Dust off the Pages

(Read Chapter Five)

Chapter Six: It’s Alarming Honestly How Charming She Can Be

Over the three days that followed her promotion, Alice was given time to gather herself and heal. Her body had healed before the end of the first day she spent awake but the headache persisted well into the second full day. Deccus had chosen to work minimally in favor of spending an inordinate amount of time with the human.

On the second day of her short break before the training would begin, she had begun to pack up her meager belongings before she was meant to meet Deccus for a late lunch.

A knock disrupted her intense inspection of the remaining space in her duffle. She had a permanent locker on the Citadel for her things, no personal affects allowed with her during the training. She had to shove everything in one tiny square and, although it seemed difficult for many that went to ICT, Alice was having an easier time of it than even she had anticipated.

She turned to the doorway to see Kaidan standing there, leaning against the frame in a far more relaxed pose than she normally witnessed.

“Permission-”

“I swear to the Maker, Alenko, the next time that word comes out of your mouth we’ll be pitting out biotics against each other.” Although her words were a threat, it was clear from her demeanor and tone that she meant it mostly as a joke.

“Understood, Lieutenant.”

“Maker, Alenko. Call me Alice. Or at least Shepard. Rank or not, I’m not your CO.”

“Understood, Shepard.”

“Better,” Alice grinned, pushing her bag to the end of her bed and taking a seat beside it. “Did you need something?”

“I wasn’t sure if I’d get a chance to see you before you leave for training if I didn’t hunt you down. I wanted to congratulate you on everything and wish you luck.”

“Well…uh, thanks,” she shrugged a little and patted the bed beside her. Kaidan looked over his shoulder before he slowly moved into the room and gingerly sat beside her, although not close. “You know, I don’t have cooties.”

The sheer ridiculousness of the word that left her mouth had Kaidan laughing, a sound that Alice hadn’t heard all that much of. His low, smoky voice followed. “I just know that some people aren’t as…keen on your advancement as I am. I would hate to jeopardize anything for you with rumors of fraternization.”

“Demetrius and Juniper have sat on this bed with me before. In various stages of undress, I would like to add.” At the look that Kaidan wore, Alice laughed and continued, “Not for any particular reason, just…after showers and the like. Get that look off your face, Alenko.”

“They weren’t ever your superior officers.”

“I suppose that’s true. Well, if anyone wants to guess at how I got my position, I’d be very open to showing them on the training grounds,” Alice shrugged, nonchalantly inspecting her fingernails as if the thought bored her. “I didn’t have to sleep my way here. Although that would’ve been a lot more fun.”

Kaidan spluttered a little in response to what she said, causing her to grin.

“Calm down, there, soldier. You don’t think I’m made out of wood, do you?” Alice laughed as she pulled a shirt into her lap to fold it. “Assuming I push through this, I’m not sure where I’ll be going when the first round is over.”

“You have my contact,” Kaidan replied, a little hesitantly. “Although I’m shipping out soon too, headed out on the Hastings.”

“That’s a good posting. Congrats, Alenko. Just don’t get dead.”

Kaidan looked at her strangely for a moment and scoffed. “That’s a new one.”

“On Elysium, the owner of the restaurant I was in when it all went down…her name is Zersa. It’s what she kept telling me.”

“Well, it worked. So, thanks. You either, Shepard. Don’t get dead.”

Alice felt like he had something else to say but those were the last words he spoke. Standing stiffly, he moved back to the doorway and paused only long enough to salute her and offer just the edge of a smile before he turned his back to make his way into the hall.

On the morning of the fourth day, the day she was to ship out, Deccus was waiting for her when she emerged from the Alliance’s section of the Citadel. He had been leaning against the wall as unperturbed as anything, inspecting one talon-tipped hand. When the familiar red hair came bobbing out, he straightened a little and his mandibles flickered.

“Lieutenant,” he spoke and, to his great amusement, startled her. She was dressed in her uniform, hair pulled back in a low bun at the nape of her neck. Her nails had been scrubbed of their polish and the bruise that had been forming on the left side of her head appeared to have disappeared almost entirely.

“Deccus, what are you doing here?” she hesitated briefly and smiled. “I seem to be saying that a lot.”

“Holding up the wall, mostly. I came to see you off.”

Alice sucked air through her teeth and feigned concern. “People are going to talk, you know.”

“The thing about turians is that if they do talk, as you say, I’d already know about it.”

“How’s that?” Alice asked as they fell in-step beside each other, heading toward the docking bay. She had stored her bag on her way out. What she had on her was all she was allowed to take.

Deccus tapped the hard part of his chest, the crest below his carapace. Alice registered the low hum that she didn’t understand emanating from it. “Subharmonics, I think the humans call them. It’s fairly difficult to hide your opinion, if it’s strong enough.”

“I’ve heard some of them, but I don’t hear it all the time.”

“I doubt some of them are on your hearing register, honestly.”

“What’s it mean? The humming you’re doing now.”

Deccus tilted his head toward her and one mandible fluttered out in a smirk. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Alice.”

“Rude,” she snorted, the sound dissolving into a laugh before long. They continued on, chatting idly about the expectations of the coming weeks for the both of them. Before they reached the outer doors that would separate them, Deccus gestured to an open spot on the wall and they shifted out of the way of traffic.

“I’ve got something for you,” he said, reaching fingers longer than her whole hand into a pocket on his tailored suit. He withdrew a chain, ending in a relatively unharmed bullet. “Your medal of honor, I think you said.”

Alice watched him with wide eyes as he held it out for her, letting the chain coil in the palm of her hand as he deposited it there. She genuinely couldn’t remember the last time someone had just given her something, either in celebration or for no reason at all.

“I checked the regs first. It counts as a personal item, but there’s a loophole for it. If you want it, that is.”

The clasp looked like some kind of torture device and Alice, who hadn’t said a word, held it out to him. “Turian jeweler?”

Deccus inspected the clasp and let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a huff before he took it from her much-smaller hands. Alice turned her back to him as he draped it over her neck and redid the clasp. She reached her fingers down to look at the hollowed-out bullet, entirely innocuous but full of meaning.

“Thank you.” The words were simple, but even someone unfamiliar with human expressions could see how much more there was behind them. Pressing up onto her tiptoes, Alice curved her fingers around the edges of his carapace and dragged Deccus down to pull his forehead to hers.

The alien’s hands found the curve of the human’s waist and they stood for a moment, quiet amidst the bustle around them. Their hands released the other simultaneously and Deccus straightened his back. “Zersa insisted that I tell you ‘don’t get dead’.”

Alice grinned, feeling strange but wonderful. She gestured to her Omni-tool and nodded. “Apparently it needed verbalizing. She has also extended the year-supply of desserts into a lifetime. Looks like you’re going to be stuck playing delivery turian for a while.”

The flicker of his mandibles betrayed his amusement. “I think that’s a job I can handle. Oh, and Alice?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t go around head-butting just any old turian.”

“I didn’t-“

Deccus’ grin as he leaned down, mandible brushing against her cheek as he spoke, let her know she hadn’t messed up too badly. “It’s for my benefit, not for yours.”

Despite her years of learning how to lie, cover-up her emotions, and talk her way out of situations all Alice could manage in response was a soft, “Oh,” as the turian straightened once more and became suddenly very interested in smoothing down the edges of his suit jacket. “Don’t go fighting batarians without me, Deccus.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” After offering the turian equivalent of a wink, Deccus watched as she turned on her heel and made her way through the doors. The change in her demeanor after she tucked the bullet beneath her uniform struck him and he thought, perhaps, she’d survive it all.

The next two and a half months of Alice’s life were made easier, she thought, by her own personal view on training previously. As someone that had pushed herself further than the other members of her class, she was used to too little sleep and too much activity. As a biotic, she was given higher rations but no more sleep. It was difficult, especially with the nearly constant-headache that only ebbed on occasion. She had had respite from the afternoon of her second full day of recovery until the training started but the pain was causing her to have bouts of nausea.

One evening, a little less than halfway through training on an evening that they were given more than they requisite four hours for sleep with some modest down time after eating, Alice sat by herself on an overturned log and clasped her fingers around the bullet that had wiggled free from beneath her dirty shirt.

She looked forward to showering, that was for sure.

“I find it hard to believe that you’re that Lieutenant Shepard,” one of the other N1 recruits spoke up from beside her, remaining standing. The woman was tall and thin, stick-straight with coarse dark hair and skin like coffee.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Alice shrugged, not about to take the bait for a fight. “Why don’t you take a seat and tell me what I can do to impress you, then, Gunnery Chief Griggs?”

The woman, who was older than Alice by more than four years from what she knew, looked down at the girl for what seemed like hours before she huffed and sat. “You puke almost daily.”

“And you think that’s nerves, do you?” Alice’s tone was mostly curious, anything but combative.

“Well, yeah. And you don’t see me tossing my cookies.”

“No, that’s very true. But it isn’t. Nerves, I mean. How much do you know about what happened at Illyria?”

Bright eyes, despite the darkness of their hue, narrowed in suspicion at the other female. “Reports were about you single-handedly holding back the batarian assault.”

Alice sucked her teeth and frowned. “I don’t know how many times I can tell them, it wasn’t just me… but yeah, I did some stuff. The thing of it is, I pushed my biotics. More than that, I pushed my implant. The doctor on the Citadel that saw to me was damn surprised I didn’t fry the thing right out of my brain.” Alice waited to see if Griggs was going to comment and when she didn’t, the redhead continued. “I’ve had migraines almost every day since. I don’t think the lack of sleep is helping, but the pain’s been getting to me.”

“Huh,” was the response from her side. After a long pause, Griggs spoke up again. “What’s that, on the end of your necklace?”

“The bullet I took during the Blitz.”

“Really? Shit,” Griggs grinned, teeth bright in the darkness of the evening. “That’s pretty cool. They fished it out and you put it on a chain?”

“They did fish it out, but it wasn’t my idea. A friend of mine gave it to me before I left for this.”

“A friend, huh?”

Alice smirked slightly at the inference the other woman had made. “Yeah. A friend. You got any friends back home, Griggs?”

“One or two,” the other woman smiled wide. “You know, you’re not so bad, Shepard. Sorry about the headaches and shit.”

Alice waved her off a little but still wore a smile. “You’re not so bad yourself. And they’ll go away eventually, or I’ll just learn to live with them. Wouldn’t take it back, even if I could.”

“That right?”

“That’s right, soldier. I got a lifetime supply of desserts out of the deal.”

“Oh, what kind? I’ve got one helluva sweet tooth.”

“Don’t think you’d much care for them, unless you eat dextro on the sly.”

Griggs looked at her for a long moment, as if trying to gauge the truth of the implication. “How’d you manage that one?”

“Trained myself into it, mostly. There’s a lot of good shit we don’t eat because we don’t try it. I thought, what the hell? Worst case scenario, it doesn’t work and I get sick when I eat it. Turns out, it made me sick for about a week. Now I can eat the best the whole universe has to offer. But, I did take an allergy test first. Because dying wasn’t really on my agenda.”

“Where’d you say you’re from, Shepard?”

“I didn’t,” Alice replied with a grin, tucking her necklace back below the line of her shirt. After rubbing her hands on the legs of her pants as if to wipe away the memories, she stood and stretched. “Not important, though. Nothing for me there anymore. My future lies in the stars.”

Griggs was silent for a beat before she snorted and then started laughing, fairly loudly. She slapped her leg before she jumped to standing. “You really just said that, didn’t you?”

Alice didn’t try to hide her broad grin, eyebrows lifted a little. “Yup.”

“You are the corniest motherfucker, Shepard.”

“I pride myself on such things,” came the reply as the redhead slid her hands into the pockets of her pants. “Come on, we better hit the hay or it’ll be time to go before we manage to get any kind of sleep.”

Eight weeks and six days after Alice left Deccus outside the doors to the docking bay, she received a ping on her Omni-tool.

Training had ended that morning and she was preparing herself and her things for shipping out, the few things she had that was. She sat on the edge of her bedroll and brought up the interface.

Get a ship to Ilium. Meet me in the docking area for Nos Astra. Bring your dancing shoes. –Deccus

Alice slapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter.

I only have one pair of shoes and they are not made for dancing. –A

For the first time in two months, she checked her messages. She had replied immediately to the ping from Deccus, but there were others. Words of encouragement from Juniper and Demetrius, a life updated from Kaidan, and a slew of up-coming recipes amidst updates from Zersa. Before she had time to reply to any of them, she received a message back.

Then bring your dancing feet. You’re not getting out of this.-D

Feisty turian. –A

And you’re the one arguing with him. Crazy human. –D

And, for the first time in two months, Alice went to sleep with a smile on her face.

She couldn’t sleep for eight hours anymore. She was lucky to get the five she did, her body struggling to stay down for more than the four she had grown accustomed to over time. She had booked her passage off-planet to Nos Astra, despite the strange look the request garnered from the travel agent. It was a common tourist destination, although not necessarily for someone on active duty. Two of the eight members of her training class hadn’t made it into the second month and another had dropped out just two weeks shy of completion. That left Griggs, a lieutenant by the name of Hugh, an operations chief that said to call him ‘Happy’, and Alice. They would all see each other again in a week for the next round and she wasn’t sorry for it – although she didn’t particularly get along with Hugh, and Happy was anything but she enjoyed the easy comradery she had found with Griggs.

She was, however, not sorry to see Vila Militar and Rio de Janeiro disappear beneath her as she rocketed into the stratosphere.

The trip was longer than she would’ve liked, but not so long that she arrived much passed the morning. Her stomach was ready for lunch and she was ready for a shower, but it hardly mattered when she walked through the docking bay doors and saw Deccus waiting for her.

The trilling purr of his subharmonics drew the attention of more than one set of turian eyes when he found her, the sound growing to a gentle roar when she crossed the distance between them. She craned her neck back to look up at him, her Shepard-only smile quirking one edge of her lips.

“Crazy human, reporting for duty,” she grinned, mocking a salute.

“Don’t you mean dancing,” he corrected with an amused flick of his mandible.

Alice looked different too him, although he would hesitate to say 'aged'. Her face was more angular and her body tighter, things he could tell all by the way she moved to greet him. 

He considered for a long moment before he reached a hand out and settled the palm of it against the curve of her waist, disguised by the gray and black N1 sweatshirt she had been gifted at the completion of the training. Alice's face seemed to light up just a little at the touch, enough to make him feel as though he was on the right path at least. 

"This is all I have with me," she frowned a little, lifting the small bag that held her uniform, her N1 medal, and the change of clothes she had been afforded upon arrival.

"There are these magical places here," Deccus started, shifting towards the walkway that would lead them out into the city. He moved to her side and didn't relinquish what hold he had on her. She did her best to keep in stride with his much-longer legs as to avoid losing his soft touch on her side. "...they're called stores."

"How much do turian enlisted make?" Alice snorted softly, catching the glance of a turian. Apparently, Deccus had heard it too because Alice felt more than heard the rumble from his chest. She didn't even try to hide the smile.

"Fair point," Deccus replied with unnecessary force, mandibles close to his jawline as he cocked his head towards her but kept his eyes keenly on the approaching male.

"Deccus, is that you? Haven't seen you in this part of space in a while."

Deccus, who was actually scratching seven foot, was a few inches taller than the dark brown turian that had approached them. 

"Triffuk," Alice's companion nodded his head in greeting. She noted that he didn't offer out his arm in the way she had seen others. "It has been a long time."

"Who is this little thing?" Triffuk asked, a hand lifted to gesture at the human.

The sound that emanated from Deccus' chest was a deep rumble, paired with a slightly firmer grasp on her side. If Triffuk's facial expression hadn't betrayed some level of concerned surprise, Alice probably could have guessed what that noise meant.

"First Lieutenant Shepard of the Alliance," Alice answered for Deccus. Triffuk barely glanced at her.

Deccus' growl grew louder and the dismissal. The sounds that erupted from his throat were no longer in English; Alice knew by then that when a turian in her vicinity began using what amounted to clicks and vague screech-like sounds, she wasn’t meant to understand. She would have to ask Deccus how they managed to bypass the translator in her Omni-tool without even so much as a by-your-leave.

When all was said and done, whatever it was that was said, Triffuk passed them by without a second look to Alice and Deccus nudged the human gently forward. She welcomed the direction and let him lead her further into Nos Astra.

“There is a shop just outside the entrance to Eternity that should be able to provide the appropriate services,” he spoke after a brief moment of silence between them.

Alice briefly considered asking him who Triffuk was to him, what had happened between the two turians, what his growling sound meant, and what the hell the Eternity was. All of the questions bubbled up in her mind and nearly spilled from her mouth but she managed to keep it in check. Instead, however, she reached her hand out and mirrored his hold on her. The shiver she felt through her fingertips made her smile and she tucked away the information for future use as they closed some distance between their bodies. His longer arm reached behind her to her opposite side, her arm curved across the plates and bones that made up his hips. Her much smaller hand pressed warmly against the fabric.

“How much do you know about turian anatomy?” Deccus asked quietly from his superior height, the words making their way into the ears of a smiling human.

“Can’t say I know much. But I do know you haven’t let go of my waist since I approached you. I thought it was a safe bet that you wouldn’t mind the same.”

“Careful, Alice. Someone might think you actually like me,” the older male let his mandibles flare out in amusement at the reference to a long-passed conversation. “Now, tell me all about the horrors of this Interplanetary Combatives Training. The extranet is fairly hush-hush about it.”

(Read Chapter Four) Chapter Five: What I Truly Want

When she woke up, she was floating.

Scratch that. She was being carried.

With a bleary-eyed scan, Alice realized that Deccus was carrying her bridal-style against his hard chest. “We win?” she croaked, head turned to look up at him over the edge of his carapace.

With an expression that was very clearly a smile even to the muddled human draped across his arms, Deccus replied, “Yeah, Alice. Alliance showed up just after your little show. Apparently there were some ships outside of the atmosphere heading off batarian reinforcements. They got your messages.”

“Is everyone okay?” Alice’s tongue felt like heavy sandpaper in her dry mouth. The more she woke up, the more everything hurt. Her vision remained blurred and her body felt like a limp noodle, but she could tell they weren’t on the roof. She wondered idly how they had gotten down.

“No,” Deccus said simply, mandibles close to his jaw. “But there are more batarians on the ground than humans, and that’s thanks to you.”

“Us,” she corrected, coughing. Deccus held her closer a little, as if to suppress the cough. The movement jarred her wound and she let out a hiss, limp hand shifting and reaching for something, anything to hold on to. She grabbed the side ridge created by the curve of his carapace and a noise rumbled from his chest beneath her fingertips but he didn’t say anything. “We did it, all of us, together.”

“Nobody would’ve been able to do a damn thing if you hadn’t run around like a crazy person and nearly killed yourself with your biotic stunt back there. I didn’t even know a human biotic could do that.”

Despite herself, Alice laughed. “Yeah, neither did I.”

When they made it to the Alliance medical ship, Deccus only relinquished Corporal Shepard onto a gurney with the utmost promise that she would be seen to immediately. She was – an IV was inserted even before they’d gotten to her stomach. She could hear bits and pieces of the conversations around her, but her focus waned.

Alice came to again, sometime later, to find herself back on the Citadel. She was alone, or so it appeared, in the recovery room of the Alliance outpost on the space station.

Groggily, she forced herself into a seated position and took stock of her injuries. Her head ached – she was pretty certain that wasn’t going to go away any time soon. Her side throbbed dully, as if an afterthought, and she felt weaker than she could ever remember feeling.

“All in all,” she mumbled to herself, “not too shabby.”

“I’d say so,” a low flanging voice erupted from the side.

Alice turned her head slowly and looked on in surprise, “Deccus? What are you doing here?”

He shrugged, a strangely human movement for the turian, and took a few steps towards her bed. “Figured I could learn a thing or two about human anatomy if I stuck around while they dug the bullet out. Besides,” he shifted an arm from his side and set a container on the edge of her bed, “Zersa insisted.”

Alice couldn’t keep the smile from her face as she gathered the box into her lap, opening it to reveal a new dextro-based dessert she hadn’t seen before. “She’s all right, then? Rilak? The children?”

“You saved a restaurant-full of turians and probably half the colony of Elysium,” Deccus offered by way of response. “You’re something else, Alice. Or…should I say, Lieutenant Shepard.”

“It’s Corporal,” Alice corrected around her mouthful of dessert, giving him a curious look.

“Not anymore, it isn’t. You’ve been out for two days. You’ve got an award coming too, but the twitchy-looking human that came to check on you said I shouldn’t mention it.”

“Twitchy?” Alice furrowed her eyebrows, trying to think of who she would constitute as ‘twitchy’ that knew her well enough to care to come and visit. “And you just did.”

“What is that human saying? ‘My bad’?” The flutter of his mandibles was distinctly a smile.

“So I go comatose for a few days and I skip three ranks? I should sleep more often,” she grinned at him after having swallowed. The sound Deccus made was most definitely laughter, which made her smile wider. “You’re not just fucking with me, right? Am I dreaming? Dead?” Alice paused and reached a hand out to pinch her thigh. She winced a little, over-dramatized for his benefit.

“What’re you doing, dreaming of an ancient turian?”

Alice barked out a laugh; despite the fact that the sound made her own head hurt, it felt good. “Only think that would make it better would be if you were feeding me this…whatever it is. Then I’d know I was dreaming.”

“Savillum,” Deccus offered by way of explanation. “You’re a strange human, you know that?”

“I don’t think I even need the qualifier,” she smiled before licking her fingers clean. It wasn’t very civilized, but she didn’t really care either. “So you sticking around Citadel space for a bit?”

“Have you see you get your award, at least. Came all this way to make sure you’re in one piece, I’d like to see it through to the end.”

Alice nodded a little, distracted as she put the cake-like dessert to the side to save some of it for later. She would have been lying if she said she wasn’t incredibly surprised that he was there. “You said ‘ancient turian’. So how old are you, then?”

“Isn’t that a rude question?”

“Only if you’re a female, and even then I don’t know if that’s true of any race other than humans.”

Deccus snorted a sort of half-laugh. “Yes, well. Forty-one, since you asked.”

Alice whistled lowly and the turian gave her what could only be described as a curious, playfully perturbed look.

“What?” he asked.

“You are ancient,” she grinned, although it shifted into a wince fairly quickly as she shifted in a way that her healing wound didn’t approve.

Deccus cleared his throat, a hum of subvocals that Alice could barely pick up on trailing beneath the surface as he moved closer and adjusted her pillows to help prop her up better. “What you did out there, Alice. That was…”

“-Wreckless?” Gunnery Chief Alenko, who had been promoted alongside Alice before her trip off-station.

“Ahh, the twitchy one,” Deccus murmured, his mandible brushing against Alice’s cheek as he righted himself from adjusting the pillows.

Alice laughed throatily, shifting her eyes from Kaidan to Deccus and back again. “Yes, sir.”

“You could’ve killed yourself,” Kaidan frowned deeply, a relaxed posture as he approached the bed. “And I’m not ‘sir’, Lieutenant.”

Alice’s green eyes widened as she looked at him, shifting into a quick salute at her bedside. “Wait…” she looked backed to Deccus. “You weren’t fucking with me?”

“No,” Deccus’ mandibles fluttered into a turian approximation of a grin and Alice let out a breath of air in an astounded ‘huh’.

“Oh, shit, uh, no-…I mean-… at ease, Chief.” Alice stumbled, looking at Kaidan. “That’ll take some getting used to. Deccus seemed to be barely holding in laughter and the redhead shot him a scathing look. “But…yeah, Alenko. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that. And I understand ranks and all that, but for the love of the Maker please just act normal in here. At least until someone shows up that will actually give a damn.”

The corner of Kaidan’s mouth twitched up in a smile, the sort of half-smirk that Alice had been trying to weasel out of him for the last few months. He didn’t slip very often, but every once and a while he was just Kaidan even if it was just for a brief moment.

“Permission-” the Canadian started, his posture relaxed once more.

Alice glared, “What did I just say, Alenko?”

Deccus snorted and Alenko cleared his throat as if to cover a similar sound. The latter glanced to the turian before to his recently-made superior officer. “You could’ve fried your implant with a show like that.”

“I already told you I hate the fucking thing. Maybe if I fried it, they’d take it out.”

“Or you’d be a vegetable,” he frowned and Deccus, who had long-since brought himself to his full height at her side, folded his arms over his chest.

“This is what the Council races says about humans, all in one room,” the turian chuckled a little, an eyebrow plate lifted.

“Ahhh, no. Alenko’s not being antagonistic, he’s just a worrier.” Alice grinned, looking to the man she spoke about briefly. “Isn’t that right, Chief?”

“Someone has to worry. You’re too brash,” he managed a brief laugh, rounding out the joke. “But..uhh, Lieutenant, Admiral Hackett asked me to check in with you. To see when you think you’ll be up to…well, being up. He doesn’t trust the doctor to tell him the truth about it, thinks you don’t need another week recovery.” It was fairly apparent from the way that Kaidan spoke that he disagreed with Hackett’s belief and thought Alice should have that week.

“No time,” Alice started as she leaned forward, reaching out towards Deccus. It surprised both of the males that she reached for the turian, but it hadn’t been a conscious decision on her part. Despite the lack of expectation, Deccus was ready and offered both his hands to help stabilize her as she shifted out of the hospital bed and found her feet.

She swayed a bit, hands clutching at the turian’s forearms.

“Alice…” he let out a low noise in the form of her name, the air between them vibrating with his subharmonics.

“Don’t you start,” she rolled her eyes, taking in a deep breath before she let go of him. His hands hovered briefly near her shoulders, to catch her if she fell, but she did not.

Nodding once, Alice looked down at grimaced at the flimsy gown she wore – and then she let out a laugh. She turned around and saw Alenko, face red as her hair and hidden behind one hand. “Alenko, you’re fine.” Glancing at Deccus, she shrugged a little to herself before she turned her back to the turian. The gown was closed fairly tightly, but there was a visible strip of skin from below her neck all the way down. “Alenko, look at me.” Kaidan cleared his throat and lowered his hand, tilting his head so that he could see her. Behind her, he also saw the turian who made no bones about investigating the new expanse of flesh. He seemed interested it in a more clinical way than any other, but Kaidan would have been lying if he said it didn’t make him feel uncomfortable. “Earth to Alenko, I need you to get me my uniform. As much as I don’t particularly care about modesty, I’m fairly certain I shouldn’t go running around the base with my ass exposed.”

“That’s what that is,” Deccus guffawed over her shoulder and Alice laughed a little.

“Aye, aye,” Kaidan said, glad for the excuse to leave. He kicked himself for not bringing it to begin with, but he hadn’t honestly expected her to get out of bed so quickly. What she had done was incredible, although he had only seen footage of the damage it had wrought. He really did worry that she would have long-term damage to her implant but wasn’t all that surprised that she had tried regardless. Brash was definitely word one could use to describe Shepard, when you got to know her at least.

Alice trailed Kaidan with her gaze and the second he was out of earshot, she hissed, “Catch me,” as her weak knees gave out beneath her. Deccus may not have heard or understood what she meant, but his talon-tipped hands were tucked beneath her arms before her knees met the floor.

“And here I was going to ask you about this whole ‘ass’ thing,” Deccus huffed good-naturedly, gingerly picking Alice up before she could complain and sitting her back on the bed. After he had relinquished her to the pillows, he checked the IV to make sure it was still appropriately connected before shoving the box of dessert at her. “You should finish this. He’ll be back sooner than you’d like and if you intend to continue this ruse, you’ll need all the help you can get.”

Alice feigned a deep frown as she opened up the dessert again, ready to attack it. “What, you mean you’re not going to follow me around waiting to catch me?”

“Isn’t there some human saying about sweeping you off your feet?” Deccus folded his arms over his chest, an eyebrow plate lifted in curiosity.

Alice snorted derisively. “Are you flirting with me, Deccus?”

The turian faltered at that a little. Was he? He wasn’t trying – Spirits take him, yes he was. The strange image of her paper-colored backside, darted with tiny dark brown constellations wasn’t leaving his mind any time soon.

“Don’t go breaking anything there, big guy,” Alice laughed, a full and deep sound that he hadn’t heard before. She had eaten two large bites while he seemed frozen and she felt like she needed to jar him from his reverie, lest he combust. “No harm, no foul. But be prepared for a lot of really corny jokes. I feel a ‘I keep falling for you’ coming on.”

And just like that, he stopped worrying about what it meant that he didn’t mind the sheer amount of hair that grew from her head or the fact that she was so tear into her with a flick of his wrist. He chuckled lowly instead, leaning his shoulder against the wall as he watched her eat food from his home planet.

Several hours later, after a debriefing during which Alice was blessedly able to sit and the broadcast ceremony during which she had to hold onto the podium more than half the time, the newly-promoted Lieutenant found herself alone on a bench in the Presidium. Her quick ascension through the ranks had left more than a few other service members rankled but the whispers were still quiet in the wake of her success.

She was proud of herself although a little weary. Everything was happening very quickly and, although she had initially been slotted to be sent off-base on a mission, she had been put up for ICT training amongst the myriad of other things. Her Star of Terra was pinned to her uniform, placed there by Admiral Hackett – which was left folded neatly in her bunk as she wandered in relaxed sweats.

She should be proud, she told herself – even if her head hadn’t stopped aching and her hands hadn’t stopped shaking.

“There you are,” Deccus spoke as he settled beside her on the bench, his much-longer legs stretched out.

“Careful, someone might think you actually like me,” she grinned at him, turning her attention to him and away from her thoughts and worries. “I needed to breathe. I’m fairly surprised no one else found me yet.”

“I watched the broadcast too.”

“For shame,” Alice laughed before she winced. “Was it obvious?”

“You gripping the podium? Probably not to anyone other than twitchy and myself.”

The Alliance lieutenant smiled broadly. “Is he really that twitchy? I never noticed. He usually seems pretty collected to me.”

“Micro-movements,” Deccus offered, waving his hand dismissively. “You humans have fairly terrible senses. I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long.”

“What do you mean, terrible senses?”

“You can’t smell or see half of what we do.”

“I think that might be to our benefit,” she chuckled a little, wrinkling her nose. “But tell me about this micro-movement nonsense.”

“Nonsense, she calls it,” he huffed, crossing his arms over his front and leaning back against the bench. “Small muscle movements, twitches. The way someone leans, the movement of their eyes. Not all turians are as adept at picking them up as others, especially with other species. A lot of the way we, turians, communicate are through more subtle avenues than with our voices. Your chief has a lot of repressed feelings.”

“You can tell that by the way he twitches?” Alice asked incredulously, eyebrows lifted in disbelief.

“The harder someone tries to hide something, the more they tend to broadcast it in the little ways. At least humans.”

“Okay, what am I hiding, then?”

“I can’t tell you what, just that you are.”

“How hard am I trying, then, O Perceptive One?” Alice teased, pressing a finger against the hard plate that covered his shoulder.

“You’re better at it than he is,” Deccus shrugged, sparing a glance at her offending digit. “Why do you think I don’t call you twitchy, Alice?”

The woman laughed and was glad, regardless of how confused she was, that he had followed her from Elysium. “I’m headed planet-side for a couple months. They’ve got me going to N1 training.”

“For the turians in the room…?” Deccus prodded and Alice was surprised at the humor he had. This was nothing near what she had expected from their initial interaction, that was certain.

“Interplanetary Combatives Training. Special-ops, basically. It’s the first round, there are five after if I make it through.”

“At this point, I’d be surprised to find an ‘if’ that was applicable to you.”

“Flatterer,” Alice barked a laugh. “But seriously. Fine. When I make it through this one, I’ll have a week off before I head to wherever the hell they want to send me for the second stage – and so on and so on.”

“How long is it from start to finish?” Deccus asked, watching her openly.

“All said and done, it’s a two year process with a week between all but the last round. N5 to N6, there’s a two week break. Then it’s off for six months to wherever the hell they want to send me.” Alice let out a sigh as the reality of it hit her. Despite the fact that to everyone else she was twenty, she remembered she wasn’t. The truth of her age caught up with her in the quiet moments, when she thought about what she had done and what she was going to. She wondered idly what Deccus had been doing at eighteen. Or twenty, for that matter. “Tell me something,” she started, shifting to face herself more towards him.

“What is it you want to know?”

“You said you’d been in the military for longer than I’ve been alive. When did you join?”

“Mandatory enlistment at fifteen,” he replied easily. “Many turians choose other paths after the first five years, something other than pure enlistment. You can retire at thirty, if you want.”

“But you didn’t want?” she laughed a little, mirroring his posture with her arms folded over her middle.

“I enjoy what I do and I’m not so old that I can’t keep doing it. I was on active duty until my mid-twenties, though.”

Alice traced the line of his facial markings; thick red swipes on his chin were reflected on his forehead and two thinner stripes lining his mandibles. “What is it you do, then?”

Deccus looked at her, unwavering, for a long moment. “I’m an engineer. Aerospace engineer, if you want specifics. Why the sudden line of questioning?”

She shrugged a little and shifted more, bringing a leg onto the bench and bending her knee. Her shin was a hair’s breadth from his thigh. “There’s too much I don’t know about turians, and too much I don’t know about you. Hell, there’s too much I don’t know about everything.”

The turian watched her and his mandibles flickered as he considered the words he meant to say. Before he had a chance to make a fool of himself, however, she spoke again.

“What will you be doing in nine weeks and three days?”

“They’re only giving you three more days to recuperate? I imagine twitchy isn’t happy about that.” Deccus smirked, the human version of the expression spreading across Alice’s face. “To answer your question, likely delivering desserts from Zersa to wherever you dock for your vacation.”

“Vacation,” Alice snorted at the thought but she quickly smiled instead. “Okay. Nine weeks and two days from now, send me a message and let me know where to go, then.”

“You’re letting me pick where you’re spending your break? Don’t you have friends?”

The words could have stung, if Alice thought he meant them. Although he did seem genuinely intrigued by the idea. “I have Juniper and Demetrius, I suppose. Other biotics in my class. And Alenko? I mean, they’re the only ones other than you that visited me that weren’t from Command. Zersa. No family, though. So, yeah. You’re stuck with me.”

(Read Chapter Three) Chapter Four: Got My Blue Nail Polish On. [It’s my favorite color and my favorite tone of song.]

Before Alice made it back across the roof, the sky in the opposite direction of the square lit up in tiny, sporadic bursts.

She didn’t need to hear the pop to recognize it as gunfire. She was hesitant to leave Zersa and company behind in the event that they needed her, but it appeared that someone else might too. Gritting her teeth with the decision, she checked the distance between her current position and where she thought the gunfire had taken place.

As she clambered down the side of the building, something struck the ground of Elysium with such force that she lost her grip. After being shaken free from her holds, she crashed to the pavement in a heap atop her padded duffle. She knew the food inside would be smashed to shit beneath her but, with any luck, still edible. She was incredibly fortunate it had softened her landing, even if the force of it all had knocked the breath from her lungs.

Alice allowed herself to lay there for a few minutes as she caught her breath and made sure that she wasn’t broken, or caught.

The acrid smell of smoke from an active fire caught her off-guard and she coughed, sitting up slowly as she tried to determine where the smoke was coming from. Before she had a chance to, a slight vibration against her wrist let her know there was a message on her Omni-tool.

Opening the interface, she scanned the words from an unfamiliar number.

Civilians awaiting direction. –Z

Alice let out a breath of relief as she typed a response.

Anyone with weapons, take out small groups. Do not actively seek out a fight. Fight to protect, fight to live. Anyone without, do their best to stay safe and hidden. . If we have snipers, get them on rooftops. Everyone spread the word. Alice hesitated before typing out, We will prevail.  –Shepard

Sending off the message, she closed down the interface and brought herself to standing. Guerilla warfare was the best they had, and it would have to be enough. At least for the moment.

She still had no word from anyone that might be off-planet, which worried her about her ability to call out of the atmosphere. Had the batarian’s knocked out communications?

Assuming no one was coming was the only way to proceed, then. With that in mind, Alice also had to hope that the batarians didn’t have anyone else coming. There were millions of people on all of Elysium, although many of them were too far from Illyria to come to their aid – this assumed, of course, that the batarians were focusing only on the capital city and hadn’t also started an assault on other larger parts of the human colonies.

Now that it was all said and done, she was too disoriented to remember which direction the gunfire had been in well enough to trust it. Instead, she came up with a plan.

Moving as quietly as she could through the abandoned streets, she found what looked like a ghost block. It was far enough away from where she knew people were to feel comfortable.

She sent off a few more S.O.S. pings to any Alliance outpost within a three hour radius before she closed down her Omni-tool, stuffed more food and energy pills in her mouth, and sent up what amounted to a flare of biotics.

Immediately after, she enveloped herself in a barrier and pressed against the wall in a slight dip to keep herself as hidden as she could.

The thrum of boots came her way and two armed batarians passed into her line of sight. She focused on the one closest to her and pressed against the nodes along him with as much force as she could muster. The push threw him into his compatriot and the two of them toppled to the ground.

She rushed forward, kicking one of the guns far enough away to use before she encased them in a stasis long enough to grab the weapon. She wasn’t good with assault rifles, but she could at least shoot it.

Alice wasn’t certain she could pull it off, but she was going to try.

Letting the stasis drop, she threw the disarmed batarian as she sent a round of fire at the one scrambling to gather his gun. He stopped moving before he reached it and the other one was rushing her as she sent out another spray of bullets. She hit him, but not enough. He barreled into her, knocking her onto her back and sending the rifle skidding across the pavement.

Her barrier had faded while she started the stasis and the batarian’s hands closed around her neck. Her own fingers scrambled against the batarian’s similar digits to remove them from her throat. Pushing out a burst of biotic energy, she hit him hard enough to throw him off of her. When he made contact with the side of the nearest building, he didn’t get up again.

Without taking the necessary time to recoup after expending so much energy, she quickly gathered the two rifles and took off at a run toward her next point.

She gathered as many rifles as she could this way before she pulled herself into a hiding spot – she had to be careful not to lead any of them back to Zersa but she needed to bring them the rifles.

Taking the time to make sure no one had followed, she broke into her reserves again and popped an energy pill. After swallowing it, hoping she could get a bottle of water somewhere, she munched on a dried stick of some kind of animal she didn’t know the name of. She was sick of eating but she was also feeling the effects of her attacks. She had managed to take out seventeen batarians with a bullet in the side to show for it. Seven groups of two and a group of three – that was where she had gotten her medal of honor, she had deemed it – and it was probably a tenth of the force. She had stashed some of the rifles but carried as many as she could by emptying her pack of the clothes and shoving the guns in as many places as she could. She had found a few civilians in her circle of the city’s center and unloaded a few of the rifles for their defense, giving them three extra so that they could give them to anyone they came across.

She had stashed four and had managed to carry six with her, two streets away from where she had left her new friend.

Bringing up her Omni-tool, she checked for any missed messages.

She was disappointed but not surprised to find that there weren’t any.

Bringing six rifles. Where do I go? –Shepard

Alice waited for the tell-tale vibration as she hid, glad for the moment of respite.

Can you make it to the roof? –Z

Alice groaned inwardly and dropped her head back against the wall behind her with a thunk.

“Yeah, sure,” she mumbled to herself.

Yes. –Shep

A few more seconds and There’s a hatch. I’ll be waiting on the ladder. –Z

Three short knocks. If it isn’t three, it isn’t me. -Shep

With a grunt, Alice hefted herself to her standing position and began to slink her way towards the turians she had left behind before.

With her efforts to obtain the weapons, the batarians had started branching out more from the center of the city. She had to take extra care as she moved across the streets and in the shadows to ensure that she didn’t get caught, especially with the rifles jostling in the bag on her back. She had left just enough clothing to pad between them, or so she hoped.

Scaling the building was another thing entirely. Alice had to circle it twice before she found a way to climb, praying with everything she had that there would not be another impact to shake her from the side. She didn’t think she could get so lucky twice, and with the wound in her side she was terrified of what it might do to her were she to fall from the height.

Finally, blessedly, she made it to the roof of the building.

She lay flat on her stomach after scaling the lip of the roof, waiting three breaths before she even searched out the hatch. From her angle, she couldn’t see it. Shifting caused her to clench her jaw with the pain in her side. Her vision blurred when she started crawling on her belly towards the far metal lid.

When she made it, she waited three more breaths.

Clear.

Reaching a hand out, she knocked three times in quick succession. Pulling herself up enough to remove her pack, she waited until the lid lifted.

“Alice?”

“It’s me,” I responded to Zersa, the top of her head visible.

“Oh, thank the Spirits. Are you okay?” the turian woman spoke in a whisper as she peered into the darkness. Alice wondered if she had better night vision than the human but didn’t ask.

“Okay enough,” Alice shifted the bag to the hole in the building’s roof. “There should be six in there, and a few heat sinks. Any word?”

“Everyone’s still responding, thank the Spirits. They’re amassing in the city center, they’ve taken hostages.”

“They won’t keep them,” Alice muttered, shifting her gaze to where the ships had landed heavily amongst the fountain and statues.  Something clicked in her head and a plan formed. “Tell everyone to keep the perimeter as best they can. When they see the signal, move in as fast and hard as they can. But be goddamn careful.”

“What signal, Alice?”

“It’ll be pretty obvious.”

“One person can only handle so much,” Zersa sighed a little and Alice could feel the turian’s gaze on her.

“I’ve got a bit more in me. We’re going to end this. And afterwards, I’m going to need you to make me more of that dessert.” She had scarfed it when she emptied her bag, happy for the refueling option. Her stores were running low and she was going to need everything she had in her for this next move.

“We make it through this and I’ll keep you in it for a year, wherever the Spirits take you after this.”

“Be prepared to make a lot of dessert,” Alice grinned at her, teeth bright in the darkness.

“Don’t get dead.”

“You either,” Alice nodded once before she shifted to close the lid over. She shimmied to the edge of the roof and considered her options. She couldn’t make the jump, but she’d need a good vantage point.

Sucking in a deep breath, she waited to ensure she wasn’t going to be caught unawares on her way down and made the shift to the alley below. Hiding against the dumpster like before, she brought up her map again on the Omni-tool. She had marked off spots where she knew where players on both sides were. There was a building two blocks closer that would give her the best opportunity for her ploy, she just needed to make it there.

She jerked her head around at an unexpected sound and shut the Omni-tool, waiting for another noise to signify someone.

“Alice,” came a recently-made familiar voice.

“Deccus, get the fuck down,” Alice hissed, reached up and grabbing at the only thing she could reach – a spur on the back of his leg nearest her. He didn’t seem to like it much and growled lowly as he dropped to her side. He had two rifles on his person. “What the fuck are you doing out here?”

“Zersa said you’re going for it, whatever it is.”

“Yeah, and?” The rumbling sound from his chest set her on edge and she groaned. “You don’t trust me to pull it off?”

“Call it whatever you want, but the patrols have increased and you’re safer with someone that can shoot.”

“I can shoot,” she griped, feeling like a petulant child more than just a little.

“I’ve been in the military longer than you’ve been alive. Just tell me where we’re going.”

Alice glowered at him in the darkness, making room for him in her hiding spot before she pulled up the map again. As she moved her fingers and spoke to him, she considered what he had said. He sure as hell didn’t look like he was twice her age. Then again, her limited experience with his race had made it hard for her to pinpoint gender right away. She was quickly growing more used to the differences though, and the pricks on her elbow had healed from their earlier interaction.

She pointed out the route she thought would be safest and the end point, expressing the need for height.

“Why are you going all the way around, then?”

“I don’t want them to know what direction I came from, in case it all goes to pot.”

His pale gold eyes narrowed before he blinked at her, huffing out an incredulous noise. “You really are trying to save all our hides, aren’t you?”

“We are,” she corrected with a lopsided smile before she flicked her Omni-tool closed. She waited three breaths and shifted up to check their surroundings. “You ready?” she asked in a quiet breath, barely needing to bend over even as Deccus crouched. He nodded once and straightened only enough to make walking possible.

They ran into some trouble about halfway around, taking out five more batarians. Alice had to admit that she was glad he had come, although if he hadn’t delayed her she might’ve managed to bypass them – if she hadn’t, she surely wouldn’t have survived the altercation on her own. Three, maybe - but five? There was no way.

“You’re a shit shot, you know that, Alice?” Deccus snorted despite his need to catch his breath as they gathered up the rifles that had been dropped. Alice tossed hers, spent and overheated to boot, and took up the one with the most ammo from the recently deceased.

“Yeah, well, I don’t see you manipulating matter with your head,” Alice laughed a little, shoving a piece of protein bar into her mouth as they picked their way across the street.

They finally made it to their destination and Deccus hoisted Alice up before she reached down to help him up. He intentionally gripped her arm with less force than he could have to avoid tearing the skin open with his talons but the gesture caused the wound to tear. She could feel the flesh rendering and couldn’t keep the grimace off her features as they ended up side-by-side on the roof.

“You’re injured,” Deccus commented as he resituated himself.

“It’s fine,” Alice spoke through gritted teeth as she pressed a hand to her side.

“I can smell your blood.”

The words struck Alice more than they should have. They lights of the ships and the city’s lamps cast a dull glow on the roof, the two of them huddled together on one side of what was likely a smokestack.

“I’m sorry?” she laughed a little, feeling unsure of herself for not the first time that night.

“How bad is it?”

“Bullet’s still in me,” she frowned, pulling her hand back. It was sticky with her blood, even through the pair of pants she had wrapped around herself to keep everything where it belonged.

“How’s your vision?”

“Dark,” she joked, gesturing with her bloodied hand to the air around them. Deccus didn’t seem amused. “I’m fine.”

“You won’t be. Let me see it.”

“We don’t have time for this, Deccus.”

“You won’t have time for anything if it kills you. Now, Alice.”

“Do you even know anything about human anatomy?” Despite her words, the woman lifted her torn t-shirt and untied the makeshift bandage she had created from her sweatpants, leaning back against the smoke stack and extending her torso for his inspection.

“Enough,” was his reply as he traced the wound oozing red with a talon. He bent over her, face close enough that she could feel his breath against her skin. His fingers moved over her blood-slick skin and smeared the red over her side, to her back. She hissed as he pressed. Apparently, the bullet was close to the surface on her side. It had gone in sideways and she was fairly certain she had been way too lucky, she didn’t have any of the symptoms of internal bleeding and she hadn’t had any issues with digesting the mass amount of calories she had been ingesting. “I can get it out but it can also probably stay until you get somewhere they can perform surgery. Problem is the blood, though.”

“Thanks, doc,” she half-grunted, half-laughed. Deccus didn’t seem to be particularly amused, although one side of his mandible looked like it might be fluttering in the turian approximation of a smile.

“What you had tied on there, give it to me.”

Alice watched him curiously as she shifted enough to hand him the pants. He inspected them for a moment before he used a talon to slice through the material. Her mouth went dry at how easy it slice through the fabric. He looped his arms underneath, around her and wrapped the fabric. He tied it hard on the opposite side of her body from the wound.

“You humans are far too soft,” he mumbled, bunching up the bloody other half of her pants – he had used only one pant leg – and depositing it against the smokestack.

“We’re really soft in the best places,” Alice spoke smoothly as she tucked her shirt back down, reaching into her pants and gathering up the last of her supplies. She grinned in the darkness at the strange expression on his face. She patted his shoulder gently as she managed to get to her feet. She downed the last the food. “Okay. Stay hidden until you absolutely can’t anymore. I have to be able to see them to know what I’m doing.”

“What are you doing?” Deccus managed after a long moment, preparing each rifle in order of the most ammo.

“You’ll see,” she responded as she shifted from their hiding spot, slinking across the roof. There was more light there than she had been used to the entire night and she just prayed they hadn’t managed to get snipers set up on another rooftop nearby enough to take the shot.

On her knees on the edge of the roof, she slid the last two energy pills into her cheeks. The taste was horrid, but it would be worth it. Focusing her entire self on the center of the amassed forces, Alice let loose every modicum of power she knew she had and some she hadn’t.

The technical term was a singularity, but Alice wasn’t bothered too much by those parts of her teachings. She listened and learned, of course, but creating one was something else entirely. Especially one this intense.

The sky lit up as the field expanded, pulling in panels form buildings and crushing the batarians under the edges of their ships. The blue glow emanating from the center of the city was the signal, and it did not go unnoticed.

The civilian and Alliance military forces that Zersa had been able to amass began to stalk forward. In the haze of her focus, Alice could hear the gunfire as a sort of cacophony of background noise.

Bullets were flying around her and before she realized what was happening, she had been pushed to the roof by a heavy turian body.

“You have to protect yourself,” Deccus growled from above her and she blinked up at him, as if it took her effort to find his face in the darkness.

“That’s your job,” she responded with a hiss as she shoved at his carapace. He moved back and crouched at her side, using the assault rifle more like a sniper rifle despite the difficulty of it. His shoulder jerked back with the fire, but he was more than sufficiently skilled.

Alice let out a roar as she broke the capsules between her teeth, swallowing as she took up her spot and brought down a singularity that seemed to be even more powerful than the one before. The base of her skull, the thin line of scar where her implant had been inserted, burned with the effort and her head began to ache fiercely.

She could feel her whole body shake with the effort to remain on her knees, nailpolish chipping as her fingernails broke because of the grip she had on the stone edge of the rooftop while she focused herself on maintaining and increasing the size of the biotic onslaught.

“Spirits.”

Alice barely heard his whisper over the sound of her own labored breathing, vision darkening at the edges as the field pulled things and people and ships together in a heap.

She tried to smile but couldn’t; the plan was working, better than she had thought it would, but she didn’t know how long she would be able to hold on.

(Read Chapter Two)

Chapter Three: Lights, Camera, Acción

Alice may not have had a pistol, but she didn’t need it. She would probably find herself wishing she had one later, if things were going down the way she anticipated – but in that moment, she just needed to stay hidden. Her biotics could, hopefully, keep her safe if the worst case scenario presented itself.

She followed Zersa back into the restaurant and watched as the turian woman gestured towards a back door, to which Alice moved quickly. Dropping her bag to the floor, she bent into it and searched. A small cosmetic mirror was pulled out before she kicked the duffle to the side, letting it settle just underneath a booth. As the Alliance soldier cracked open the restaurant’s back door and eyed the surroundings. It looked as though the coast, at least on this side of the building, was so far clear. As Alice stepped out into the relative darkness of the back alley, she heard Zersa speaking in what she assumed was calming undertones with words translated mostly by her Omni-tool.

The click of the door behind her as it latched made Alice’s shoulders hike to her ears, so hyper-focused was she on the rest of the space around her. She needed to make sure she was alone, at least. There were half a dozen feet between the two buildings and twice as much distance before she’d reach an open walkway in either direction.

Scanning from one end to the other with her body pressed into the well of the doorway, Alice kept her breathing as even as she could. Nothing to the right, slow shifting to scan up and then determine what was awaiting her on the left side.

Clear.

Blessedly, beautifully clear.

Careful to stick to the wall as best she good and pick her way quietly to the far end of the alley created by two restaurants of distinctly different cuisine, Alice made her way towards the left side – it was where less of the noise had been funneling from and she hoped that would mean she’d get a decent vantage point with less worry of being caught. It was possible that she could climb to the roof, or even propel herself up if she was incredibly careful but the risk of being seen was far greater with theatrics like that.

She made it unscathed to the corner of the building and cracked open the mirror, running her thumb over it to dull the shin with her skin’s oils. With her shoulder as close to the edge as she dared, she lifted the mirror in an attempt to see what she could.

The ships, now closer – landed in the middle of the square and surrounding large pathways, were clear. Even without her training in the Alliance, she would have recognized the lines of it.

Batarian.

If that wasn’t enough to betray the infiltrators, the forms of four-eyed pirates that were spilling out onto the streets were unmistakable even in the fuzzy mirror.

Alice hissed out a breath, pulling the mirror back and closing it over as quietly as she could.

As quickly as she had come, she moved back to the door she had exited and cracked it. The restaurant looked hastily deserted –good, she thought.

Shifting back into the restaurant, Alice crouched low to avoid being seen through any of the windows. Tucking the mirror into one of the oversized pockets on her leg, she managed to make her way to the kitchen without incident.

After nearly being hit over the head with a heavy-looking pan by Zersa, Alice spoke in quiet whispers.

“Batarians, and a lot of them. The kids are in the freezer, right?” the turian woman nodded so Alice continued. “I haven’t heard back from my commanding officer yet. Have you been able to contact anyone else?”

“I’ve send notice to everyone I could to hide and arm themselves.”

“We have to fortify our defenses and find weapons. Fortunately, it’s dark enough that I think I can get out and in without being seen. Do you have any protein bars?”

Zersa looked at her curiously before she moved, crouched as low as her height would allow her, to rummage in a drawer. She returned with what looked like freeze-dried meat.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes. Anything with protein.” Alice took what was offered and lined her pockets. “Any coffee or energy supplements?”

Zersa returned with pills made up of different nutrients with a fairly large amount of synthesized energy. “What is this all for?”

“I’m a biotic and, right now, that’s all we’ve got. I’ve pushed myself before but not as much as I think I’m going to have to. These will help, at least. Thank you.”

Alice moved to the small window that looked out from the kitchen to the main floor of the restaurant. She connected the mostly-imaginary dots around the host’s booth and could feel the static grow in the air around her, taste the metallic mint that seemed accompanied the use of her biotic abilities. As gently and quietly as she could manage, Alice shifted the heavy metal box to press it against the door. It would be of little use with all of the windows in the place.

When it was shifted, she surveyed from her vantage point. No batarians were moving their way. Yet.

Turning around, Alice found Zersa. “The back door, I noticed a heavy lock. We need to keep it shut unless we know they’re friendlies.” She paused and narrowed her eyes at the air beside Zersa’s head, a thought catching her. “Do you know the owners of the restaurant next door?”

“Yes, we’re quite friendly.”

“I have an idea. I noticed a back-alley door there. It’s small, but it could be hidden by the dumpster fairly easily. I’ll go with you. We need to see if we can get everyone here, over there.”

“Do we want everyone in the same place?”

“They won’t know,” Alice gestured with a hand alight in the blue glow of her biotics to the restaurant around her. “I’ll force the tables against the windows, make it look like we’ve fortified this place. The place next door is more solid, thicker walls and fewer points of entry. It’s safer there than here.”

“Why are we listening to a human?” someone, one of the patrons, grumbled as he Alice assumed leaned against a wall between a stove and a shelving unit.

“Because she’s the only one with ideas,” Zersa replied with narrowed eyes, a noise Alice didn’t understand emitting from somewhere near the turian’s chest.

“How do we know she isn’t just using us to protect her kind?” the reply was lower, a deep rumbling coming from a place similar to the noise Alice couldn’t identify from Zersa.

“Listen,” Alice cut in, squaring her shoulders and trying to bring herself to her full height – a grand total of five-foot three inches. “I get it. I do, I promise. But right now, my kind is everyone that isn’t coming from one of those batarian ships. My name is Alice Shepard, and I am just trying to help.”

The human extended her arm out, the same way she had to Zersa, before she turned her gaze up to the white-gray face marked with red lines. With mandibles tight to his face and pale gold eyes narrowed to nearly horizontal slits, he hesitated for a long moment. A chorus of sounds, low and rumbling, came from around them and his eyes flickered to the others in the room before returning to Alice. As if bullied into it and wanting nothing to do with it, he layered his arm over hers in the greeting gesture. When he pressed his talons against her bare flesh, he was not gentle. Alice didn’t wince as he drew blood with the tiny pricks he made, her blunted nails scraping into the hardened plate of flesh at his own arm’s juncture.

“Deccus,” he offered in a deadpan, pulling his arm back from her even as he watched her closely. Alice didn’t reach for her puncture arm, didn’t wipe the blood away as she straightened her elbow and let her hand hang at her side.

“Good.” Turning her head over her shoulder, Alice found Zersa. It appeared that the rest of those that had been forced into the kitchen – the restaurant hadn’t been wildly busy, which was either very good or very bad depending on one’s viewpoint.  “We need to run over there, ensure that we can get in, and then come back. I’ll stack the tables and whatever else I can lift against the windows, then come and keep a barrier up while you make your way over. Does that sound like a plan?”

“I’ll go with her,” Deccus offered, pushing off of the wall. He was taller than Alice by quite possibly more than a foot; if she remembered correctly, the officer at the Citadel (what was his name?) was nearly two feet taller than she was. “You stay here and push shit up against shit.”

It took a fair bit of self-restraint for Alice not to roll her eyes at his self-important tone but she looked to Zersa, who nodded her head once. Alice then turned back to look at Deccus and nodded before she moved again to the window out to the restaurant, preparing herself to do as she had said she would.

By the time Zersa and Deccus returned, Alice was collapsed into a ball in front of the stove while Rilak helped her choke down the food and pills. The restaurant’s main floor was all but in ruins, every conceivable entrance – either door or window – had been covered back tables, chairs, uprooted booths. Alice was breathing heavily, drenched in sweat. Her sweatshirt, which had been tied around her waist, had been shoved into her bag by another turian diner at the human’s behest.

“I just…need a minute,” Alice waved a hand to dismiss the concerned trilling from Zersa, which the human only guessed by the way her eyebrow plates shifted and she moved quickly to the redhead’s side.

“We could start-”

“It’s too dangerous,” Alice shook her head, speaking around a mouthful of dried meat bar. She grimaced at the flavor – it wasn’t even that it was turian, Rilak knew first-hand no one really liked the taste of those things. “They haven’t made their way here yet. I just need to shove some more of these down my throat and I’ll be right as rain.”

Zersa watched her for a long moment before she acquiesced with a nod of her head and did as they had planned, gathering everyone as close to the back of the building as she could. She explained to the children that they needed to continue to be as quiet as possible; they were going to go visit some of her friends because it was safer there. Turians, by nature or nurture or maybe both, were a very militaristic society. They pulled no punches, even with the young ones – apparently Zersa and the parents had explained exactly what was going on from the word ‘go’.

Alice appreciated how easy it made things but wondered a little at the way it affected them growing up. Then again, it wasn’t like she had had a childhood filled with ponies and rainbows either.

With two more protein bars scarfed and two of those pills washed down with copious amounts of water, the human biotic was beginning to feel more like herself. With the help if Rilak, Alice managed to make it to her feet. “Okay. So someone will run across first, get them to open the door, and then I’ll throw up a barrier. Someone is going to have to stay here long enough to keep the door open. When the door shuts on the other side, I’ll get the dumpster in front of it.”

“But then you’ll be stuck on the outside,” Zersa spoke and Alice studied the way her mandibles shifted, tight to her face but without the tension she had seen on Deccus. The human thought it might  be a frown but didn’t think that moment was the most prudent to inquire about the other race’s facial gestures.

“It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Varrenshit you’ll be fine, Alice. You looked ready to pass out just now.”

“Trust me, okay?” Alice smiled wide, downing the rest of the water all in one gulp. She set the glass down in the sink as if it were any normal day.

Zersa made a low noise from her chest and Alice remembered a phrase subharmonics. That must be what her translator wasn’t picking up, those noises. The turian woman moved over to another set of cupboards and emptied them of all the easy-to-carry bits of meals she could find. Alice thanked her and stuffed her pockets as much as she could, storing a few more in her duffle. With a few moments more of preparation including giving her Omni-tool contact information to Zersa for communication and shifting the away bag to something she could carry more easily on her back, Alice finally felt steady enough to start their next exercise.

Deccus was the first out, crossing the space between buildings in a flash on his much-longer legs. The distant door opened and Zersa had volunteered to keep the door to her building open. Alice stood in between both buildings and tasted the mint-and-metal on her tongue as she projected a barrier. It was much large than one she had worked with before and before half of the occupants had shifted from one building to the other, she could already feel the strain as sweat beaded on her brow.

Rilak, who had been heading up a group of children, ushered them on and stopped long enough to shove half a protein bar into her mouth. Alice smiled appreciatively around the food before she cocked her head hard in the direction of the other restaurant to pressure him forward.

When the turians had all crossed, Zersa pulled the door closed as quietly as she could. Alice moved closer to her, knowing that the energy needed to protect just the two of them would harm her less than keeping up the walkway.

Alice led her across, trying to keep her head down but her eyes open for assailants. They had gotten way too lucky and she knew from personal experience that luck ran out.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Zersa spoke as she moved into the doorway.

“Mother me later,” Alice smiled wide again, even as her eyes felt heavy with the exhaustion. “Stay safe. Keep me updated on the goings-on, and I’ll let you know when I know anything.”

Zersa seemed to hesitate a moment before she reached out and pulled the human a little closer with her talon-tipped hands on the woman’s shoulders. Leaning down from her height, she pressed her forehead gently to the redhead’s freckled one. “Don’t get dead, Alice.”

The redhead made a note to ask her what the gesture meant later, even if she could guess, before she moved back and closed the door over. Leaning with her back against it, she popped an energy and nutrient pill before mowing down on one of the snacks she had hidden on her person. Her whole body shook with the effort she had expended and the idea of moving the dumpster, even the few feet required to hide the human-sized door, made her feel a little green around the gills.

Taking in several big gulps of air, Alice checked both ends of the alley before pushing herself off of the door. She had heard several metallic clicks of the locks being secured on the other side and felt happy in the idea that at least these people might live.

They would, if she had anything to say about it.  

Gritting her teeth, Alice moved to the other side of the dumpster and with both her physical might and the supplement biotic push she was able to scrape the large metal container to hide the entrance to the thick-walled building. She slid down corner created by the wall building and the smelly container, making herself as small as she could while she caught her breath and refueled again. She needed just a few moments to gather herself and then she would search out any other Alliance on leave. She knew at least a few members of her class had been given leave, although most of them had left before she had. She knew that she had a decent chance they would be there.

While she waited for the food to catch up with her body and her body to catch up with her mind, Alice flicked open her Omni-tool. No word from the commanding officer.

She scrolled through her limited contacts, sending off quick messages to determine if anyone she knew was in Illyria or anywhere close enough to help. Alice received no responses by the time she closed the interface back to the stealth mode on her wrist after briefly studying a map of the surrounding area.

With a grunt, Alice lifted herself from the ground and listened long enough to determine which way seemed like the safer option. She was thankful for the cover of night, although she imagined the batarians had an advantage over her in the eyesight department.

Moving to the right side of the alley this time, Alice stopped at the edge of the building and withdrew her mirror from her pocket once more. Checking her surroundings without revealing her position, she determined that she could make it across the street at the very least. It was, to her benefit, the direction she had determined was her best bet.

With a silent prayer to whoever might be listening, she tucked the mirror back into her pocket and took out as fast as she could towards the distant side.

No bullets. No shouts.

Something is going to go wrong, she thought as she caught her breath across from the hiding place she had stowed Zersa and Rilak in, scanning what she could see of the building’s façade to ensure it was still intact.

For now, they were safe.

Alice scanned her surroundings and found a path to the roof of the nearest building. Slowly and quietly, she found her way to the roof and laid flat on her stomach until she could get her bearings. Utilizing a snail’s pace army crawl, she made her way to the front corner of the building that would give her the best view of the city square.

The lights in the square, both from streetlamps and the ships that had landed, illuminated far more batarians than she would have guessed.

And a few too many bodies for her liking.

Frowning deeply, Alice wracked her brain for a solution. What in the world could she do, one against easily over a hundred that she could see armed batarians?

With a sharp inhale as she pushed herself back from the corner to the far end of the building to find her foothold down again, she realized exactly what she could do.

(Read  Chapter One)

Chapter Two: Anywhere Out There

Training was what it was. Alice was the sort of person that threw herself completely into whatever she was doing; as a biotic, she had a similar regimen to all of the other enlisted peoples for the majority of her day and specific, additional training for her specialty in addition to her regular training. She was good with a pistol, but they wanted more from her. They wanted her to be the best – with a pistol, serviceable with most other weapons, in hand-to-hand, and with her abilities. Additionally, she wanted to deliver on the promise she had made to herself when she signed up.

She was going to make something of herself; she wasn’t going to be a good-for-nothing orphan on the streets of Earth. Her name may have been made-up, but everyone would recognize it someday.

While there were specific commanding officers assigned to the training of the few biotics amongst the ranks of the Alliance, Alice was rarely content with the simplicity of what she was being offered.

There was a guy, a Service Chief as far as she knew, with dark hair and a Canadian accent that worked as a sort of secondary teacher to her class of three.

In the mess, or what served as one on the Citadel, Alice was fairly aware that she wasn’t meant to sit with the NCOs. So she settled into her spot on the edge of a long bench of enlisted men and women, eating and chatting mildly with those around her. She bided her time until she saw Service Chief Alenko stand from his position, tray in hand, and make to take care of his things.

After a moment of hesitation, she excused herself and did the same. She followed shortly behind him before jogging up to him, catching him gently by the shoulder in the hallway.

“Sir,” she smiled a little, taking her hand back almost immediately. She was good at pretending; she was one of the best. But even the best aren’t perfect. “Sorry about that, I just wanted to make sure I caught you. I was wondering, if you have time, if you wouldn’t mind helping me?”

“I’m sorry…Private Shepard, isn’t it?”

Alice nodded, fingers against her forehead in her salute when she remembered herself.

“What is it that you think I can help you with? Oh…at ease, Shepard.” Service Chief Alenko smiled softly, eyes wrinkling at the outer edges with the gesture.

The redhead smiled and let her arms fall to her sides, standing with an easy stance that mirrored his. “I want to practice more with my biotic abilities. Outside of training, I mean.”

“Do you feel as though Lieutenant Sasaki’s teachings are insufficient, Private?”

“Oh, no, not particularly, Sir. I just want more. I can train my body on my own without too much worry for the repercussions, have my form corrected in training drills. But with the biotics? I spent most of my time before joining the Alliance working on my own. I don’t know that I have anything else to teach myself, and I’m a little afraid to try my hand at experimenting on my own.”

He seemed to take a long moment to mull over the possibility before his smile returned, “I’ll have to get clearance first, of course.”

Alice did her best to keep her grin in check and nodded. “Of course, sir. I understand. Even if you can direct me towards books or things I might be able to read, to help?”

“Do you mind if I ask why, Private?”

“I don’t mind, Sir,” Alice shrugged, even though internally she did mind. Her reasons were her own and they always had been – but she couldn’t expect something for nothing, that she knew all too well. “I have a duty, Sir. A duty to the Alliance and to myself to be the best version of myself I can.”

“You’ve already made better progress than most, Shepard. Private First Class with whisperings of Corporal, only a year and a half into your service. That’s impressive.”

“Thank you, Sir. I’m just trying to do my best for the Alliance.”

“Just make sure you don’t burn yourself out, then, eh Shepard? One person can only take so much before they’ve had enough, you know?”

The way he said it made Alice curious; there was something behind his dark eyes that made her guess that he had probably had enough at least once in his life. It was gone pretty quickly though and he smiled again, this time it didn’t reach his eyes. He clasped a large, warm hand on her shoulder very briefly.

“Aye, Sir,” she nodded, saluting him briefly before she turned and made her way to the equipment room. Train until lights out, or as good as – a lot of the other enlisted would go about the Citadel in their “free time” but Alice, as much as she liked the idea of meeting some more aliens, felt like her dedication to her success was more important at the time. Besides, she imagined she would be meeting plenty other races in the future. Or, at least, she hoped as much.

It was another week before Service Chief Alenko asked Alice to stay after the training, delaying her from her shower as the other two in her class made their way to wash off their sweaty exhaustion. Juniper and Demetrius, both older than Alice had said she was, were talented biotics with the L3 implants as well.

“Private Shepard, I wanted to speak to you regarding your previous request.”

Alice stood at rest, having only just emptied the contents of her water bottle down her throat, turning her attention back to her superior.  

“I’ve spoken to Lieutenant Sasaki as well as your commanding officer. They’re both in agreement that, as long as I create weekly reports on your progress, I may assist you. It would be to your benefit if we had someone available with an L3, but I will do what I can.”

“Permission to speak freely, Sir?”

It appeared to Alice that Service Chief Alenko seemed to be suppressing the urge to laugh or roll his eyes, which one she couldn’t be certain. “Granted, of course.”

“I’d prefer not to have an implant at all. I didn’t have one until I joined the Alliance and I have to say, I don’t like how it feels. The headaches are worse with it, that’s for sure.”

Kaidan seemed mildly taken aback with her statement, mostly the candor with which she spoke to him. “How much do you know about the L2 implants?”

“As much as I could find, which is to say not much. I like to read,” she blushed a little, as if this information was something she wouldn’t normally share. Which both was and wasn’t true; if she had said it as a part of the persona she had built upon joining the Alliance, it would be one thing but it wasn’t, it had been shared as a truth of who she really was. “I know they’re dangerous. The implants, I mean. And it’s dangerous to upgrade them.”

“I get headaches,” he offered, gesturing slightly to his head. “Migraines, the doctors call them. I got lucky. Really lucky. Some biotics with the L2 go insane.”

“Not to make light of your situation, but I’m fairly surprised I haven’t with this thing in my head. Does yours itch all the time?”

Kaidan made a face at her question, not because he was offended but because he was concerned. He knew there were many different reactions to the implants, but something so consistent could be an issue. “It doesn’t seem to be hampering your abilities, at least. You’re already quite developed for someone with so little professional training. What you can do is more than they usually expect from someone with a L3.”

“I think that’s why I get the headaches, honestly,” Alice shrugged a little, shoving her water bottle in her bag and slinging the duffle over her shoulder. Her stomach rumbled in the relative silence before she continued. “It’s like a suppression.” Her green eyes slid to him in a glance before she offered a half-smile. “But what do I know.”

“Probably more than you give yourself credit for, Shepard. Hit the showers, we can start training tomorrow.”

“When?”

“After dinner. You’ll get another ration of protein bars for afterward. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself, Private.”

“Aye, aye, Sir,” Alice grinned, tipping her head before throwing off a salute and heading towards the communal showers.

Five months of intense practice, training, and workouts passed with a few breaks for small excursions as a part of the Alliance military. At a month shy of two years of service, Alice was brought forward in a ceremony of her peers and superiors to be granted a boost in rank.

Newly-made Corporal Shepard was given leave two weeks shy of her two year mark and with little hesitation, took the offer of two weeks of leave before what would be her first long-term mission.

With the whole of the universe, give or take a few pockets of space, at her fingertips Shepard took her time to decide where she wanted to go. By the time she had decided and booked transport, she had a week left to spend on Elysium.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Alice had ended up choosing a fairly common vacation spot for humans and aliens alike – although, she reminded herself, she really needed to quit referring to other races as ‘aliens’. It wasn’t really accurate, was it? She found herself scanning the faces of those onboard the transport, wondering idly if the C-Sec officer she had met when she first arrived on the Citadel took vacations.

She hadn’t managed to run into him but once in the eleven and a half months she’d spent on the space station, and even that was nothing but a little half-wave from across the Presidium. She had been walking with Demetrius and Juniper in a rare afternoon she actually took off from her over-exertion, mostly just taking in the sights around them.

He didn’t appear to be anywhere she could spot on the ship and so she settled back into her seat, closing her eyes and folding her arms over her chest as she waited for them to dock at Illyria.

Sometime later, Alice stood with a yawn after the ship had been all-but deserted. Rolling her head across her shoulders, she tugged her Alliance-issued duffle out from its hiding spot and draped it over her shoulder. It bounced against her hip after she hit the dock and she blinked, a few feet out of the way, to look up at the new sky.

Grinning to herself, Alice returned her gaze to the space in front of her and made her way to find something to eat.

She sought out, rather intentionally, a restaurant that catered to dextro-based foods. One of the things she had done to herself in a sort of training was putting dextro-based foods into her diet. The first few weeks, she had been pretty ill as a result of it and had spent plenty of her own money on both the alien food and replacement for what she had expelled as a result of eating it.

She had done a lot of research about the difference in the food types, going so far as to submit herself to a voluntary allergen test with the Alliance to determine just how dangerous forcibly ingesting the stuff might be. As it so happened, she had no real reaction to the D-amino acids and she believed the reason she reacted so poorly to the food was the same reason a life-long vegetarian would react poorly to eating meat.

While Elysium was a human colony, it was a vacation spot for many different races – among them being quarian and turian, although the latter was more common than the former. This being said, the dextro restaurant seemed to be the only option for such fare in the general vicinity.

Alice also happened to be the only human within twenty feet of it.

She entered with her most relaxed but confident stance and scanned the room to determine if she was to seat herself or wait for someone to direct her to a spot. She determined the latter was the way to go and so waited, shifted her bag a little and sliding her hands into her pockets.

“Are you lost? Can I help you?” the flanging voice of a male turian, higher in pitch than she would ever expect from someone so tall, caught her attention as she had been scanning some of the decorations.  She couldn’t read the language it was written in, something that mildly irritated her. She didn’t like not knowing things.

Smiling at him when she straightened, she nodded a little. “I’d like a seat, please? A table. I hope the bag isn’t a problem, I just docked.”

“I…I don’t mean to be rude, but you do know this is a dextro-only restaurant, correct?”

“Yes, sir,” she smiled a little, trying to mirror his body language as best she could. She watched his mandibles for anything that reminded her of what she had seen on the C-Sec officer’s face. “I’ve found myself with a taste for it.”

“Are you…you’re human, aren’t you?”

“I am. Don’t worry, I’m not allergic. I swear, you’re not putting me in danger by seating me. If you’d rather I leave, though…?” Alice offered, making sure that her tone suggested absolutely no offense whatsoever.

“Oh, no, that’s…that’s fine, it’s just…well, to be honest with you, it’s strange,” he made a sound that echoed like laughter and she noted the mandible flicker like the officer’s. What was his name? Charis? Shit.

“Strange I can handle,” she grinned at him as he turned his back to lead her towards an oddly shaped stool-like seat at a long, high bar.

“Is this all right? I’m Rilak, by the way.”

Alice moved passed his extended arm with a duck of her head, tucking her bag on the floor below where her feet would end up. She was a little awkward climbing up onto the stool and was fairly certain she heard the same trilling noise under Rilak’s breath that had layered his laugh before, but she couldn’t blame him. She imagined she looked pretty ridiculous trying to get onto that stool, but she managed.

With a grin, she put her hands on the edge of the counter and turned to look back at him. “Looks like it might be. Have you got mulsym here?”

Rilak’s eyes narrowed at her and Alice thought, for a moment, she had severely miscalculated the acceptance of the waiter. His mandibles fluttered in the approximation of a smile again and he nodded. “Yeah, yeah we’ve got it. Do you need a menu?”

Alice shook her head, “No, I’d like to try whatever your chef wants to cook. If that’s all right, I mean.”

“I…yeah, probably. Zersa likes to experiment.”

When Rilak wandered away, gently shaking his head, Alice wasn’t sure if he always sounded so incredulous or if it was entirely her doing. She had a sneaking suspicion it was the latter.

As she rolled her shoulders, finding a comfortable sitting position on the stool, she heard what she recognized as the turian language without a translator in the distance. She wondered briefly if hers was on the fritz but checked her Omni-tool and realized that it had been an active decision of the members of the other race to block it.

That seemed a little rude, she thought with a small frown. Shrugging to herself in her solitude, she scrolled through the news that displayed in the air above her arm. A message pinged into her inbox and she was typing a reply to it when another turian approached from the other side of the counter, a little shorter than Rilak. Where his skin and plates were more of a gray-green color, the new turian was a deep rust color – although both of them had markings on their face in white, where the officer she thought had had blue. This one’s face looked more slender and their head lacked the sort of extended not-hair that Rilak and the officer had.

When they spoke, Alice identified that this one was most definitely a she.

“Rilak told me that you were here but I had to see for myself.” She made a noise that sounded like surprise and her mandibles fluttered in a movement that was unfamiliar to the human. “I’m Zersa and this is my restaurant. You are the first human that has actually ordered food here. We’ve had a few stop in, but they don’t usually last long.”

Alice let out a laugh, one she hoped didn’t sound half as self-conscious as she felt. She was used to strange looks on the Citadel for her food choices, but she usually got away with it. No one really seemed to like humans, especially turians – but they liked money, regardless. “I’m Alice,” she leaned over and extended her arm in an approximation of what the officer had shown her all that time ago. The expression Zersa wore in that moment was easily recognizable as surprise as she scanned the human, hesitating only briefly before she completed the gesture.

The human pressed her newly-painted nails (she was on vacation!) against the sleeve that covered Zersa’s elbow and the turian responded, the pressure very gentle but the talons were sharp. They weren’t blunted by caps like most of those on the Citadel and she could’ve easily drawn blood, had she been so inclined.

Zersa put her three-fingered hands down on the surface of the bartop when they had separated and looked at Alice for a moment before her mandibles spread in what Alice knew was a smile. “It’s good to meet you, Alice. How long are you on Elysium?”

“Just a few days. On leave,” she tugged at her dog tags to suggest she was Alliance. “I’m based on the Citadel right now, but I’m supposed to ship out when I get back.”

“Well, you’re welcome here any time you like, you hear me? And I’ve got some family on the Citadel. I’ll send word, see that they treat you well.” Alice couldn’t identify the expression that Zersa showed her but it made her feel accepted so the young woman smiled.

“Thank you, very much. I appreciate that. I’ll be sure to tell any dextro friends I meet about this place.”

A low purring noise sounded from Zersa and that same smile movement preceded her turning around, moving back to the kitchen. Rilak returned with the mulsym and Alice sipped it happily in silence, silently thanking the C-Sec officer for his help.

By the time she was mostly done with her food, she had cultivated quite an audience. When the corporal left Zersa’s – she insisted on paying because it was really, genuinely delicious although the owner refused to let the human pay for the dessert she pushed into Alice’s hands. The redhead was glad she had taken the plunge and tried the place on a whim, feeling full and happy as she wandered back onto the streets of Illyria with her bag hefted over her shoulder.

She stopped a few paces away from the front door of the restaurant and took a moment to look up at the sky, inspecting the differences in the stars from where she stood.

“What the fuck…” shr breathed, narrowing her green-gold eyes at the brightness of something entering the atmosphere in the distance.

A big something.

Lots of bit somethings.

She set the dessert on my bag as if it was a shelf and brought up her Omni-tool, searching for information on shipments. There was no such thing expected.

The Alliance officer sent off a quick message to her commanding officer, hoping he would check it, about multiple unidentifiable ships entering the atmosphere with no traceable orders before she picked the dessert from its spot and shoved it in among her clothes. Alice turned back to the restaurant and stood still for a moment, spotting Zersa.

The human couldn’t be bothered to consider how rude it might be – she took her longest possible strides across the floor to find Zersa, calling her name to interrupt her conversation. The turian turned immediately and looked at Alice with the plates above her eyes that essentially served as eyebrows lifted.

“I need to speak to you in private, immediately. Please.”

Zersa scrutinized Alice briefly before the taller being nodded once and excused herself from the table of a small turian family, leading with a hand on Her shoulder back into the kitchen.

“What’s this about?”

“There were, from what I could see, eight ships coming into the atmosphere on the northern side of the city. There are no shipping records. I’ve sent a message to my commanding officer, but I think we need to-”

The restaurant shook with an impact outside, throwing the turian into a shelving unit full of pans. Alice reached for her, offering the other female a hand to help her stand – Zersa gripped Alice’s wrist too tightly and pierced a line on the outside of the pale, freckled forearm.

She apologized profusely and the redhead shook her head, wiping the blood on the leg of her own pants. “It’s fine, Zersa. It’s the least of our worries. Tell everyone you can to find whatever weapons they can and get everyone in here that can’t fight to hide…Turn the air off in the freezer and put the kids in there, it should be safe, right?”

“What if it it’s nothing?”

“Then I’ll let you know. I’ll be right back.”

“What if it’s something?” she reached out for the huma but stopped her hand short of the thinner shoulder, eyes shifting to the blood forming along the wound again.

Chapter One: I Lie Just To Meet You

Alice was a liar. She had been a liar for as long as she could form thought in any coherent manner. She lied to herself, first, when she suggested that her parents would come back. She lied to everyone when she made up stories – where they were, who they were, when they would return – and even when she claimed the name ‘Shepard’. She couldn’t remember her last name, younger than three when her parents disappeared. In truth, she couldn’t claim that she had ever met them – one or both – as she had only the faintest recollection of a memory of a scent, and the color blue.

Alice had gone through much of her life without a last name, in fact. It wasn’t until she wandered into a library, not looking to learn but finding the desire to regardless, and they requested her last name for her library card. She was sure she had one, but she couldn’t remember – so she made a quick, subtle scan of her surroundings. Books everywhere, names of authors mostly too far to read.

She saw a sheep dancing along the cover of one of the children’s picture books and scribbled down how she thought the word sounded. She had no formal education and only mildly more training; at nine, she could read but only barely and her handwriting would forever be atrocious.

The girl lied so much that she got better at it; she talked her way into school, briefly. She made excuses for her parents that didn’t exist, or if they did they didn’t matter. She had spent so many years devouring every book at the library; she knew plenty but didn’t know how to do a lot of the things that a formal education would have given to her. Her informal education of all things street gave her little patience for formulas and so she disappeared three weeks after enrolling herself in the institute of learning she had chosen.  

Alice was a smart girl, or more she was a clever girl. She may not have known the Pythagorean Theorem, how to spell ‘antidisestablishmentarianism’, the chemical compound that made up boric acid, or who led what revolution when – but she knew how to charm a snake, she knew how to talk around questions she didn’t want to answer, she knew how to shoot a pistol, and she knew how to pickpocket. She knew a few other things, but best not to put all of one’s cards on the table right away.

The thing she struggled the most with at first was the blue glow at the edge of her vision, which grew into a sort of humming in her head. One morning, when she was still very young, her vision shifted and all she could see were dots. Her eyes focused on the dots, which led them to fade but they were still there, though not really. Her mind was projecting what her body felt; nodes of Element Zero encasing reality around her. When Alice realized she was a biotic, she didn’t actually know that word or what it meant. She spent a goodly portion of her young life trying both to hide and control the pulsing in her nerves.

As an orphan discarded with the morning newspaper, Alice had no papers – no form of identification. She wasn’t sure if she had even been registered as a person at any point in her life. She found a guy that knew a guy that knew someone that could get her papers. She organized their payment and swung her feet over the concrete edge of a broken Earth building while she waited. She was just shy of sixteen then, but when the beanpole of a guy settled down beside her at their meeting spot and slid a manila envelope under her thigh, she wasn’t any more.

“Why’d you want to age up?” he asked, voice reminiscent of an old New Jersey accent.

“What’s it to you?” Alice’s face pinched in irritation. “I paid, you didn’t I?”

“Shit, kid. It’s just that most women want to be younger.”

“Gotta be eighteen to do anything on or off this stupid rock,” Alice grimaced, heel kicking back against the concrete and bouncing off again. “You sure this is legit, Sam? I can’t risk it.”

His eyes narrowed and he rubbed his forehead a little, head cocked to the side. “You paid for the best. You keep your cool and tone down on the ‘stupid’, you’ll pull it off. Whatever it is you intend to pull off, that is.”

Alice jumped down, landing on the ground in a cloud of dust, and reached back for the envelope with one hand and waved with the other. It glowed blue, just briefly, and she smiled like a shark. “It had better.”

It worked. She thought it worked partially because she had studied other recruits for days, hanging around the military station to watch their movements, their actions, and their words. When she strutted into the office and offered herself as a recruit, the woman behind the counter barely batted an eye when she claimed she was eighteen.

Their willingness to take her may or may not have been relevant to the discovery of her biotic abilities; she knew she was special or something, but she didn’t know it was that big of a deal. She was terrified and angry when they told her about the implant. She hated the way she itched after they put it in. She felt chained and that feeling didn’t fade, even when she made it to the Citadel a year later.

It was difficult for Alice not to stare, wide-eyed at the aliens on the space station. She had been fighting the urge to gape out the porthole of the ship her entire trip to the Citadel. She took hurried glances at the stars around her whenever she was sure no one was looking.

When offered a few spare minutes to herself before reporting to the Alliance barracks, she stood slack-jawed at one of the many too-high windows in the Presidium. She was in a relaxed uniform, the black-blue pants on her lower half clearly Alliance and the gray t-shirt obscured slightly on the front by her dog tags and the back by her mass of bright red hair. She had enough time to gape at the stars before she scampered off to put on full uniform and be prepared for her first evening on the base.

“Look at me now,” she smirked to herself, lifting a freckled hand to push hair away and back. She was fortunate and happy to know that she could keep her hair, as long as it was kept up in a regulation hairdo while in uniform. She was disappointed, however, that she could not continue to paint her nails until she made a higher rank. In a year of training, development of her abilities, and adjusting to the L3 implant that itched at the base of her neck, Alice had made Private 1st class. It was still a far cry from her dream of Admiral, but she wasn’t upset. Yet. Without Sam’s help to fudge an education history, she would’ve started at a great disadvantage – her lack of formal schooling could have been her undoing but she had had a lucky break, with the years spent in a library and the type of testing they provided to discern one’s aptitude.

Alice let out a sigh and relaxed her shoulders, lifting her hands to set them on the metal railing in front of her. She leaned over, balancing almost all of her weight on it and almost pressing her face to the glass. Her body, short and thin from being at first underfed and then from the exercise of keeping up with those in her class, balanced precariously on long-fingered hands. She had heard a lot of things throughout her years and was surprised at how closely the barracks on Earth resembled the streets in the prejudice against curves. She had no business in uniform, she had heard; she would be better served on a pole with a figure like that. She convinced herself the men and women of that opinion were merely jealous. And she was too happy that it all worked out to care.

“Damn beautiful,” she grinned, speaking entirely to herself and not caring a fig if anyone overheard her.

A throat cleared behind her and her elbows locked but she didn’t drop until a trilling sound, a voice deep with echoes of wordless noise beneath it, started. “Miss, you’ll need to…uh, not do that.”

By the grace of her arm muscles alone, Alice set her booted toes back to the ground before releasing the railing and turning about. Tilting her head back, she scanned the tall alien with her green eyes. The visor, the uniform – she smiled a little sideways, feeling heat in her cheeks. “Sorry about that, officer.”

“It’s…you’re fine,” he responded with a flick of a mandible, something Alice had not seen before. She had passed a few turians on the Citadel between leaving the ship and unloading her bags, but she hadn’t spoken to one. She knew that was what he was; even without formal schooling, the First Contact War was unavoidable on Earth. “Just…uh, don’t do it again, would you?”

“No, sir,” Alice smirked a little, hands shoved into the pockets of her pants. “You a…what do they call them, Citadel Security Officer?”

“C-Sec,” the turian responded, nodding a little. That was a gesture Alice knew, although when his mandibles spread a little she couldn’t tell if he was amused or angry. “Officer Garrus Vakarian, miss.”

“Private First Class Shepard,” she extended a hand out to him. He looked at it strangely and she huffed a laugh. “Sorry, I forgot…you know. Anyway,” she waved her hand a little and put it back in her pocket. “How do turians greet each other, then?”

The tall, gray-blue officer looked at her strangely for a moment – or at least Alice assumed it was a strange look – before extending his arm out, forearm and palm facing up. Alice stretched out her arm hesitantly and shifted her gaze from their arms to his eyes and raised an eyebrow.

“What was that?” he asked, using finger on his other hand to gesture to her face.

“What was—oh,” she realized belatedly that she had lifted her eyebrow. She raised the hand not attached to the arm that hovered awkwardly over his and touched her sculpted red eyebrow. It had been taken care of by a bunk mate some months back, stray hairs growing back and marring the mostly-even job the other girl had done. “I’ll explain it in a minute. But…the greeting?”

Officer Vakarian blinked before he looked startled, clearing his throat as he regained his composure. “May I?” he asked, setting his three fingers on his unused arm gently atop Alice’s hand as it floated near his elbow.

She nodded her assent, the edges of her lips curled upward in a smile as she watched him. He lowered her hand to his elbow and, after a brief moment, had shifted her fingers into three sections in some sort of facsimile of a turian grasp. Her Alliance-issue sweatshirt pressed against his thin uniform sleeve and his three much longer and thicker fingers clasped the point of her elbow. It was a strange, elongated handshake that felt more intimate than what Alice was used to.

She liked it. Being forced out of her comfort zone made her feel alive.  

After what felt like only a few seconds, Officer Vakarian pressed his capped talons gently into the softness of her sweatshirt. He watched her intently and she realized she was meant to do it back; even through the thin uniform fabric, Alice could feel the difference in their outer hides. Where she was soft and squishy, he was hard and plated. She wondered how much of him was covered in plates and barely caught herself from asking.

Officer Vakarian slowly ended the grasp and watched her strangely, or at least what felt like it would ne strangely, before he gestured to her face again. “What you did with the hair on your face, what was that?”

Alice blinked at him before she laughed a little, running a thumb over the offending patch of hair. “It’s called an ‘eyebrow’. Well, in English, anyway. I lifted it, with the muscles behind it. I didn’t do it intentionally, it’s just a sort of facial expression that some humans use. It can mean a lot of things, but I was curious. But you’ve got ridges or plates, about where eyebrows might be. I imagine it’s kind of the same.” She paused and, as he had gestured to her face she felt like it was okay to do so to him. She gestured, but didn’t reach out far, in the general direction of his mandible. “So you don’t have lips like I do, but you have those…mandibles? Is there another word for it?”

“Mandible is as good a word as any, I suppose. But what’s your question?” With so little experience with turians, Alice couldn’t tell if he sounded more amused or more long-suffering.

“They move a lot, not just when you’re talking. Do the different placements and movements mean different things?”

The officer’s mandibles fluttered a bit, not too far out.

“That. What was that?” Alice jumped a little, eyes wide and eyebrows lifted as she wiggled her fingers in his direction.

“A smile,” the turian responded with a sound similar to a snort.

Absolutely random and unedited nonsense for @rockabilysplit

Morti had been visiting Morty for months and she had the bruises to show for it. When she had first come across him, it had been only marginally better for her health than the last time. But this time – this time, she didn’t have to contend with Rick-related guilt. Rick couldn’t justifiably feel like she was selling him out because Morty wasn’t after him this time. And, honestly, after Unity Rick didn’t have a fucking leg to stand on.

He was angry – he seemed like he was perpetually angry, which was honestly something that Morti understood all too well. Sure, she didn’t have the same scars (emotionally or physically) that the partial cyborg alternative version of herself did but that didn’t mean she didn’t understand.

So he hit her and she let him. All she did was block her more tender areas from him, essentially letting him assault him until he either grew bored or tired. Then she would set down what she brought him – usually pre-packaged food which she would then offer to eat so he knew she wasn’t trying to poison him – and sit several feet away. Slowly, over time, she started sitting closer. She began to bake and cook for him, still offering to taste as much of it as he required to earn at least a modicum of his trust.

It was something like six months from the moment Morti found him as she settled onto the park bench beside him, the green of her portal long-since closed. She sat at the other end of the bench, hands in her lap holding the hot chocolate for both of them. It was cold, nearly Christmas.

Without a word, she set the cups down on the bench before unfolding a coat from over her arm. Standing, she shuffled her feet so that she was close enough to reach out.

“Here.”

Morty turned his head, looking up at her with his good eye. He wore a scowl, eye narrowed at her before he reached out to swipe it. His lips were tinged blue, despite his sweater, hat, and gloves.

He shoved his arms into the coat and curled into it on the bench. Morti frowned and unwound the scarf from around her neck, offering it to him. He hadn’t looked up.

“Here,” she repeated, shoving her hand out to him with the scarf draped over her palm.

“No.”

“Just fucking take it. The hot chocolate is getting cold.”

He did take it, still frowning deeply, and wrapped it around his neck before zipping the coat his alternative self had brought him.

Morti lifted the cups up and Morty watched her. She took the lid off one, took a sip, and set it down. She repeated the action. Morty eyed her closely before snatching up one cup in his gloved hands.

After a long few minutes of near-silent sipping, Morti let out a sigh.

“You know, you could come with me. We could go to a coffee shop or even my house. Somewhere warmer than this.”

Morty snorted and didn’t respond for a long time. Morti shifted on the bench, moving just a little closer. She was taller than he was, her genetic inheritance involving some degree of Rick’s height over that of either of her parents. Her booted feet were farther out than his were, crunching snow beneath their soles.

“What are you doing?” he asked gruffly, face half-hidden beneath the scarf.

“Sitting.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Look. You’re cold. You’ve decided, at least for the moment, to stop hitting me. I figured sitting a little closer might make you feel better.”

Morty didn’t respond, body stiff against the cold bench. Morti waited a few moments before she shifted closer again. At that point, she was still half an arm’s length away. Morty did not comment again, not even when he could feel the heat radiating off of her jean-covered legs. They weren’t touching but he could feel it.

13 of 13 for @rockabilysplit

The hospital bed was too small for both of them, but Morti wouldn’t hear anything about it. She would, despite her age, likely have fought anyone that tried to suggest she leave. She had given more than one doctor a very convincing death-glare at any number of poorly-timed throat clearings.

She hadn’t much time in the bed up to that point; mostly she sat in the chair beside it, dozing occasionally when she felt it was suitable to do so. She looked fairly haggard, although she barely hit thirty. It was the lack of sleep from watching the only human being she really cared about slowly waste away.

They knew it was coming – they knew it would eventually, anyway. And even there, in the best hospital across as many dimensions and universes as they could find – you can’t cheat death.

Well, you can – but he comes back with a motherfucking vengeance.

Rick was in his mid-seventies and, considering his lifestyle and near-death experiences to that point, he was well beyond his expiration date.

That didn’t make it any easier.

He was hooked up to more machines than she had ever seen in one hospital room, the beeps and hums a constant noise that felt like anything but white as it bounced around inside of her skull.

He was mostly unconscious at this point and had been for a few days. Morti, who hated to cry in front of him, had been unable to stop the tears from the second he collapsed. Even as she spoke, sternly and evenly, to whichever member of the hospital staff she came across she couldn’t stop the waterworks.

Rick Sanchez was dying.

It didn’t matter how many bullets she took or punches she threw, there was absolutely nothing Morti could do about it.

He looked so pale and frail, mouth slack with drool pooling in the corner. Morti wiped his face clean with a sad sort of smile; he would have never let her do that conscious.

Alive.

She didn’t catch the sob before it left her then, a flood of memories overtaking her like they had been doing while she spent her time waiting for him to just fucking wake up.

They said he didn’t have much time left, the doctors. Beth had come and gone, Summer too. Birdperson came every day and Unity was always around in some form or another – but everyone understood. It wasn’t that Morti had more of a claim to him and, in terms of time spent she even had less. But they all understood, regardless, that there was no use arguing with her.

She was, after all, a Sanchez.

Morti wiped her eyes with the ends of her sleeves and sniffled lightly before she slipped into the hospital bed alongside Rick. She was careful and perhaps more graceful in those few, breathless moments than she had ever been in her entire life combined as to not to disturb him.

Even if she wanted to.

She wanted to slap him, to shake him, scream at him –  anything to bring him back.

It hurt more than all of the pain she could recall, throughout all of their adventures – the idea of losing him, and for good. There would be no more ‘Hey Morti!’s, no more zany off-world trips, no more name-calling, no more…

No more Rick Sanchez.

It wasn’t fucking fair, she decided as she curled herself along the side of the old man’s body like she was a child of three. She twined her legs with his, sliding an arm in the dip created by his neck and the angle of the pillow. She draped her other one protectively over his chest and rested her head on his pillow beside his, forehead warm against his cool cheek.

“R-Rick…if you can hear me, I just…” she felt the hot tears cooling across her face as they pooled in the pillow beneath her, “I am sorry.  I am sorry I can’t fix this. I’m sorry I can’t save you.”

Her body wracked with sobs and she tried to hold them in, afraid she would jostle him too much. She was already dangerously close to some of his wires but she wasn’t about to let them take this away from her. She could count on one hand the number of times she remembered physical affection directly involving Rick in her life and this was probably her last chance.

“I know…I know you don’t believe in heaven, R-rick, and I’m not sure I do either. But I’ll find you, when this is all over? Even if we become nothingness…my nothingness will find your nothingness, okay? Because you’re…” Morti stopped, swallowing another sob. “…my Gr-grandpa.”

The word itself may not have meant anything special to most people, but the way she said the word encapsulated more than the English title ever could. She packed every ounce of meaning into it that she possibly good; he was her dad, he was her hero, he was her everything. Even as a grown woman with more degrees than fingers on one hand and a fairly successful relationship with an alien bird-man, Morti needed her grandpa.

Her breath hitched on a sob and she clung to him as if she was the one that was lost in a sea of hazy reality. “I love you. I fucking love you, you gr-grumpy old man. I need you to know that. I need you to know that I wouldn’t tr-trade any of it, not a single goddamn moment.”

Morti hadn’t noticed the hand slowly drifting up from the far side, shifting since she had laid down from where it rested at his hip to finally rest over her own. She startled a little at the sensation, lifting her head to make sure she wasn’t imagine it.

She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and buried her face in the crook of his neck as his hand squeeze hers, just once, like it had all those years ago. They had nearly died that day but she had managed, by the skin of her teeth, to save him.

12 of 13 for @rockabilysplit

Following Birdperson’s uneasy conversation with Rick and the subsequent drunken monologue Morti had been party to, the avian man and genius’ granddaughter found themselves alone in the former’s home. Morti liked the birdhouse, as she had taken to calling it, and how she felt within its walls.

While Morti and Birdperson had briefly discussed the fact that there was something more between them than movie marathons and a shared love of popcorn, they hadn’t actually defined anything. Aside from informing Rick of his intention to spend quality time with the man’s granddaughter, Birdperson hadn’t uttered a word about his feelings or desires regarding the situation.

Not that he uttered many words about much of anything, as a general rule. Over the years he had grown more forthcoming with the young woman but he never strayed from his stoic personality. Morti almost found herself calling him ‘gentle’ but somehow the word didn’t seem to fit.

After a dinner made specifically with their combined diets in mind – Morti had managed to find enough things that he would eat that she could say she’d at least try – they shifted to what equated to a porch. There was a set of wicker-like chairs but, beyond that, a large nest-like swing. Morti had enjoyed sitting in it, a ball of branches with a hole in the front for entrance absolutely packed with pillows and softness. It was built in a way to accommodate Birdperson’s wings but was still comfortable for a fully human person.

“How much weight do you think that thing can handle?” Morti asked, gesturing to the swinging ball of comfort with her eyes on her companion for the evening.

Birdperson looked from the girl that had changed her name to Sanchez, even though it should have been that to begin with in his opinion, and then to the contraption that had been a spot of consternation for the bird man.

Morti referred to it as a ‘nesting ball’ – which wasn’t entirely incorrect, but she didn’t fully understand what it was for. In bird culture, it was customary for a courting dominant partner to offer the object of their affection a comfortable place for their first romp – this, in general, would be something quite nest-like. At least for the first go-round. It was a sort of tradition, one that Morti had no knowledge of.

He knew his intentions for Morti, at least to some extent. He knew that he had intended to invite her into the nesting ball at some point. He also knew that he wasn’t sure it was the right time, regardless of how much he anticipated enjoying himself.

Although Morti remembered only bits and pieces of her early youth (what little she did remember was largely in part thanks to Unity), Birdperson occasionally had flashes of the toddler tucked under Rick’s arm. It would have been strange, were he human, most likely. Bird culture did not put so much stock in such things as age and he had not raised her as his own chick – if he had, he sorely doubted the feelings that had arisen would have ever have taken root at all.

No – it was perhaps knowing her so long that allowed him to feel what he did. To see her grown from such a helpless, squirming bundle of giggles into the young woman on the cusp of her first degree who had survived so much over the last twenty-some years – this made her incredible to him. It wasn’t a sentiment he truly knew how to express, for which he would someday apologize. She received little from him and even less from Rick in the way of praise, although Birdperson was glad to note that Unity seemed to be attempting to make up for the lack of it all.

“Squanch to trruh-srrreee-trrreeh-rrr?” Morti trilled an approximation of his name and the sound made him smile, insomuch as he did, when he returned his attention to the present moment.

“I apologize, Morticia. My mind was elsewhere. In answer to your question, it is meant to hold two adult members of my species.” He moved closer to her and put his hands on her hips, gripping tightly – his yellow gloves would protect her from the talons that tipped his fingers. He lifted her rather easily before setting her down again.

Before he could speak, Morti set a hand against his feather cowl, scoffing slightly. “Did you just weigh me?”

“I did,” he replied candidly, finding that his hands had no desire to leave their position on the swell of her hips. “You are much lighter than most females of my species. Assuming you asked your question with the intention of the two of us coming together in the nesting ball, I will inform you that I do not believe there should be an issue of weight given how light you are.”

Morti’s cheeks reddened a little – blushing from embarrassment was not something she did with any frequency. Her face would grow red in anger from time to time, but even that was not very commonplace. There was something about the way he said coming together with his eyes on hers, gloved hands still holding her in place that had her feeling a certain way.

“Well then? What are we waiting for?” she grinned at him, taking a page from her grandfather’s book and utilizing avoidance of any major conversation topic as she reached for his hand and tugged him closer to the hanging ball. “You should take these things off. I’m not worried.”

“I would not wish to accidentally harm you,” he responded with a pointed look, even as Morti held him remove the coverings.

“Although I know they’re pr-pretty damn sharp, I think I’ve had worse.” She offered him a grin, setting the gloves in the well of one of the patio chairs. Finally, she gestured to the ball. “You first. I bet it’s easier that way.”

It would be and he knew it, but he would have preferred to see her climb in front the outside. He imagined the stretch of her limbs would be a sight to behold.

Birdperson cleared his throat a little to rid himself of thoughts best left for another time, slipping into the nesting ball with an air of practice precision.

Morti was not half as graceful about it as he was – it was, perhaps, beneficial that he was inside first so that he might act to keep it reasonably steady and avoid any major catastrophes as a result of her inability to move like an adult human rather than a newborn colt.

She wasted no time finding a position that was comfortable to her – resulting in her seated in his lap across it, her left side pressed against his front and her arm curved along his shoulders between his neck and his wings.

With her so ready to accept his closeness, Birdperson found it easier to convince himself to lay his hands in various positions on her body. Both arms curled around her almost possessively, glad when she held herself closer and set her forehead against the length of his neck in response. Her right hand shifted, the warmth of her palm laid flat against his uncovered pectoral.

The fingers on her left hand stroked gently along the curve of his wing that it could reach, smoothing down the feathers with a soft touch that felt like the ghost of a breeze.

Birdperson tilted his head and trilled airily into her hair, nestling his long, hooked nose through the strands near her crown.

Morti responded with a sighing whistle of a tweet and shifted slowly, moving so that she had a leg on either side of him with her front pressed to his. Straddling his lap, she wrapped her arms over his shoulders as she aligned her cheek with his. He breathed in deeply the scent of her hair, eyes closing briefly as his foreign hands spread across her wingless back.

11 of 13 for @rockabilysplit

Morti groused under her breath in the oversized chair set off to the side of the living room she shared with Rick – and ostensibly with Unity, Birdperson, sometimes Squanchy, and pretty much anyone else that dropped by. (Except for Jerry, because fuck him.)

She was sick. She hated being sick. It was such a goddamn waste of time, not being able to do anything other than feel exhausted and weak in a pile of blankets laden with medicine and tissues. She had shit to do.

Morti found it difficult to make it from the chair to basically anywhere else in the house – which was why she had chosen the chair, actually. It was much closer to the necessities such as the kitchen for sustenance and the bathroom for a myriad of reasons than her bedroom, at the far end of a long all, was.

A familiar body entered the room from what Morti assumed was Rick’s room, although he had likely come more form the hallway in terms of specifics. He was tall and thin, more muscular than either herself or Rick, with inky skin and bright eyes. His smile, which was fairly common in the presence of the Sanchez clan unless her grandfather was being particularly insufferable, was a beam of bright, flat teeth. Morti liked this host of Unity’s – in truth, she liked most of them except the giraffe because holy shit what the hell Grandpa. She liked Unity, despite everything that had gone down between them and because of the hivemind. It had not been an immediate forgiveness on Morti’s part, but it was a complete one.

“Hey kiddo, do you need anything?” the male’s voice was low and smooth. All of Unity’s hosts spoke with the same sleek sound, despite the timbre of the speech behind it. Whatever accent might have been held by the host was only affected when necessary; accents are a learned thing, and Unity did not have one.

Morti made a grumbly noise, somewhere between a plea and a groan but without an discernible words thrown in. Ren-Unity let out a laugh and crossed the room on long, strong legs before bodily lifting Morti bridal-style into his arms. She let out a squeak of surprise but found that she quite liked feeling like she was floating. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had picked her up like she weighed so little.

The movement was over fairly quickly, Morti turned about as Ren-Unity settled into the chair and brought Morti back down gently into his lap. The man adjusted Morti so that she would be more comfortable – Morti had not told Unity to stay out of her head. They had an understanding and, so far, the hivemind had not crossed any lines so it was welcome to continue doing what it wanted so long as things stayed copacetic. – before tucking the blanket nest around her.

Sophia-Unity emerged from the hallway too, flicking on the television before bringing the remote over to Ren-Unity. The man in whose lap Morti was presently curled smoothed down her hair and held her close, warmth radiating from him more readily than it would from a human. He was from a colder, darker planet and his species had evolved so that they were essentially their own space heaters. It made Morti feel more relaxed than she had since she had fallen ill.

10 of 13 for @rockabilysplit

With Morti more and more often busy with the life she was building, much to Rick’s internal chagrin, he found that he had spare time. Insomuch, of course, as Rick ever had ‘spare’ anything. Parts became machines, time became projects or adventures. The latter, he found, were less interesting (sometimes, although he’d never admit it) without Morti to tag along.

One of the things that he had found to do was spend time with Unity. The past being firmly buried behind them, they had been able to reconvene their relationship more or less where they left off. It wasn’t necessarily perfect, but little was.

He and Unity, whichever host or hosts it had around, spent more time than not in the house Morti was renting. She had tried the apartment thing but with Rick welcomed to come along with her, Morti had decided more room was better – and they needed a garage for experiments, of course. It wasn’t a large house, but it was sufficient for two (although Unity usually added at least one to the mix).

On one particularly chilly winter day, Morti was due to be gone for some time. Unity, in the form of a petite, young redhead (its personal favorite through the years) and a lithe man in his early forties with skin the color of the night sky and eyes with no irises but pupils like stars, was settled on either end of the couch with Rick in the middle.

Rick wasn’t, by and large, a particularly affectionate individual but something with Unity made it just that much easier to give in to the desire.

Ren, the male host’s original name, slid an arm behind Rick’s shoulders and tugged the older man gently closer to him. With a smirk befitting a man that had a hivemind wrapped around his finger, Rick cast a glance at the girl who had once been called Sophia. He crooked a long finger to suggest she join them, even if he knew Unity could feel the thought radiating off of him.

Since the incident, Unity did not come anywhere near entering his mind without his express permission – but it didn’t need to. The entity that was Unity, who generally allowed ‘she to be the common pronoun used without raising too much of a stink, knew Rick Sanchez very well without having to read his mind.

Sophia-Unity slunk across the couch on all fours before she laid herself across the lap of Rick and a little on Ren-Unity. Despite her personal affinity for Rick’s hair, it was the man’s fingers that found their way into her red locks.

9 of 13 for @rockabilysplit

Morti wasn’t sure how she managed to keep breathing when she saw the gaunt look on her grandfather’s face. They had been hiding for what felt like years, although it couldn’t have been much more than a few months. The rest of the family wasn’t in danger, they had made sure of that.

Rick had made sure of that.

Morti wouldn’t let him go on his own; she would’ve stowed away or made another portal gun, if it came to that. He didn’t need to face this alone, even if it meant that they were stuck in the middle of nowhere with less-than-nothing to eat on a regular basis.

She could feel the weakness in her own bones, the constant chill from being under-nourished making her feel sick near-constantly.

She had been, for all intents and purposes, healthy before this little foray into nothingness. Rick, though. Even though she saw him as her hero (not that she would ever tell him that) and believed him to be mostly immortal, seeing him with cheeks so sallow made her remember that he was old.

There wasn’t anything wrong with being old, but he had to be taking this even harder than she was.

“R-Rick,” she started, shoving the rest of her half-eaten can of beans towards him. “I’m not hungry. You finish it.”

He eyed her suspiciously; she was fairly certain he knew she was hungry but she was thankful that her stomach didn’t growl to emphasize the fact.

“Just fucking take it,” Morti rolled her eyes and set the can in front of his folded legs, rubbing her arms to create friction for warmth after she had rid herself of her dinner. Or was it breakfast? She had lost track of time ages ago.

She shifted in their close quarters, pacing a few feet from the fire to inspect their bedrolls. It was like camping on steroids, and not in a good way. She scratched at her head, making a face when she realized how oily her hair was. They were both pretty disgusting by that point but it wasn’t something that was high on their priority list. At least they could shit not there, making it a little more bearable.

Squatting near their oversized sleeping bags, Morti rummaged around for a few minutes before she heard the scoff of her grandfather at her side.

“What the fu-UURGHH-fuck are you doing, Morti?”

“Making our lives suck less,” she huffed as she finished, standing and wiping her hands on too-thin leggings layered over another pair.

“You don’t expect me to cuddle, do you?” Rick made a face – a face that Morti recognized easily – and threw back his head along with his flask. Even if they didn’t have food, Morti made certain they had alcohol. She didn’t want to see what would happen if he went cold turkey.

“Fuck you, R-Rick. It’s fucking cold. The extra layers and body-heat will help. Get over yourself.”

The scientist didn’t seem pleased and made a few more unseemly comments before muttering, “You’re stuck in-in…you’re sleeping on the seam, then.”

Morti turned her gaze skyward and sent up a silent prayer to no one in particular that this would be over soon before she climbed into the bedding and shoved herself as far to the curve of the fabric as she could.

When Rick entered, he had nothing but shit to say about how his arm was trapped.

“Then put it ar-round me, dipshit,” Morti mumbled as she struggled to move enough to allow him to do so. “Jeeze, R-Rick, it’s like you’ve never slept in the same bed as someone else before. Which I know isn’t tr-true.”

There was a lot of name-calling in the next few minutes as they sorted themselves. Rick opted to roll onto his side rather than put his arm around Morti, so she did the same – which resulted in their backs hovering near each other.

Fitful sleep came and, as was fairly normal without the aid of alcohol, Morti awoke in the middle of a fairly horrendous dream. She stilled at the unfamiliar sensation of arms around her and heat beneath her cheek. Blinking in the darkness, she recognized the uneven breathing of her grandfather and the smell of whiskey in wool. A hand was curved over her shoulder, one of hers buried uncomfortably between her body and Rick’s with the other tastefully over his heart.

Morti tried to keep her breathing even as to avoid waking the mad scientist, letting the fact that she was being held for what felt like the first time in a decade lull her back to sleep. Just before consciousness escaped her, she felt the arm around her back and shoulder tighten briefly in what might have been a half hug – if Rick Sanchez did that sort of thing.

8 of 13 for @rockabilysplit

Beth and Jerry had set on a cartoon in the living room while the former cooked dinner and the latter mowed the lawn; it wasn’t that they necessarily fell into stereotypical gender roles for any reason other than preference. Even though Beth wasn’t the best cook, most of what she made was at least edible – the same could not be said for Jerry.

Morti yawned from her space in the center of her cushion, seven-year-old legs swinging a little before she flopped back against the couch.  A warm hand came from the side, tugging at her elbow.

“I’m cold,” Summer grumbled, jerking her sister’s arm. Morti huffed slightly and pulled her legs onto the couch, scrambling over a little to press into Summer’s side. The girls wound themselves around each other with Morti’s head on Summer’s shoulder, and the older girl’s cheek pressed into the younger’s deep red hair.

They fell asleep with the flashing of the television’s lights playing across their features, which was how they stayed until Jerry slammed the front door. He stomped into the house, grumbling about the lawnmower. In the kitchen, Beth sighed and poured herself a drink.

7 of 13 for @rockabilysplit

The four-year-old opened her eyes wide before shutting them tight, curling into a ball in the corner of Birdperson’s couch after tripping through the portal back. Rick stumbled out behind her, breathing heavily after having run so far. The portal closed around a claw, narrowly missing Rick’s lab coat. The crablike appendage flopped onto the floor as the green door diminished to nothing at all.

Without missing a beat, Rick picked it up by the portal-cauterized end and dragged it to a far away room as Morti remained huddled in her corner. She was shaking like a leaf, trying not to cry. She didn’t like crying. Grandpa made a face when she cried, although he tried to hide it sometimes – like he didn’t want her to know that he didn’t like it. So she tried to stop or hide when she felt like she needed to.

Rick returned swiftly, swiping a bottle from Birdperson’s storage of liquor and falling onto the couch beside his granddaughter. He cast a glance in her direction, hand not laden with alcohol set in the space between them.

“That sure was – URRGH – a-a rush, eh, Morti?”

She peaked out from beneath her own arm, pulling her head up a little to look over at him. Her brown eyes were red-rimmed and she sniffled, forcing a tiny smile. She nodded a slightly at him.

Rick drank in the silence that followed until he felt the couch shift. He turned to look at her again and moved his hand up as she crawled closer, eventually plopping herself directly in his lap. He didn’t remark as she buried herself against his stomach, pulling the edges of his coat around her as her cheek rested against his diaphragm.

6 of 13 for @rockabilysplit

Beth’s blue eyes welled with tears as the nurse handed the small bundle of girl up to her, arms shaking even as she was determined to hold her baby daughter. Summer was at home with her mother, Jerry’s parents due to come in soon. Jerry was standing there, wide-eyed like he had been the first time.

She held the squirming, bald little girl gently but close to her chest and buried her face in the blankets to inhale the sweet scent of her newborn. Her tears tickled the girl’s soft cheeks before Beth moved back to wipe them away.

“Are you sure about Morticia?” Jerry asked, wringing the paper hat he had had to wear during the birth in his hands.

5 of 13 for @rockabilysplit

Beth could feel the edges of her vision blurring from the piss-flavored beer she kept pouring down her throat. The party was dying down but she wasn’t ready to drag herself home, even if it was just a few houses down the block.

Tossing back the rest of her current can, she stumbled a little as she made her way back towards the kitchen of a senior boy she’d never spoken to before whose parents just happened to be out of town. She wanted something sweet because this beer was gross. Maybe a vodka and cranberry?

Beth rifled through the fridge of someone she didn’t know before giving up and grabbing another beer. She stomped her way to the couch, bad music thumping through the room and at odds with her pulse.

A body appeared a cushion down and she blinked, making a face as she tried to discern the features of the newcomer.

“B-Beth? Are you…are you okay?”

Beth opened her mouth to respond and belched instead. She began to laugh immediately following, which turned into somewhat hysterical giggles. The person she still didn’t recognize slid closer somewhat hesitantly and rested a hand on her shoulder, taking the beer gingerly to avoid Beth sloshing it around everywhere in her fit.

“I…yeah. And hey…” she leaned over a little, resting her head on the warm shoulder. “You mind staying…just here? S’nice.”

“S-sure, Beth,” Jerry Smith smiled a little, leaning just enough to put the beer down. He set one hand on his own thigh and left the other on her shoulder, trying to avoid touching her anywhere she might not approve. His parents had gone out of town for some sort of mini-renew-their-vows sort of thing and, in all honesty, the only reason he had bothered to throw the party was to get Beth Sanchez to notice him.

Because he noticed her, and he thought she was just the coolest, most beautiful girl ever. And here he was, on his couch, holding the girl of his dreams.

Beth snuggled a little closer, draping herself more across him. He stiffened a little, trying to keep himself as un-pervy as he could manage.

“Hey..Hey, Jerry,” Beth mumbled into his shirt, finally remembering his name. “Can I…” she flopped her hand around and found Jerry’s, numbly sliding her fingers through his.