#mefics

Shepard offers her hand in greeting before Liara can jump in with the hug her bright eyes telegraph. She never knew Liara that well: as soon as she was securely on board, they’d been recalled to the Citadel. There hadn’t been much time to chat between the mutiny and stealing her own ship and planning the Ilos mission. By the time she was released from debriefing and the resultant disciplinary hearing, most of her alien crew had gone their separate ways.

"It’s nice to see you again, Liara," and she surprises herself by meaning it. Her gut twists at the familiar face she should have seen on Horizon, and an unfair wave of anger surges up toward Liara. She swallows the wave and sits down, a poised Miranda on her left and a slouching Jack on her right. She tries not to fidget too obviously while she asks Liara about the assassin and the justicar.

The intel isn’t hard to extract. Liara is a very good information broker, though Shepard wonders if the information Liara refers to is about Thane and Samara, or that Shepard would be here looking for them.

They’re all a little high when they make it back to the ship, Samara in tow. It’s nothing detrimental, though Garrus can’t stop sneezing and Jack’s corona glows faintly if she steps out of direct light. Shepard gives everyone shore leave for the evening, under the condition that Chakwas confirms the nothing detrimental field diagnosis with proper tests on an individual level. She changes into civilian clothing that isn’t covered in the Cerberus logo, and meets Jack by the airlock.

"You had to invite the cheerleader?" Jack shoves off the wall and falls into step next to Shepard, leaving Miranda no room to walk beside them.

"You’d prefer I stay on the ship and sit in my room and think about what Cerberus did to you?"

Shepard gracelessly turns a laugh into a cough.

Jack turns around and walks backward. “Yeah, I would.”

Miranda tilts her head. “It’s a good thing you’re not in charge, then. Watch out for the volus.”

Jack narrowly avoids backing into the volus shopper and sidesteps the kiosk he’s browsing. “Thanks for the warning, Shepard.”

Shepard holds her hands up, palms outward. “Hey, you two are the only entertainment I get these days.” She pointedly ignores the civilian outside Eternity’s doors, complaining about a human causing a disturbance inside. Humans cause disturbances all over the galaxy, and they seem to be doing it even more since she sacrificed the Council two years ago. Besides, she’s off duty and Illium has its own police force.

One look at the human and she nearly turns around to find another bar in Nos Astra. Jack’s already halfway to the bar, so she squares her shoulders and follows, making sure to sit at the very last stool, positioning Jack and Miranda between her and the armored human. Her hair’s longer and darker than when he last saw her and he isn’t expecting to see her, so she’s able to pound back two drinks before Conrad Verner notices her sitting at the end of the bar with her friends.

“Commander Shepard?”

She gestures for Aethyta to bring her another shot and makes Conrad wait while she throws it back and slams the empty glass on the counter. “Conrad.” She’s heard enough of what he’s spewing to come to the unfortunate realization that she’s going to have to do something about him eventually.

“You…you’re supposed to be dead.”

“That seems to be a common misconception these days.” Maybe she can start conversations with yes I used to be dead and save everyone the slightly-betrayed shock.

“The last time I saw you, you waved a gun in my face!”

“Glad to see you took my advice to heart. Conrad, why are you wearing my armor?”

Jack chokes on her drink.

“You were dead. Someone had to step up and defend humanity! I watched videos of you on the extranet. I trained like you. The galaxy needs my help, and I’m ready!”

Shepard combs her fingers through her hair and pulls it out of her face, securing her loose ponytail with the rubber band around her wrist. The band leaves an angry red line on her skin. “Alright,” she stands up and drops her jacket on the stool, revealing her black tank top and the Carnifex at her hip. “Let’s see what moves you have, Defender of Humanity.”

Miranda sighs, picks up her drink and steps out of the way. Jack leans back on her elbows on the bar, and nods when Aethyta holds up the bottle in offer of a refill.

The other patrons have started to notice the brewing fight and abandoned the immediate area around the bar. Shepard cocks her head and smirks humorlessly. Conrad hesitates, the steel dissolving from his spine as he’s confronted with following through in front of an audience. She crosses her arms.

“The galaxy’s in good hands with you, alright. Can’t even manage it when someone invites you to attack her. No need for me to have come all the way back from the dead.”

Conrad looks around. Everyone’s either staring, or trying hard not to stare. And Shepard’s standing in front of him, all muscle and scars, daring him to show her what he’s taught himself in his living room.

“Shepard,” Miranda says quietly, but she’s drowned out by Jack’s teasing.

“Come on, pussy. Scared of a girl?” Jack takes the shot as soon as Aethyta’s capped the bottle.

Shepard’s upper lip curls into a sneer. Conrad’s shoulders tense, giving him away a moment before he snaps. She easily sidesteps his rush and catches his ankle with hers, dropping him to the floor in an undignified clang of armor. With one smooth moment, she unholsters her Carnifex and fires a single round into his foot. His knockoff armor never stood a chance at deflecting the shot, no matter how expensive it looks.

“You…you shot me!” He clutches at his foot.

“Go home, Conrad. You’re not helping anyone.” She turns away from him back to her seat at the bar, and the drink waiting for her.

She ignores the pained noises he makes as he stands up. In another lifetime, she might have cared.

“I can’t believe I ever wanted to be you,” Conrad says quietly. “You’re nothing but a bully.”

She fishes the red berry out of the bottom of her shallow glass and pops it into her mouth; the fruit explodes with sharp, tangy juice, hinting at the ralia it was soaked in.

“Thanks,” Aethyta says. “Scares the customers when I’m the one who has to do that. Drink’s on the house.” She wipes down the bar.

Shepard looks up from her drink and smiles mechanically at the matriarch. “Anytime.”

Miranda sets her empty glass on the counter. “Thank you for the show, Shepard, but I have a report to finish.”

Jack scoffs and asks Aethyta if Eternity serves any food that isn’t calamari gumbo. Aethyta hands her a self-service menu pad.

Shepard turns to catch Miranda before she’s out of earshot. “0700 tomorrow morning. We’ll meet Lanteia and take care of your sister.”

“Thank you, Shepard.”

Jack taps in her order and hands the pad to Shepard. Shaking her head, Shepard twirls the stem of her glass between her fingers, watching the light sparkle inside the liquid.

Miranda nearly misses the pile of armor discarded at the bottom of the stairs, but the red stripe on the arm catches her eye and she strides toward the ship a little faster. Maybe three reports with increasing description of Shepard’s behavior and this latest incident will change his mind.

She should be so lucky.

“The Alliance put their faith in Shepard because she was ruthless, able to keep calm under fire and do what other soldiers might balk at. I see nothing in these reports to support that she is anything else, Miranda.”

“I read everything that was ever published about Shepard in preparation for the Lazarus Project. Declassified reports, classified reports, interviews, biographical pieces, they all suggest the same psychological profile: she may be ruthless and she may not be particularly nice, but she is not cruel.” She takes a breath to calm herself, and unclenches her fists. “This mission is having an unpredicted adverse effect on her mental state and we should do everything in our power to reverse that before she breaks.”

“Yes, I saw the extranet video from earlier tonight featuring Mr. Verner. His actions would have put himself or others into danger. Shepard handled the situation exactly as I expected.”

“She shot him in the foot after she already neutralized what little threat he posed to her. That does not strike me as a reasonable handling of the situation.”

“Verner said it himself, Miranda. Shepard already spoke to him once about this matter, and it had no effect. Now Mr. Verner will stay out of galactic business.”

Miranda’s seen security camera footage from the Citadel two years ago. Spoke is an interesting term for how Shepard treated Conrad.

“Miranda, I know you have your concerns, and I take them seriously. But imagine if Conrad Verner showed up to help with your efforts to protect your sister tomorrow. What lengths would you go to to ensure that he didn’t interfere?”

The Illusive Man’s strict application of logic has never infuriated her before now. “Understood.”

Until she reads a high-priority scout report describing evidence of geth activity near their site, Tali doesn’t think anything of it when she doesn’t hear from Ashley for several weeks: emails have been sparse since they parted ways at the Citadel a few months ago, thanks to interference from Haestrom’s sun, and Ashley’s classified assignment.

The words active geth set her pulse racing and she immediately flashes back to the last time she had to fight geth: Shepard and Ashley were both by her side then. Now all she has are a handful of scientists and a few soldiers and a burning sun that fries all of her electronics if given half a chance.

She’s alone after dinner and scrolls through her messages, re-reading old emails from Ashley. The last one is dated four weeks ago, and she’d written back that night. She checks her outbox and her response isn’t there: it sent properly. Four weeks is too long, even for their limited communication.

Classified Alliance channels aren’t as encrypted in the Terminus as they should be, and Tali manages to catch a strong enough signal to hack into an Alliance military server. Unsettled, she programs her omnitool to search for any mention of Ashley Williams.

The search finishes almost immediately and Tali gasps when she reads Williams, Ashley. Current Assignment: Horizon colony, GARDIAN defense laser installation.

Tali’s been tracking galactic news for sightings, trying to figure out where Shepard is ever since running into her on Freedom’s Progress. She’d heard the news report about Horizon three days ago over breakfast.

No survivors hadn’t seemed quite as ominous then.

“What’s eating you?”

The number of empty shot glasses in front of them has more than quadrupled since Miranda left, but Jack’s held up surprisingly well to Shepard’s cybernetic inability to get drunk.

“Nothing.” Shepard scrolls through the drink kiosk, looking for anything with enough alcohol content to give her even a five minute buzz.

“Bullshit,” Jack grimaces as the tequila burns on its way down, and rushes to shove the lime in her mouth. She drops the wedge into the empty glass. “You force me to talk about my crap all the time. And you’re dressed like you just came from a kinky hooker funeral. It’s kinda hot, but what gives?”

Shepard snorts and orders an Armali Shotgun. “My girlfriends are missing.” Jack’s earned the right to know at least that much.

Jack’s eyes widen. “Girlfriends? Plural? Damn, Shepard,” she laughs, “didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Yeah, well. One was on Horizon, and the other…I don’t know. So having two doesn’t matter, because I have none now.” She pours both of them another shot of tequila and lifts her glass up in toast. “Fuck my life!”

Jack clinks her glass against Shepard’s. “Fuck your life!” She flips the glass upside down and shoves it next to the others. “Seriously, Shepard,” she sucks on a lime wedge, “what’s the deal?”

The tequila doesn’t burn quite as much as it should, but Shepard bites into her lime anyway. Protocol. “You caring about other people now, Jack?”

“Fuck no, but it’s better than listening to Friendzoned Turian over there.”

Aethyta brings Shepard her extremely purple drink. “Okay kids, this comes with instructions. I light it on fire, you pour a shot of Serrice Ice Brandy into it, slam it onto the bar to mix, then drink.”

“I want one,” Jack says eagerly, and Aethyta returns to the bottles of liquor along the back wall to start mixing. “Not getting out of it, Shepard.”

“Is this how I sound?” She idly pokes the end of a toothpick into the palm of her hand.

“No. You nag more.”

She huffs and drops the toothpick. “I love them. And the Collectors took Ashley on Horizon, and who the hell knows where Tali is. And I’m here. Unable to get drunk, in a bar on Illium, with a foulmouthed biotic who’s forcing me to talk about this shit so she doesn’t have to listen to a guy completely fail to hit on his friend – wow, he is awful at this.” She turns around and catches a glimpse of an oblivious quarian sitting across from him.

Jack nods. “See what you miss when you wallow in your own bullshit?” Her drink arrives and, as promised, Aethyta lights both on fire. “Suck it up, princess. No one likes a whiner.”

Shepard throws her head back and laughs grimly. “You know what the best part is?” She lifts up the shot of brandy. “The Illusive Dick intentionally lured the Collectors to Horizon. It’s his fault Ash is probably dead.”

“Alright,” Jack says, “I’ll admit that sucks.”

Knowing that Ashley might be dead far more than sucks, but arguing semantics will lead down a rabbit hole she’s not ready to acknowledge. She pours the brandy into her drink, turning the purple into a swirling bright blue, and Jack does the same. They lift up their glasses. “Fucking Cerberus?”

“Fucking Cerberus.”

She grits her teeth and steps into his personal space. His nose crinkles up and he breathes through his mouth, not even trying to hide his disgust. She smells like sweat and spent thermal clips and an overclocked omnitool, and the particular garbage disposal stench of dead Collectors. She’s four inches taller and uses all of it to tower over him and block the sun with her body.

She stops short of waving her gun in his face, though she keeps her hand her pistol to prove that she could.

"There are six of us," she gestures behind to her squad and left to her second team, "and thousands of Collectors. What did you want us to do? Throw our guns at them?" She speaks slowly, making sure he registers every word. "You’re lucky they ran before they could burn the entire colony." He doesn’t need to know that Collectors haven’t adapted a scorched earth policy, yet.

There’s a brief moment where she thinks he’s going to try to stand up to her, to get in her face and yell even louder with his tobacco breath, but he deflates and steps back, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.

"I’m done with you Alliance types."

She bites back an I’m done with you colonist types and turns to her squad, letting him stomp off without witnesses. “We’re finished, let’s get out of here.”

"Commander." 

Miranda’s three syllables contain an unspoken novel, and Shepard chooses to ignore it and look away. Armor creaks as one of her squad shifts. She chooses to ignore all of them and the uncomfortable silence that follows.

Wind rushes through the empty courtyard, blowing dead grass around her ankles. Shepard looks over her shoulder, searching for ghosts who don’t appear from the storm clouds. “Yeah. I’m done.”

She radios Joker from the shuttle and tells him to plot a course for Omega. The uncomfortable silence returns on the trip back.

***

It will hurt more than it will help, but Shepard has EDI run the scan anyway. She types out a text with one hand to Zaeed and Jack - afterlife. booze? - and unclasps her armor seals with the other. EDI’s results come back before she even has her chestplate undone. She removes her armor and undersuit before attending to the polite ding of her omnitool.

Standing in her bra and underwear in the middle of her quarters, next to a fish tank that has only ever held three fish - now dead and spaced amidst the Purgatory debris - Shepard takes a deep, controlled breath and taps on the message notification.

Confirmed. All Horizon colonists and Alliance personnel missing. Exception: Delan, Tyler. Mechanic.

She whirls around and punches the fish tank with all the force and fury inside of her.

Her knuckles split and leave bloody tracks on the unharmed glass.

Of course Cerberus would give the tank bulletproof glass. Of course they would.

She storms into the shower, ignoring the throbbing pain in her shoulder.

***

By Miranda’s count, Shepard’s on her fifth of whatever drink Jack’s been ordering for them all night: something salarian that’s a worrying shade of green and comes in a set of test tubes. Jack’s nearing blackout levels of intoxication, Zaeed’s managing an impressive attempt at not looking as drunk as he is after half a bottle of whiskey, and Shepard still looks like she could drive a Mako in a straight line up a hill.

Miranda’s omnitool pings.

VS: the fuck did you do to me?

ML: Your implants were designed to rapidly process toxins, in the event you ingested a biological or chemical agent. Intoxication was not a Lazarus Project priority.

Shepard stands up and goes straight for the bar. From her seat, Miranda can’t hear what she orders, but the bartender’s browplates skyrocket. Whatever Shepard says next must convince him, because he shrugs and calls in an order on his omnitool. A young asari comes up the stairs a minute later with an unlabeled bottle; she looks at Shepard with a skeptical painted-on eyebrow. Without acknowledging the eyebrow, Shepard pushes a credit chit across the counter and walks right past Miranda, bottle in her bandaged hand and glass in the other, to flop back into her seat again.

VS: challenge accepted. i have ryncol.

For all her research and planning, for all her intelligence and foresight, for all the Illusive Man trusted her with the Lazarus Project and to bring Shepard back exactly as she was, Miranda never once considered Shepard’s personal relationships beyond his suggestions of Chakwas and Moreau.

Perhaps she should have.

She slides the remaining olive off the tiny sword with her teeth, dropping the sword into the empty glass with a clink as she chews the olive. A glance at the table confirms that Jack’s passed out now, her head on her crossed arms resting on the table, and that Zaeed has given up for the evening and capped his whiskey bottle. Shepard appears slightly loose, though Miranda doubts it will last unless she does nothing but continuously drink large amounts of ryncol for the rest of the night.

Miranda pays for her martini, and then slips off the stool and out of the club.

***

"Miranda. Is something wrong?"

She’s never seen him light that cigarette. It’s always lit, always the perfect length. She straightens her shoulders. “I know you hadn’t intended to do this, but I recommend that we give Tali’s dossier file to Shepard.”

"This is your project, Miranda. But I can’t release that information without a good reason."

She’s gone over these words countless times in the four hours since she left Afterlife, and they still sound wrong. Like a betrayal, though she’s done nothing special to earn Shepard’s trust. “I believe Shepard’s emotional state may be compromised, which may deteriorate and affect the mission unless she is given adequate familiar support.” 

"Vakarian, Chakwas, and Moreau are not enough?"

He’s baiting her, and she has no choice but to rise and take it. “You are aware of the established relationship between Shepard, Chief Williams, and Tali’Zorah? That information was included an early personality report I submitted.”

He nods, gestures his glowing cigarette for her to continue.

This, too, is in a report, albeit more recently. “Williams was taken by the Collectors with the rest of the Horizon colonists.”

He taps his index finger on the cigarette and ash falls out of the holoscanner’s range. He takes a measured drag. "An unfortunate casualty. But Shepard’s loyalties do not lie with Cerberus; too much contact with her former life could also affect the mission."

Miranda clasps her hands behind her back so she can ball them into fists without him seeing. “Understood.” Short of Shepard visibly breaking, Tali’s dossier file will remain locked and unavailable. 

***

It’s dark. Dark and cold and damp. She doesn’t feel any restraints, no tightness around her ankles or wrists, but she can’t move. Not even a twitch, can’t even open her eyelids. She counts to ten, twelve, twenty, fifty, and her pulse pounds in her ears as she realizes that it isn’t that she can’t feel restraints - it’s that she can’t feel anything but the cold and damp.

Because tomorrow Ash is off to the Terminus Systems for something so classified even Tali can’t hack into it, and Tali has to tell her about Shepard.

Who’s alive and breathing after two years and thirteen days, and in the Terminus Systems. And working for Cerberus. 

She’s half-hoping that she’ll tire Ashley out enough that she’ll just slowly fall asleep afterward. But of the three of them, Shepard was the sleepy one after sex. They teased her about it relentlessly. 

Ashley frowns through her pleasure; Tali’s fingers have suddenly turned mechanical, her girlfriend unfocused and distant. She sits up and backs away, leaning against the headboard. “What’s wrong?”

She’s been trying to phrase it properly since she left Shepard on Freedom’s Progress, and come up empty every time she tries to ease into our girlfriend isn’t actually dead, only now she’s working for a human terrorist organization and seems to believe their bullshit. Might as well jump. “Shepard’s alive.”

Ashley blinks. Once, twice, three times, suddenly aware that she’s completely naked with her legs still spread. “What?” In lieu of pants within reach, she crosses her legs. “You’re only telling me now? Where is she? Wait, how do you know?”

Tali tosses Ashley her Alliance sweatshirt; Ashley likes sex and cuddling and showering naked, and not much else. “I ran into her on Freedom’s Progress. She’s investigating the disappearances of human colonies out in the Terminus.”

"Why didn’t she call?" She tugs the sweatshirt over her head and flips her hair out from under the collar. Ten seconds of searching the blankets turns up her underwear and she shimmies into it. Dressed enough for this conversation, she puts two and two together and comes up with, "what aren’t you telling me?"

Tali sighs and crawls up the bed to sit next to Ashley in the dim light of the rented apartment they’ve rarely used. She mirrors Ashley’s position, and studies her hands. “Shepard is working with Cerberus.”

"What?"

The stunned confusion is worse than the cold fury Tali had been expecting. Ashley just sounds hurt, almost defeated. Tali covers Ashley’s hand with her own and leans her head against her shoulder. “It sounded like Cerberus rebuilt her.” The implications of that sentence had hit her hard. “She really was dead.” 

Ashley’s breath shakes when she exhales and she holds tighter to Tali. “How did she look?”

Stunned is the real answer; stunned and overwhelmed and kind of pissed off. But what Tali says is, “Like Shepard.” 

The icy hand that took hold around Ashley’s heart two years and thirteen days ago had only partially melted with Tali beside her. The hand starts to unclench, knowing that Shepard is alive. But it tightens again, echoing Cerberus. 

"It’s okay," Ashley breathes, more to herself than Tali, "she’s alive."

Tali shifts, resting her head on Ashley’s chest. “She’ll call when she can, I’m sure.”

Ashley wraps her arms around Tali and lies down. She doesn’t trust her voice, only presses a kiss to the top of Tali’s head. She leaves for Horizon tomorrow and Tali heads back to the Flotilla. The two of them will make do with vidcalls and emails until they can make their schedules align again, she’s not going to spend the next few hours doing anything other than soaking up Tali.

Even if it means ignoring for now that Shepard is alive out there somewhere.

Tali lifts her head and presses her faceplate to Ashley’s forehead, the best imitation of a kiss she can manage in her suit. She trails her fingers down Ashley’s arm. “I love you.”

Ashley smiles and brushes her fingertips across Tali’s cheek. “I love you too.”

***

Shepard stands under the shower, scalding hot.

Shepard? Is that…you’re alive?

She slams the back of her head against the wall and slides down to the floor. “Fuck.”