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Shepard’s first meeting with Samara included her walking in on her brutally interrogating an Eclipse Captain, then snapping said Captain’s neck after she refused to give up the information needed to pursue her quarry.
She had been graceful, powerful, and ever so dangerous as the shimmering biotic flares radiated from her with every move attested too. Like a panther, if panthers could manipulate mass effect fields powerful enough to stop shuttles dead in their tracks and fling them around like toys.
Shepard fell in love at first sight. Or near enough it anyway. Or lust. Even Shepard wasn’t sure what exactly it was that the Justicar stirred up inside her.
Her words flowed like honey into Shepard’s ears; betraying a tranquillity, a calmness honed by her aeons of seeing the stars. While humanity had not even finished discovering their own world, Samara already wandered the stars, seeing wonders beyond imagining.
She introduced herself, unarmed. But Shepard had seen her kill a heavily armed and armoured Eclipse sister without so much as a single slug. Her hands were as deadly as any weapon.
Finding the name of the ship was simple enough, and fortunately before the day had passed much to the relief of the detective. Shepard found her in the station, sitting silent, still.
Shepard watched as she rose to leave. She didn’t know much about the Asari’s “goddess”, bar the little she learnt from Liara back during the hunt for Saren, but Shepard imagined that if the goddess existed, she would be in the image of this embodiment of beauty.
Without warning, her pupils turned white and she took to one knee.
“Wait-”
“By the code I will serve you, Shepard. Your choices are my choices. Your morals are my morals. Your wishes are my code.”
With the last word, an aura of biotic energy emanated from the kneeling Justicar, far more powerful than any biotic she had ever seen; stronger than Liara or Kaiden, or even Wrex or Matriarch Benezia. She didn’t doubt that Samara could rip her apart, armour and physical enhancements be damned.
Yet she kneeled. To her.
When she mentioned that the life of a Justicar was a lonely one, a brief flash of hope passed Shepard. Did she mean what Shepard thought she meant? The hope was quelled when she clarified that she was looking forward to serving amongst the crew of the Normandy on their mission.
After Tuchanka, and helping Grunt complete his rite (she brought him a new Claymore to celebrate) she finally had a moment to breathe and the time to visit Samara in her quarters. The observation lounge opened to the empty expanse; a galaxy of stars; dark yet alluring. For a moment, Shepard could see why the Justicar had opted to make this place hers. Countless galaxies, beyond the Milky Way, that they would never see all of even if they spent the entire lifetime of a Krogan, or an Asari, wandering. Even the Collectors and Reapers seemed small and insignificant.
Despite her claim that she hadn’t had a conversation partner for 4 centuries, Shepard found herself enamoured by her tales and words. Each morsel of knowledge that the Justicar dropped led her to ask more.
More.
She was so unlike any other she had even met.
Yet when talking about her code, Shepard couldn’t help but empathise with this perfect, alien being. Wandering the stars, killing with machine efficiency was no way to live. Or maybe she was projecting.
Shepard herself didn’t agonise over the lives she took with each shot of her sniper rifle, but she couldn’t imagine ever talking about the act so casually.
Perhaps she was more machine than human.
But Shepard wanted to tear down her walls to see if she really was.
She wanted her.
Shepard probed further, and when Samara said her code didn’t forbid romance, a spark of hope lit up inside her. Samara’s assertion that romance was in her past had dampened Shepard’s resolve. How could she have thought to think differently? This warrior to whom humanity’s entire time as a space-faring species was but a blink of an eye, she couldn’t hope to break down her walls for all her power; her walls that had stood longer than Shepard herself had been alive.
But all thoughts of despair disappeared when Samara smiled.
Next time Shepard came to Samara, she found her standing, staring intently at the observation window. She sensed… unease from the old warrior. A sight Shepard doubted many had ever seen.
Morinth. Her quarry.
“She is my daughter.”
Shepard didn’t press the Justicar more.
To Omega they went.
Shattered glass and splintered furniture littered the floor of Morinth’s apartment. Morinth herself, dead. Her body lay broken on the ground as Samara rose, letting the biotic field she held in her hand dissipate away into bare nothings. The hand she just ended her daughter’s life with.
Samara heaved, breathing heavily. She faced away from Shepard.
“Let us leave.”
Shepard was reminded of old Alliance veterans she had talked to as a younger woman: soldiers who sacrificed everything and more; for friends, for the mission, for humanity. They had been left broken, shells of men and women they once were. Shattered beyond any help they could give.
Samara was more broken still.
Shepard gave her some time. She went to Pragia, slew dozens of mercs, and helped Jack wipe the facility that tormented her thoughts so long from the face of the planet, yet Shepard could only think of Samara.
Shepard near threw down her weapons and armour and put on her casuals in a race to the observation deck.
“I am free.” She said, raising her arms towards the empty expanse outside.
For the first time in centuries, she was free. Samara had grown so accustomed to the burden resting on her shoulders that she did not know how to feel once it was removed. Her bravest and smartest daughter, who had fought to the very end. Pride and pain in equal parts stung her every time she mentioned Morinth.
Before she caught Morinth, she had turned to the code, stifled her feelings through decades of honed emotion suppression training, ignoring her emotions as she hunted her. But she now that she was gone, it… felt good to talk about her daughter. She could finally feel.
Neither of them knew how, but Shepard’s questions blossomed into a recount of Morinth’s life from birth to flight, their days as a family, together on Thessia. Once, about the time when Samara and her bondmate took their three children to Atheme’s temple. Or when she first taught her daughters how to manipulate biotics, mere days before the children were tested to be Ardat Yakshi. Then about the times when she fought Nihlus, and pirates, and even fleeing from the Collectors.
She would die in battle, as a Justicar, if they survived the fight against the Collectors, but she was at peace.
“Shepard. Thank you for talking with me.”
She smiled at the broken warrior.
“Anytime Samara.”
Shepard felt electricity running through her as she grasped Samara’s hands in hers. For once, Samara looked conflicted, the mask of honed serenity temporarily gone. She backed away just as Shepard moved forward, hands still intertwined.
She leaned in, as did the other woman. Shepard could feel her breath caress her skin, every pant of air from her open mouth. It was electrifying.
A firm but gentle rebuff shocked her out her stupor. Biotic flares danced, emanating from Samara.
“In another time. Another life.”
Samara backed out, gaze scanning Shepard’s face, stroking her cheek with one hand, caressing her way downwards to Shepard’s neck.
“Shepard… Excuse me.”
Samara lets the door of the currently empty Crew Quarters close behind her first. Before she lets herself collapse back onto a wall.
Her emotions threatened to break free of the confines she had placed on them. She felt a thousand things and more. Frustration at herself. Grief at potentially losing a friend. Anger, at herself for her lack of control.
Fear.
Fear most of all, of the unknown. Fear of the fact that this young human woman could break the walls that she had so long crafted, who threatened to shatter her conviction that she would be at peace if she died alone on a cold battlefield righting wrongs.
She hated herself, for allowing herself to feel, but even more so, for likely hurting her comrade, who she was sworn to.
She didn’t know how to react.
So she didn’t.
Samara had left before Shepard announced that she’d be handing herself and the Normandy into the Alliance.
There were no time for goodbyes, in a blink of an eye, she was gone.
As she looked up towards the skies of Vancouver from her cell – 'accommodation', she corrected herself – she wondered where the Justicar wandered.
Was she fulfilling her oath and rooting out evil? Was she preparing the Asari for war? Hopefully they would be better prepared for this than the Alliance were. Lieutenant Vega kept her up to date on some things, but never anything more than the regs would allow him to. No extranet, no messages.
No way to contact her. To see her.
It was just as well, it wasn’t like she had Samara’s contact details on her, her information, as well as everyone else’s, was saved on her private terminal on the Normandy, which was taken from her, locked up and stowed away. They wouldn’t allow her to contact anyone after what had happened with the Batarians, as if she’d really be interested in provoking them some more now of all times.
Was she thinking of Shepard, as Shepard was thinking of her?
Samara left soon after the destruction of the Collector base.
Being on the Normandy… being around her.
She couldn’t let herself be tempted. Not anymore. Not at this time.
She had to reflect. On herself and on the code. She needed some time away from the human woman.
A nagging thought told her that leaving so abruptly would hurt the Commander even more than she already had, and it pained her, but it had to be done.
As she meditated in her order’s monasteries, in between missions hunting down criminals in an effort to take her mind off the human, she found herself wanting. She had to know.
She went on the Extranet and searched, even tapping into high-level Asari government channels, courtesy of her status as a Justicar. She searched high and low for any trace of the Commander, the one that got away.
She had given herself into the Alliance. Of course, that was what she had expected. The Commander was far too honourable, far too duty-bound to consider any alternative. As far as Asari informants could tell, she was placed under secure guard, with a communications embargo.
The war to end all wars was coming. Samara hoped she could see Shepard one last time before she died.
“Very good. I almost didn’t hear you.”
Samara holstered her pistol, stepping over the corpse of the Reaper creature she had just slain.
“Samara.” Shepard breathed out. Garrus eyed her warily from the corner of his eye.
“It has been some time Shepard. You are a most welcome sight Shepard. You too, Garrus.”
“Samara. What brings a Justicar out here?” Garrus said.
“My daughters have lived here for centuries. I have come for them.”
The high-pitched shrieks of reaper forces sounded in the distance. Muffled by the walls of the monastery, but ever closer.
“We’re out of time. We will meet again. I will draw these creatures off.”
Flaring her biotics, she was gone, rushing into the pitch-black corridors.
“Wait –” Shepard looked longingly into the dark wherein Samara disappeared into.
“Shepard. You have to focus. Whatever was between you and –”
“Is irrelevant to the mission. I’m fine Garrus. Let’s go.”
The Turian stared at her sceptically for a moment, then nodded.
The blast had shaken the entire monastery, or what was left of it, with a thunderous sound. They stumbled outside, as the cold winds of Lesuss howled around them.
Samara held her pistol to her temple as she bid her last daughter farewell.
“My daughters, you were all so strong –”
“No!”
Shepard lunged forward, twisting the Justicar’s arm behind her, flinging the pistol to the side. She struggled and fought against her hold, until Falare stepped in.
Shepard felt as if half of the weight of the galaxy was gone, when Samara had confirmed the code’s satisfaction.
If Falere hadn’t stepped in, Shepard didn’t know what she would’ve done.
Die most likely. Samara a physical death. Shepard an emotional one.
As they called for Cortez and prepared to leave, Shepard was reminded of what happened on Ilium all those months ago, as Samara offered her service in the fight against the Reapers, just like she had offered her service in the fight against the Collectors.
“I will join your forces. If you’ll have me, of course.”
Shepard felt a heat in her chest rise.
“I’ll be honoured.”
The next time they met it was on the Citadel.
It was to say goodbye, she said. Shepard wanted to stop her right there, tell her that they’d both live through all of this, but she couldn’t lie. Not to Samara.
She seemed to be finally at peace. Even more so than before. When they spoke of Falere, she had an almost wistful tone, before admonishing herself that it was unseemly for a Justicar to dwell on such things. She was… happy. Her walls had finally come down, if only slightly. Shepard was happy to see she was happy.
When she was leaving, grasping Shepard’s hands with her own, telling her to spend her last moments with those that cared for her, Shepard felt like she had thrust a dagger in her heart.
‘You. I want to spend them with you.’ She wanted to scream.
She wanted the entire Citadel to know that this Justicar, Samara, was the one who had stolen her heart and held it in her hands. There was no one else she loved more in this world. She had faced down Reapers, slew thousands, saw more horrors than anyone could tell, yet all she could do was give her a pained smile.
“Goodbye Samara.”
As she made her way through the ruins of Thessia, Javik and Liara beside her, she was reminded of what Samara told her; her stories of her time with her daughters on the planet, the sights she saw when she was younger.
And the Justicars were supposed to be here, defending the Asari homeworld. Was she here too? Last she had heard, she was supposed to be in another sector, diverted from her journey to join the rest of her order by an evacuation SOS from a minor colony.
“Focus Commander.”
The Prothean snapped her out of her thoughts, his four eyes studying her intensely. He knew, Shepard could tell, with his ability, but he did not say more. She nodded.
“Liara. How much farther to the temple?”
She felt guilty, but she would trade the both of them if her Justicar could be at her side.
“I came as quickly as I could. What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t mean to worry you, when I saw you were on the Citadel, I just wanted to see you again,” Shepard reassured her.
Shepard needed her. Here. They were returning to Earth soon. They might have already said their goodbyes, but she had to see her, even if it was one last time.
Shepard saw the slight smile that found its way onto Samara’s face as she read from the old issue of “Justicar Heroes” she specifically searched for.
No, if she was to die, then she couldn’t hold these feelings back. Not anymore.
“I was surprised how strongly I felt back on Lessus. Even Garrus noticed.” She stopped herself before she could ramble further. She took the Justicar’s hands into her own. “I still care for you.”
‘I love you’ She wanted to say, but she held her tongue lest she moved too fast. Not like last time. No.
Commander Shepard. Saviour of the Citadel, hero of the Skyllian Blitz. Laying her feelings bare in front of her, vulnerable like a schoolgirl.
As she did back on the Normandy, Samara withdrew her hands and turned away, averting her eyes.
Shepard moved forward, gently grabbing her arm.
“You told me once, in another time, another life. Times are different, everything’s changed.”
She couldn’t let her get away without an answer. Not this time.
“I must honour my code, and make no promises.”
She drew in closer, hands playing with Shepard’s. Her touch sent shivers through Shepard.
Once more, Shepard could feel her breath on her skin, only this time, Samara moved forward. When they locked lips, Shepard wished that moment would last forever, and felt like if she were to die that very moment, she would die happy.
“Samara…”
No Reapers here. No war. No Justicars or Spectres. Just the two of them.
“Just hold me now. Let us live in this moment.”
Just two women. In love.
The morning after the party, Shepard woke up in her bed.
She looked down, in her arms was the Justicar. Perfect as always, even as she slept.
She had expected that Samara would have been awake before her, meditating as she did in the Normandy, but she wasn’t. She was there, next to Shepard, in her bed.
It was perfect.
Shepard went back to sleep, content to continue holding her lover close for warmth.
The war could wait.
On Earth, as the sounds of battle raged in the distance, Shepard made her way to the Communications Hub.
One last time, before they walked into the jaws of death. She had to see her.
Beautiful, graceful, and lethal as always; Samara in all her glory, even if it was only through a hologram.
“It was time I joined your battle. Only your actions will be remembered. May you choose them well.”
“Thank you, Samara.” Shepard forced a smile.
“Farewell, Shepard.” She gave a curt bow.
“Wait!” Shepard shouted before the comm was cut.
“Shepard…?” The Justicar sounded uncertain.
“Samara. I love you.”
“I…” The Asari seemed lost for words for a moment, before letting a smile settle on her face. “Love you too, Shepard.”
Even through the grey ash-filled skies, the beam of light glowed bright.
Samara had been fighting Reaper forces south of London, in a land the humans had called France when it all occurred.
The world glowed green. Sounds of gunfire stopped, as husks and organics alike looked at each other in confusion.
Peace.
Understanding.
Symbiosis.
The galaxy was saved. Life as they knew it was saved. But for Samara, the moment was one of only mourning, for the woman who likely gave her life and died alone to achieve all this. The heroine with no happy ending of her own. Her walls were broken, once and for all, crumbling down against her will like the tears that fell from her eyes before she knew it. It was an unfamiliar sensation, one that she hadn't felt in centuries, even before her Justicar training. But it was time to remove the rubble and rebuild, side by side.
The life inside her stirred. Her stomach was still flat, not yet showing the first signs of pregnancy.
Shepard would live on; in her memories, and in their daughter.
The cold, synthetic part of her mind reminded her there was no way of knowing that Shepard wasn’t alive, buried under rubble, waiting to be found, even if it was unlikely.
She forced the notion of mourning from her head, with organic stubbornness, and smiled.
Perhaps her love awaited her, after all.