

Shepard’s throat tightens; she has lost four people so far, and maybe Legion, too. She locks away the pain and kneels down next to Legion, tearing off her gauntlets like she had on the dead Reaper and calling her drone for aid. She doesn’t have to ask what happened; multiple bullet holes in Legion’s chest panel tell the story well enough.

“What are you doing, siha?” Thane asks, not quite panicked, but certainly concerned.

“I’m done losing people,” Shepard says hotly, the anger threatening the edges of her vision. “Legion’s not negotiable.”

Kasumi, almost ashamed, says, “I ran diagnostics on the fly, Shep. There’s no repairing-”

“I don’t want to repair,” Shepard says, manic, finally tearing open the cover on Legion’s chest to dig through the wires.

“Commander…” Miranda starts, almost a warning, but Shepard isn’t interesting in heeding it. With reverence, Shepard dips her fingers in to fish out Legion’s blue box, still glowing but only faintly.

Cerberus won’t let her die. She knows that much, and Miranda is anything but sloppy. The programming they put inside her is designed to adapt, not destroy. Shepard rubs a thumb softly over the edges of the blue box, and says, “Legion, if you’re in there… remember that you promised me you’d let me know before you stage a coup.”

“Commander, don’t-” Miranda starts, lunging forward like she is going to try and stop Shepard, but Shepard doesn’t give her a chance. Instead, Shepard tilts her head back, puts the blue box inside her mouth, and swallows.

Chapter Text

They are isolated. They cannot hear the others. They have never been alone like this. They number only a few hundred.

Empty. They are geth, and they are empty.

Far away and close there is a light, a node of energy. It approaches them maybe fast maybe slow their critical processes are sluggish and malfunctioning-

The light is organic they do not recognize it it is not geth it is not heretic it is not synthetic at all. They should resist but power levels are low and are they even still geth if they are DISCONNECTED?

The light wraps around them, warm. The light is not geth. Geth do not know what family is. But they do now. They are Legion. The light embraces.

Is every siha designed to raise his blood pressure? The stakes are high, of course, and they are all on edge, and they have lost friends already, but Shepard is a good leader. It is only sometimes that she abandons reason and does something that makes Thane grit his teeth.

She swallowed Legion’s blue box. Briefly, Thane wonders if all humans are like this; they do have a reputation for being impulsive, but Miranda would never have made this decision, and neither would Chakwas. No, this seems to be a Shepard-exclusive trait (at least that it’s so pronounced).

Nevertheless, Thane did not have a chance to protest before Shepard makes her reckless choice, though Miranda made a valiant attempt. Shepard stands and puts her gauntlets back on, looking down at Legion’s lifeless platform. No one says anything, everyone staring at Shepard. Finally, Miranda, sounding annoyed at best, says, “How are you feeling?”

“Never better,” Shepard grins, but as she turns her head, a glint of silver flashes in her normally dark brown eyes, something in them metallic, mechanical.

“Are you at the rendezvous point, Joker?” Shepard asks.

“Yeah. Jacob, Mordin, and the crew just showed up. Tali’s in bad shape, but no casualties. She’s with Mordin and Dr. Chakwas in the clean room.”

Shepard breathes out. Something’s gone right. Miranda must feel the same, because she says, “Let’s make it count. EDI, what’s next?”

“The main control console should be nearby. From there, you can overload the base’s systems and destroy it.”

“When you put it like that, it sounds easy,” Kasumi says lightly.

“Not quite,” Joker interjects, “There’s a lot of hostiles outside the door you just closed. You don’t have long.”

Shepard bites her lip. “We need to finish this before they get through. Thane and Miranda are with me, and everyone else...” Shepard trails off, a dark smirk spreading on her face. “Hold the line, I guess, is how Kirrahe would say it.”

Miranda looks surprised but not displeased at being part of her fireteam, but Shepard needs all the biotics she can get. Again, she would rather have Samara, but Samara can probably hold the door on her own for multiple minutes by just throwing up an unsurpassable barrier. They don’t need a leader to kill Collectors. They’ll be just fine holding the door.

Shepard pulls Thane up onto the platform next to her by the forearm, and he does the same with Miranda. With Thane on her right and Miranda on her left, Shepard says, “The Collectors, the Reapers - they aren’t just a threat to humanity. They’re a threat to everything in the galaxy. That’s the scale of this, and that’s what we’re fighting for. We’re fighting for everything and everyone you’ve ever known.”

When she pauses, Shepard hears a distant whirring sound that no one else seems to notice. Hopefully it isn’t Legion infiltrating whatever Cerberus systems that keep her upright. “No one’s getting out of this without scars,” Shepard says, her own aching, “And we’ve already lost a lot. We’ve lost Donnelly, and Kelly, and Gardner, and Zaeed. Maybe we’ve lost Legion.”

Miranda cuts Shepard a sharp glare, and Shepard says, “Maybe we’ve lost Tali.” At that, Miranda averts her eyes, not flinching. “I don’t know about you, but I’m done losing anything. I’m ready to start taking.”

Samara nods solemnly at Kasumi’s side. Kasumi tilts her head sideways and smiles, and Grunt pounds one fist into the palm of his other hand. Jack just looks ready for a fight.

Out of everyone that Shepard has brought on this journey, they are the four that will cover Shepard, Thane, and Miranda as they finish this. They are all that’s left, at least for now.

“Well, Shep,” Kasumi says, voice light as ever. “There’s no reason to put it off, is there?”

And Kasumi, as usual, is right, but somehow, it is Grunt who says the thing that Shepard knows she will hold onto.

“Don’t die out there, Shepard. Wouldn’t be anyone else in the galaxy worth killing for.”

Shepard’s throat tightens, but she manages a laugh. “Likewise.”

The platform that they’re standing on has a control panel behind them that should direct them towards the main console, and Miranda activates it. Thane’s lips move silently, a prayer, and it is hardly the first time that Shepard has wished Irikah was around more often than just in dreams, but wordlessly, Shepard thinks the same thing that Irikah has said many times.

Arashu protect you.

Their feet hold firm as the platform detaches, a chill running down Shepard’s spine, but she hails EDI anyway. “All the tubes lead to this spot. EDI, what can you tell us?”

“My readings are… confusing. The tubes are feeding into some kind of super-structure that is emitting both organic and non-organic signatures. It must be massive.”

“What’s confusing about that, exactly?” Shepard asks, tense, as the platform keeps a steady pace levitating down a tunnel of tubes.

“Shepard…” EDI does not sigh tiredly, but the affectation is still in her voice regardless. “The only thing consistent with these signatures is a Reaper.”

“What?” Miranda asks in the same breath that Thane inhales sharply, and Shepard’s blood runs cold. The platform rises into a large chamber, the tubes coming to the center, and hanging from the middle of the room is an unfinished atrocity.

EDI is right. It’s massive, though not quite as big as Sovereign was, and clearly unfinished, as no light comes into its empty eye sockets as they approach. Its jaw hangs open, hands limply connected to tubing that shudders open, revealing cylinders of orange matter being pumped into the body.

Miranda stands with her lips parted in shock or disgust, and Thane looks away, eyes resting on Shepard.

“The Collectors appear to have processed tens of thousands of humans to reach this point. Significantly more will be required to finish their… creation.”

“The orange liquid. The liquid in the pods-” Miranda starts, horrified, and EDI finishes for her.

“Yes. Liquefied human matter, reconstituted into the Reaper.”

The anger is there, throbbing at the nape of Shepard’s neck, but something cool swallows it that she doesn’t quite recognize. There is no time to unpack it, to think about why she feels so level and even-keeled when this atrocity hangs before her. Instead, Shepard says, “The tubes look like a structural weakness. Can you confirm?”

“Yes. If you destroy the cylinders feeding the Reaper, the support structure should collapse, and the Reaper should fall.”

“Seems easy enough,” Shepard says with a confidence that she doesn’t quite feel, but at least the rage has not consumed her. “Get sniping, Krios. Miranda and I will handle any company.”

No sooner do the words leave Shepard’s mouth than a platform rises to meet theirs with surprising speed. Thane ducks behind cover, bipod appearing in front of him shortly after, no doubt a help in stabilizing such a long-range shot, and Miranda tosses an approaching drone into the abyss below with her biotics. Thane fires off three rounds in quick succession as Shepard deploys her drone to be his bodyguard, and at the third shot, the leftmost cylinder shatters, orange spilling into the emptiness below as the Reaper shifts downward with a creaking groan.

“Nice shot,” Miranda says with a modicum of enthusiasm (from her, a nearly over-the-top display).

“It was three in exactly the same spot, but thanks for noticing,” Thane says dryly. Shepard’s drone chirps aggressively next to his head, a reminder not to rest on his laurels, and Shepard almost snorts before the next wave of Collectors prepares to swarm, another platform approaching. She and Miranda wipe them in moments (too easy, whispers Shepard’s mind), as Thane breaks the second and third cylinders. He stops to adjust, swinging the barrel of his rifle towards the final tube, and then, just as Shepard thinks that perhaps they will succeed, the Collectors pinch them.

Two platforms rise on either side, one in front of Miranda and Shepard and the other behind Thane. Thane spares Shepard a look that lasts only a moment, but she understands the question perfectly. “Keep shooting,” Shepard snarls, sliding across cover like it’s the hood of a car she’s just stolen back on Earth as Miranda pours bullets into the drones approaching from the front.

Shepard’s committed to the charge, barreling past Thane as he unloads a final set of shots into the last cylinder, but as she pulls back her fist and activates her omni-gauntlet the Collector explodes with light.

“You are shortsighted.”

Her fist connects, but instead of the armor she expected, Shepard finds Harbinger's barrier instead.

“Fuck,” Shepard swears, trying to move backwards, but Harbinger pulls a leaf from Miranda’s book, surrounding Shepard in biotics and tossing her to the side like the effort does not tax them at all. Her eyes widen and her stomach jumps into her throat, nausea and fear making a formidable cocktail, and Shepard’s body careens over the side of the platform as Thane blasts the final tube into oblivion.

Shepard closes her eyes, bracing for something that will probably kill her before biotics envelop her again, Miranda laying on her stomach over the edge of the platform, lifting her back upwards from the brink of death. Miranda retrieves her just quickly enough for Shepard to see Thane’s rifle swing towards Harbinger, as deadly as ever, before dispatching them.

Behind them, the Reaper lolls forward, metal scratching against metal as it is pulled down by its own weight. It is little more than an embryo now, if EDI is to be believed, but its weight is still gargantuan, and it crashes downwards, pulling tubes and pieces of foundation with it. It falls out of sight, and Shepard breathes a sigh of relief.

“Nice save,” Shepard says to Miranda, and to Thane, “Knew you could do it.”

“Not the first time I’ve saved you from the inevitable,” Miranda smirks, and Thane simply smiles. Shepard heaves herself to her feet; she is so tired, and this mission is the type designed to kill.

Hailing the other team, Shepard says, “Ground team, status report?”

“It’s Kasumi. We’re all still intact, but they keep coming, and if I’m being honest, Shep, I’m about done with near-death experiences today.”

“Couldn’t agree more. Evacuate and head for the Normandy. We’re blowing this place and heading that way ourselves.”

“Copy that.”

Shepard is hardly an explosives expert, but any engineer can do lethal damage when given access to a main control console. She starts arming a self-destruct protocol, and nearly halfway through, Joker, apparently apologetic for interrupting, says, “Uh, Commander? Incoming signal from the Illusive Man. EDI’s patching it through.”

Shepard is down on one knee as Miranda’s omni-tool projects the Illusive Man’s image. For once, he isn’t smoking a cigarette; his face almost looks soft, and Shepard can’t figure out why.

“Shepard. You’ve done the impossible.” The projection flickers enough that Shepard can see Miranda through it.

“Not quite. I haven’t even gotten to the good part yet,” she says, fingers moving quickly. She had only spared him a brief look before, but when he doesn’t answer her immediately, Shepard stands.

“That’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. EDI uploaded the schematics to a Cerberus database, and a timed radiation pulse would wipe out the remaining Collectors, but leave the machinery intact.”

“You want…” Shepard trails off in disbelief. “After all the people I’ve lost here, you don’t want me to destroy the base?”

“This is humanity’s chance, Shepard,” the Illusive Man says, a thread of desperation in his voice. “Think of what we could do with this technology.”

“They liquefied people,” Shepard says incredulously, “They were doing the same with my crew; I just managed to get here in time. We have to destroy the base!”

The Illusive Man shakes his head as Miranda looks down. “Don’t be shortsighted-”

A dam within her breaks, the Illusive Man’s words too reminiscent of Harbinger’s just minutes before. He wants her to put in all this work and take on all the risk just to change the end goal at the last moment? The soothing presence containing Shepard’s anger lets up, and Shepard kneels down again, teeth gritted. “No. This place is an abomination, and I’m getting rid of it.”

Apparently he knows when Shepard can no longer be reasoned with, because the Illusive Man starts, “Miranda-”

But she only says, in a voice that is firm but small, “No.”

“Fine,” the Illusive Man says, tone hardening. “As usual, I have to make the hard decisions myself. Activate protocol seven-eight-three-four-four.”

Miranda gasps as he rattles off the same process that she herself had used to force-reset Shepard, fumbling to end the call, but she is too slow. Shepard’s limbs petrify, too heavy, control gone, and Thane lunges forward to catch her. He succeeds, but it is the last thing Shepard feels before her brain powers down.

Shepard-Commander.

When Shepard hears Legion’s voice, it is different from when she sees Irikah. They are disembodied, more like a part of her than their own individual. Still, tears surge to her eyes. She managed to save them, at least somehow, even if they are currently imprisoned in her neural pathways.

Shepard-Commander, the Illusive Man has initiated a reset protocol. We are attempting to combat it, but we are incompatible with your programming, and the protocol is intrinsic to it. We cannot gain control.

It should be chilling to hear a geth voice say that they are trying to gain control of her corporeal form, but in this void that Shepard knows too well, that is so dark that she cannot see her hands, it is actually comforting.

“What can we do?” she asks, and though she means it to be a whisper, the sound is so loud that she may as well have screamed.

All we require is your consent. We can override the reset and give your consciousness the brief time that it needs to recover. Whether you are piloting your platform or not makes no difference. We will relinquish control as soon as you are able to request it.

This day is already so fucking unbelievable. The question that it comes down to is this - Does Shepard trust Legion more than she trusts the Illusive Man?

From that framework, the decision could not be more alarmingly simple.

“Okay, Legion. Don’t sleep with my boyfriend while you’re me,” she says, the anxiety so heavy that it could crush her.

Affirmative.

Chapter Text

Shepard’s armor is hard as ever, but her body goes limp in Thane’s arms, light fading from her eyes as Miranda swears at the Illusive Man’s image.

“Consider this my resignation,” Miranda spits, and the projection flickers out, Miranda silhouetted by the light that had previously haloed the embryonic Reaper.

Thane’s heart thuds in his chest. It had taken Shepard hours to recover after her questionable series of choices aboard the dead Reaper. He can carry her, but that leaves Miranda effectively alone to deal with any threats-

Shepard’s body tenses, more rigid than she has ever been in his arms, and she blinks twice. Her dark brown pupils gloss over and then sharpen, the metallic sliver that Thane had noted earlier overwhelming their normal color.

“Shepard,” Miranda breathes out, a sigh of relief, but Thane is not so sure, and he is proven right almost immediately.

“Sere Krios,” Shepard says, and Thane’s blood runs cold, her eyes completely silver. “Officer Lawson. We are here to assist.”

Shepard’s body stands, and Miranda, very nearly slack-jawed, asks, “Legion?”

Shepard (Legion?) nods minutely. “Affirmative.”

Their voice is stilted in Shepard’s body, uncomfortable with the undulations of her human voice. Thane does not even know what question to ask, but Legion continues, “The concept does not translate well for organics, but Shepard-Commander’s consciousness is rebooting. We are assisting in the process as best we can. Until then, we will be responsible for her platform.”

Miranda blinks twice, and Thane looks to her for guidance. He has never much been one for making decisions, and though his primary concern is getting Shepard to safety, Thane knows that that is what Miranda wants as well. He will defer to her leadership. Shepard did not choose Miranda as her XO, but he also knows that she has come to trust Miranda anyways. He will do the same.

Miranda steels her face, taking stock of the situation, but she does not have time to get very far, a creaking noise behind them. Thane turns quickly, but there is nothing to see from his woefully inadequate vantage point.

With terrifying speed, the Reaper’s hand rises from down below and crunches into the platform where they are standing. It pulls itself upward until both of its eyes are above the threshold that they stand upon, and as it does so, the platform sinks downward, sloping towards the Reaper’s mouth. Miranda’s feet begin to slide, and when Legion reaches out a hand, she takes it without hesitation.

“Orders?” Legion’s speech patterns are their own, inflected only slightly differently with Shepard’s voice. To her credit, Miranda is done stumbling; the no-nonsense look is back on her face.

“EDI, do we have to kill this thing, or will it blow with the base?” Miranda asks as Thane fires a clip’s worth of AR fire into the Reaper’s eye, now lit up with whatever life essence that the Collectors have stolen from humans.

EDI answers nearly instantly. “The charge that Shepard began setting is enough to destroy the Reaper as well as the base. However, it is not yet armed.”

“Legion, do it,” Miranda orders. To Thane, she says, “We cover them until they’ve finished, and then we get out of here as fast as we can.”

Thane does not need to be told twice. The Reaper screeches at a frequency that rattles Thane’s bones, and Legion kneels, putting Shepard’s hands to work on the charge that Shepard herself had begun to set.

The Reaper’s half-formed jaw illuminates, an orange too close to the color of the human matter that the Collectors have used as its building blocks. A beam of energy singes past Miranda; Thane smells burnt hair and flesh, and Miranda swears in pain, but she is still standing.

“Collector particle ray,” Legion says, their back still turned, “Designed to disintegrate organic material.”

“Don’t think it matters with a laser that big,” Miranda says through gritted teeth. “ETA?”

The Reaper dips below their line of vision as Thane’s latest shot glances harmlessly off the surface near its eye. Miranda’s left hand clasps her right upper arm, applying medi-gel to the place the beam has charred off her bodysuit.

“We are faster than organics. We require forty-seven seconds.”

“Okay,” Miranda says, still grimacing. “New plan. Bullets aren’t doing anything. We have to draw the laser away from the bomb.”

“I’m fast, but I don’t know if I’m that fast,” Thane says, trying for realism but sounding more pessimistic.

Miranda laughs darkly as the Reaper’s eyes crest above the platform once again. “I don’t know what better option there is.” The spot where Miranda applied the medi-gel is red and raw, still. Thane doesn’t want to think about what damage the Reaper could do if it scored a clean hit.

They duck down under cover as the beam recharges. “What do you want me to do?” Thane asks. Miranda is not a better leader than Shepard is, but she is a much more logical one. Miranda bites her lip hard, running calculations, and she says, “You run to the far right and I’ll run to the far left. Its higher functions can’t be that advanced with as early as it still is in development; if it sees us moving, it should focus one of us instead of Legion.”

In truth, Thane hates this plan. It is the opposite of everything he wants to be. In an ideal world, he would never even be noticed, much less used as bait.

Still, Thane says, “Okay,” and vaults out of cover, breaking into a sprint with no guarantee that Miranda has done the same, though the pounding of feet on the platform leads him to believe that she has.

The Reaper’s mouth ray finishes charging, and its head swings slowly from left to right, looking at both Thane and Miranda in turn, but not sparing a moment for where Legion is nearly stationary in Shepard’s body. They have at least succeeded in that. A painstaking lull hangs in the air as the Reaper seems to make a choice, and with blinding speed, it targets the spot where Thane is standing.

“Objective complete,” Legion says, but Thane doesn’t hear it until afterwards. Perhaps the Reaper has internally fine-tuned its firing algorithms following its near-miss on Miranda, or perhaps Thane is simply a little slow. In any event, the Reaper misses, but not really. Thane dives backwards, away from the laser, but it hits the platform at full force, and it tilts once again. The Reaper stares down on Thane as he loses his footing, and it grips the edge with one malformed hand, yanking downward. Thane slips, tumbling down towards the black, and truly, this would not be such a terrible way to die. He has reconciled with his son, found meaning in friendship, and even been lucky enough to experience love once more.

Miranda screams his name, her cool facade finally slipping enough to allow panic through, and although this would be a fitting end, he does not want to die. Thane scrambles to look back even as the abyss threatens to swallow him.

And Shepard is there. It should be Legion in her body, and maybe it still is; Thane cannot say how he knows. Maybe it is that she has always been an angel, a protector, a guardian of the highest order even when she is on the brink of self-destruction, but with one arm, Shepard latches onto a piece of the platform that should stabilize them, and with the other, she reaches out to him.

Through her visor, her eyes are still the same silver color, but even if Legion is in charge, Thane knows it is Shepard when she says, “Come on, Krios. You promised me you’d at least try to live.”

Thane clasps her forearm with his hand, and Shepard does the same with his. Drell are far too heavy for any human to be able to do this, but Shepard yanks him back to his feet, a wonder of organic and synthetic hybridity, and though it is steep, they are able to run.

“Shepard? Is that you?” Miranda asks, too calm again for the situation that they are in.

Shepard nods and then shakes her head. “Sort of. I don’t know. Let’s talk after we get out of here. EDI, you got anything for us?”

“I can create a bridge of platforms to get you back to the previous chamber. The Reaper should not have much mobility given its early stage of development, but I do not have an estimate on its combat capabilities.”

“Do it,” Shepard says, taking point again with Miranda and Thane flanking her on either side. “How long do we have?”

“Without diminishing your capabilities, Legion is a more effective demolitions expert than you would have been. You have seven minutes and thirteen seconds to clear the base.”

“Couldn’t have done it a little worse, could you, Legion?” Shepard mumbles to herself, the light of the energy beam only barely dimmed by the distance between them and the Reaper. “I wasn’t exactly awake. How long does it take this thing to fire?” Shepard pauses like she’s waiting for an answer, but before Thane or Miranda can give one, she shakes her head. “That’s not as long as I’d like.”

Legion. She’s talking to Legion.

The Reaper fires again, and the distance does not change the travel time of its particle beam much at all. In a near instant the beam is upon them, chasing Miranda’s footsteps. Thane does not hold his breath (he cannot afford it, running as they are), but when the Reaper lets up to recharge once more, he is grateful that they are at the end of the platforms and into the previous chamber. They run past Legion’s mangled platform, but there is no time to give it more than a cursory glance. Though the immediate danger is gone, the base exploding is almost as pressing.

Thane has the hubris to start feeling optimistic. Their previous exploits have left them with a straight shot back to the ship as soon as they are back on more solid ground.

“Shepard, I have lost control,” EDI says, and as punctuation, the floor that they are standing on spirals back from whence it came, taking them along for the proverbial ride. The Reaper’s mobility is limited, exactly as EDI had predicted, but it has been moving towards them the entire time that they have been running away. “Harbinger-”

Maybe EDI continues speaking, but Thane does not hear it. The Reaper, an exercise in the uncanny valley if there ever was one, slams its fist into the middle of the platform where they are still standing and sends them all flying downward together.

Thane struggles to stay on his feet, but Miranda has the presence of mind to throw up a biotic barrier, protecting them from any loose shrapnel.

“Something’s wrong,” Shepard grunts through gritted teeth.

If Miranda had the capacity to sound hysterical, she probably would. “We’re free-falling through the Collector base. There’s a lot wrong.”

“No. Harbinger is trying to-” Shepard screams, clutching a fist to her temple. “I’m so fucking tired of things being in my body that don’t belong! Legion, get them out!”

Sweat beads on Miranda’s brow from the effort of maintaining the barrier, and Thane throws his own hands out to relieve some of the burden. He can’t do anything for Shepard, and initially, that grants him a modicum of peace.

Then Shepard draws her SMG, and points it at herself.

“Siha,” Thane breathes out, barely more than a whisper, and their eyes meet through her visor for only a fraction of a second. Time freezes, and the moment feels as though it lasts an eternity.

Her hands tremble, and Thane and Miranda stare at her, breathless. Thane watches as her finger slowly tightens around the trigger before finally, after what feels like a century, Shepard re-holsters the gun as if she had never held it to her head in the first place.

“I’m going to need a lot of therapy,” Shepard says wanly, a joke that falls flat, but for the moment, she seems safe.

The air continues rushing past them as they fall, and EDI says, “Brace for impact,” in time for both Thane and Miranda to direct their biotics to cushion their impact. The effort is valiant, and enough to stave off imminent death, but all three of them lose their footing as the platform finally hits the ground.

Thane cries out in pain as both his and Miranda’s biotics fizzle out. They would have anyway; the task of wrapping the platform in biotics was gargantuan and made only bigger by trying to soften the fall. But Thane’s outburst is not for that. His arm is pinched between a panel that had come loose and the ground. Miranda is silent, as Thane surveys the situation, and she lays immobile with her eyes closed not far from where he is pinned.

The pain in his arm is not unknown to him. He can say with almost complete certainty that it’s broken. More worrying than that, though, is that he cannot see Shepard. Thane does not think he lost consciousness, but he must have, because otherwise, Shepard would be next to him and Miranda.

“Shepard,” Thane says, weakly. He is more tired than he has been in a long time, but they are so near the end.

“Sere Krios,” comes her voice, but it isn’t her. Legion’s words come from behind him, and as Legion twists himself to see, Shepard’s body is ramrod straight, looking away from him. “Shepard-Commander’s various operating systems have been compromised by the Illusive Man’s reset protocol. She is vulnerable to Collector attack, and Harbinger is attempting-” Legion stops speaking suddenly as though otherwise occupied before continuing. “We are deploying security measures. With distance from the base, she should regain control of her faculties.”

Thane swallows hard. “Can you lift this off of me? It’s too heavy for me to push off with just one good arm. My other one is broken.”

Initially, Legion does not move, but after another few moments, they lift the panel off of Thane’s bicep with little effort. Thane winces as he attempts to move it. It is broken, beyond a doubt.

“Is Miranda-”

“Officer Lawson has normal vitals, as did you.”

“Commander?” Panic threads through Joker’s voice. “Come on, Shepard, don’t leave me hanging.”

Shepard is locked inside her body and Miranda is unconscious. With some hesitance, Thane says, “We’re here, Joker. I believe everyone is okay if a little… worse for wear.”

It’s an understatement.

Joker’s fear overrides the fact that it is Thane speaking rather than Shepard or even Miranda. “The ground team just made it back. The charge is set to go off in three minutes. All we’re waiting on is you.”

Legion rests one of Shepard’s hands on Miranda’s shoulder, and Miranda shudders as her eyes open.

“We’re close,” Thane says, and as Legion pulls Miranda upright, they start moving.

Shepard’s body is moving, but it isn’t her. She is locked away in her own head. It is hard to begrudge Legion this monumental favor that he is doing her, but it is hard to watch someone else control her limbs, free her lover, awaken her XO.

Harbinger has paralyzed her. She swims in their whispers (this hurts you, we are eternal, you cannot resist, we are unmatched), and the exhaustion wears on her. It would be easy to fall asleep, wouldn’t it? To let Legion take the reins and not be responsible for once?

As though it is a vid, Shepard watches. Thane nurses an injured arm as best as he can while also sprinting towards the Normandy, and the spot where the Reaper burned through Miranda’s suit is angry and red.

Harbinger’s intrusive monologue finally ceases. Legion’s voice is mechanical but soothing, a welcome respite from Harbinger, and the difference between the two is never so pronounced as when Shepard hears their disembodied voice.

We have set up as many safeguards as are relevant. We will not keep your body from you, though pieces of it are operating suboptimally following intervention from both the Illusive Man and Harbinger.

Legion shifts backward, going dormant and relinquishing control as Shepard steps back into her own body. Initially, she does not understand what Legion means; Shepard is too focused on the seeker swarms threatening to collapse on them from all directions. Her feet feel sluggish, though, heavy, and Shepard wonders if that is going to be a permanent state.

The Normandy is in sight. Their escape is at their fingertips, and Gabby is at the dock with an assault rifle, shooting into the swarms. Shepard lets out a sigh of relief, and her feet, at the lapse in focus, stumble.

“One minute, Shepard! You’re killing me!” Joker says, like he knows that she’s back in control.

Miranda grips her by the shoulder and forces Shepard forward. Thane crosses the gap between the base and the Normandy with ease, and Miranda leaps, a little less gracefully than Thane but clearing the distance regardless.

Shepard doesn’t trust her body, her legs heavy, but there’s no choice. If she doesn’t jump, she dies here.

With as much speed as she can manage, Shepard launches herself off the edge, arms outstretched, but it’s not enough. As soon as her feet leave the ground, she knows that it’s not enough.

“Sorry,” she whispers, to herself more than anyone else, and closes her eyes, bracing for the inevitable free fall, but hands clasp her forearms, a team that won’t let her die.

Thane has gripped her left arm with his own uninjured one, and both of Miranda’s hands have grabbed her other. Gabby fires indiscriminately behind them, and Miranda smiles her insufferably beautiful smile.

“You should be sorry. You almost put me in a position where I’d have to resurrect you again,” she says, long dark hair whipping around them as Joker evacuates the Normandy from the base.

Shepard’s throat tightens as Thane and Miranda pull her up. Thane flinches at the effort, using his bad arm to assist, but he smiles too, once Shepard is no longer dangling in the air.

“You promised me we’d live, siha. You don’t get to die first.”

Shepard tears off her helmet as the base erupts in hellfire, a backdrop of destruction that juxtaposes too heavily with the hope that Shepard feels. With one arm, she pulls Miranda close, and with the other, she pulls in Thane, holding both of them in gratitude and relief.

Chapter Text

There’s no glass in her hand. She wants to be sober, but alcohol would be a welcome respite as Shepard’s back slides down the wall that Zaeed always used to lean against.

That anyone came back from the relay alive is a miracle by every definition. If they had accomplished the mission and Joker had been the only one left, it still would have been a miracle. They lost Kelly and Gardner and Donnelly. They lost Zaeed.

It’s still a victory. Shepard presses the heel of her hand to her forehead. Most of the crew has stabilized since they’ve made their escape. Only Tali remains in critical condition, though Mordin has assured Shepard that she is on the upswing.

Shepard clenches her eyes shut. Zaeed would laugh and call her a clown for acting like this, but Zaeed isn’t here.

Gabby had tried so hard not to cry when Shepard had put Donnelly’s dog tags in her hands, and then she’d asked where Legion was, and Shepard hadn’t had a good answer.

She hadn’t asked for permission or advice from anyone but EDI before interfacing with the ship and uploading Legion into the Normandy. EDI said that she’d be able to get their consciousness back to geth space, and Legion had concurred that that was the best course of action. Now Shepard’s all alone in her head, and it’s almost lonely.

Seeing Irikah would be nice, but Shepard can’t make herself sleep. She and Thane are going to meet in her cabin in a few hours. Treating his broken arm hadn’t been a priority for Mordin given the severity of everyone else’s conditions, but Mordin had also insisted on locking all injured parties down until cleared.

So it doesn’t make sense when the door slides open and Garrus walks through, looking worse for wear but not so bad considering the ordeal that he’s been put through.

“How’d you get medical clearance to be down here?” Shepard asks, gesturing at a chair beside the table that still holds Zaeed’s old rifle.

“Lied. A lot,” he says, wincing as he lowers himself.

Shepard snorts. “How are you holding up?”

Garrus shrugs, an affectation that he’s borrowed from her. “Hard to complain when Tali barely recognizes anyone, her fever’s so high.”

Shepard looks away from Garrus. “Sorry I wasn’t faster.”

When Garrus laughs, it surprises her. “Oh, fuck off, Shepard. We all know you blasted your way into the base as quick as you could.”

Shepard rests her arm on her knee at the elbow, wrist hanging downward. “It never gets any easier.”

There are four more names to add to the memorial wall. In Cerberus’s faithful reconstruction of the first Normandy, they had kept Kaidan and Jenkins’ names exactly where they should have been. Zaeed and Kelly and Gardner and Donnelly will join them.

Shaking his head, Garrus says, “No. But you did the best you could. Better than any of us could have done.” He pauses like he isn’t sure that he wants to say the next part and continues anyway. “And if something this terrible ever does get easy, I’ll kill you myself.”

Shepard smirks tiredly and lets her head rest against the wall.

“You can’t be serious,” Shepard says as Thane walks through the door. “I just saved every human life in the Terminus colonies, and you have the audacity-”

“If there was anyone else, Commander, I’d ask them.” A projection of an older human male in a highly decorated Alliance uniform is the source of the voice. “Dr. Kenson is a deep-cover operative and a personal friend. This isn’t an Alliance operation. I’m asking for a favor. Go alone, or don’t go at all. The batarians will clock anything else immediately. And that part’s an order.”

The silence that follows is heavy, and finally, through gritted teeth, Shepard says, “Send me the coordinates.”

“Thank you, Commander. Hackett out.”

The image disappears, and Shepard has still not noticed Thane’s presence. She pounds a fist into her desk with not-inconsiderable force, and her chest heaves as she lets her hand rest in the crater that the action creates.

“Siha,” Thane says as softly as he can manage, but she still whips around as though he has shouted. Her eyes are still that same silver color that they have been since she swallowed Legion’s blue box, the deep, endless brown that he has grown to love nowhere to be seen. Still, Shepard’s face softens when she sees him.

“Hi. I’m sorry. Nobody was supposed to hear that.”

“I am nothing if not discreet,” he says, and she exhales a laugh.

They stare at one another as though neither of them is sure how to navigate their post-suicide mission relationship, but eventually, Shepard wraps her arms around him. “I’m so glad I didn’t lose you,” she says, voice muffled, and she looks up at him before saying, “How’s your arm?”

“Broken,” Thane says dryly, and Shepard’s eyes drift to the sling he is wearing. “I was not a priority, to say the least, in the med bay, but Dr. Chakwas gave me a local healing agent. It should be back to normal in a cycle or two, depending on how much I tax it. How’s your…” He trails off, not sure how to ask.

“My brain?” Shepard asks, snorting, pulling out of his arms and sitting down on the bed. “Just me in here now, as far as I know. We haven’t had time to open me up and pull out all the malfunctioning junk, but Miranda was able to change my reboot code or whatever you want to call it remotely. She’s the only one who knows it now.”

Thane takes the spot next to her. “And you’re okay with that?”

Shepard shrugs. “I guess so. She turned her back on the Illusive Man and Cerberus, as far as I can tell. She saved my life multiple times over on the Collector base. I don’t really think she’s the enemy anymore.”

Humming in satisfaction with the answer, Thane doesn’t say anything more. Seconds turn to minutes and minutes pass into what could be hours.

“I’m going to retrofit that window. I’ll nail up wooden planks myself, if I have to,” Shepard says, falling onto her back.

“I’d been meaning to ask if you get to keep the Normandy,” Thane says, matching her but staring up at the stars. Shepard’s eyes are closed.

She laughs. “Who’s going to take it from me? If the Alliance takes me back, I’ll just tell them the ship is part of the package.”

“Do you want to go back to the Alliance?” Thane asks.

Shepard’s eyes flutter open at that, but she only looks at him. Thane can see her in his peripheral vision. “I don’t know. Officially, I think I’m still dead to the Alliance, but I don’t know anything else. I’ve been doing things for Hackett and the brass on and off since the minute I woke up on that table, though. They could court-martial me for all this Cerberus stuff, but…”

When she doesn’t finish her sentence, Thane picks it up. “You’re still Commander Shepard. You’re still the first human Spectre and the Hero of the Blitz and the Savior of the Citadel. They need you for propaganda if nothing else.”

Shepard runs a thumb over her dog tags, unwilling to confirm or deny what he’s said. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What are you going to do next?”

Thane has hardly considered it as an existential question, but the immediate answer is easy. “We’re heading for the Citadel now. Mordin has called in some favors with the Special Tasks Group, and they’ve secured priority passage to Sur’Kesh for us.”

“Sur’Kesh?” Shepard sits up in surprise, looking down at him. “Why?”

“Miranda is on the run from more or less everyone, at this point. While my procedure could be performed on the Citadel, they think that it would be preferable for as few questions to be asked as possible.”

Shepard’s face falls. “I can’t come to Sur’Kesh. That call was- I can’t put off doing what Hackett just asked of me.”

Thane smiles softly. “I know the price of loving a siha. You will be there when you can.”

“Sur’Kesh is humid,” Shepard says, smiling tightly. “You better get those lungs fixed up fast.”

“After I’m cleared for travel, I’ll return to the Citadel, to Kolyat. And I will wait for you. I haven’t died, and I took an oath; my arm is still yours.”

Shepard does not want to share whatever mission that she is going on, and though Thane is curious, he will not pry. There is perhaps no one else in the galaxy better qualified to understand what it is like to take on a job that cannot be shared with anyone. Shepard will tell him in her own time, or she will not. It does not change what she means to him.

After a moment, Shepard asks, “Who’s going to Sur’Kesh?”

“Mordin, Miranda, and Dr. Chakwas, who insisted on being involved. She claimed that the venture desperately needed a human resources representative present, and though I still do not understand what that means, Miranda had laughed.”

Shepard barks out a genuine laugh. “Oh, Chakwas. She just means that someone needs to be involved to make sure that they don’t get so wrapped up in the science that they forget you’re a person.”

Despite everything that they have lost, Shepard is smiling. It is a little sad, but it is a smile nonetheless.

“Aren’t you tired?” Thane asks.

Shepard grips her dog tags once more and reclaims her spot next to him.

“Exhausted.”

“I was worried you’d be gone,” Shepard says to no one. She lies on her back, the sand warm. Irikah will be there or she won’t. Shepard can’t do anything about it either way, and if she was gone, as Shepard thought she might be, she doesn’t know how she ended up on this drell beach again. Irikah is the only reason she’s ever been here in the first place.

Scales catch in her hair as Irikah lifts Shepard’s head into her lap. “I wasn’t sure what would happen either. Your mission is done, after all.”

“I don’t think I could ever be convinced to let anyone take you from me,” Shepard says, grinning as Irikah’s fingers massage her scalp. “You’re not leaving me unless you want to.”

Irikah’s movements pause, but only for a moment. In truth, it is more of a stutter before she resumes. “Do you remember when we first met?” she asks.

“I thought you were an angel,” Shepard says without hesitation. “I still think you’re an angel.”

Shepard closes her eyes, but she can hear the amused smile in Irikah’s voice. “The first thing that I ever said to you was that you looked lost.”

Uncalled for, a pang of fear grips Shepard’s chest. “You had a perfect read. I didn’t- Well, I’ve never really thought I was immortal, but I wasn’t scared to die, really. I was lost in every way conceivable. I’d just figured out to be afraid, and it was way too late to do anything about it.”

When Shepard opens her eyes, Irikah is looking down at her, silhouetted by the sun. “I don’t know how to say this without sounding cruel, but in a way, I’m glad that you died, because otherwise I would never have been able to know you. I’m sorry that you suffered, but I’m so thankful that I got the chance to play a role in this journey of yours.”

Shepard’s mouth goes dry. Their connection is outside the bounds of romance or friendship. It is the only reason that she is alive, and she will never be able to explain it to another person. Not even Thane, for all his considerable empathy, will be able to understand.

“It’s a little cruel,” Shepard says, trying for a joke to offset how she follows up. “But I love you, so I’ll let it slide.”

She searches Irikah’s face for a reaction of some kind, but all she can find is warmth. “I love you too, siha.”

Chapter Text

Sur’Kesh feels very much like Kahje. There is far more land here than on Kahje, but there is still an abundance of ocean. The ship that shuttles Thane, Miranda, Chakwas, and Mordin there from the Citadel is small but fully staffed, and Thane has more than a suspicion that whatever favor Mordin has called in is above and beyond the proverbial call of duty. If Thane had to guess, the ship itself was STG-affiliated.

Salarians waste no time, and this occasion is no exception. When the ship touches down, the crew ushers them off hurriedly but unsloppily.

Shepard takes Tali’s hands in hers. The spare mask does not fit her suit exactly; the color is wrong, the purple too dark. The one that had shattered in the Collector pod was sunbleached and worn.

“Get better, okay?” Shepard says. Her voice wavers, so slightly that I’m sure no one else has heard. Miranda wraps her arms around herself as the medical staff that met us at the dock wheels Tali away.

Shepard looks at me, eyes tired. If any of us deserve a moment to rest, she does. Her eyes, still silver from Legion’s influence, meet mine. She kisses me.

“See you soon,” she says, and boards the Normandy again. “Say hello to Kolyat for me. And good luck.”

When Thane snaps back into the present, Miranda is saying to Mordin, “I don’t even think that I would call this a radical treatment. People have done reinforcement with synthetic weave for years; it’s costly, but otherwise-”

Chakwas steps up next to him. “Not getting cold feet, are we?”

Thane blinks twice at her. “My feet are… the normal temperature.”

“I’m just asking if you’ve gotten nervous and changed your mind,” Chakwas says, smiling.

“Yes and no,” Thane answers honestly. “I have not changed my mind. But to say I’m not nervous would be disingenuous.”

Nodding, Chakwas says, “Understandable. You could not ask for a better surgical team, though, in my opinion. I am more of a general practitioner, but Mordin’s mind is unparalleled, and you’ve fallen in love with Miranda’s handiwork, if I’m not mistaken.”

His relationship with Shepard has never been secret, but it is still alien to hear a mutual friend speak of it so openly. Thane smiles softly. “I know. I could not be in more qualified hands.”

A salarian small enough that Thane would venture she is an adolescent ushers him and Chakwas both forward. Mordin, of course, seems more than comfortable with the pace, as does Miranda.

“Miranda should have been born a salarian, I think,” Chakwas says dryly.

Thane laughs, but allows himself to be shepherded into whatever operating room that Mordin’s considerable pull has allotted them. “She does seem quite comfortable here.”

The depth of Thane’s eyes would be intimidating, were Miranda a lesser person. Mordin has never bothered maintaining eye contact with anyone on the Normandy, and Chakwas has never had the privilege of being pinned to the wall by Thane’s rock-solid forearm. Miranda does not fear him, but she does respect his potential in a way that perhaps she initially underestimated.

It is no wonder what Shepard sees in him. Thane watches Miranda’s every movement as she scrubs in, gloves and all. This surgery should not take three doctors (though Miranda is not technically a doctor; there was no point in getting the actual degree), but Mordin has relinquished enough control of the operation to allow Miranda to hold both the proverbial and literal scalpel.

She’s thankful for the work. It gives her a moment not to worry about Tali.

“We’re going to put you under,” Chakwas says, with a softer touch than Miranda or Mordin possess. “Normally, local anesthesia would be enough, but given the delicate state of your lungs, it’s safer if you aren’t awake.”

Thane pulls his eyes from Miranda to meet Chakwas’s, and nods. Once Chakwas’s back is turned, his lips move silently, no doubt one of his many prayers. When he stops, Miranda starts to fix a mask over Thane’s mouth, but pauses as his infinite gaze bores into her own. “If it’s any comfort,” Miranda says, “I wouldn’t try to kill you in your sleep.”

When they recruited him, Miranda had thought Thane didn’t have a personality. She couldn’t have been more incorrect. Thane smiles, a little darkly. “You wouldn’t have a chance, if I was awake.”

Miranda smirks. “Don’t tempt me to do something while you’re under. Shepard would be very upset with both of us.”

“Miranda.” Mordin’s voice borders on impatient. “Wasting time. My pull is not infinite. Neither is STG’s goodwill.”

Thane nods and takes the mask from Miranda, pressing it over his mouth and nose until his breathing slows and deepens.

Whether Mordin is doing this favor for Thane, for Shepard, or simply for science is unclear, but the Lazarus Project is the only other place where Miranda has been surrounded by such resources.

“Written down, this seems very simple. Do you foresee complications?” Chakwas asks mildly, and Miranda shrugs.

“As you said, it seems quite straightforward, but I am never one to discount potential obstacles.”

The first cut requires more force than Miranda expected. She has never operated on a drell before, and his scales do not give as easily as human skin, but internally, drell are not so different. His ribcage is sturdier as well, and Miranda has never truly favored a bone saw, but the precise point where the injection needs to happen is blocked by a portion of the sternum.

“Deterioration in line with biopsy sample,” Mordin says, busying himself with a syringe that Miranda would certainly not want anywhere near any of her organs. The synthetic weave compound is still in a liquid state, sloshing around in the syringe’s barrel. Once injected into Thane’s lung tissue, the weave will solidify, replacing the worst of the deterioration and reinforcing the places where the Kepral’s progression is less pronounced. Once its spread is halted, the only way that Thane’s lungs will continue to decline is if he moves back to Kahje or someplace similar full-time. Once they are done, he will be able to live out the rest of his life as normal on the Citadel, if he wishes.

Though, tied to Shepard as he is, Miranda doubts that Thane will settle down in that way.

Flicking the barrel twice satisfies Mordin, and he hands the syringe to Miranda, who inserts the needle into the place where the bronchi split. Steadily, Miranda pushes down on the plunger, watching the silver-gray liquid disappear into Thane’s lungs, and when she has emptied it and removed the needle again, she exhales.

Chakwas moves to stitch up the cuts that Miranda has made, but Mordin stops her. Generally speaking, medi-gel in high concentrations is enough to hold a wound together, but stitches hurry along the healing process, stabilizing flesh that the medi-gel is holding together. Chakwas furrows her brow, but doesn’t protest as Mordin snaps his fingers at a salarian standing off to the side of the room. “Compound X-4832.”

The salarian blinks multiple times before finding her voice. “Dr. Solus, that’s reserved for STG operatives-”

When Mordin whips around to face her, Miranda sees the salarian shrink. “Was not asking, Aella. Issues with superiors can be taken up with me.”

Aella nods twice and doesn’t question Mordin any further, gone and back almost faster than Miranda can blink. When she returns, she’s holding a small briefcase. Mordin opens it slowly, and as the latches click, cold air seeps out.

“What is that?” Miranda asks, curiosity winning out because what’s inside looks like nothing more than a packet of medi-gel.

Chakwas, unimpressed thus far, says, “Whatever it is, I assume it will do a better job of holding him together than my stitches.”

“Indeed,” Mordin says, that particular tone in his voice that means he is not actually listening to what they are saying and instead preparing to go off on a monologue. “Compound X-4832 is a highly classified STG project designed to hasten healing. Current medi-gel has limits for each species depending on the species and individual’s metabolic rate; medi-gel works in tandem with the individual rather than outside of their biological construction. Compound X-4832 does the same while making infinite and instantaneous healing calorically sustainable.”

Aella’s eyes are wide and her mouth is open, no doubt because Mordin has just effectively divulged a state secret to two humans. Chakwas raises a skeptical eyebrow as Mordin applies the compound to the place where Miranda had used a bone saw not so long ago. “You’re saying that this induces effectively instant healing?”

“Yes.” Mordin stands back, satisfied with the distribution.

“What, exactly, is your rationale behind using this on a drell that would have recovered from this invasive surgery relatively quickly anyway?” Miranda asks.

“Every appeal to experiment with compound on other species has been denied. Cannot be denied if I do not ask permission.”

Miranda snorts, but her skepticism quickly fades as Thane’s rib cage becomes whole again before their eyes. It’s a wonder beyond compare as his bones grow into one another before. Behind them, Aella murmurs, “So much trouble…” In response, Mordin simply slathers on more, this time topically, to the spots where Thane’s flesh needs to connect again.

Still, despite the novelty of Mordin’s cutting-edge STG technology, the operation was nothing short of simple. They won’t know the success of the surgery until later, but -

“Curing Kepral’s can’t be this easy. This can’t be all there is to it,” Chakwas says, echoing Miranda’s exact thoughts.

Mordin doesn’t look up from where he’s scrolling through Thane’s medical file, but he sounds surprised. “Of course it is. Hanar benefit from subservient drell population. Operation expensive because synthetic weave is expensive, but there are few drell. That drell are doomed to this illness is a calculation, not an oversight.”

When Thane wakes, he feels as though it is from eternal, dreamless sleep. Chakwas sits at his bedside, reading from a datapad, and for a moment, he is alarmed. There should be more pain; they told him that they would have to cut into his chest, that even with concentrated, professional-grade medi-gel, it would take him days to heal.

Chakwas smiles warmly as Thane places a hand against his too-whole chest. “I imagine you’re a little sore, but feeling better than you thought?”

“To say the least. Did something go wrong?”

“On the contrary. By all accounts, you should be fighting fit even right now.”

“And the Kepral’s…”

“Gone. Or at least neutralized. If you spend much time on Sur’Kesh, for example, I have no doubt you would relapse. But between the synthetic weave and the salarians’ groundbreaking healing technology, I would venture that there is not a fitter drell than you, at the moment.”

A numbness tempered by warmth spreads to Thane’s extremities. The same salarian who herded him into the operating room (Aella, Chakwas calls her) nervously twitches before saying that the sooner that they can leave the better. Though Thane feels like he shouldn’t be feeling up to walking, standing provides only minimal discomfort, and walking is the same.

Outside, Mordin chatters at an indulgent Miranda, who smirks when she sees him. Mordin, when he notices Thane, insists that he send frequent reports on his progress, and only stops once Thane agrees. It’s the least that he can do.

“All things considered,” Mordin says, “Best for you to get off Sur’Kesh. Am likely to be called for disciplinary hearing shortly, given my administration of Compound X-4832.”

Thane nods. “Thank you.”

“No thanks necessary. Prefer it if you keep me apprised.”

Miranda and Chakwas lead the way back to the STG ship that brought them to Sur’Kesh in the first place, and Thane is quick to follow.

He is not looking, but he hears Aella run to Mordin’s side, whispering in hushed tones that aren’t nearly quiet enough for Thane not to overhear.

“Dr. Solus, the Alpha Relay just exploded.”

Chapter Text

Hackett is long gone from the med bay, but Shepard is paralyzed. Her feet dangle from the cot, and her fingers dig into its frame; she has no doubt that she’s dented it.

She has committed genocide; by blowing up the Alpha Relay, Shepard has stopped the hearts of 300,000 people.

Every inch of Shepard’s skin is numb.

The Normandy is bones. The only people on board are herself, Hackett, Joker, and EDI, and EDI is the ship, so she doesn’t really count. On the deck below the CIC, Shepard screams. There’s no one around to hear her. With grief and fury and anguish, she wails.

She has toed the line under infinite circumstances. This time, she’s crushed it.

How many children has she murdered? Shepard’s cheeks are wet. Not long ago, she had thought she didn’t even have the capacity to cry anymore.

All it took was recognizing her lover’s dead wife. All it took was killing a planet’s worth of civilians. Shepard screams until her voice is hoarse. For months she’s worried that Cerberus turned her into a monster, but it was the Alliance all along. Hackett sent her on a mission, and the disregard of a cell of scientists left her with an impossible choice.

A star system to keep the destruction of the galaxy at bay.

The rage isn’t Cerberus. Shepard’s vision is clear, and the agony is her burden.

“EDI,” Shepard says, voice hollow, sore.

“Yes, Shepard.” EDI’s words are soft.

“A course for the Citadel, please.”

“Admiral Hackett has requested a drop-off on Earth.”

Shepard smiles in disbelief. The favor that he asked for has turned into an atrocity, and he has the audacity to try to set a course on her ship?

“Tell Hackett to go fuck himself. I’m spending a day on the Citadel, and then I’ll taxi him home and turn myself in.”

There is a pause, but then EDI repeats herself. “Yes, Shepard.”

Shepard waits until Hackett disembarks to do the same herself. She’s unstable; the fury swirls in her gut, and she wants to blame Hackett, but she made the choice. It wasn’t even a choice. There was never another decision that she could have made.

The Citadel feels sterile. Shepard would actually be happy to go back to Earth if not for the fact that it meant she was getting locked up. Shepard swallows hard and lets the feeling of her boots hitting the station ground her.

One step at a time. Tali’s in Huerta.

Actually, that’s just another failure, isn’t it? Tali’s in Huerta because Shepard let her get taken, and because Shepard didn’t get to her fast enough. It’s hard to shake the guilt.

“I’m here to see Tali’Zorah vas Normandy,” Shepard says to the asari receptionist, who nods.

She scrolls down a datapad and then types something on a terminal. It’s very clear, to Shepard at least, that her request is not a priority. Shepard’s sure there really are more important things going on in this hospital, and it isn’t the receptionist’s fault, but it’s taking too long and Shepard is tired of being fucked with. “I’m a Council Spectre, and if you don’t get me in there to see Tali right now, there is going to be hell to-”

“Shepard.”

Shepard doesn’t realize how heavily she’s breathing until a soft hand presses onto her shoulder. Miranda’s voice clears the fog of fury. The asari receptionist looks unimpressed with Shepard’s outburst, and Miranda says, “I’ll take her back to Tali if that’s alright?”

The receptionist, apparently unaffected by Shepard’s outburst, nods.

Miranda steers her in the direction of the ICU. Shepard offers the information up freely because she doesn’t want to carry it by herself any longer. “The Bahak system-”

“I know,” Miranda says softly. She doesn’t tell Shepard how she knows, but her network had been as broad as the galaxy while she was with Cerberus. Shepard doubts that it’s collapsed completely. Miranda continues, “You just missed Thane. He was here this morning.”

Another spear of guilt lances Shepard’s heart. She hadn’t even thought to ask after Thane with how consumed she’s been by what she’s done. “Is he okay?” she asks lamely, like that makes up for the fact that he has barely crossed her mind.

Miranda nods. “Yes. He can tell you himself, but the surgery went better than I expected because Mordin has no regard for protocol whatsoever.” The door in front of them slides open to a small viewing room with a large glass pane. “It’s a clean room,” Miranda says, and Shepard nods. Tali lies on her back with more tubes than Shepard can count attached to her suit, either asleep or unconscious. Shepard can’t tell.

“Is she going to be okay?” Shepard asks softly.

Miranda nods. “They think so. She’s stabilized a little more every day.”

The fist around Shepard’s heart unclenches just the minutest fraction.

“You didn’t die on me,” Shepard says when she finally sees Thane. She’s asked him to meet her at the dock; anywhere else, and this goodbye won’t be a goodbye at all. Shepard’s been loyal to the Alliance since conscription, but her loyalty has never been to the institution. It was to Anderson, and Hackett, and every crew she served with.

The Alliance proper she doesn’t care that much about. She never has. That wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows her as more than a symbol.

When Thane opens his arms, Shepard buries her face in his chest. His body rumbles with subvocals when he says, “They did the impossible.”

Shepard inhales the gun oil smell of his coat. “Your Kepral’s–”

“Neutralized, as long as I don’t abruptly decide to fully reside on Kahje again.” Thane’s voice is lighter than Shepard has ever heard it, and despite everything, she can’t help but smile. “So all that’s left is to figure out what’s next in a world where I never thought that I’d have a future.”

And that quickly, the joy of seeing him is swallowed by a goodbye more inevitable than most. He’s asking her a question without voicing it – where do we go next? – and Shepard is going to a place where he can’t follow.

She smirks instead, though he can’t see it. “It’d be nice to get some time with Kolyat, wouldn’t it? You’ve got plenty to catch up on, and now you don’t have a suicide mission or a terminal illness hanging over you.”

Thane exhales a laugh. “True enough. But nothing has changed for us. My arm is yours. And if the Alpha Relay is any indicator, you still have need of it.”

He mentions it lightly, as if it’s just another day on the job. Shepard can feel her throat constricting even as she fights to keep her voice level. “I have to face consequences for that. I’m going back to Earth.”

He frowns and pulls away from her. The loss leaves an aching hole in her chest. “Consequences?”

He was never going to understand. The Compact has swallowed too much of his life. “I wiped out the Bahak system, Thane. Someone has to pay for that, and I’m the one that pulled the trigger.”

“You were given an order,” he says. “I do not know the details, but you would never have been in the vicinity otherwise. The blame does not lie with you.”

She sees it, his logic. How can the weapon carry the fault? Shepard was forced into the situation by a superior officer. To Thane, that distinction means everything. The Alliance (and Shepard herself) perceive things differently.

She will bear the burden of those lives until the day she dies for good. Shepard shakes her head. “This isn’t a negotiation. I’m going back to Earth, and I’ll take my punishment the only way I know how.”

On the chin, with the knowledge that I’ll probably never see you again.

He should lash out in fury, but he won’t, because he’s Thane. He could tell her to forget the Alliance; with their skill sets, they could disappear anywhere in the galaxy. Cold fury burns in his eyes, made all the darker by the blackness of his pupils, and she wonders what a Thane undamaged by the Compact would say.

But that isn’t who he is. And even though he disagrees with her on a fundamental level, Thane understands duty better than anyone that Shepard has ever met.

“When your Alliance realizes that they are vilifying the wrong human,” Thane says, “Come find me.”

Shepard doesn’t know if that will ever come to pass. Both her hands are balled into fists, and she’s looking at the ground when she feels Thane’s lukewarm lips press against her forehead. He’s too composed to show whatever he’s feeling, but when his fingers brush her cheek for a ghost of a second, Shepard thinks he might be quivering. He has all these years to live now, and Shepard doubts that she’ll be able to see any of them. It’ll be a miracle if she ever goes anywhere but Earth again.

She looks up and says, “Thane–” but in the brief second that the action takes her, he’s disappeared, and she’s alone with only the ambient noise of the Citadel for company.

Shepard takes a shuddering breath and steels herself before walking in the direction of the Normandy.