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It took a minute to register that someone was calling her by name. Her first name.
“What the hell?” Darcy Shepard muttered, scanning for the source. Joker started to say something and she shushed him impatiently. Possibly unfairly—Purgatory’s music thudded on regardless. As far as she could tell, they never changed it; it had passed contempt and come all the way back to comfortingly familiar.
She heard nothing more for long enough to doubt herself, but then she saw her, weaving between club patrons with a bottle in each hand. Two heads shorter than the surrounding crowd and grinning broadly, the woman made a beeline for their table.
She didn’t stop until she was obnoxiously close.
“Kayla,” Darcy acknowledged, deadpan. If she was after a staring contest, they would be there a while, and while she hoped they were both too old for that, there was no way she was backing down first.
Kayla studied her. She held out one of the beer bottles and uttered two deliberate words. “Tech Bitch.”
“Dumbass Biotic,” Darcy returned solemnly. She held it together for a moment longer, then cracked, grinning herself. Some explanation would be required, but for now, she was profoundly grateful to be off duty, able to toast her friend…nemesis free from protocol. Her association with Mikayla Graves predated being Commander Shepard, and she did not like her chances of enforcing rank over the biotic.
“Who’s the dumbass? You died, you stupid piece of shit for brains beanstalk—”
“Sorry about that,” Darcy said quickly, spotting that Joker looked almost offended enough to interrupt.
“I comforted your weeping mother!”
“I appreciate that.”
“Never again.”
“I hear you.”
“Bitch.”
“Yeah.”
As Kayla paused for breath, Darcy raised her bottle again. The biotic returned the toast and drank meaningfully.
“Nice jacket,” she said, changing tack. “Subtle. Wouldn’t want anyone to forget the whole N7 thing.”
Joker cleared his throat. “Commander…”
For all his outward humour, the pilot did not appreciate being taken lightly, and Kayla’s insolent manner had put his back up.
“It’s fine, Joker. Heartfelt reunion.”
His expression said he was unconvinced.
“What she said.” Kayla glanced between them, taking in his slightly crooked posture. He still dwarfed her. “You fly the Normandy?”
Joker crossed his arms. “Yeah.”
“Badass,” Kayla said, with feeling. He seemed to thaw just a little and made no comment as Darcy pulled out a stool for her.
Kayla was drowning in Alliance fatigues, and those were a new development. No doubt they were the smallest available, but still excessive on her skinny frame.
“You’re in uniform,” Darcy said seriously.
“Yeah. It’s a bit desperate, isn’t it, but since someone fucked off to join the Spectres…”
Too used to being the only human in the club, Darcy didn’t immediately follow. Then she froze, realizing that Kaidan was about to join them. He was an L2. Kayla was an L2 of a similar age, even if her grey-streaked hair made her look older. They were of the same generation of biotic training. It seemed too much to ask that they wouldn’t know each other—
“Alenko,” Kayla said, dousing that faint hope immediately.
“Graves,” Kaidan replied warily. He stopped short of the table, frowning. Yes, they knew each other, and now Kaidan was looking at her, puzzling over the connection.
But Kayla herself provided an unexpected reprieve. Her expression faltered, and a pale biotic field blossomed over her form. It was gone again in a moment, but enough people took notice to cause a brief hush.
“Excuse me.” Kayla flexed her hands self-consciously and took another drink. Darcy followed suit, keeping an eye on the punters. She couldn’t say that she was surprised the Alliance would drag every biotic they could into the fight, but neither could she approve. She had a sinking feeling that Kayla might have volunteered.
“Still?” Kaidan asked quietly.
“All day, every day.” Kayla slammed her bottle down and explained with studied indifference. “My implant is a flaky SOB. The involuntary flares are down to half-hourly; I have an app that predicts them most of the time. They’re not dangerous, at least while my amp is offline, but they have gotten me kicked out of bars when the staff assume I’m on red sand. Do me a favour and exercise your Spectre status if it comes up?”
Kaidan beat Darcy to it. “Sure thing.” Inadvertently, he adopted the same conflicted tone she’d used. “You’re back with the Alliance? Officially, I mean.”
“Ready and able,” she said, straight-faced. “The recruiter liked my honesty. I put Access to meds down as my reason for re-enlisting.”
That was about what Darcy expected. Kaidan pulled up another chair, dark brows drawn together in disapproval. Kayla noticed.
“It’s not all bad. I picked up some teaching for Biotics Division referrals. I’m not their target profile, ‘most talented’ and all that, but I know flare-ups and burnout. Some of the new gens have no idea how to deal—with L3s, they’ve never had to.”
“They’re in good hands.”
Kayla grimaced. “You should see the conditions they’ve got me under. I get my own quarters so I don’t kill anyone in my sleep. That hasn’t been a risk for ten years, but I’m not arguing. I heard about Mars. How’s the head?”
“Fine now, thanks.”
They nursed their drinks silently for a few minutes. There were questions Darcy wanted to ask, but not in front of her crew. Kayla was her oldest friend, and she felt oddly territorial over her familiarity with Kaidan. Maybe he wanted to ask the same things—there was a strained quality to the lull.
“Well, this is fun,” Joker remarked to no one in particular.
“We don’t get out much,” Kayla said candidly. Darcy nearly answered back, she could have changed in the intervening years. She hadn’t, but that wasn’t the point.
Kaidan chuckled self-deprecatingly. “Speaking on behalf of a Spectre, Graves?”
“Two, actually. Congrats, by the way, but tell me I’m wrong.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. But with that in mind, do you wanna tell me how you know the Commander?”
There it was. Kayla looked at him as though he was stupid. Darcy knocked back her beer hurriedly. She tried to remind herself that she had faced down a Reaper on foot and won. Recently. The words still wouldn’t come.
“Hey.”
Darcy tried to ignore her, so Kayla elbowed her in the ribs. “Hey. Darcy. You could say it was a blast from the past.”
She groaned. Hesitated. Then succumbed. “A cliff-hanger.”
Kayla smiled beatifically. Resigned to her fate, Darcy met Kaidan’s eyes just in time to see his confusion give way to dawning horror. He busied himself with his omni-tool, bringing up a grainy recording in ominously few clicks. Panning forwards, he froze the image of a gangly trainee taking cover on a ridge.
“Shepard…is this you?”
It was a cross-disciplinary exercise for gifted students. Her hair was as blond as ever, but buzzed short to show how serious she was. As Kaidan let the footage play, teenage Shepard gave hand signals with great earnestness.
“Of course it is,” Kaidan sighed. Darcy wasn’t sure how to take that.
Someone had annotated the recording, labelling young Darcy as the exercise leader and drawing an arrow on the tech mine she placed where the opposition was expected to approach. The captioner approved of her tactics, and the silent directions she gave for the squad—but not of her failure to ensure said squad understood them.
Kayla entered the frame, ablaze with the biotic attack she was charging. The words ‘was not watching’ followed her accusingly. Darcy moved up, but instead of taking the vacated position, Kayla moved left, straight onto the tech mine. Then things happened very quickly.
The combined explosion—green tech and biotic blue—carried over the music, a crackling whump. Acting in blind self-preservation, Kayla screamed, and launched the incoherent biotic field away from herself. It collected Darcy between two points of cover and pitched her face-first over the side of the embankment. She fell out of view in an instant.
The rest of the squad rushed in, two lying flat to peer over the edge, and another dithering beside Kayla—who was clutching the back of her head. She swayed on her feet, then collapsed.
In the present, Darcy winced, hoping that would be where the recording ended. She was blushing furiously. Kayla could laugh about the incident, and she was glad, but Darcy still felt the sting of failed responsibility. And…an embarrassing loss of temper.
She waited on tenterhooks, hoping it would be too faint to be heard above Purgatory’s noise. No dice. Her outraged wail was distinct. “Bitch!”
Joker sniggered, then hastily tried to smother the sound.
Obviously, it was very bad form for a leader to blame her subordinates for her poor communication. Still…Kayla was already unconscious at that point. She didn’t even hear…I was sixteen, and broke both my arms in that fall… Defensive excuses clamoured to be spoken, but she held them back.
There was no adequate justification she could give.
She cracked one eye open to find Kaidan waiting with an inscrutable expression. He turned off the playback.
“Not my finest moment,” Darcy admitted.
“You know, this is required viewing in training,” he said. “Integration of biotics in small squads.” Then, with deliberation on every word, “What not to do.”
“There was a fault in Kayla’s amp,” she found herself saying. “The tech mine should have been harmless, I don’t know what to tell you—”
“You blew up my head,” Kayla remarked without sympathy.
Darcy nodded mutely. Technically, she blew up the amp attached to Kayla’s head. Better than damaging the underlying implant…which would have killed her. Kayla had drawn the short straw twice over with a volatile implant and a defective amplifier. And she still rated as an L2 success story.
“As grade-A fuck-ups go, at least it was cinematic,” Kayla mused. “Educational, for all involved. And you did write me a lovely card.”
“My mom wrote it. I dictated. Both arms busted, remember.”
“Oh yeah. Then we became best of friends.”
Kayla was omitting the part where they screamed down the med-bay at each other, but Darcy didn’t feel the need to mention that. It just so happened that XO Hannah Shepard arrived to hear them getting into it. After reviewing the footage, Hannah concluded they were both at fault. And after she learned that Kayla had no living family, she dragged Darcy in to make amends and keep her company. Eventually, she took the photo of them wearing their monikers proudly, scrawled on Darcy’s twin casts and Kayla’s turban respectively. Tech B*tch—censored by Hannah—and Dumbass Biotic.
Kaidan smiled quietly.
“Forming bonds through explosions. Sounds familiar, Shepard.”
Still apprehensive of his reaction, Darcy wasn't sure what he was getting at.
“The beacon,” Kaidan added. “My bad.”
It was just as well she was still pink in the face. Kaidan was unexpected, self-effacingly kind, and had a knack for saying exactly what she needed to hear. Until recently, it was not a talent he exercised in front of others, and Kayla would have a damn field-day, but Darcy was grateful. Embarrassed and impatient to regain a more Commander-like handle on things, but grateful.
Kayla kept quiet through several beers, two biotic flutters, and the mistrustful glower of one security guard. EDI arrived to rescue Joker from a very different evening than intended ("Don't take this the wrong way, Commander, but I never want to hear your first name again. We're not there yet. Just saying.").
When Kaidan stepped away, Kayla looked after him, then slowly back at Darcy. There was a questioning sparkle there, growing more pronounced with every second Darcy failed to deny the connection. Finally, when she could hold it in no more—
“Darcy Jane Shepard, I am telling your mother!”
“They already met,” Darcy began hesitantly. But she might as well confess, lest Kayla imagine worse. “At, uh, my funeral.”
Kayla covered her mouth in dismay. It was a unique kind of awful. Though easier now, the fraternization weighed on Darcy. She wanted Kaidan to come back to the Normandy; she wanted him to be anywhere else…but when given the choice, she found she couldn’t imagine meeting the Reapers without him. But she had not anticipated being found out in her transgression having died and come back again.
Kayla patted her on the shoulder, while clearly trying not to laugh behind the other hand.
“That…” she said at last, “may be the best thing I’ve ever heard. Objectively, gross—but spectacular. I didn't see him...civvies were sat in a different section.”
Darcy sighed.
“Anyway, I suppose I should thank you for a wonderful evening—”
Darcy eyed her suspiciously.
“—and leave you alone with your boyfriend.”
Darcy gave her a hard stare.
They clinked their near-empty bottles together. One last time.
“Back into the thick of it?”
“Yeah.”
Kayla sized her up. Part sympathetic, part angry, all defiant in the face of the Reapers and beyond.
“Fuck’em up.”
“Yes ma’am.”