Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You know what we should do?”

Liara hummed sleepily, nuzzling into Shepard’s throat. The past year had been exhausting—for the galaxy, but perhaps especially for its savior. It was so rare that they had moments like this, where they could just be together, soft and quiet and alone. She looked up, smiled tenderly.

“What?” she asked, and Shepard pushed herself up on one elbow. Her fingers ran along the grooves of Liara’s neck.

“I want to take you to see the Grand Canyon,” she said. There was something wistful in her tone. “There wasn’t much damage there. I guess I just want something normal. Classic Earth experience. We could make it a road trip. Put the Normandy down in Vancouver, they’ve got the spaceports pretty operational there. Spend a few days in the city, then do an overnight drive to the canyon.”

She was intrigued. That, she would later acknowledge, doomed them all.

“That sounds wonderful, Shepard. I understand it’s one of Earth’s most beautiful locations.”

Shepard’s smile widened.

“It’s something,” she said quietly. “And we’ve all got a few weeks of shore leave built up by now. We should use them.”

Liara ran a few quick calculations in her head. There were a few essential reports from top agents that should be coming in over the next few weeks; but only one or two would be time-critical, and she could have those sent to her omnitool. Everything else could wait. She would be willing to risk the assets those reports might bring her, in exchange for a romantic getaway with her partner.

She kissed Shepard’s jaw and curled up close to her. “I agree. I think I would enjoy that immensely.”

Shepard gave a happy sigh and pulled her close.

“That’s the plan, then,” she said. “I’ll get the others on board.”

Liara’s eyes widened.

“Wait,” she said. “What?”

It was Shepard’s idea.

Nothing this completely outside the realm of anything resembling common sense or basic survival instinct could possibly be anything but Shepard’s idea.

Kasumi had the right idea, Miranda thought despairingly. Their thief had heard the words “road trip” and “Normandy crew” in the same sentence and, without a word or the slightest change of expression, vanished into thin air.

After everything they’d been through, the little traitor had abandoned them to their fate.

And so here she was, standing in the loading bay of the Vancouver spaceport, surrounded by the dozen-and-change of the Normandy crew who hadn’t managed to flee through one of the functional relays before she’d run them down. Most of them had been naively amenable to the suggestion, actually. She shook her head. They would learn.

There was a chorus of greetings as Grunt arrived, clambering awkwardly out of a smoking taxi. Miranda raised a hand in vague acknowledgement and surreptitiously checked her calculations again.

She’d run simulations. About five percent of them had only resulted in minor disaster, even! At the very least, she was certain there would be room for everyone’s luggage, with overflow available for a first-aid kit and whatever extra bags someone would inevitably show up with because it didn’t take up that much extra space, right?

She was a former Cerberus operative; she’d learned long ago that any conceivable disaster had a one hundred percent chance of occurring exactly when it could do the most harm, and she planned accordingly. Still. She was hopeful.

A low, rough laugh and an arm around her waist made her jump.

“Quit it, cheerleader.” A normal person might greet their girlfriend with a kiss on the cheek; Jack cheerfully took Miranda’s shoulder in her teeth, just at the base of her throat. The fact that she didn’t bite down hard enough to leave a mark made it a sweetly affectionate gesture, for her. “You’re raising my blood pressure.”

“God forbid,” Miranda muttered. She deactivated her omnitool regardless. “It’s about time you showed up. Cutting it a bit close, aren’t you? If that’s enough to raise your blood pressure, I can’t imagine how you intend to survive the next few days.”

“Throwing shit at Garrus,” Jack answered promptly, flashing a fierce grin. “Shepard’s about five minutes out. Still time for a quickie in the bathroom. Get you to fucking relax for five seconds.”

Miranda bit down a possibly-unfair comment about how if she’d been in the habit of relaxing the Normandy would have spontaneously burst into flames. She wouldn’t want to insult EDI’s competence.

“Where is EDI, anyway?” she said out loud. Jack did a double-take.

“Since when are you fucking EDI?”

“What?” She shook her head sharply. “No, I meant—”

“Who’s fucking EDI? ‘Cause, you know, I feel like I should be involved there somewhere.”

“Hey Joker. Everyone but me, apparently.” Jack punched EDI’s shoulder by way of greeting. She’d finally learned not to try that with Joker, after a few incidents involving emergency-room visits.

EDI cocked her head and said, infuriatingly mildly, “Operative Lawson and I have never been involved in a sexual relationship, Jeff.”

Joker heaved a sigh. “And you got my hopes up, too.”

Miranda was spared the necessity of thinking up a suitably cutting response by a deep foghorn noise.

With the distinct sensation of facing a firing squad, she turned slowly toward the source. She was vaguely aware of the rest of the group filtering in behind her as Shepard waved enthusiastically from the...vehicle...parked at the curb.

Miranda realized her mouth was open, and immediately closed it again. Then she tried to speak only to find that words had utterly failed her. After repeating this process several times, she managed to remember how the English language worked.

“...Well,” she decided. “It’s certainly…”

No. No, there really was nothing she could say that would make this better.

“It’s off-putting,” agreed Garrus.

Traynor appeared to be silently reconsidering the wisdom of accepting Shepard’s invitation. Too late now, Miranda thought grimly. She would not be tolerating any more defections. If she had to suffer through this, she was taking them all down with her.

“...Huh,” said Vega.

Steve Cortez rubbed his face. “That’s, uh...yup.”

“It has…” Liara was visibly struggling to be supportive. “It has character.”

Jack was the only one who appeared unfazed. She raised an eyebrow, tucked her thumbs in her waistband, and commented, “That is one ugly-ass bus.”

Well, Jack always did have a way with words. Miranda couldn’t argue with her analysis.

Traynor had found her voice. “It’s a lime green miniature airbus with a fuschia dragon on the side.”

“And it glitters,” Tali pointed out. “Let’s not forget that part.”

Traynor, in tones of acute misery, replied: “I can’t. I’m trying.”

“It is a unique design,” observed Samara. Nobody had any idea how Shepard had managed to convince the Justicar that this was a good idea. The smart money said she just didn’t trust them not to destroy the planet if left to their own devices.

Which, speaking of not-incorrect assessments...

“Wow.” Joker was smirking and insufferably smug. This was hardly a dramatic shift from his normal state of being, but Miranda glared at him all the same. “I would be personally offended by that thing, but I’m not, because I don’t have to touch it.”

Apparently being the most famous helmsman in the Alliance navy had gotten to his head. He’d managed to flatly refuse Shepard’s invitation unless he and EDI drove their own car. He’d even managed to justify it, as with sixteen people crammed into the bus there was no room for luggage. The two of them had rented a perfectly sensible aircar with a large storage compartment and a small towing trailer, which was enough to convince Shepard that it was worth letting them be spoilsports.

Yes, obviously Miranda was only bitter because she wished she’d thought of it first.

Ashley Williams just snorted. “Don’t get too smug, Joker. You’re the ones who’re gonna have to look at it. All the way to Arizona.”

Before Joker had time to swear, Shepard cleared her throat from beside the bus.

“All right, people!”

It was a mark of Shepard’s skill as a battlefield commander, and their respect for her, that she could achieve instant silence and attention even while standing next to that monstrosity.

Under his breath, Garrus commented, “I love vacations that start with pre-mission briefings.” Miranda wasn’t entirely certain he was being sarcastic.

After waiting a moment to make sure eyes were on her, Shepard continued, “Everyone should have a copy of Miranda’s timetable, we’re gonna try to stick to that as close as possible. The drive’s not that bad, Vancouver to the Grand Canyon’s only about twenty-one hours in a straight shot.”

“Your continent’s concept of distance terrifies me,” said Traynor.

Shepard grinned at her but didn’t respond. “Everyone toss your stuff in Joker’s trailer. Shuttle rules; any medication you might need, keep it on you, because stopping to dig anything out is gonna be a nightmare. Oh, and some people are gonna have to sit on the floor.”

Liara said gently, “I’m not certain that’s legal, Shepard.”

Shepard looked injured. “Well, Mordin wanted to come.”

Javik snorted. Miranda tried not to have a stroke, as no one had warned her he would be here. He was not accounted for in her simulations.

“I have no such desire,” he said. “Does this mean—”

“Nope.” Vega slung an arm around his shoulders, earning himself a multi-eyed death glare that he ignored. “You’re coming too.”

“Any other questions?”

Samara cleared her throat. “About the legality of our seating arrangements…”

“No questions? Good!” Shepard said quickly. “Fall in and look alive, people. Grunt, Wrex, you two are in the back. Everyone else can fight over it.”

“Shotgun!” sang Traynor.

“No calling dibs, I said fight over it, Specialist. Anyway, navigator gets shotgun.”

“Not cool, Shepard.” Steve shook his head. “The rules of shotgun are a sacred trust.”

Miranda coughed.

“Shepard,” she asked delicately, because the Commander was twirling a set of car keys around one finger and it was making her nervous. “Who’s driving?”

There was suddenly dead silence in the loading bay.

Shepard looked surprised that anyone needed to ask. “Well, it’s my bus,” she pointed out. “I figured I’d—”

Fifteen people yelled “NO!” in perfect unison.

“You know,” Shepard complained from the back seat, “This is not how I pictured this trip.”

Miranda very pointedly opened a travel magazine on her omnitool. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.

The bus had four short rows of seats, not counting the drivers’ section. The krogan took up all four bench seats in the back row. Jack had laid claim to the front window seat, because nobody was entirely willing to get in Jack’s way when she had her mind set on something and Shepard’s permission to fight dirty in order to get it. Miranda had established a space next to her, with Samara settling gracefully on the aisle.

She was trying very hard not to think about the fact that she was going to be sitting between Jack and an Asari Justicar for the next twenty-one hours.

Liara was directly behind them in the window spot, with Javik having glared Kelly Chambers out of the single seat across the aisle. Ashley Williams had apparently discovered the extent of her loyalty, because once she’d snagged a seat she had been entirely unwilling to give it up just to let Shepard sit next to her partner.

“You said fight for it, Skipper,” she said, unapologetically. “If I move, one of these piranhas is gonna take it.”

“She’s not wrong,” admitted Traynor, who actually seemed perfectly happy sitting on the floor.

Shepard heaved a sigh from the back row. Well, the back row save for the krogan. They sort of formed a solid wall that made it easy to forget there was seating back there.

Privately Miranda thought that Shepard had no business pouting, because she’d gotten one of the single seats; no one had quite been able to bring themselves to make the Savior of the Galaxy sit on the floor of her own minibus. Mordin had taken that position quite willingly, leaving Steve and Vega to establish themselves in the remaining two seats.

Kelly could theoretically have squeezed between Williams and Liara, but for the moment was lap-surfing. Steve seemed mostly bemused by her presence. Miranda was just grateful that Samara had an extremely limited knowledge of human motor-vehicle laws, because there was absolutely no way she wasn’t currently obligated to shoot them all.

There was a massive thud that shook the bus, and Miranda looked up from the eleventh thorough rundown of her checklist to see what was going on.

Garrus had managed to establish himself as their designated driver by virtue of never having gotten a traffic ticket or driven off a cliff. He’d also, she observed admiringly, planned ahead for this trip.

“There’s not gonna be a whole lot of dextro food at Earth roadstops,” he explained when he saw Miranda’s look. He patted the enormous cooler. “Especially with all the reconstruction still going on. We figured we should stock up. You know. Emergency rations.”

“Gummy worms!” Tali clarified enthusiastically. Then, “I’m not sure this is going to fit.”

“It should,” said Garrus. “The dimensions all worked out when I calculated it…”

“Maybe if we jumped on it?”

Samara raised a hand. A shimmering biotic field bloomed over the cooler of dextro junk food; there was a pause, then a resounding CRUNCH as the cooler settled into place.

“What was that?” demanded Shepard.

“I’m...sure it’s fine.” Garrus patted the bus anxiously. “We didn’t really need the parking brake, right?”

“He’s joking, Shepard,” Miranda assured her.

Shepard blinked. “There’s a parking brake?”

While Miranda thought back to the number of times Shepard had driven them in a vehicle along thousand-foot cliff edges and tried not to scream, Tali vaulted up into the passenger seat with a contented hum.

“You know,” she decided, “This isn’t such a bad vehicle, Shepard. It’s very roomy.”

Half the bus stared at her. The other half was glaring.

“Oh, you’re evil.” Garrus said affectionately, climbing into the driver’s seat. Tali made a sound that could only be called a sadistic purr. “Have we got everyone?”

Ashley snorted. “Yeah,” she muttered. “God forbid we forget to bring more people onto the damn bus.”

Jack stretched and cracked her spine. “Ah, shove it up your ass, Williams,” she said. “If you didn’t want to come you coulda said no.”

“You seem unusually upbeat about all this, Jack.” Liara sounded almost as surprised as Miranda had felt for the last week. Which, she acknowledged, wasn’t entirely fair; Jack wasn’t really a whiner. Once she’d signed on for something, she rolled with the punches remarkably well. Still, with such tacit permission to snark about the situation, she was a bit taken aback that her...whatever Jack was to her...held such a positive attitude about the trip.

Jack leaned over to grin back at Liara. “You kidding?” she said. “I give it three hours ‘till this turns into one hell of a brawl. I’m not missing that.”

Garrus chuckled quietly as he fiddled with mirrors and seat adjustments. “Oh, good. The radio works. Air conditioning’s good, too. I can work with this.”

“See?” Shepard gestured toward the front of the bus. “That’s the attitude I like to hear.”

Garrus gave a vibrating hum. “I’m a turian,” he reminded her. “Team building-exercises...they’re sort of our thing.”

Shepard sighed. “It’s a vacation, Garrus,” she said patiently. “Not a team-building exercise.”

“Not a very good one, anyway,” he agreed, casually clicking through radio stations. “Jack’s right. We’re definitely gonna end up killing each other.”

There was a pause as the passengers glanced around, silently wondering if anyone was going to disagree.

“I don’t know what bluegrass is,” Garrus announced cheerfully. “But I’m gonna play it.”

By the time they were an hour and a half outside Vancouver, even Shepard was starting to think she might have had enough of Garrus’ attempts to sing along to the local bluegrass station.

Admittedly some of the passengers didn’t seem to mind. Samara, of course, had closed her eyes and appeared totally at peace with her fate; Kelly had thought ahead enough to bring a set of high-end noise-cancelling headphones and was bobbing her head idly in the middle row. She was sitting in Ash’s lap now. She seemed a lot happier about that arrangement than Ash did.

Schadenfreude was unbecoming, as Miranda had snapped at her plenty of times before. But damn was it satisfying. Ashley Williams had it coming.

Tali didn’t seem bothered by the singing either, although Shepard had her suspicions about that. She’d noticed Admiral Vas Normandy surreptitiously tapping something into her suit controls and was pretty certain she’d deactivated the audio input. But Jack had been complaining for the past forty-five minutes, Javik was muttering darkly ominous things about retribution against their cycle, and Steve was reading aloud an excerpt from the Geneva Convention about torturing prisoners. It was probably time to step in.

“Okay guys,” she said, just loud enough to be heard over Garrus. “Not that this isn’t fun, but we’ve got at least twenty-one hours to kill. Why don’t we do something?”

“There are sixteen of us in a moving vehicle, Shepard.” Miranda leaned around Samara to make absolutely certain Shepard saw her expression. “I can’t imagine what you think we’ll be able to do.”

Mordin piped up from his spot at Shepard’s feet. “Described this activity as a ‘road trip’. Strange phrase. Most journeys follow roads. Route markers. Etcetera. Nevertheless, research indicates humans attach certain traditions to this practice.”

“There you go, Miranda.” Shepard gestured at Mordin. “Might as well do this right.”

“I’m not certain what you mean.” Liara sounded wary.

Vega laughed. “What?” he said. “Asari don’t play I Spy?”

“I like the way you think, Vega.” Truth be told, Shepard was a bit giddy about this whole thing. It’d be nice to get a chance to just relax and play stupid car games together. No explosions or galaxy-destroying eldritch abominations. Well...fewer explosions, anyway. She was a realist. “Want me to start?”

“Jack can start,” Miranda announced calmly from the front.

“I don’t remember Jack volunteering,” Shepard called back.

“She’s being volunteered. She’s muttering and it’s driving me crazy.”

Shepard couldn’t see what was going on that far in the front. That worried her a bit. A lot. The bus was a rental.

“Are you fucking serious?” demanded Jack. Luckily she sounded more incredulous than pissed.

“Too hard for you?” Miranda shot back. Her smirk was audible.

Oh, Jack was gonna love that …

“I can start!” Kelly said quickly. “I spy something...green.”

“No,” said Jack. “You know what? Fine. I spy something—”

“With my little eye,” said Miranda serenely. Traynor was struck by a sudden coughing fit.

“You are so fucking close, princess. I spy with my little eye something bitchy and wearing a catsuit.”

“Play nice,” Shepard warned them both.

“Besides, that’s too easy,” Garrus called back from the cabin. “It’s obviously me.”

“That’s all right, Commander.” Miranda’s voice had gotten even sweeter. Oh, that was a bad sign. This had been a bad plan. Someone was going to die and it would probably be Shepard, statistically speaking. “If that’s how she wants to play the game, I spy something that went through five hundred credits’ worth of alarm clocks in a year because she throws them against the wall.”

Jack snorted. “Weak. Pull out ‘cries after sex’ or something, come on. Don’t look at me like that, Chambers, I’ll psychoanalyze your ass out a window.”

Kelly’s vaguely concerned look lingered for a moment longer, but before Shepard could quietly back up Jack’s blunt desire for privacy their resident...unofficial shrink...smiled and leaned back, playing with Ash’s hair.

“Well,” she said brightly. “I spy someone who’s definitely not prejudiced against aliens, they’re just saying.”

It was better than a turian singing bluegrass, but not by much.

Jack had set the tone, all right. After twenty minutes of viciously lighthearted burn session in which aspersions were cast on Shepard's survival instincts for some reason, Miranda had redirected successfully into an extremely interesting game of Mad Libs. No one’s interest had lasted longer than a few rounds, but between Jack, Mordin, Javik, and Samara’s respective vocabularies there had been some wild results.

By now, things were finally starting to settle into a sort of calm. Liara was reading, Tali was holding a paper map of North America upside-down and rummaging through a bag of dextro gummy worms, and Samara was tolerating Kelly’s presence in her lap with admirable calm. Wrex and Grunt were cheerfully and loudly comparing the prowess of their respective newborn children when they passed a rounded aircar travelling the opposite direction and Jack’s face lit up. That wouldn’t have been nearly as concerning if her fist hadn’t done the same thing.

Shepard nearly leapt out of her seat and was yanked back by the safety belt.

“No biotic punch buggy!”

Jack sighed, threw her hands in the air, and flopped back into her seat.

Shepard considered for a moment and then hurriedly clarified, “Actually, no biotics on the bus. Period.”

Very reasonably, Grunt asked, “Can we punch people without biotics?”

“No, Grunt.”

Wrex snorted. “All you young soft things. Letting biotics do all the work.”

Shepard sighed. “You’re a biotic, Wrex.”

“I don’t need biotics. A real warrior can rip out an enemy’s lungs with his bare hands!”

“Yeah,” Grunt agreed. “But you use biotics. Then you can rip out his lungs and his spine. And all the other stuff. All at once!”

“Not the same, runt. Not the same. Here, I’ll show you.”

Sensing disaster and in a fit of naive optimism, Kelly suggested road trip songs.

They’d forgotten that Mordin was on the bus. It had been three hours.

Kelly and (surprisingly) Traynor were enthusiastic enablers, Shepard thought drily. At least it had made up for Jack’s disappointment at the punch-buggy ban; Miranda had argued that her suggestions were technically drinking songs, but had been unanimously overruled by a bus morbidly curious to see how many of the damn things Jack knew. Even Ash, Steve and Vega had gotten involved in trying to think of as many different driving songs as they could, but their enthusiasm had tapered off at about eighty-two bottles of beer.

Traynor, Kelly and Mordin were still going strong.

Shepard cleared her throat. “Guys?”

“...take one down, pass it around—”

“Guys.”

“Twenty-seven bottles of—”

“I WILL LITERALLY FUCKING FLAY YOU ALIVE!”

A pause.

“Thanks, Jack,” said Shepard.

“No problem.”

Ash cleared her throat.

“So, uh,” she said. “We always played the alphabet game. In my family.”

There was a chorus of groans.

Tali turned to peer at them. “Isn’t there a human quote about the definition of insanity?”

“Aw, come on, Tali.” Shepard sat forward. “We’ve got nothing better to do.”

“Whose alphabet?” asked Liara. “There are...seven different species here, with wildly different language systems.”

“Well, we are on Earth,” said Ash.

Grunt...grunted. “She would say that.”

Shepard thought about it. “We’ll cycle through languages,” she decided.

Steve shrugged. “Well, I see an asari.”

“A couple of biotics,” added Traynor.

“The cooler,” Miranda reported.

From the front, Tali chirped, “Drive shaft.”

“Uh,” said Steve. “If you can see the drive shaft, we’re in trouble.”

Tali giggled. “I can see the drive shaft. It’s not my fault you don’t have built-in scanning functions.”

Shepard shrugged. “That’s fair. Someone do E.”

It was actually a surprisingly peaceful couple of minutes. It almost looked like they would get through a single game without incident, which should have been all she needed to know to realize what was about to happen.

“Lights,” was Liara’s contribution.

“Miranda,” Ash added immediately, and was immediately shot down.

“Aw, c’mon,” Vega protested. “That’s too easy.”

“You can’t use Miranda,” Tali agreed. “I had a good one!”

“It rained last night,” Steve said, pointing out the window. “Mud.”

Shepard snapped her fingers and pointed at him. “There we go. All right, who’s got N?”

“Nonsense?” Miranda suggested mildly.

Vega rolled his eyes and spread his hands. “Come on, Lawson,” he said. “Normandy crew!”

“I liked hers better,” said Jack.

“Organics,” said Vega. “And someone who’s not Javik take the next one, I’ve been eyeing this guy and he’s been waiting on ‘Primitives’ since B. How about physical perfection? ‘Cause, I mean. I’m right here.”

Wrex gave a low, evil chuckle.

“I got one,” he said, and turned to look Grunt in the eye. “I’m back here looking at a little pyjak.”

“Grunt, no!”

Chapter Text

Joker clapped slow and sarcastic as they dragged themselves out of the minibus.

“All right then!” he said enthusiastically. “I think we all learned a valuable lesson about headbutting today, didn’t we, Commander?”

Wrex grunted, amused. “More like we taught humanity a valuable lesson about vehicle construction. A krogan transport would have survived that impact!”

Jack shot them a venomous look as she dropped to the ground. “It’s not a military transport, jackass. You almost knocked us off an overpass.”

Grunt rolled his shoulders. “Eh. You’d have been fine.”

“People die from that, Grunt,” Shepard pointed out.

EDI...cleared her throat? She made a delicate sound that was similar to a human clearing their throat, at least, as she looked up from where she and Tali were examining the bus. Shepard winced at the damage. Considering the force of Grunt’s headbutt had caused them to sideswipe a guardrail and almost flipped the  minibus off an overpass, they’d gotten pretty lucky. Still, it wasn’t great. The starboard side of the bus was dented and buckled, and the paint had large chunks gouged out. The glittery dragon looked like it had been decapitated.

“I am glad to see no injuries were sustained in the...incident.” Shepard narrowed her eyes at their resident android. EDI was absolutely laughing at them. “Our analysis indicates no structural compromise; the damage appears cosmetic.” She paused. “I do not believe you will be able to reclaim your security deposit, Shepard.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Thanks, EDI.”

Nearby, Javik and Ash were arguing.

“It’s just an airbus!” she insisted. “It’s a civilian vehicle. You use them to pick little old ladies up for church bingo. They don’t exactly need to be able to deflect grenades.”

Javik shook his head, arms crossed. “The krogan is right,” he said, voice thick with disapproval. “In my cycle, designing such a flimsy vehicle for any purpose would have been punishable by death. That it is intended for mass transport only makes it worse. If you cannot guarantee the safety of your noncombatants, you are responsible for their deaths.”

Ash looked like she was about to have an aneurysm when Kelly stepped in.

“There’s a kind of significance to that, don’t you think?” she said thoughtfully. Javik turned to look at her. “Your cycle was already caught in a pattern of death and destruction. I think it’s incredibly tragic, that by the time the end came even civilian transports had to be combat-viable. What was the war about, if not to create a world where we don’t have to think in terms of imminent attack?”

Javik’s eyebrows raised. Kelly’s earnest insights tended to have that effect on people.

“There is something to what you say,” he admitted. “However…”

Figuring Kelly seemed to have this covered, Shepard left her to it. Joker, as penance for refusing to be a team player, was in charge of refueling both vehicles during pitstops, so she was free to follow the others into the nearest building with both food and public restrooms.

The poor girl behind the counter looked a little terrified. Miranda didn’t blame her.

“Um,” she squeaked. “W-welcome to Crazy Al’s Discount Burger Shack. May I...take your order?”

Shepard, standing on a table, squinted over their mingling crowd of highly-trained combat specialists and counted on her fingers.

“Right,” she said. “Can we get twenty...thirty-four cheeseburgers?”

“What’s a cheeseburger?” Grunt demanded. Then, without pausing, he continued, “I’ll have seventeen of ‘em.”

“Okay, thirty-four plus seventeen…”

“Fifty-one,” Miranda said helpfully.

“Thanks, Miranda. Fifteen with extra pickles, one with everything but onions, no ketchup on three of them...Sam! Traynor! How many nuggets? One eight-piece chicken nuggets, seven—twelve apple pies—oh! Do you have those yogurt things?”

The girl swallowed. “Um...no, ma’am.”

“Damn. All right. Can you make….twenty-seven of those cheeseburgers number four meals, actually? We’re gonna go through a lot of fries. Hey!” She clapped her hands for attention. “What’s everyone want to drink?”

From the back of the crowd, Jack yelled, “Straight fucking ryncol!”

“So one Sprite,” Shepard translated drily. “Okay, wait, we went over this, I swear. We had...seven Diet Cokes? Or was it seven regular? Who wanted diet? You’re doing great,” she added, pausing to reassure the poor cashier. “Seriously. I’ll get this cleared up in a second. All right, this isn’t working, let’s just...let’s just do this one at a time…who wanted a grilled cheese?”

Jack burped expansively. Across the table, Miranda rolled her eyes.

“And here I thought Sanders had you almost housetrained,” she sighed. Jack, who was too relieved to be out of the fucking airbus and eating actual food to bitch back at her, settled for throwing a fry at her face.

Couple years ago, a comment like that might’ve pissed her off. These days, the cheerleader and her had an understanding. Snarking back and forth was fun, all right? Witty banter and all that shit. Not their fault Shepard and T’Soni were all lovey-dovey. Besides, they weren’t above a bit of verbal sniping themselves.

“I got fucking ripped off on this trip,” she said, instead of any of the whole host of humping-the-furniture comments she could have made. “We shoulda been shooting at each other hours ago.”

Miranda shook her head, but she couldn’t totally hide a smile. “I shudder to think what your idea of a vacation is like.”

“Shitload of booze, some strippers, three dead bodies, everyone gets inked,” Jack said promptly. “What do you do, princess, blackmail credit corporations?”

Miranda smirked. “From a penthouse suite over the most expensive casino I can find. The difference is I can remember it the next day.”

Jack shook her head and pulled out the flask she’d smuggled onto the bus. “Lawson,” she said as she poured a generous measure into her paper cup of godawful sweet shit. “I’m taking you to Omega and showing you how normal people relax.”

Miranda snorted and rolled her eyes again, but she was still smiling, so, whatever.

Jack kicked her feet up on the sticky booth. She grinned as she looked around the place; she couldn’t help it. Crazy Al’s Discount Burger Shack was almost her kind of dive. Get some alcohol and a varren-fighting ring in the basement and it’d practically be home. The floor hadn’t been washed in...ever, it looked like. The paint on the walls was stained and peeling, but you could barely tell through all the random shit hung up all over the place.

Most of it was, like, antique guns or stuffed moose heads or posed jackalope taxidermy, but there was also a bunch of old sepia-toned pictures of some fat guy with a mustache the size of his face, pointing to random shit. Probably Crazy Al, if she was guessing. And of course there were the signs. They were all beat to hell, the kind that looked like they’d been hand-written sometime in the 1950s or something and never updated since. All advertising shit like “REAL” BEEF IN EVERY BITE or BURGERS IN THREE SIZES! or CRAZY AL’S CRAZY PLATE: EAT IT IN ONE SITTING AND IT’S FREE!

Or Jack’s personal favorite: “CLEAN” BATHROOMS. Yeah. She just fucking bet.

Everyone was taking advantage of the pit stop. Miranda’s timetable had them in and out in twenty minutes, but...yeah, no. That wasn’t happening.

Tali and Garrus were tucked away in a corner with a bunch of maps spread out on the table. They were supposed to be double-checking the route against their Omnitool GPS, but if the nuzzling, Tali’s giggling, and Garrus’ claws casually sneaking up the inside of her thigh were anything to go by, there wasn’t much navigation happening.

Mordin mostly seemed fascinated by the place, which...weird. He was sitting with the Asari supercop, talking her ear off as he gestured at random shit on the walls. She was nodding seriously every few minutes. Jack knew that trick. Mordin didn’t, apparently. Traynor had ended up at a table with Chambers and was stealing her fries; Shepard and Liara had been almost as bad as the dextros until Shepard got called away to rescue someone’s cat out of a tree; and Williams was sitting with the krogan, who’d bought a Crazy Al’s Crazy Plate, been disqualified from the deal, and were trying to see if a human could finish it.

And the others…

“No, come on.” That was...whatshisface. Muscles. Veggieburger? Vega. That was it. Somehow him and the other one had roped Javik into their table. They’d been arguing for twenty minutes over whose cycle was better. “You guys had a slave empire and then got eaten by Reapers and you’re saying ours is inferior?”

“Vega!” choked the other guy. Sarge? Steve. Seriously, Shepard needed to stop picking up so many people. “Too soon.”

“Fifty thousand years! All right, look, forget the Reapers, I’ll prove it.” Vega pointed toward the greasy menu board. “Look at the Number Fifteen and tell me this cycle isn’t the most incredible thing you’ve ever seen.”

Javik twisted in his creaky chair and squinted up at the board.

“I do not understand,” he said.

Vega grinned. “That, my friend, is the turducken.”

Javik blinked.

“The what.”

“Turducken, brother.” Vega turned to Steve for moral support. He nodded earnestly. “Totally pointless and insane? Yeah. But we did it anyway.”

“I am not familiar with this...accomplishment."

Vega sat forward. “Okay,” he said. “So you take a chicken, right…”

Jack grinned. About time someone jostled that prick.

“Want a refill?” she asked, glancing over at Miranda. “Or, you know, offer for a quick fuck in a stall’s still open.”

“Iced tea. And are you insane? You’ve seen those restrooms, right?”

Jack shrugged. She’d fucked in worse places. There’d only been one cockroach in there, come on. “Your loss.” She swiped Miranda’s drink and got up just in time to overhear Williams regretfully announcing that she was not gonna be able to finish the Crazy Plate.

Grunt punched her in the shoulder hard enough to knock her sprawling on the ripped bench cushions. “Come on, Williams! Finish strong!”

Williams made a sound that was a weird mix of a laugh, a moan, and a teenager who thought he’d be tough and have five shots of vodka right before vomiting his guts out in front of the cute Asari he’d been trying to impress. Not that Jack was speaking from experience, Prangley.

“Not gonna happen, Grunt. I barely made a dent in this thing. Besides, it’s a coronary waiting to happen.”

Grunt’s response was flat-out gleeful. “I know! It looks great!”

“Bah.” Wrex waved a hand. “You humans. I’ll show you how it’s done.”

“I bet biotics are cheating,” said Williams. “We can’t all burn that many calories.”

“Ha!” Wrex beat his chest. “If you had redundant digestive systems, you wouldn’t have that problem!”

Jack smirked and leaned against the counter. “Sounds like you’re making excuses, Williams.” Wrex laughed again and pounded his fist on the table for emphasis.

He kinda overestimated the build of the table. Jack dodged. The window didn’t.

“Oops.”

There was a sigh from behind Jack; apparently Shepard and Liara were back. Liara was carrying a cat. Shepard was trailing a sheepish-looking kid wearing gang colors he was way too young for. So, you know. A typical day trip.

“What did I ever do to you, Wrex?” she asked. Then, quickly, as the manager rushed up, she added, “I can pay for that. Ash, I won’t say I told you so.”

Another pathetic moan. Jack rolled her eyes. Some people just couldn’t hold their five-pound everything burgers with extra everything, three jumbo BBQ pickles on the side, in a nest of fries and deep-fried pig ears mixed with chocolate-covered bacon, covered in a pound of melted cheese and topped with a ball of deep-fried butter.

Shit, that sounded good. Maybe Kahlee’d be willing to make some adjustments to the lunch menu.

Leaving Shepard to deal with Ashley Williams and her imminent heart attack, she grabbed the drinks and went back to Miranda. Apparently, Vega, Steve, and Javik’s little pissing contest was as strong and weird as ever.

“Into a what?”

“A duck, it’s—Esteban, tell him what a duck is.”

“It’s a kind of Earth waterfowl,” Steve explained, pulling an image up on his omnitool. “Kinda like this.”

“Yeah, that. You open the duck up, put the chicken in. Then you take that, and you stuff the duck inside a turkey.” Javik opened his mouth, and Vega plowed forward. “Look, it’s a bigger kind of game bird, okay? That is the turducken. Proof that we have achieved the pinnacle of organic existence.”

Javik scoffed. “A barbaric practice.”

“You—they’re not alive when you do it, man!”

“I see.” Javik sounded disappointed. “Your people’s culinary traditions are unimaginative.”

Steve and Vega stared at him. Jack considered the Prothean for a minute, then pulled her flask out again and poured another shot into her drink.

“What’s that?” Miranda asked sharply.

Jack side-eyed her. “Uh...booze, cheerleader. You think I’m gonna do this shit sober?”

Miranda waved the comment off. “No, what is it?”

“Huh? Uncut Batarian ale. T’Loak can fucking deliver if you namedrop Shepard. Why, you want—”

“God, yes.”

Miranda Lawson had made her career in loopholes, legal ambiguities, and cutthroat political backstabbing.

By this point, her beloved friends and family really ought to remember that more often.

“Uh,” said Garrus. “I think you’re in my seat.”

Miranda smiled blandly and didn’t look up from where she was syncing her omnitool GPS with the airbus. Thank God she always invested in software with as much backward compatibility as possible; this wreck waiting to happen was ancient. “Oh?”

“Ha!” Jack exclaimed, leaping into the passenger side. “Nice one.”

“Hello, Jack.”

Garrus crossed his arms, mandibles flexing in what was nearly a wry smile. “I’m almost positive I was driving.”

“Driver fatigue accounts for over sixty million aircar accidents per year among Council species,” Miranda informed him sweetly. “I thought you might need a break.”

Somehow, Tali managed to visibly roll her eyes.

“That’s sweet,” she said flatly. Then, “Jack, get out of my seat!”

“Navigator gets shotgun,” Garrus agreed. “Shepard, tell Miranda I’m driving.”

“Not getting involved,” Shepard responded instantly. She was standing stooped on the steps into the bus, visibly trying to find a spot to sit. “Cycling drivers might actually be a good idea. Liara, is someone sitting—classy, Vega. Real classy.”

Garrus gave a long, vibrating sigh. “Humanity, once again declaring war on the Turian people. And we had such high hopes for peace.”

Tali tried to hide it, but she cast a quick glance toward the rest of the bus, which was rapidly filling up. Kelly had already claimed Jack’s vacated front window seat, and Ashley Williams had taken the aisle with Samara between them. Smart girl, Miranda thought approvingly. She could tell which way the wind was blowing.

Miranda hummed noncommittally. “I’m not certain I trust your navigational skills, Jack. Tali is a gifted astrogator, after all.”

“Fuck you too, I can hold a map.”

“Hey,” said Williams. “If we’re picking a new navigator, so can I.”

Jack glared over the back of her seat, and Miranda cleared her throat as a warning. It was, naturally, ignored, but no one could say she hadn’t tried.

“Oh, look, Soldier Girl Barbie wants to play.”

“I could navigate,” offered Kelly.

“No,” Tali complained, holding up her wrinkled map of North America. “I still have the charts, and you’re all terrible. Besides, you’re stealing our cooler!”

“Friendly neighborhood shuttle pilot,” Cortez called reasonably from the back. “Just saying. I can drive. And I would let Jack navigate.”

A chorus of Oooohs erupted inside the bus, along with frantic betting. Miranda couldn’t help feeling betrayed.

“That’s cheating,” she protested.

Jack was cackling. “Too late!” she crowed. “Move your ass, cheerleader, we’ve got a military alliance.”

Miranda narrowed her eyes. “Those are big words for you, Jack. Careful you don’t hurt yourself.”

“How long’d it take you to think of that one? Maybe you shouldn’t drive. Probably can’t see the road over your tits.”

“Would you like me to turn off the air conditioning? I’d hate for you to freeze to death.”

“You cold, princess? You can borrow my jacket. Maybe next time grab some clothes instead of paint.”

“Oh, very original.”

“Want the pants instead? You rip ‘em off me often enough.”

Miranda snorted. “Naturally, the accusation of being attracted to you is the most cutting insult you can think of.”

“Well...fuck, I walked into that one.”

Miranda patted her shoulder. “Better luck next time.”

“Wow,” said Tali, who was still standing right next to the open driver-side door.

Unbothered, Miranda sighed. “Just give her the map, Tali."

The quarian crossed her arms. “I don’t think so. I’m going on strike until—”

The map was unceremoniously snatched from her hands as Javik walked up from behind her.

“I am navigating,” he announced in a tone that suggested the next primitive to argue with him was going to have a turducken shoved up some manner of painful orifice. “Someone must compensate for the poor route planning and inadequate signage of this cycle.”

After several seconds in which it became obvious that no one was prepared to argue with him, Jack swore and climbed into the back.

The bus was...well, the atmosphere...Shepard was struggling to put a label to it, but it could almost be described as... peaceful?

Not that she wouldn’t prefer to be sitting somewhere not the floor, but, well. Fair’s fair, right?

Tali had managed to lay claim to the center row of seats for herself and her boyfriend by virtue of the fact that Shepard hadn’t technically said that combat drones weren’t allowed in the bus. Shepard’s observation that she’d assumed that would be obvious had been met with skepticism and disdain by the rest of the vehicle.

The single seat across from them had been claimed by—well, Traynor, actually, until Jack was banished from the cab and unceremoniously shoved her out of it. Poor Sam was at least taking it well. She’d brought along an old-fashioned little magnetic miniature chess set; she and Tali were about halfway through a game. Jack was playing some bullet-hell game on her omnitool. Garrus bobbed his head enthusiastically, playing music through his earpiece while he watched the landscape trundle past outside the bus.

He didn’t seem all that upset about being booted out of the driver’s seat, to be honest. Maybe he was just glad he hadn’t been the one to end up with Mordin in his lap. That happy privilege had fallen to one James Vega, who, to his credit, had taken it in stride and was happily letting the doctor babble on about the bioweapon potential of Earth tubers.

“Nuclear potatoes,” he said. “Nice.”

“I’d ask,” commented Steve from across the bus, “but I don’t want to know.”

“Hey, it’s interesting. I think. I’m gonna be honest, I have no clue what this guy’s saying.”

Mordin gave Steve a cheerful half-wave. “Understand potatoes earth staple,” he said. “Flexible. Variety of uses. Tremendous untapped potential.”

Vega shrugged. “You do you.”

That statement got a soft laugh, and Shepard craned her head back to grin at Liara. The blue fingers gently stroking her hair paused as Liara looked up from her book and smiled down at her. Almost made riding on the floor of a bumpy airbus worth it, that smile.

Because of course, Liara’s undying affection and complete loyalty didn’t remotely extend to giving up her seat for Shepard’s sake. Naturally. She was only the Savior of the Galaxy, over here.

Stretching, she cracked her spine and then leaned back against Liara’s seat. Obliging fingers began carding through her hair again as Liara returned to her book.

“Hey Miranda,” she called up to the front. “Where are we in that timetable of yours?”

“A little over three hours behind schedule,” Miranda replied calmly. “Nothing to be concerned about. We’re well within the parameters of my simulations.”

Jack snorted. “You sure know how to party, cheerleader.”

Javik gave a grunt, and there was a rustling sound as he fiddled with his maps. They’d earned Shepard a few weird looks when she brought them out, actually; with modern navigation systems, not many people used paper maps anymore. Still, she knew better than to not have hardcopy backups—especially with comm systems not quite back to 100% after the Reapers.

“Your roadways are inefficient,” he announced to the bus at large. “It would be more effective in the long term to slice through the landscape rather than build around it.”

“The way you talk sometimes,” Ash griped, “It makes me think the Protheans would’ve built a parking lot over Yellowstone.”

“Nonsense,” was Javik’s reply. “It would be foolish to knowingly place large quantities of valuable vehicle tonnage over an active supervolcano.” Before Ash could come up with a response to that, he added, “I believe I may have identified an element which was unaccounted-for in simulations.”

Miranda sounded offended. “I’m sorry?”

That was about the point at which red and blue lights started flashing directly behind the bus.

Chapter Text

“You know, Shepard,” Garrus muttered under his breath as the bored-looking highway patrol officer strolled toward the minibus. “I’m pretty sure we can take this guy.”

Shepard pinched the bridge of her nose. “We are not jumping the cop, Garrus.” He was joking, but still. Well, he was...probably joking. She really hoped he was joking.

In front of her, Jack wordlessly reached a fist across the aisle over Traynor’s head. Garrus leaned over Tali to fistbump her.

“I vote for his plan.” Tali was a filthy traitor.

Samara cleared her throat delicately.

“Allow me to repeat,” Shepard announced to the bus. “We are not jumping the highway patrol. Samara, they were just kidding.”

“Shut up, shut up, he’s coming!” hissed Traynor.

Tali snorted, which was always an interesting sound filtered through her helmet speakers.

“He’s certainly taking his time about it,” she observed. The bus collectively shushed her.

There was a firm rap against the glass as the officer pulled himself up onto the exterior step to look in the driver’s side window properly.

Miranda, coolly professional as always and looking convincingly unconcerned, rolled down the window.

“Good evening, officer,” she greeted him. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“She was never that nice when she was working for you,” Tali observed under her breath.

The cop pulled out a pad with a resigned air. “License and registra…”

He blinked. Javik, staring at him from the passenger seat, blinked back. It was a bit more impressive with six eyes.

Very slowly, the cop leaned forward to peer into the bus.

Archangel, a Quarian admiral, Subject Zero, the Shadow Broker, a Spectre, a former STG operative, an Asari Justicar, two Krogan, a Prothean, the Illusive Man’s ex-right hand, a series of decorated Alliance war heroes, and Commander Shepard waved cheerfully.

Even more slowly, the cop turned back to Miranda, who was blandly offering him her ID card.

“Uh,” he said, sounding a little dazed. “Taillight’s out, Miss Lawson. Uh...ma’am.”

Miranda smiled sweetly. “Thank you so much for letting us know,” she said. “We’ll fix it as soon as we possibly can.”

“Yup,” the cop croaked. “You do that.”

Steve shook his head in mock despair. “You just can’t trust rentals these days, sir.”

Turned out Samara had very firm opinions on violations of traffic law and keeping promises made to law enforcement. She’d been a good sport so far, but she’d insisted that ‘as soon as possible’ meant ‘as soon as possible’, and Shepard wasn’t gonna push her luck.

Well, she wasn’t gonna push her luck any more than she already had by cramming most of the Normandy crew into a minibus for...she glanced at her omnitool. Nineteen hours and counting.

Anyway, that was how they’d ended up hanging out in the parking lot of an unstaffed “visitor center” on the side of I-84 somewhere in northern Utah, watching Tali grumble and wriggle around under the bus as the sun started to set.

“You know,” Tali said acidly, voice muffled by the minibus’ wheel well. “We could have just waited until the next stop and taken it to a mechanic.”

Shepard sighed and leaned back against a lightpost that probably hadn’t worked in decades. “We believe in you, Tali.”

“Besides, those places always overcharge anyway,” Garrus pointed out.

“Damn vultures,” agreed Steve.

As the conversation turned to complaining about price-gouging roadside mechanics, Shepard took the opportunity to make a headcount. When they’d left Crazy Al’s, they’d almost driven off without Mordin.

There wasn’t much to see. Lots of empty desert, some shrieking in the distance that she really hoped was coyotes. A few of the bravest and/or most optimistic had taken advantage of the restrooms. Wrex’s assessment of their quality had been a blunt “No dead bodies in there at least,” so most of the group was good with just milling around in the parking lot.

Kelly had found an ancient vending machine and was introducing Javik to the wonders of Twinkies from around 1997, by the look of them; Vega was having an impromptu push-up contest with Traynor , of all people, and the less Shepard knew about how that had happened the better; Miranda had stalked around the bus muttering something about making good on a promise before dragging a grinning Jack around behind the building by the collar.

She frowned slightly at the scene and was just about to straighten up when there was a gentle touch to her arm.

“Liara.” Shepard reflexively uncrossed her arms to put one around her partner. Liara hummed softly and molded into Shepard’s side. “I was wondering where you got to.”

With a lazy wave of her fingers, Liara flicked open her omnitool and scrolled through a long list of encrypted messages with ominously vague titles. “I have Glyph autosorting my mail while I’m away,” she said mildly. “But it’s sometimes necessary to double-check, just in case.” She closed the screen and relaxed before glancing up, eyes dancing with laughter. “So. Having regrets, Shepard?”

There was a biotic flare behind the restrooms, barely covering a muffled cry.

“Nah,” said Shepard. “That’ll kick in when we find out krogan are lactose intolerant. How many cheeseburgers did Grunt eat?”

Liara laughed softly. “Well,” she allowed, “I always did admire your optimism.”

Shepard waved her concern off.

“You’re all so cynical. This is fun! C’mon, even Jack’s having a good time.”

Another biotic flare.

Liara’s voice was impressively neutral. “I’d noticed.”

Shepard sighed and reminded herself firmly that she loved and respected her crew.

“My point,” she said with a pointed squeeze, “is that Miranda scared us out of a traffic ticket, Samara hasn’t sworn an oath of vengeance on anyone, the bus didn’t break down…it could be a lot worse.”

“Yes,” agreed Liara. Shepard was instantly suspicious. Her suspicions were confirmed when her partner looked up sweetly through her lashes, eyes sparkling. “We could have let you drive, Shepard.”

Any response Shepard could have made was cut off by scattered applause and cheering from the bus. Tali, brushing red desert dust from her suit, accepted Garrus’ hand to help herself to her feet and then made a series of dramatic bows in all directions. In the front cabin, Traynor flickered the taillights on and off in triumph.

“Thank you,” she said graciously. “Thank you, I am here all week.”

“Fuck,” commented Jack, who had strolled up as usual at exactly the right moment to make Shepard’s life more difficult. “I hope not.”

“Jack,” said Shepard. “Your fly’s open.”

Jack rolled her eyes, but fixed her pants. Obviously that didn’t stop her from complaining; if it had, thought a resigned Shepard, they would probably have another evil clone situation on their hands.

“Hell,” Jack griped. “Not like there’s much you people haven’t seen of me already. Right, Cheerleader?”

An amusingly disheveled Miranda muttered darkly under her breath and climbed into the bus. Jack smirked and jumped after her. Tali raised a hand and informed Shepard, in the tone of a Quarian admiral, that she would be taking shotgun.

Shepard rolled her eyes, affectionately cuffing Tali in the shoulder as she climbed into the bus. “Whatever you want, Tali. Come on, people, fall in!”

As the world devolved into chaos, Shepard leaned forward and tapped Garrus’ headrest.

“You drove this morning too,” she pointed out. “You sure you can keep going all night?”

Garrus waved her off. “Please,” he said confidently. “Couple decades of Turian military training, extensive stakeout experience, a gallon of dextro iced coffee...honestly, Shepard. Don’t insult me.”

Garrus snored softly in the passenger seat as Tali gently nudged the minibus down an exit ramp.

Liara, asleep against Shepard’s shoulder, stirred faintly as the shift in momentum jarred her. Carefully, Shepard adjusted her position, holding her breath until Liara settled again.

For once, she thought a little smugly, she’d actually secured them a decent spot in the front row. True, they were sharing it with Mordin, but sometimes you had to accept a partial victory. Garrus had just barely managed to (however briefly) retain his claim on the driver’s seat with a blend of mixed martial arts and his girlfriend’s combat drone; the latter was permitted on the technicality that it had only been banned from the bus, and Tali had deployed it outside and to port of the actual vehicle.

Ash, still smoking slightly in her place on the floor, had accepted this verdict with only minimal grumbling.

Shepard glanced into the rear of the vehicle. It had gotten dark hours ago; for a while there had still been conversation and a few attempts at passing the time, but one by one they’d started to drop off. Ash was blatantly using Vega’s leg as a pillow; Vega, in turn, had propped one arm on Steve’s shoulder and dozed off that way. The krogan, just behind them, had fallen asleep with their heads resting on the glass. Shepard supposed that was one benefit of being almost immune to concussions. Thankfully they both snored at such a low register that it mostly felt like they’d strapped jet engines to the minibus.

No one had been willing to argue with Jack and Miranda’s claim on the middle row. No one who valued having their organs stay in roughly the right locations would have dared to say out loud that the two of them were cute, but Shepard was pretty much immune to death at this point, so she let herself smile.

Traynor had physically vaulted over Javik’s head in order to secure the single seat across from them; Jack, who’d sprawled across the row with her head in Miranda’s lap, had casually slung her feet onto the poor specialist’s lap. Thankfully Sam was taking it in stride. Samara, meditating cross-legged on the floor between them, even had enough good humor to use Jack’s legs as a headrest.

Shepard spared one last fond look for Miranda, half asleep and playing her fingers through Jack’s hair, before glancing over to check on Javik.

All those years of military training paid off: she managed to keep a straight face.

Javik wore the expression of a Prothean reconsidering every single decision he had made in the past fifty thousand years. Apparently he’d drawn the short straw for Kelly’s lapsurfing duty, and she’d fallen asleep with an arm slung around his neck.

Pitching her voice low so as not to wake anyone up, Shepard called back quietly, “How’re you holding up, Javik?”

Javik blinked owlishly at her.

“Humans did not...cuddle,” he said uncertainly. “In my cycle.”

Awkwardly, without opening his eyes, Wrex--who was apparently not as asleep as Shepard had assumed--reached forward and patted him on the shoulder.

Shepard gave a tired grin and settled back, letting her head rest against Liara’s. It was...quiet, except for the krogan, and Garrus’ occasional snores, and the minibus’ whirring engines and occasional worrying creaks.

Compared to the Normandy’s whispering hull, it was loud as hell. But compared to the actual hell of the past few years…

Sam Traynor twitched in her sleep. Samara, without opening her eyes, reached up and placed a soothing hand on the young woman’s elbow.

Compared to the last few years, this was a kind of peace Shepard hadn’t, even at the best moments, fully believed they’d be able to find again. The best-case scenario sometimes had been that others might.

She wasn’t sure whether she slept; all Shepard knew was that after a long time of soft, quiet darkness, the minibus slowed again, turned, made a disturbing crunching noise, and settled into place as the engines died.

She was too comfortable to be particularly worried.

“Tali,” she said without opening her eyes. “Tell me the bus didn’t break down.”

Tali scoffed; it sounded like she’d turned down the audio output on her suit to avoid waking anyone up. “Shepard,” she said in quiet indignation. “No vehicle with me on board breaks down.”

Liara stirred sleepily against her shoulder. “Mmm…? Shepard? Did we stop?”

There was a rustling noise as Jack struggled to get upright, cracking her back. “Pit stop?” she asked, voice rough with sleep.

Shepard, on the other hand, had realized that light was, just faintly, beginning to appear along the horizon.

“Hey guys,” she said quietly. “I think we’re here.”

There was no rush. They yawned and stretched and slipped out of the minibus on their own time, over the next half hour. Garrus dug out one of the iced coffees and nursed it along, leaning against the hood of the bus; Traynor, woken up by Jack kicking her in the stomach while trying to stand, dug a camera out of the luggage trailer and took pictures of the slowly brightening sky.

For the most part, they found comfortable spots on bare stone or in the gravel parking lot, and watched the sun rise on the Grand Canyon.

After a while, Joker limped over to where Shepard and Liara had found a secluded spot near the ridge and settled down next to them.

“It’s beautiful,” murmured Liara.

“Yeah.” Shepard pulled her just a little closer. “The pictures never do it justice.” They were quiet for a minute. “And it’s still here.”

“And so are we,” Liara said softly.

Slowly, inevitably, the smoky shadows were receding. A misshapen spire of rock flashed red and gold, burning in the dawn like a phoenix feather. Just like it had every morning for thousands of years. This place didn’t know the meaning of war. Sometimes a person needed to be reminded that there were things that stayed the same.

Joker cleared his throat.

“So, Commander,” he said. “You know we’re eventually gonna have to drive back, right?”