Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You ever wonder where they even get them all?”

“Is now really the time, Vakarian? Now? With the rogue operatives on the high ground?”

“No, no, Miranda, he has a point. Let’s hear him out.”

Commander John Shepard’s voice was dry as he popped a fresh heat sink into his AR. A grenade casually tossed with lethal accuracy ensured his forward position wasn’t crowded by the bolder of the gun-wielding facility lackeys.

“I’m just pointing out that there must either be a rise in the quality of blackmail employers are getting on their guards, or they’ve got more credits than they know what to do with,” Garrus drawled over the comms, half a staircase behind John. There wasn’t even a hitch in his breath as he took out another heavy mercenary through the slot of his helmet.

“You’d clearly be surprised at what people will do for a paycheck and a decent bed in this galaxy,” Miranda replied. Two mercenaries slammed together as she flared her biotics with calm control, leaving them groaning in a heap on the floor for John to finish off as he made the push down the hall. His M-15 Vindicator made fast work of the men inching out of a side room; burst fire wasn’t always his favorite style, but the accuracy of this model couldn’t be argued by the dead enemies left in his wake.

“How bad are your human beds if three people taking out six dozen men before even reaching you doesn’t give you pause on account of sleeping arrangements?” said Garrus. After two more shots from him, eliminating a particularly troublesome sniper and a re-inforced mech alike, only one engineer was left. John zeroed in on their presence, unhindered by the jamming signal blocking his squad’s radars - there, at end of the hall, to the right, there was a knee and wrist poking out as the owner of said body parts frantically booted up a new drone and fumbled with unfolding a turret -

Two rounds of his three-shot Vindicator burst were enough to make sure the engineer didn’t get the chance to cause any more problems.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, Garrus,” John motioned his two squadmates forward after double checking around the corner. They’d cleared the last stretch; the primary op room was ahead, finally. “Must be nice having a carapace or whatever the hell you’ve got beneath twenty layers of armor to keep cozy on desert planets.”

“Always knew you were jealous of my carapace.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Garrus.”

“Boys, please, you’re both beautiful, now can we move on,” Miranda drawled, her stride taking her up to the locked door and past the Commander as he chuckled but kept an eye out. He nodded to her, and she made quick work of the lock with the keycodes they’d stolen off one of the aforementioned six dozen mercs.

This mission was her idea, after all; while he took the lead on the ground, it was Miranda that had picked up on a trail of unusual intel patterns and siphoned-off resources that lead to a well-hidden secret base on an asteroid in the abandoned system of a dying star. She had told John in private that she had no knowledge of a Cerberus base operating in this system, despite the vast quantity of apparent Cerberus gear that ended up here… on top of the clearly well-funded base operation, whatever it was.

“Hear that Commander? It’s not just female krogan that find me attractive, even with the scars.“

“Truly, you’re a credit to turian-kind.”

“Damn right.”

Both John and Garrus were grinning, belying the deadly casual certainty with which they held their guns. Garrus had likewise swapped to his own AR, a Vindicator like John’s, but so heavily modded it nearly went past the point of recognition. They had fallen into sync as easily as they had when hunting down Saren; Garrus was on John’s six as he lead the way into the op room, with the addition of Miranda’s heavy pistol trained at the unknown that may be lurking beyond the quiet rush of the door opening.

A few seconds in, the three fanned out per standard procedure, and they confirmed what seemed to be the case at first glance.

“All clear, Commander,” Miranda reported, her posture only marginally easing as she straightened and began to inspect the desks littering the ops room more closely.

“Way forward’s blocked by a heavier encryption,” Garrus muttered, peering at the red holographic display in front of a door opposite the way they came.

“Start working on a decryption, but don’t execute it yet,” John replied. Garrus’ gloved talons were already flying over the display as he nodded, and the commander turned to Miranda. “Anything sticking out to you? Any answers, clues at all about our mystery base?”

John kept his rifle out as he approached, his own eyes beginning to scan the rows of desks. Some laptops flickered to life, apparently abandoned - but there were no signs of a struggle. Just a rush. No small amount of papers were splayed in various levels of mess and neurotic orderliness, the case varying desk to desk. An even greater number of data pads were piled on every surface, but as he picked up one after the other, most failed to respond, and the few that did flickered up a message that required a bio-verification of its user.

“… It’s all in code,” Miranda replied, voice quiet in that way she got when she was working on a hundred problems at once. John glanced up, finding her holding another datapad. Whether by luck or her own skill at subterfuge, it seemed to be unlocked and open to her perusal. She was frowning slightly.

He made his way over, leaving Garrus to his work. Miranda seemed to have easily honed in on the desks of more important technicians, and without missing a beat John accepted one of the other datapads she’d picked up. A wave of her hand over it and it was open to him.

John joined her in frowning.

“Not like any code I’ve seen,” he muttered, thumb shifting to swipe through the contents. His other hand held his AR at the ready, but his attention was largely on the screen. Encrypted photos weren’t available to see, but row after row of abstract text was.

It reminded him of the layout of the dossiers the Illusive Man had given him, frankly.

“… I think it’s a hybrid mix of STG code from a few years back, a couple of modern cryptographic trends in one of the larger human colonies, and… hm. A turian reference code..?” She said absently, raising her omnitool. A few swipes and inputs and she had it running some sort of program.

John was a competent hand at tech, but there was a reason he made sure to recruit proper techies - and appreciate those that came to him besides.

“I won’t ask how you recognize that off the bat,” he said, and her only reply was the slight quirk of one corner of her lips. He shook his head, continuing, “How long will it take to crack?”

“Three… two…. And there. Cracked.”

John huffed, impressed and unsurprised in equal measure. Miranda, consummate professional as she continued to be, simply traded datapads with him, making quick work of decrypting the code on his.

“ Project Pandora …?” he read aloud as the text suddenly parsed on the screen. “That’s… not a reassuring name.”

“Perhaps it’s an interpretation that it’s something… positive left inside the box,” Miranda replied, though her skeptical tone matched John’s feelings on that likelihood.

“Two minutes till the door’s done, tops,” Garrus informed them. “Anything good?”

John and Miranda were dead quiet, and Garrus shot them a glance.

Pandora… no, Garrus didn’t think he recognized the name, but from their idle commentary a moment ago, it was clearly some human cultural reference. Not a great one, either, from the set of their jaws.

“I’ll take that as a no,” he sighed, shaking his head. “Maybe someday we’ll come across a non-threatening secret asteroid base. What a change of pace that would be.”

It had been a detour, to be sure, to come here, Garrus considered as he chipped away at the encryption on the door. But he wasn’t so proud he wouldn’t acknowledge that Miranda’s intel and instincts were often right in these matters.

This backwater Traverse system was desolate for a reason; a dying star, orbited by fried planetoids and a massive asteroid belt had little to offer any race. The solar flares and electromagnetic instability left only a portion of the system even reachable by comms, and what little seemed worth mining in the system had been scraped centuries past. It was too strange and alarming to pass up - both for the commander’s strong distrust of secret Cerberus operations, even if he’d been one, and for Miranda, who Garrus noted took both professional and personal interest in anything besmirching Cerberus’ professed goals.

They’d uncovered a Cerberus operation that even Miranda didn’t know about, and it was putting out a truly mind-boggling energy signature that was otherwise hidden by the dying sun. When the commander briefed him before they’d loaded into the shuttle, Garrus had yet again gotten that feeling deep in his gut that they were about to uncover something truly horrific.

Given his commander’s penchant for uncovering some of the worst things the galaxy had to offer, Garrus mused over the fact that the instinct didn’t seem wrong yet.

Blind investigations into rogue scientist operations weren’t exactly new to him at this point, even more familiar in the company of the commander, but not a single one had turned out to be a pleasant experience. One or two had even lead him on what had gotten dangerously close to a vengeance quest… and each and every one tended to end with him feeling like he needed three scalding showers in a row to feel even close to clean again.

The highest hopes Garrus considered holding onto as he broke through the third layer of encryption was that he’d only need two showers to shake off this latest mission.

“Miranda…”

Garrus’ gaze flickered behind his visor, continuing to work on the lock but eyeing Shepard and Miranda. They’d gone concerningly still.

“… Are they all marked some manner of ‘ Terminated’ for you as well, then?”

John nodded, his expression grim. Garrus watched with a rumble of distaste building in his vocal cords as the commander tilted his datapad towards her slightly, swiping through them.

“ Ineffective heartbeat. Spontaneous termination. Spontaneous self-termination. Incomplete Incorporation, premature termination. Spontaneous termination , again. Immolation - hell - Half-Stabilized, Destabilized and Terminated… ”

Garrus’ mandibles faintly clicked against his jaw. This sort of thing is why he didn’t get his hopes up. Spirits help him, if they had a clip for every time they’d uncovered some experiment that resulted in mass death, they’d have to get a second frigate just to hold it all.

“I can’t say I’m a fan of the choice of words in specifically using terminated ,” John’s tone was grim. Garrus scoffed quietly in humorless agreement.

“It does imply some action on the part of the researchers,” Miranda noted, her gaze focused on his datapad as he swiped. “Wait, Commander-“

Garrus’ gaze was forward on the holographic interface again, feeling increasingly determined to finish cracking this door sooner rather than later, but he could discern their movement in his periphery. The commander had paused in his swiping, watching as Miranda stared at his datapad. She scrolled a little more slowly through the file on his screen, then looked back down to hers, doing the same. Then she swiped forward, again, again - then back in quick succession -

And suddenly she swore so vehemently both Garrus and John blinked.

“Commander, do you see the trend in their profiled history?”

Garrus practically heard the way that John’s attention snapped back to the datapad she was pushing closer to him, then to his own, with the subtle sharp creak to the joinings of his armor.

“Colonist… Alliance Military… N7 designation-? ” he heard the commander’s breath catch. N7? The commander’s own elite human designation, not exactly a populous group- with the number of files they seemed to be swiping to that didn’t seem to match up to any reasonable possibility- “present at the Skyllian Blitz- survived and saved the- what?”

Miranda’s heel clicked against the floor as she shifted. “Almost every one of them shares your background,” she said, and Garrus’ head turned snapped towards them, though his talons kept moving on the holoscreen. Shared? No, not just shared… Miranda shook her head as Garrus came to a matching conclusion. “But not just location. After all, how many heroes of the Skyllian Blitz are there, Commander?”

John’s gaze shifted back to her, and she was smiling without an ounce of humor.

“As far as I know, just me,” he replied, and Garrus growled sharply at the nosedive this mission was taking with this intel.

“What exactly does this mean?” Garrus said, before tersely following his words up with, “-45 seconds till we’re in, commander.”

“It had better not be clones,” John muttered, quickly picking up another datapad. Miranda had already unlocked a few more, and both were making quick work of flipping through them as they began to walk away from the desk. “But the stats don’t… would they be trying to… what, implant memories, then? Make variations? Would that even be possible?”

Garrus and John both glanced at Miranda. She shook her head, lips in a tight line.

“No. Even in two years, there was no viability in altering memory. We checked,” she said, just a little curt. Garrus had to bite back a response about what that implied, but when he saw John take a subtle, careful breath, he did likewise. Miranda continued, perhaps purposefully not noting the men’s firm silence, “And besides, look - some of them… their builds don’t quite match. Or look - those two - their race - and this one, his age is wrong, and this one- not even a colony child, but born and raised on Earth’s streets-“

“And yet…” John said, coming up next to Garrus. Only a few seconds left, and the two shared a nod before the interface pinged cheerfully and turned green. “… They’re all overwhelmingly similar to me, is what we’re getting. Right?”

“Correct,” Miranda replied.

“Cerberus is awfully obsessed with you, Commander,” Garrus mused, pulling out his AR once more. He checked the clip, eyes carefully not going to Miranda.

“He’s worth the investment,” she simply said, but when both men looked at her, she was frowning, her own Carnifax Hand Cannon in one hand, while the other arm blazed with her omnitool’s amber light. “There. I’ve downloaded a copy of the cracked files, and the encrypted ones as well. Whatever is happening here, it’s clear that at best this is an operation that’s gone fully rogue, and we need to shut it down. If they’re trying to make an army of clones of you, Commander Shepard…”

“I really don’t need that added to my list of headaches,” John replied.

“Something tells me that with our luck they’d be less quality, reasonable potential allies and more Thorian creeper style uprising, round two, ” Garrus added, hand shifting to hover over the door’s panels. He’d hacked it so only this side would show green; to anyone on the other side, the display would still appear to be locked. Garrus had too much experience under his plates now to make any amateur mistakes on that front. “But whatever they’re doing here, this will be the way to the central chamber. It’s reinforced like a nuclear shelter from what I scanned, and given the mech presence so far they might even have YMIRs waiting for us-“

“Well, feel free to let loose, then,” John smoothly interrupted, the wry quirk to his mouth and the steely set to his eyes getting a chuckle out of his friend. “Whoever didn’t rush to roll out the welcome mat seems to have run in here by the direction of the mess they left - whatever they’re doing, it’s behind these doors. Standard operating formation, stay on your toes, and work on instinct and with the priority of getting out alive if everything goes to hell. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Miranda and Garrus said simultaneously.

“Then let’s go,” the commander said as he trained his sights on the door.

With that, Garrus’ hand swiped down, and the door opened with the rush of displaced air.

It revealed a wide staircase on a surprisingly steep incline that lead only to another, larger, door. With John taking point, Garrus paused at the bottom at his six while Miranda took cover to one side of the door. Once in place, with a mere exchanged glance, they all silently counted down from three.

Two.

One-

The door opened, and beyond it, thirty men and mechs turned to face them.

The scene was chaos - warning lights were flashing, alarms were blaring, overlapping pleasantly intoned voices were urgently taking note of all manner of system failure and security breach. Several mechs were being powered on, a dozen harried human scientists were starting to crowd on the opposite end of the massive circular chamber, and the rest were mercs in decidedly high-quality gear. There was the roar of some deafening electrical apparatus crowding the center of the chamber, as well as stacked rows of semi-opaque pods that were reminiscent of krogan breeding pods they’d encountered in the past- but while all three of them were experienced in high-stakes combat enough to take immediate note of all these variables, what seized their attention laid above the humming electrical apparatus at the center of the chamber.

Inside no less than four individually maintained biotic barriers, two kinetic barriers, and one physical yet transparent composite barrier, the humming machine formed a sort of gruesome dais for a red-headed woman straining against the bonds that had her arms above her head, wrists and hands appearing consumed by some form of mechanical restraint, while her feet and ankles were omni cuffed several times over, spread apart. She was dressed in well-tailored armor, though it seemed half-destroyed and there was no helmet in sight. Despite its ravaged state, even through the many tinted barriers the make of it looked oddly familiar. Any markings, however, were obscured by the dark blood dripping down her face from her hairline to stain its interlocking plates.

In those spare few seconds where everything seemed frozen, all of this hit them at once; as did the fact that, though it was muffled, the woman was screaming.

“How did those idiots let him get here-?! Take them out, but don’t kill the commander, and secure Pandora! ”

The room burst into action as the scientist’s shrill command cut through the shock. John launched to one side, ducking and rolling behind a lab table, registering that Garrus and Miranda had done the same towards the opposite side, taking cover as bullets beat into the makeshift cover, but didn’t pierce it through. Without peering out, John relied on fast instincts and the flash of visuals he’d gotten mid-dodge to throw a grenade in the direction of a handful of mercs that were closest. He triggered it before they could dodge out of its way, and the resulting explosion and shouts provided the pressure for other attackers to scatter for cover. Garrus took swift advantage of this, popping up with AR in hand to take out three consecutive mercs a few paces away before they could react. A powerful biotic surge sent two more hurtling backwards, and the resulting shouts and mixed commands of the mercs and scientists nearly overpowered the alarms.

“Get the gas grenades-“

“No you fool, this room is a closed circulation system, we’ll all-“

“Watch the tanks, those specimens are still valuable-!”

Tanks-?

John rose from cover, strafing as he shot quick bursts, twisting at the hips to focus fire on a few mechs that were too resilient to need to duck for cover. He moved behind a massive supporting pillar of tubes and electronics shielded behind transparent material, distance from his squad forcing their enemies to split their attention. His gaze flickered quickly to the outer wall, the rows of tanks lining the entire circumference easier to observe now.

He nearly choked.

“What the-“ he bit off his curse, but it echoed across the active comms nonetheless as he took in the gorey sight before him.

Every one of the tanks near him, and for several higher rows, were displayed not unlike the tank Grunt had been grown in… but these were filled with what John could only guess were human remains. Some of them were… were nothing but meat, meat and bones and viscera. Others seemed partially intact - lower bodies, or torsos, but partially blown away; then there were those that were pieces of limbs, and others still that seemed to be mostly intact but for destroyed heads or evisceration so thorough the body was unrecognizable.

“You’ve got to be kidding me- the state of these bodies-“ Miranda’s voice crackled over the comms, punctuated by several shots from her heavy pistol.

A spray of bullets clipping his shields forced John out of his horrified reverie in time to recognize some of the static coming through comms as one of Garrus’ more vicious growls, untranslatable but more than obvious enough in his disgust.

John spun out of cover, AR taking out the two mercs that had inched up on him and moving forward.

“Time for investigation later,” he bit out, refusing to look in the direction of the outer walls again. His mind echoed with the stats in the datapads they’d just been looking through. Colonist. War Hero-

Meat and tubes-

-No.

It wasn’t him in there. Whatever they were… it wasn’t him, and damn it all, he wasn’t about to let it be him… or anyone else.

They pushed forward into the room, falling into a pincer formation to force the rogue scientists and their guards further back. John took quick note of the layout of the huge chamber as he finished off a mech, eyes catching on one of a few massive lit up consoles, this one closer to Garrus and Miranda’s positions.

“There. See if you can’t power down some of these mechs, and do something to power down whatever’s hurting that hostage!”

“On it!” Miranda replied, vaulting over cover as Garrus rose smoothly, sniper rifle out, a concussive shot ringing out and clearing her path. John quickly took out his own sniper rifle and fired a pre-loaded concussive round followed by an assassination round forcing the scrambling scientists to focus less on their own console and more on defense.

John grunted as his shields were taken out to his side by three mechs unfolding from panels in the floor closest to the domed biotic barriers. One of them was outfitted with a shotgun, and he felt his armor take a beating as he was forced back to full cover again. Trusting the sound of his teammates’ weapons and abilities in full use, he took a slow, steady breath to keep his concentration as he reloaded his heat sink. He buried the sounds of the alarms, the shifting of the flashing red lights that bathed the room in an ominous, intense glow, and listened for the closest sounds.

…Footsteps, there. Slightly out of sync, heavy, back heel clanking against the metallic flooring-

John exhaled as he ducked and rolled out of cover, lower than the mechs had been aiming. Their volley of shots went over his head, and he peered through the scope of his Vindicator, the vulnerable neck of the closest mech in clear view. A simple squeeze of the trigger - three round burst, one in the first’s neck, two in the second’s neck, three in the third’s-

They shuddered, then collapsed in a series of small, sparking explosions as John kept his momentum going to push to his feet and leap over them, breaking into a short sprint to cover directly next to the biotic barrier as he took stock of the room. Just barely visible around the dais from his position  was Garrus and Miranda now holding their position at the console - Miranda hard at work while Garrus’ cover fire pushed back the worst of their attackers.

“Any progress?” He asked, turning to tag a few mercs in his sights as they tried to flank him.

“They’ve encrypted the entire console to hell and back Commander, I’m going to need a minute-“

The shouting was growing louder despite the reduced numbers in the room. John ignored it in favor of his team for just a few seconds more.

“We’ll give you what we can, but if you have to, sacrifice salvageable data in favor of-“

“-pard-!”

John jolted as he dropped back into cover, twisting around. That wasn’t through his comms - that wasn’t even from the enemy’s positions, but rather-

“-der Shepard!!”

He looked up at the dais, and locked gazes with the bleeding, restrained woman.

“How in the- she’s still being shocked, check those the readings-“ Garrus’ voice came through the comms, but John didn’t look away as he saw her expression twist in pain. Her body seized with it, and John felt damn near helpless as he witnessed this stranger being tortured, unable to do anything for her until-

“FUCK, code, console- QX48FKSD- shit -KFCV9348935GHVCB-“

John saw Miranda freeze, then quickly start typing as the woman jolted again, stronger this time, her eyes squeezing shut as she bit back a scream so hard her lip split. She slumped, gasping, but her voice forced itself out in a single strained breath.

“-S34701642PANDORA!”

“Miranda-“

“-That did it-!”

John exhaled in sharp relief, the corners of his mouth turning properly upward for the first time since they’d started this damn mission.

“Get those barriers down, and get her free!”

John didn’t have time to linger on the stranger, but felt certain she’d understand his decision to make a dash for the pocket of mercs that had started cursing and looking to the scientists for instructions.

“Shocks disabled, but Commander, I’m only seeing controls for the kinetic barriers and her restraints, nothing biotic-“

“There must be something - or someone - stationed around the room then,” John grunted as his shields took a beating. He spun around, Vindicator doing heavy damage at close range to the approaching wave of mercs, then dropped as one of them came up behind him to try to grapple him. He lashed out at the man’s legs, sending him sprawling before taking him out with a shot between the eyes. “Garrus- eyes on anything suspicious-?”

“Only a whole room,” was the drawled response, but John heard the focused edge to his friend’s voice. “… They’ve got to be close, to keep up barriers that strong-“

“Kinetic barrier nearly down, physical restraints next,” Miranda reported.

John glanced towards her and Garrus’ position as he finished taking out the last of his small group of mercs. Chest heaving, he nonetheless felt that flare of relief and satisfaction at seeing them hold their own. Garrus was picking off more of the remaining scientists and mercs in the clustered group dominating the furthest end of the chamber, and John watched as Miranda, without even looking up from the console, lifted her pistol to take out a mech that popped out from behind a nearby pillar with pinpoint accuracy.

Taking a handful of seconds to catch his breath before joining Garrus in his onslaught, John looked back up at the trapped woman. She was coughing, and he grimaced in sympathy as he saw the flecks of blood come from her mouth. Her chest shuddered, her body practically slack in the restraints as she recovered from the shocks. He couldn’t help but wonder just how long it had been since she hadn’t been under immediate threat of electrocution.

“Bastards,” Garrus’ growl came through the comm. John’s gaze flickered to his turian friend- he’d turned behind a pillar to swap out a mod out on his sniper rifle. His head had been turned towards the woman as well, and across the room, Garrus and John’s gaze met. They shared a look of determination; John’s of righteous anger, Garrus’ of dark disgust. “The way her blood’s dried on her skin, the seize in her shoulders - they’ve had her like that for days, at least.”

Turian vision was admittedly sharper than a human’s. John had little doubt that the extra clarity it afforded Garrus made his observation accurate, and it only seeded John’s deep-rooted distrust of Cerberus as a whole deeper. Their mission aside, there was something inherently corrupt about an organization that made its success and secret fortune based off an ends justify the means credo.

“She’s held on well, then,” John muttered, steeling himself. He took advantage of the reflection of the metallic surfaces to get a read on the rough motions of their enemies before rising again, returning fire for fire with the mercs. “Even if she’s done something terrible, this is no way to treat a prisoner-“

“Garr-Garrus!”

John was forced to duck for cover again as he nearly stumbled in shock at hearing the woman’s muffled voice say his friend’s name. John tossed out a grenade, barely paying attention to the awarded screams and dying throes of its successful aim as he looked to Garrus- whose eyes had gone wide, mandibles flaring out and downward in a rare display of outright shock.

It was one thing for a stranger to know Commander John Shepard , particularly in the center of some operation that seemed obsessed with something about him. But… Garrus? Not that he wasn’t known in a few corners of the galaxy, but…

The same thoughts were damn clear on his often hard-to-read turian friend’s face. Clearly Garrus had no idea who she was, so how-

She didn’t give them long to contemplate, only pausing enough to clear her throat painfully before fixing Garrus with a look so fierce and focused despite her state that John noticed his friend blink.

“… ‘mmandos- fuck, Commandos - Quadrant F12, bearing 35.6, J7, bearing 12.1, Q33, bearing 43.9, and X68, 62.4!”

Garrus froze.

It only lasted a split second, but then he was swearing under his breath.

“How do you know that style of coordinate code-“

“They’ll move, dammit, just take them out and the biotic barriers will come down-!”

Garrus twisted, looking torn but tempted, and John and his gaze met for the briefest moment.

“-Do it!” John ordered, and without hesitating a second further Garrus trained his sniper rifle in an abstract direction some 7 meters in the air - and fired.

Suddenly one of the barriers crackled and burst, and a spray of blue asari blood preceded the flickering of a tech cloak failing and revealing an asari commando falling to her knees. A hidden platform just large enough to take a wide stance on became discernible as the asari’s blood smeared across it when her body fell, dead before she even hit the ground.

Garrus wasted no time in taking three further shots.

John vaguely recognized the code as one of the turian military codes, not that he’d personally learned it by heart; it was one of the more obscure ones, if he remembered correctly, and with the Normandy crew, they used a different, Alliance-based code when necessary. He’d heard, though, that the style of coordinates were particularly useful for sniping accuracy, taking into account not just location but environment. That this woman knew it-

-but John wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Each of Garrus’ shots had perfectly taken out one of the apparent four asari commandos stationed stealthily high up on the walls at irregular intervals, and now all four of the biotic barriers around the central dais were down. It granted him a hell of a lot more room to maneuver, as only the physical clear casing around the dais and a closely-broadcast kinetic barrier around it was left. A test spray of Vindicator fire didn’t even make the kinetic barrier shudder at its current strength, so John left the matter to Miranda’s ongoing efforts and focused on the now thoroughly panicked and infuriated handful of remaining scientists left.

“I thought you said she was unconscious when we were stationing them-“

“Her heartbeat was so damn slow, what was I supposed to-“

“What about that code! Who let the subject see their-“

“-no one, she must have figured it out-“

“How-“

“Looks like our girl isn’t one to be underestimated,” Miranda drawled over the comms. John knew that tone - equal parts amused and wary.

She would be just as liable to shoot the unknown woman if she seemed a threat as save her.

“Neither are we,” he said, vaulting over his cover and rushing the last line of mercs standing between him and the scientists.

“Shepard, something’s happening on the platform-“

Garrus’ urgent observation had John grunting in acknowledgment, but he was too preoccupied to immediately check. As it turned out, two shotguns and three ARs tend to hold a man’s attention. It took more fire than he expected to take down these last few, and they were fast to boot - but with a quick shield boost John had just enough time to take the shotgun-wielding guards down then throw himself behind a pillar before one of the vehemently cursing scientists could fully shatter his defenses. Only then did his gaze flash to the dais - prompting him to barely bite back another curse.

Two mechs were beginning to rise out of the paneling lining the massive machine platform beneath the woman. They were jolting slightly, as if something was interfering with their immediate deployment, but they were powering up nonetheless. He witnessed the short-haired redhead twist around despite her splayed standing X position, looking behind her where the mechs were twitchily straightening.

The woman, it seemed, had no inclination to bite back her own swearing, and John couldn’t exactly blame her.

“Miranda-”

“It’s going to be another minute before the kinetic barrier disables,” she replied, frustration clear even through the comms.

“She doesn’t have a minute-“ John grit out. “Damn - alright Garrus, I’m going in, cover me!”

“Go, I’ve got you!”

John burst from behind the pillar, coming face to face with three drones. He destroyed one, and the other two disappeared in a fritzed explosion at the sound of Garrus’ sniper rifle going off twice. No pause needed, John sprinted forward, taking out one panicking scientist trying to set up a turret, then another tucked between two of the tanks at the outer wall that tried to get the jump on him. Two more were finished off by Garrus without John having to even give them a second glance as he barreled towards the furthest console from the entrance. Three engineers - suddenly two, thanks to another shot from Garrus - and one was frantically interacting with the console while the other was turning towards his team with a shotgun and a grenade in hand. John raised his gun, and with a burst of fire the second man dropped before he could throw a grenade towards Garrus and Miranda. The last scientist swore, slammed something on the console, and stepped back as he whipped out a pistol and shot the console, causing the holoscreen to short out and the lights blinking across the hard interface to die.

John shot him too before he could do anymore damage, but he wasn’t given time to investigate what the bastard had input as his last command.

The floor a few steps behind the console began to shift, panels unfolding as a YMIR mech rose out of the ground. The face plate screen flickered on, the stacked red circles on it matching the ominous glow of the room as the machinery within the massive thing hissed and came alive.

“YMIR - take cover!” John barked.

He didn’t wait to see what it’s first action would be - from experience alone, John knew it wouldn’t be anything he wanted to get a face full of. Bodily throwing himself towards the dais, he took cover around the curve of the kinetic barrier just in time for a rocket to slam into the spot he’d just been standing.

“Release my legs- RELEASE MY DAMN LEGS, MIRANDA!”

John was loading a new thermal clip into his AR when he heard the woman yelling again. The two mechs were a few steps away from her, fully operational, now brandishing strange electrical batons buzzing with sparks. The redhead strained against her bonds, and John had to assume it was his imagination that gave him the faint impression of the sound of creaking metal accompanying her desperate effort.

“More questions by the second- Commander, what’s your order-?”

John had the same questions, he was sure. How did this woman know Miranda’s name, too-? Did he even want to know, at this rate -

“SHEPARD-“

“Do it!”

“Releasing her legs, it’ll be another minute on the kinetic barrier, then-!”

As the YMIR’s heavy steps began to strafe the room, approaching John’s position and retreating from the angle that Garrus had on it, the commander witnessed the omni shackles fade and fall away from the woman’s ankles just as the two mechs came within melee distance. They lashed out, flanking her from behind, and John opened his mouth to shout-

-but suddenly she flipped upwards, and the mechs were thrown off balance as their shock clubs met nothing but air.

The woman had pulled herself up by the restraints encasing her hand, lifting herself up and curling so her torso was nearly above her head. Just as swiftly she dropped, legs lashing out hard and slamming each heel into the back of the stumbling mech’s heads. They dropped like a sack of rocks, twitching, and her feet met the ground again. She twisted in place, lifted her body straight upwards as if climbing a ledge, then slammed her feet back down on the middle of one of the mechs’ lower back, severing it and causing a shower of sparks that effectively signalled it was out of commission.

She repeated the action on the other.

“… Note to self, don’t get within human leg distance of her without warning,” Garrus said over the comms, voice a little in awe. A volley of ammo in quick succession informed the commander that Garrus had switched to his AR, and movement on the other side of the barrier confirmed the turian was closing in. Between them, still behind the kinetic barrier and the glass cage, the woman had started swearing again as two more mechs unfolded from the floor behind her.

“Probably wise,” John agreed, refocusing on the YMIR mech. “Let’s finish this thing off before she’s forced to prove what else she can do with her hands tied above her head.”

“After you, Commander.”

Anyone watching might have assumed they’d discussed the precise tactics beforehand, but in reality, there was no need.

John’s power laid not just in his ability to wield nearly any gun with deadly efficiency, but at any range, and under any circumstance, coupled with his deep comprehension of his companions’ strengths. Garrus’ laid in his ability to be viciously accurate at ranges and in positions that would damn most people - and paired with his strategic mind and his experience in close quarters combat, he could predict how his teammates would move and think, John most of all. Paired together, with a bond forged through too many battles and under too many circumstances to count, they operated like a well-oiled machine even more precise and terrifying than a whole squad of YMIRs.

John closed in while Garrus drew the mech’s attention with shot after shot; just as the YMIR lifted it’s rocket arm to fire at Garrus, John destroyed the supports in the briefly exposed elbow joinings, causing the arm to go completely slack. The rocket fired anyways, blowing off its left leg. As it tried to compensate for the sudden damage, leaning on its right leg and attempting to slam its right arm into John, he rolled to the side and unleashed a spray of inferno ammo to its hip joinings that began to overheat the vulnerable bindings. The following concussive shot that slammed into the side of its head sent it hurtling for the ground, spraying ammo that threatened to pierce John’s shields. He moved quickly though, embracing the risk in favor of the chance Garrus gave him - he jumped over its disabled arm and slammed a high-explosive grenade down the thing’s collar, using his momentum to keep going and make for the cover of the half-busted console. It attempted to get up, the slam of its arm bracing against the ground shaking the floor-

-but John detonated the grenade before it could rise, and the resulting explosion set off a whole host of new alarms as several tanks were destroyed, and more machinery with them.

Shrapnel slammed into the kinetic barrier surrounding the woman on the dais, and it shuddered and flickered under the force before giving way. The woman herself had both legs around a mech’s neck - while John hadn’t been paying attention, three new mech bodies had piled around her like offerings to a pissed-off god, and the one she grappled with currently was missing the arm that had been wielding its electrified baton.

The mech’s remaining hand scrambled at her leg, but without ceremony she wrenched its neck to the side, twisting at her core and tearing the head off of its body.

The body slumped to the side, and she dropped the head that had been clenched between her thighs. Her feet met the ground as she gasped for breath around the blood that was dripping from her lips. Behind her, another two mechs rose from the same panels that seemed to supply the rest of them, but she seemed barely able to move as she tried to get a handle on her breathing.

Both Garrus and John were already sprinting towards the only remaining barrier - the glass cage. It was perfectly sealed, and as Garrus tried to quickly scan it for any hidden panels that might let them in faster, John’s jaw set in a grim line and he opened fire on the thing - away from Garrus or the woman’s positions, just in case. It proved ineffectual. The thing was, of course, not about to shatter under a bit of gunfire.

“It’s reinforced, only meant to be unsealed in stages,” Miranda called out to him, voice overlapping herself seamlessly via the still-open comm line. No one bothered to turn off their comms, though, given the alarms blaring that were liable to drown out their voices. “I’m working at it, but-“

“Work on releasing her,” John ordered, “Garrus - on me - highest caliber you’ve got, let’s aim right there, the pattern seems a bit different-“

“A seam, maybe-?” Garrus agreed, swiftly joining him and inspecting the spot. “Got it.” He pulled out his sniper rifle while John switched to cryo ammo in his Vindicator in the hopes that seizing up the material with the cold would help shatter it.

He opened fire, and Garrus quickly followed suit.

The woman seemed to get her breathing under control in that time, but swayed lightly on her feet before groaning. She looked over her shoulder - from this close, John could see lacerations along her features, some bleeding worse than others. With the kinetic barrier gone, there was no longer obscured behind an unsteady blue tint - her armor seemed heavily damaged by an explosion, and as she twisted in place, unsteadier yet on her feet, he realized she had something sticking out of her gut.

John grit his teeth, quickly shoved a fresh thermal clip into his Vindicator, and kept shooting.

Tiny cracks were spiderwebbing now from the place he and Garrus were honed in on. The woman dodged the first strike from the approaching mechs, but the movement was slower than her previous ones - and she no longer was lifting herself up to do so. Just as John was starting to consider the use of grenade despite the risks, a heavy clunking sound came from up on the dais - and the bindings engulfing the woman’s left hand disengaged. 

Her eyes widened, and for a second, John swore she grinned .

It was bloody and terrifyingly pleased in spades.

Her right hand remained trapped, but it seemed that didn’t matter to her. The woman twisted her left wrist, pain flashing across her face but triumph lighting up her eyes as an omnitool flickered to life over her forearm. It was a strange color, and John and Garrus both made a sound of surprise as it blazed purple, a strangely soft contrast to the hellish red emergency lighting bathing the room.

The interface flickered unsteadily for a moment, but the mech a mere handspan away from grabbing her suddenly froze in its tracks. Blue sparks overcame it, every joint seized inwards, and suddenly it crumpled to the ground. She lashed out again with her omnitool, this time hitting the other mech with the telltale glow of a weapon’s tech sabotage. It seemed to override the mech itself, the backlash from the electrified baton it wielded surging back into it and frying its hidden circuits until it too fell to the ground.

A few seconds later, there was a sudden deep crack that echoed through the chamber and cut through the sound of the alarms, and John and Garrus’ bullets finally pierced the reinforced glass cage she was trapped in.

Larger splits raced over a full third of its curved surface, and the two made quick work of shooting enough of it away to provide an opening. John lead the way in, then climbed up and over the edge of the strange machine the woman was trapped on top of and approached her, rifle in hand. The dais itself set his teeth on edge, some electrical force beneath it humming through his armor and undersuit straight to his bones. At least no more mechs seemed to be coming out of the panels; whether they’d run out or Miranda had managed to override the security measure he wasn’t sure. He heard Garrus behind him, as swift and nimble in his own heavy armor as John was in his, and it took them only a few strides to reach the stranger- or rather, to be within a few meters of her.

She was still an unknown quantity, but John wasn’t about to treat her cruelly, even if he was trying to be smart about it.

“Ma’am, are you alright?” He said, though he knew alright would be relative. Her head was hanging, free arm wrapped around her waist as she seemed to try to take steadying breaths. Her own coughed up blood stained the pale metal below her. Legs slightly bent, it seemed she was supporting her own weight, but only just.

With one last exhale, she lifted her gaze at last, and John was faced with a piercing gaze that only seemed enhanced by the blood caking her features. Her breath had evened out, but he heard the faint worrying rattle of straining lungs behind her careful exhalation.

She grimaced, ever so slightly, and nodded as she focused on him, words not yet forthcoming as it looked like she tried to swallow.

“… What’s your name?” He asked slowly, a strange pit settling in his gut as he watched her slowly rise, straightening into a stance that, while undeniably worn, mirrored his own to an uncanny degree.

She regarded him for a few seconds that seemed to stretch into eternity. Surrounded by the ruined bodies of mechs, face and body bloodied, armor half-ruined, bound only by one hand, the sight she struck made it feel less and less like she was a simple hostage.

Her gaze didn’t leave John’s. The fact struck him, for a moment, as odd.

Finally, she spoke.

“… I’m Commander goddamn Shepard, and I’m pretty sure you are too.”

Chapter Text

Commander John Shepard.

He was staring at her, and in her ongoing state of blood loss, she mused that it was probably rare for the man to show this much disbelief so openly. It was admirable, really, how quickly he tried to rein it in. The silence would have deafened the room, if not for the blaring alarms already hard at work.

She’d become so accustomed to the taste of blood in her mouth since she’d been trapped here that she hardly winced as she was forced to swallow around it, all the while studying the strong features of the man’s face. They seemed so alien to her, though he was a perfectly standard human, as far as that sort of thing went. For all their physical differences, she had no doubt that this was this universe’s Commander Shepard; likely thanks to the fact that she’d already been forced to face the literally torturous reality that she’d been stolen from her own universe by the twisted experiments of scientists trying to hedge their own bets.

… Mostly it was just a relief to see the man’s face on a version of himself that wasn’t dead, though.

“You have to understand why that’s a little hard to take at face value… ma’am,” the man himself finally said, his deep voice cutting through the alarms. Miranda - not her Miranda but so very Miranda all the same - was still typing away at the console to the side of the platform, but she noticed the biotic’s pace had slowed significantly.

“… Call me Shep, it’ll be easier,” she muttered, pushing through a wave of nausea again - there was no time to waste.

She needed to get her thoughts in order. Probably only one shot at this. Hell, she’d practically rehearsed this. It had been the only distraction. Cards on the table, up front. Don’t die on the man before at least telling him what was going on.

“Shep,” the other commander repeated slowly, a brow raising slightly. She had to fight back the urge to laugh. Yeah, she’d be incredulous too - but she couldn’t afford to move her abdomen that much… or piss off an unknown version of herself.

“That’s right. Commander Shepard of the Normandy SR2,” she took a breath, affixed him with her most serious of looks, and without humor or irony explained, “These bastards opened a hole in time-space to try and pluck versions of me - you - us - from our home…” she shrugged, minutely, trying to avoid jostling the shrapnel stuck in her gut. She swallowed down the bile and blood that she’d become far too accustomed to tasting. “… timelines? Universes. If you are me, and your team is who I know them to be, then you probably already uncovered data about strange, almost-matching ‘copies’ of you. Dead. Massacred. Destroyed. Terminated, the assholes call it. I don’t know what their mission was precisely, but the result was Shepard after Shepard getting dragged here, and they seemed to not care what the effects would be on the other side so long as they had another one here. They aimed for close copies. Analogous backgrounds; similar morals. Ideally, in one piece. They failed - until they didn’t.”

Her gaze narrowed, and her focus flickered to the wall of tanks that was behind where the commander and… this other Garrus, not her Garrus , were now standing.

“I think I’m only the second they succeeded bringing through in one piece, and keeping in one piece. The last one… definitely looked like you. That’s how I knew it was you that was… me. Apparently he broke through their safety systems before they could react, grabbed a gun, and… refused to be part of their experiments.”

The other commander had turned to follow her gaze, as had this Garrus.

Shep’s jaw clenched as she looked at the mostly-whole man in the tank; the same one that she’d watched the researchers autopsy while she screamed in agony after her arrival. He was the most intact Shepard in this room, even accounting for the way the effect of a shotgun through the roof of the mouth had on… well. The integrity of the back of the skull.

She was desensitized to the horrors of battle and the realities of a gunfight, but he had been the only thing she could manage to focus on as the researchers tuned out her pain and continued to-

“Fuck-“

This Garrus’ low curse snapped her out of her hazy reverie.

“Yeah,” she murmured in rough agreement. Her reply pulled his attention away - or perhaps it was simply as good an excuse as any for the turian to look away from a credible carbon-copy of his own commander, stripped of life and dignity.

She met his icy blue gaze, her own lidded, bloodshot, but unwavering.

“How do you know what happened to him?” he demanded, vocals flanging a little more harshly than what she knew was normal. The other Commander Shepard was still staring at the tanks, completely still, his turned-away face rendering his expression unknowable.

“They were performing autopsies on him after they pulled me through,” she said. “I don’t know how or when they started; the crossover was… hell. Worse than hell. You ever have your entire molecular structure ripped apart and shot through space-time to an entirely different universe that’s ill equipped to take on new matter?” she barked a laugh at that, dry and without humor. Blood flecked from her lips and she groaned, torso seizing up. It hurt so bad she barely registered the other commander turning back towards her again and stepping forward. “Don’t recommend it. Zero outta ten stars. Feels like a thresher maw’s gone and spat acid onto every one of your cells, and a varren’s made a chew toy of the leftovers.”

“Miranda,” the low voice of the commander was closer by the time her wavering vision cleared again. He was within reach of her - this Garrus had stepped forward too, his gun trained on her, though she liked to think she saw reluctance there.

“… Are you sure, Commander?”

“What little we have adds up for now - and we won’t know for certain either way if she dies.”

“Good argument, very sound. Dead women tell no tales,” Shep wheezed, blinking hard against the spots flaring in her vision. She thought she heard a grunt in front of her. Or maybe it was a groan.

The next moment, the contraption around her right wrist finally released, and the weight of her dropped arm had Shep suddenly choking. Pain lanced through the limb that had long since fallen asleep, shocking her overworked shoulder joint, causing her to reflexively curl forward and cascading pain and consequence through her body as the movement shifted the shrapnel buried in her abdomen. Her vision went white as she grunted and felt the ground rushing up fast-

-only for a pair of thick, armored arms to catch her, a soft curse coming from their owner. Shep was too busy trying not to throw up to immediately thank the other commander. Behind him, she registered quick footsteps closing in.

“Shepard - the blood - that shrapnel in her abdomen is buried deep, but she moved it a lot in the fight. We’re going to lose her if we don’t get her back to the Normandy and fast-“

“I’ll last that long,” Shep ground out, clenching her eyes shut and willing the spots to go away. “Garrus is right though. Shrapnel’s- fuck - deep. Taking it out’s not an option. I can stay awake, but I’m not able to walk anywhere.” It hurt to admit it, to be a liability, but she was never the type to allow bravado that would endanger the group.

“She certainly stays on task like the Commander,” Miranda observed dryly.

“… Can you shoot?” the other commander asked Shep.

“Commander, I don’t think that’s wise-“

“Great idea Shepard, let’s give the woman tortured half-mad a gun-“

“I know friend from foe,” Shep said sharply, cutting through both the turian and the woman’s protests. She struggled to a slightly more vertical position, leaning heavily on the human man that was her apparent equivalent. Despite the blood caking her face, despite the rattle of the breath in her lungs, the gaze she fixed his carefully neutral eyes with was fierce.

A beat passed, commander staring down commander.

“I won’t shoot them, or you. They’re… your crew. But even delirious, I’d know their faces. Give me an AR with a kinetic stabilizer, and I’ll take down enough to make my weight worth it.”

She swallowed around the tightness in her throat, and the heat threatening her eyes at being…. Doubted like this.

Doubted by Miranda.

… by Garrus.

But… these weren’t her people. She had to remember that. No matter what, she couldn’t forget. Nor could she blame them. They were smart, loyal to their commander, to question this stranger - let alone one bleeding out and claiming she was him from another universe.

“… Alright. Garrus - carry her. Miranda and I will take lead. We need to get out of here, but if she says she can shoot - after what she just managed while tied up and bleeding out, I’m inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. Give… Shep your AR - and you have my permission to incapacitate her if she so much looks at us sideways.”

“… Yes, Commander,” Garrus responded, dual vocal cords tight.

Shep felt a labored breath leave her that she didn’t entirely realize she’d been holding.

“Feel free to shoot me if I become a liability,” Shep breathed, a faint grin turning her bloody lips upward. She looked up at Garrus - this Garrus, she forcibly reminded herself - as he briefly passed his AR to the other commander, “Rather die than get you all killed.”

The turian paused, for just a second, as he was ducking into a partial crouch and reaching for her. He stared, and suddenly, Shep remembered the last time she’d seen icy-blue turian eyes this close to her.

Visor shattered, one fringe missing - side by side, last ones standing, the world cracking, the comms screeching in their ears, his hand planting against her sternum as she gasped his name-

“… The Commander said to incapacitate, I think execution is pushing the definition a bit far,” Garrus drawled, already moving again by the time Shep had blinked. She gasped and nearly bit her lip in two as he pulled her towards his chest, one arm looping up under her back, the other underneath her knees. He rose, carefully, as she managed to exhale only in the form of a string of curses.

“Watch the shrapnel,” the commander warned, low voice serious, and Garrus huffed.

“Yes, it’ll be simple - don’t jostle the piece of blood-stained metal the length of my forearm while dodging a wall of bullets and biotics with an armored human woman in my arms,” he agreed, earning him a dry look that Shep only just managed to catch. She managed a weak chuckle, and became the new target of an unimpressed look.

“Spring-loaded turian legs - they’ll work like shocks,” she murmured by way of faith, pretending to not notice the distinct feeling of the blood having all but left her face in the process of settling into her new position. At least her face was covered in blood to hide how pale she must be.

… Hell of a thought to have.

“Great, now I’m a bipedal Mako. Can’t help but notice I’m getting demoted the longer I’m back with you, Shepard.”

“I’ll add an extra fancy title before your position if we all get out of this alive, how about that,” his friend shot back while taking one last chance to look over the room.

Shep found herself smiling faintly as Garrus replied with an amused, “You know I’m going to hold you to that, right?” Despite everything, it was… good to see that whatever his more specific qualities may be… this Shepard had a close friendship with this Garrus.

Some things really did hold true across space-time…

“I wouldn’t expect otherwise - now, ah, Shep, are you sure you’re good to shoot?”

Shep refocused, looking - hm, not quite as up as she’d had to previously. Garrus was so damn tall that lifting her up in his arms had her closer to eye-level with the other commander. She tucked this currently unhelpful tidbit away, and nodded once, adjusting carefully and ignoring the waves of pain wracking every inch of her body as she freed up her arms enough to gesture for him to pass the AR.

For his part, this Garrus did a truly stellar job of keeping her steady - it took only a few moments of careful adjustment to find a position that allowed her to lean just a little further up and against the curve of his chestplate, keeping her upright more than prone in a traditional bridal carry, while also allowing him to keep her tight against his torso so she wouldn’t shift much as he moved. John Shepard said nothing further as he passed her the gun his Garrus had him briefly hold onto, and she took it into her grip with the smooth familiarity of the deadly professional that she was, injured or no. Without delay, she checked the safety, then the thermal clip, and tucked it in as good a position as she could manage, bracing it partly against her chest and partly against the turian armor of her benevolent carrier.

Well, wedged it there might have been more accurate.

“… Same mods,” she murmured as she finished studying it. The words slipped out of her before she could stop them. Luckily, John Shepard seemed to not catch it around the sound of the alarms, and merely cast her a questioning glance which she dismissed casually with a tiny shake of her head and an expression that relayed it was nothing of importance.

… Perhaps unluckily, she was fairly certain the turian holding her had heard her. It was in the slight tension in his hands, the tiny increase in the tightness with which she was held to his chest…

But it passed just as quickly, and he said nothing. Shep took the boon, and pretended not to notice that he’d heard her.

“Ready?” The commander asked, seeing that the two seemed set.

“Ready,” Garrus replied.

“Let’s delta,” Shep agreed, the determined set to her expression satisfying John Shepard enough for him to delay no further. He turned and made his way off the platform, where Miranda was already waiting with her heavy pistol in hand, a biotic glow fading from a crate she’d dragged over to make a more convenient descent for her teammates.

“I downloaded a copy of everything I could, and scrambled the rest. Comms are still blocked, but we should be able to contact the Normandy once we’re out of this room,” Miranda reported, gaze shifting away from where Garrus was carefully stepping down. Shep held her breath, her gaze going distant and hard as he did so, but she refrained from passing out. Miranda looked back to her commander, while Shep gave herself a chance to properly observe the other woman once they were on flat ground again.

… Talk about twins, Shep mused, a carefully unobserved darkness looming in the back of her mind. There wasn’t even a different scar on her - though… no, maybe something was different, something subtle. She couldn’t place it though. Shep had to entertain the idea, regardless, that she was just making things up for the benefit of her own strained mental state.

It was food for thought if she came out of this alive. Or, better yet, food to lock deep in a vault she hoped to never open.

“Good work, Miranda. Be prepared - the jamming signals are still on for everything outside of this room, so we might have a party waiting for us sooner rather than later. We’re making a beeline for the shuttle pick up point - no more detours to investigate. Garrus, keep an eye out as best you can, but focus on getting her out alive. Shep - take what shots you can, but above all, don’t pass out on Garrus if you can help it.”

“Yes, sir,” both his teammates answered in sync, and Shep chimed in a moment later with her own “got it.”

If he noticed the expression on her face waver for a moment as it truly hit her that she wasn’t the commander, here, he kept it to himself.

She was grateful.

They left the gorey scene behind them as they exited the room through the only door they could - the way they came. The stairs were mercifully clear, as was the control room where the original trio had begun to put the pieces together. John Shepard didn’t even pause to cast a sideways glance, instead taking the lead and opening the doorway. The moment they were out, he was attempting to make contact with the Normandy, but the only thing they were getting was heavy static and clipped, useless syllables. They pressed on, periodically making quiet, firm attempts to contact the ship. The first few turns were totally clear - nothing but the bodies they’d left in their wake and the alarms echoing through the station. Once, he suddenly held up a fist, bringing his team up to a stop as he waited at the corner, ears straining. Shep’s hearing, like much of the rest of her, wasn’t working in top form, but she kept a firm grip on the AR and paid sharp attention to John’s body language - and the subtle hints of the turian holding her. His head had cocked slightly to the left, and she carefully angled the barrel a little further in that direction of the fourway junction they’d paused at. In the distance, there was the sound of boots on the ground - but finally, John nodded, looking back to his team and giving the all clear.

They rounded the corner, guns at the ready, but the way forward remained quiet. Their steps were swift, yet hushed - even those of Garrus carrying Shep - but hardly half a minute later, the alarms they’d all grown accustomed to were abruptly cut off, and in their deafening wake came a crackling sound of feedback and the malicious voice of an unknown speaker.

“They’ve escaped the central chamber with Subject Pandora! All remaining hands on deck! Incapacitate Shepard and Subject Pandora at all costs. Kill anyone else!”

John and Shep swore under their breath in the exact same moment, and the next, the group was running.

“Joker! Do you read-?” John’s voice barked out, no longer caring about stealth. It was a matter of time, now. There was a brief, infuriating moment of continued static, only the vague hints of the pilot’s cadence behind it, but then-

“-hear you! Do you read us, Commander? Come on, damn this stupid half-dead excuse of a sun and its shitty solar flares-“

“I read you,” John quickly replied, a hint of relief in the take-charge tone of the commander coming through, but there was no delay before his following words, “we’re on our way to the LZ, carrying one human non-crew severely injured. Tell Chakwas to be ready for surgery, she’s got shrapnel in the gut and-“ only the briefest of pauses - “she’s likely got the exact same body modifications and enhancements that I do. Conscious for now, but that may change before we’re on board.”

To his credit, Joker only missed a single beat before he replied, “You got it, Commander. Shuttle’s on it’s way.”

“EDI, Miranda will be uploading encrypted documents - make it a priority to decode them, second only to a fast exit from the system. Be ready to gun it when we’re on board, Joker.”

“Understood, Commander.”

“Yes, sir!”

Right on cue, gunfire forced them to take cover.

John was already throwing a grenade by the time the group of hired mercs rounded the other end of the hallway. It blasted the first several into their comrades, who were scrambling as it was followed up by a hail of gunfire. Shep didn’t hesitate, her unsteady breathing thinning out and slowing as she aimed down the sights and unleashed hell on the bastards. Her thoughts faded to the background, as they often did on a mission; beyond the immediate goals, the status of her team, and her active analysis for battlefield strategy, there was no extraneous worry. For the first time since she’d been dragged here, she wasn’t consumed by the thoughts of her home universe, her guilt, her fear, her fury - or rather, she only let the general sense of that last one through, wielded it in a way she rarely allowed herself and sharpened it to a vicious point.

Fury.

It was what fueled her accuracy, her focus, her ability to drive through the growing pain. Garrus kept her steady, twisting them deftly into cover when needed as the group pushed forward and a new wave of attackers became too much. The metallic tang of blood was filling her mouth again, but she spared it no attention. She fell into perfect sync with John and Miranda, quickly catching onto John’s style and how he tended to act as a sort of tank for the group, drawing the worst of the fire and attacks, distracting their enemies before they realized it. He left them wide open for Miranda’s precise shooting and vicious biotics; Shep meanwhile swiftly demonstrated her sniper-like accuracy and unwavering ability to suss out where the sneakier engineers and rear guard lay in wait, taking them out the moment their heads peeked out to send a drone or turret their way. It was clear John adjusted quickly, his actions leaving her perfect room to operate as well. Only one moment had her faltering - she went to activate an overload command on a reeling mech, only for her purple omni tool to fritz. There was merely a grunt of frustration from her that betrayed the faltering of her preferred tactics, but she was already shooting again, settling into the simple state of affairs that had her relying on gunfire alone.

The team was relatively quiet as they took out wave after wave. John would occasionally indicate for them to make a sudden surge, or for one of them to take cover behind a different position, but that was it.

Whatever Garrus had been thinking before they set out, he showed none of it - quickly catching on to the fact that the injured woman in his arms was no less reliable a shot than the rest of his teammates. A few times he moved in a way Shep hadn’t expected, but she didn’t let it break her focus - no, she trusted Garrus. Why wouldn’t she? She knew how he moved. How he thought and acted in a fight. Her bloodied body operated on instinct, and it knew that his own matched hers perfectly. He’d survived so damn much, was loyal to his commander, a fierce friend and fighter and just as fierce a strategist-

“Don’t stop on account of me,” she murmured at one point when he lingered behind a pillar longer than she needed to switch the thermal clip. Her gaze was towards the distance, picking up on the sights, the sounds, counting the seconds since Miranda had warped one of the mercs-

“… You’re good, but you don’t have to worry about them so much,” Garrus replied, vocals showing no apparent strain for the long minutes he’d been carrying her through waves of a firefight. There was a curious careful control to his tone though, Shep thought, but chalked it up to the stress of having to carry her. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but we’re both in trouble if you overdo it and pass out, and your blood loss isn’t getting any better.”

“Only natural to worry about your own team,” she replied absently. There - John had used another grenade, perfect- “We’re almost there if I remember right - let’s go Garrus, it’s past time we got back to the Normandy, Chakwas’ll fix me up good as new as always-“

She was too busy keeping her exhausted grip steady to register the odd quiet of the turian she knew and trusted.

The next few hallways were marked by more stairs, and Shep remembered this layout. She knew it too well, some part of her thought, though the bodies they moved past were in different places than she thought they’d been before. Miranda was as effective as ever at clearing the way as the door to the landing zone came into view. John was surging forward, slamming the butt of his rifle into the jaw of a merc that tried to get the jump on him from behind a crate. Shep leveled her gun on the mechs that were climbing out from behind the cargo stacks, noting a handful of desperate engineers behind them surrounded by cracked open crates. She snarled, taking shot after shot to keep them from becoming more of a problem as the turian holding her tight made a break for the shuttle that was touching down. Miranda was hot on his heels, but was brought up short when a merc leapt over the nearest crates and slammed into her. Shep shouted, and Garrus twisted -

“Miranda, no-!”

Shepard took aim at the merc, cursing as her vision was growing darker.

No. No. She wasn’t going to lose her -

Blood rose in Shep’s throat as she unleashed hell on the man grappling her officer, and she coughed it up as the man finally fell, pushed to the side to a furious grunt from Miranda herself. Shep began to list sideways, her vision twisting but relief filling her as the dark-haired biotic leapt to her feet and ran to her and Garrus.

“Dammit - Garrus, get her on board, now!”

“N-no- we’re- forgetting someone- can’t- leave until-“

“I’m on your six, now GO!”

Shep saw several copies of a man in heavy armor running towards them in her swimming vision, the trailing remains of five mechs and seven mercs dead behind him. Two more were still chasing him, and he twisted, his blurry self overlapping and disconnecting in Shep’s vision thrice over. She tried to lift the gun, but Garrus was turning away with a growl rolling so fiercely in his chest that Shep felt it in her bones. Stars were joining her unsteady field of vision that was already stained heavily with hazy darkness, and as she coughed up more blood, she couldn’t find the air to protest. Before she knew what was happening, the open view of space above the landing zone had changed to the familiar inner walls of the Normandy’s shuttle.

“Shepard-“

Shep heard Garrus’ flanged voice. His arms were still underneath her, but she wasn’t sure where his face was anymore. She wanted to respond to him calling her name, but the taste of blood was too much. Instead, there was a man’s voice.

“I’m on- go, go, go!”

Space lurched around Shep, and her twisting vision was officially too much to parse.

“Set her on the ground-“

“It’ll move the shrapnel too much, just check her like this-!”

“Shepard to the Normandy, we’re coming in hot, is Chakwas ready?”

“Damn it all- how the hell was she still breathing though that gunfight, look at the size of that thing-“

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, it’s covered in… wait, is that…?”

“Is it what, I can’t see around my- no, no, c’mon, hold on, Shep - dammit, Shepard! We’re losing her-“

“The doc’s waiting for us, she needs to know if she’s…. is that the barrel of a-?”

Everything went black.

==============

==============

John hadn’t stopped pacing through his cabin since Chakwas had forced everyone out of the Med Bay nearly one and a half galactic standard hours ago. Everyone except Miranda, though only after she and John both asserted that Miranda’s expertise on synthetic body enhancements would be needed.

Left feeling uncomfortably idle and still pumped full of adrenaline, he had decided to practice what he preached and went to take a quick shower like he’d all but ordered Garrus to do.

The turian had looked uncharacteristically… unnerved, when the Med Bay doors had shut behind the both of them. The crew hanging around the dining area were trying and failing not to stare, but did refrain from saying anything - even though the two had rushed up with an unknown dying woman in their hold. After a long, soberingly silent minute, John had set a hand on his friend’s shoulder and told him to go clean himself up, and to take his time with it. Garrus had given him a hard-to-read look, but eventually nodded, and they’d parted ways.

After showering, John had set aside his armor to properly clean at a later hour. He was too wound up to manage it now. He’d taken to holding his data pad in one hand and a coffee in the other while pacing his quarters, searching through the files from the facility that EDI had since decrypted. They were out of order, but he sorted them as he went. Every new file perused only added to the story they’d pieced together; not one single document contradicted what the injured woman had told them.

John did, however, come to the grim realization that what she’d explained barely scratched the surface.

Project Pandora. He hadn’t yet discerned what precisely their goal had evolved into, but it had seemingly started as an unprecedented but confident effort to develop the means to peer into other universes. By the group’s original records, they hoped to gleam knowledge and hints of what might be done - or avoided - to best empower their own universe’s efforts against the Collectors and the Reapers… to Cerberus’ benefit, first and foremost, of course. At some point, the precise work seemed to have shifted - he wasn’t sure when, or why, but by the time they’d been able to look into other universes… they were isolated from outside contact, and already working on the means to try to bring someone over. Someone they deemed critical .

Beyond the profiles of over fifty of… him, there were hundreds more that were marked off as unsuitable for Project Pandora for a litany of reasons. From ‘morals unsuited to the Commander Shepard of Universe Prime,’ to ‘history steeped not in space or colony life, but Earth gangs; possible increased distrust of authority’, to ‘ wounded in Battle of the Citadel, probable unfavorable outcomes,’ to ‘unstable and rogue since Project Lazarus’ success,’ John’s head swam with the conflicted feelings of a man seeing undeniable proof of different choices he himself could have made - or been subject to - leading to wildly different outcomes. It was… unsettling, to put it lightly, but he compartmentalized as he searched for the file that he knew was more immediately pressing.

It took him two and a half coffees and far too many laps of his room, but at last John opened a document featuring a picture at the top right of a familiar face that wasn’t his own.

Subject Pandora #57, Universe Theta-Rho-9, [Redacted] Shepard.

Note: Originally passed over for non-match of gender in relation to Shepard Prime; subtle variables considered too likely and difficult to measure. SP57 reconsidered after incident with Subject Pandora #56, due to closeness of other factors.

SP57 Core History:

Colonist; see attachment 12f for details and minor variations from Shepard Prime.

N7 designation;  see attachment 18a for details and minor variations from Shepard Prime. Unusual exam results noted, but seem to produce similar outcome to Shepard Prime.

Hero of the Skyllian Blitz; see attachment 23c-k for details and minor variations from Shepard Prime.

Spectre status granted and maintained until presumed dead (reinstated post-Lazarus); crew matching Shepard Prime acquired; Saren defeated; Anderson recommended as Council Member; see attachments 31-72 for-

“Commander, Miranda is requesting your immediate presence in the Med Bay.”

John jolted at EDI’s voice cutting through his racing thoughts, but he was moving towards the door before he’d fully shaken off the surprise.

“I’m on my way.”

He left his data pad and coffee mug on his desk as he passed it, making for the elevator at a jog. EDI had already sent it up for him, and the moment it opened to the Crew Deck, he was passing through it just as quickly. The Med Bay door interface was glowing red, but the light turned green the moment John was in front of it, dinging softly and opening to allow him in.

“Steady, Miranda, she’s liable to snap her wrists before the restraints give - 200 CCs, quickly-“

“Increasing dosage, Doctor-“

John’s eyes widened at the bloody scene he walked in on.

Chakwas and Miranda were on either side of one of the beds, wearing surgical aprons that were covered in more blood than John thought he’d ever witnessed in the room itself. Shep was open on the table between them, torso strapped down with glowing restraints across her chest and hips while Miranda and Chakwas worked at a furious pace on her abdomen. Her eyes were open, to his horror, looking wild and unfocused as her body strained against what bound her. Vaguely, he registered that she’d been stripped down to almost nothing, her mangled armor discarded on the next bed over.

“-Shepard, there you are! Come here-“ Miranda spoke quickly, barely sparing him a glance. Half a lifetime of battle and conflict had him immediately snapping out of his moment of shocked observation, and he crossed the space between them in a handful of strides.

“Here- ‘m here- Miranda- don’t- don’t-“ Shep gasped, gritted teeth making the end of her words impossible to parse. Both of the women working on her offered quiet, quick reassuring murmurs to her, but didn’t slow their work; this was clearly nothing new.

Empathy lanced through John, no stranger to pain himself, but feeling at a loss for the specifics of this particular case.

“Why is she awake?” he asked, watching Shep’s wrists strain against the tight bindings they had her in.

“She’s burning through the anesthesia faster than it can keep her asleep,” Chakwas replied, voice short but not harsh. “I’ve never seen anything like it. What she’s on could make a krogan kneel, and yet-“

“Her system’s on overdrive. I’ve no idea how long she was kept in that stasis field while they stabilized her, or what precisely they did to her, but she was definitely already wounded when she came over. It’s a miracle she’s alive- and I say that as the one who put you back together,” Miranda added, sharp gaze unwavering from her work.

The shrapnel was no longer in her gut, and it was only thanks to too much time on the battlefield that John didn’t flinch at the view of Shep’s guts. After a moment, though, he inhaled sharply despite the overwhelming scent of blood in the air as he realized why Miranda kept picking up a scalpel and forceps and readjusting the outer edges of the opening-

“Is she healing faster than you can operate?” His voice came out more demanding than he’d intended, but by the wry lilt to Miranda’s expression, she completely understood.

“Faster than even you do, and I did everything I could to enhance your healing factor without side effects to your psyche,” she replied. Her hands made swift work of what needed doing to allow Chakwas to actually operate on the damaged tissues beneath the layers of skin and fat and muscle. “Commander, every inch of her body - screw the different body type - everything else is the same . The same skin weaves, the bone reinforcements, the skull lining and the ocular enhancements and - Shepard, this is my work . Every inch of it. I’ve never seen this woman in my life, but this is my work.”

“The reconstruction is that similar?”

“The very biotechnical advancements, Commander-! My team and I pioneered this sort of work for you . It matches every bit of it, perfectly, down to what I personally worked on in you - the way I introduced tissue and reconnected nerve endings and - I’ll spare you the details you’ve no interest in knowing, but I guarantee you,” she looked up long enough to meet his gaze, hard, “this is literally my work.”

“Commander, is she really…?” Chakwas’ voice was steady; acting as the eye of the storm in any disaster zone, no matter how hard to comprehend it all was.

Not for the first time, John thanked his lucky stars that she was a part of his crew.

“Me, from another universe? It would seem so,” he replied, gaze shifting to Shep’s face. Miranda’s confirmation was just that. A confirmation. He hadn’t quite expected her to come down so hard and certain on her findings, but with what she said it made sense. All of it fit what he’d been finding in the documents, and together it meshed perfectly into the growing understanding he had of this entire mess.

It was hard to tell if he was coming to terms with the growing evidence, or if he was seeing some hint of a similar face beneath the blood and pain as he looked at Shep. Either way, he gave himself a moment to take a steadying breath. He wasn’t sure which was worse - watching the surgery itself, or seeing the agony and lack of cognizance on her features.

“…I’ve gone through more of the files and she’s the 57th one they pulled through,” John continued. “It seems she’s the only one they managed to keep mostly in one piece. What’s worrying me is how little I’ve found about what comes of their universes of origin after they’ve wrenched them through…”

“Gone- my fault, all my fault-“

“Shhh, Shepard, you’re okay,” Chakwas said, her voice gentling to a degree that John wasn’t sure he’d ever heard from her. Not that she was a harsh woman to begin with, but the care in her voice… it was enough to cause him delay in registering that she’d fully said Shepard when talking to her.

Something in his gut twisted at the fact that she responded to it.

… Shep, for her part, seemed to ease back her resistance at Chakwas’ words, or at least her tone, if only a little. It was then that John understood that one of the sounds that was escaping her wasn’t of physical pain - no, it was sobbing , and his breath caught as he realized she was crying, wet streaks clearing dried blood from her temples as it seemed she fought herself, not just the restraints.

“Has she been like this the whole time?” he asked, even though he had a feeling he knew the answer.

The two women operating on her only nodded, their expressions grave.

“… More importantly, Commander,” Miranda said as Chakwas redoubled her efforts, maneuvering something deep within Shep’s torso while she was more still, “I think we’ve got part of the answer to the unknown status of whatever she was forced to leave behind.”

Miranda’s head tilted, gesturing off to her side where a movable tray table was lined with various medical instruments. To their side was a blood-stained cloth wrapped around what John realized was the very shrapnel that had been buried in the woman. It was even larger than he’d thought - how it hadn’t pierced her clean through, he had no idea.

“Take it. I think we need to verify it is what it appears to be.”

A minor pit of dread settled in John’s stomach, but he didn’t delay in moving to inspect it. Carefully, he unwrapped the long piece of metal, only to find himself swearing under his breath at the confirmation of what they’d suspected they were looking at on the shuttle.

It wasn’t just metal shrapnel from whatever environment she’d been in. It was the barrel of a sniper rifle, the tip of it in one piece, but the opposite end closer to where the stock would have been was shredded at one half and seemingly cut in ways that made no sense. Not like an impossibly sharp blade had cut through it, it was far too unevenly jagged for that, but he’d also never seen an explosion or other blow result in that sort of edge- to say nothing of how the other half was twisted and blown out as if from an explosion.

The irregular, alarming appearance of that end was what caused the delay in his registering the make and model of the barrel, and what remained of the surviving mod on it.

“… This is…”

“Officer Vakarian’s favored make, model, and mod, yes.”

John stared at it. He was used to the weight of a rifle in his arms, to the point of nearly finding it comfortable.

This mere piece of a weapon felt heavier than any complete gun he’d ever held.

He looked back to Shep. Her limbs were trembling, now, her knuckles white. It looked as if she was shoving her head back, tilting it up, as if to press the back of her skull to the bed to the point of pain. Tears still streamed from her eyes.

John recalled the way she’d stared at Miranda.

At Garrus.

Gone- my fault, all my fault-

His jaw tightened.

“I’m going to the Main Battery. Call me immediately if you need any assistance. At all.”

“Yes, Commander.”

John forced himself not to look back when he heard Shep scream as the Med Bay doors shut behind him. The sound cut off with it, no hint of the horrors within now that he’d left the room. He rounded into the mess hall, gaze skating over the currently blacked out windows of what had become an operating room and fixing on the door to the Main Battery. Only a few crew members remained out here now, but once again, none tried to interrupt the commander’s stride, and for once, there wasn’t even any background chatter in the area.

The door opened for him the moment he stepped in front of it, and he sent a silent command through his omni tool to close and temporarily lock it behind him as he entered the red-tinted turf of his closest friend. Garrus was at his usual station, but rather than typing away, his hands were braced against the console, and he appeared to be staring in the general direction of the guns he so often obsessively calibrated.

“… How is she?” his friend asked as John walked up to him.

“Still hanging on,” John replied, quietly; Garrus exhaled, subtly. “But apparently she’s been awake the whole time.”

Garrus’ head snapped towards him as John came astride of his position. “She’s lucid ?”

John grimaced. “I don’t know if I’d say that. Conscious though… unfortunately, yes.” He shook his head, absently squeezing the cloth-wrapped shrapnel he carried. “Best we can do now is trust in Chakwas and Miranda… and hope she doesn’t remember what she’s going through right now.”

John looked towards Garrus, battle-weary gaze meeting battle-weary gaze. After a long moment, his friend sighed, gaze shifting away. “If she is you… Well. That fact’s the best odds I think she could be given.”

Chuckling tiredly, John took the comment in stride. Honestly, he had a point.

The pair was quiet for a bit.

“I think she’s telling the truth.”

“Oh?” John looked back towards Garrus. He was still staring out into the middle distance, but his brow plates had drawn down and in a little. John waited, certain there was more.

Sure enough, “I… when we were nearing the shuttle, she was speaking to me. She said my name, but… it didn’t feel like she was talking to me . Or rather,” his mandibles shifted, one flaring out and down, before clicking back against his jaw as he huffed, “the me… here.”

“What did she say?”

Garrus shrugged a little, eyes closing for a moment. “She wanted me to push forward. Despite her injuries, she’d been a steady shot - honestly, it took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize part of it was that she was reading how I was planning to move. Like she knew my strategies, my tendencies; how I’d act in a battle, not just alone, but supporting a wounded party.” He turned his head to the side - opposite where John was now leaning lightly against the console. Garrus’ talons drummed lightly against the surface of it. “Then she spoke. We’d been operating as a unit, but when I stayed behind a pillar longer than I had previously while scanning her biosigns… she said to not stop on account of her. I told her she shouldn’t push herself too hard and to rely on our team; she said it was only natural to worry about your own team. Referred to remembering the facility, wanting to get back to the Normandy, and even mentioned Chakwas in a way that was…”

“… familiar?” John hazarded when his friend trailed off. Garrus nodded, and when he looked back to John, it was with no small amount of concern.

John agreed with the sentiment.

“Do you think her team is waiting for her, or…?”

They’d both heard the way Shep had spoken. It was only brief, but… what was it she had said in the facility?

-they seemed to not care what the effects would be on the other side so long as they had another one here.

“…. She didn’t even propose staying to gather more intel, or to preserve any of the tech that had brought her through,” John said, the thought sinking into him fully for the first time. Part of him wanted to kick himself for not thinking of it earlier. The rest of him knew that he had prioritized correctly, based on the information at hand and the fact that the only survivor of the experiments was quite literally bleeding out. There really had been no time to waste.

Garrus didn’t reply to his words, but John heard the console creak a little under his grasp.

His friend’s grip reminded him of his own, and he lifted the bundled barrel up, catching Garrus’ attention once more. The turian eyed the object, immediately picking up on what it had to be. John offered it to him, and slowly, Garrus took it.

“I need you to verify what it is.”

“… Something tells me I’m not going to like this,” Garrus muttered. Even so, he unwrapped it, his hands stilling only briefly as it was revealed to him.

After a moment, he swore.

Twisting deftly, Garrus dodged around John and moved to the table tucked against the wall to the Battery’s left. It was partially clear, only holding a few mods stacked neatly to the side, some cleaning equipment for guns, and Garrus’ favorite sniper rifle, the very one he’d been using since rejoining John’s crew, already cleaned from their mission and placed along the wall.

The turian quickly put the ruined barrel down, flicking on the light built into the table as he bent closer. John joined him silently, grim certainty already reflected in his expression as he heard the agitated subvocals of his friend. Garrus drew over several small, fiddly objects, a true gun-obsessed expert’s toolset, and made use of every one of them. John waited.

Five minutes later, as if only stopping because he’d exhausted every one of his tools, Garrus planted his hands on either side of the barrel.

“… Shepard.”

“It’s yours, isn’t it?”

“I know I said I was pretty sure she was telling the truth, but this is…”

Garrus shifted, and a moment later he’d pulled his sniper rifle over to align with the barrel-turned-shrapnel he’d been investigating. It was a perfect match, from the end of the barrel up until where the ruined piece had met some grizzly fate.

The two men of vastly different species stared at the evidence before them.

“… See that mod?” Garrus muttered at last, gesturing to the end of the barrel. No answer was needed, but John nodded anyways. “It’s one of a kind. A special variation I engineered myself, based off an already rare mod. If that wasn’t enough-“

Garrus lifted the shrapnel barrel again, flipped it on it’s end, and drew the end of the barrel close. One talon pointed carefully to the very rim of it. John obliged him in studying the spot, discovering miniscule turian script etched onto it with unerring precision.

“Call me vain, but any gun I extensively modify, I sign in my own way. It’s not my name - it’s not replicable , and there are only two other people in the universe who know I do this - my father, and my sister.”

He lowered the barrel again, tension in the line of his body as he met John’s gaze.

“This is my work, Shepard. But I haven’t touched this barrel before now.”

“You’re the second person to tell me something like that today,” John murmured, gaze falling to the barrel.

Only a few seconds passed before Garrus guessed, “Miranda?”

John nodded. “The body modifications, skin weave, everything from Lazarus. It doesn’t just match. It’s identical.”

“… Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

“… What are you going to do?”

John sighed.

“Once she’s recovered? Talk to her.”

“Even if she hates our universe for taking her from her own?” Garrus ventured. John nodded yet again, resolute. His friend huffed, a sound of faint amusement behind the dual vocal cords that colored the exhalation. “Well, I’m not surprised, really. It is you. You could talk a varren into fighting for a cause.”

“I have to see if we’re on the same page at all, first. And how she’s even faring after what she’s been through,” John wasn’t going to assume anything on that front. Not after witnessing just a few minutes of that surgery. “But either way, if she and I are the same… well. I’m hoping she’ll at least be inclined to hear me out.”

“… I hope so too.”

Chapter Text

“Commander, don’t you dare try to-“

“There’s no choice! We can’t get in touch with the crew, the place is coming apart at the seams-“

“But I’m not leaving you to just-“

“Listen to me, I need you to take care of them if anything happens-“

“No! You’re not going to face this alone, Shepard! Not again! I can’t - I won’t lose you. Never again.”

A ragged gasp tore through Shep, and she surged to consciousness with someone’s hands at her wrists.

“-it’s okay, you’re safe, breathe-“

Shep’s wild eyes flashed to the face of the woman whose slender yet surprisingly strong hands had caught at hers. Chest heaving, head pounding, abdomen seizing with a pain so fierce she nearly heaved, she nonetheless recognized the face immediately.

“Ch… Chakwas?”

The doctor looked shocked for a moment, a startled empathy coming through on the older woman’s face so clearly that Shep managed to remain distracted from the agony begging for her attention a little longer. Something was different, besides that previously unseen sort of expression-

“-your hair’s… long…?”

Shep’s breath caught. Everything that had come to pass hit her with all the force and delicacy of a Mako flung planetside.

She doubled over the moment she tried to move, to swing her legs off the table, to do something, anything with the adrenaline and anguish that flooded her. Between the reminder of her near-mortal injuries and Chakwas’ hands catching her fully, she barely kept from falling off the bed altogether. Instead, she slumped forward into herself, hands flexing uselessly as she tried to force her lungs to cooperate.

It took her a few seconds to realize her face was wet with tracks of tears.

“-That’s it, let it out - I have you, take it easy, there you are,“ Chakwas’ voice, so familiar, only sawed at the ragged frayed edge’s of Shep’s heart. The older woman was helping her sit up straight, kindly looking away from Shep’s unbidden tears and instead focusing on her torso. Her cool touch ran in vivid contrast to the warm temperature Shep knew she always ran these days - ever since the Lazarus project.

She shuddered under the gentleness of the touch, and desperately reined in her emotions as she wiped away any trace of tears as quickly as she could manage.

“S-Sorry, doc,” Shep breathed, swallowing around the way her voice broke.

“For what?” The doctor hummed, voice perfectly steady, professional… yet gentle.

Shep’s jaw tightened, and she closed her eyes. Her breathing was still unsteady, and her limbs wouldn’t quite stop shaking.

“More than I could say,” Shep murmured, too quiet for Chakwas to catch. When the doctor straightened, looking at her questioningly, Shep managed a weak smile. “For being a handful, I think. But more importantly, I ought to thank you.”

Dr. Chakwas’ brows briefly rose, then she chuckled with a shake of her head as she turned to the table at the side of the bed.

“The commander warned me, and I witnessed the matter for myself, but… you two really are too alike,” she said. After a few seconds, she turned back with a high-grade medigel patch, and bent towards Shep’s torso once again. “So much so, that I don’t feel terribly inclined to ask you to lay back down. I know how well that will work.”

Despite herself, Shep let out a single rough laugh - it turned into a groan as her recently surgically-mended musculature rebelled, though, and she got a chastising look from Chakwas for her trouble. “I see he’s a problem patient, too, then,” Shep mused, voice still rough around the edges.

Better to focus on the moment, regardless. In the back of her mind, she was sealing every bubbling emotion in an ironclad box as tightly as she could.

“I consider it a successful treatment if I get him to stay in here longer than it takes for me to patch him up,” Chakwas said wryly, her eyes catching Shep’s own. One of the doctor’s brows quirked, and Shep grinned a little sheepishly, lifting one hand carefully in a motion of surrender.

“I’ll stay still, at least,” Shep acquiesced. “Can’t say I want to lay down again, but I’m guessing the… commander will be wanting to talk, regardless. Miranda too,” she hazarded, eyeing Chakwas’ expression and not bothering to hide the fact.

“Yes, well, I told him he’d have to wait a few minutes once you did rejoin us in the land of the conscious,” Chakwas waved Shep’s observation off, walking across the Med Bay towards the counters and sink. It gave Shep the chance to take in her surroundings a bit more… not that she much needed to. It could’ve been a carbon copy of her own Normandy’s Med Bay.

Shep took a careful breath, refocusing on the doctor.

The woman was… almost identical to the one she had known. Even from behind, Shepard noted the very way Chakwas held herself apparently carried through universes. Confident, yet at home in the medical setting; her direct stride, the excellent posture, even, as she turned around and approached her patient again, the way her gaze locked on her goal. Shepard blinked, realizing the doctor was already in front of her, one hand holding a syringe, the other a standard issue packet of liquid… nutrition.

She grimaced, and Chakwas grinned.

“Familiar, indeed,” the doctor offered the soft pack to Shep. It already had the straw-like tube popped off of it, ready to use. The second of delay before Shep begrudgingly accepted it only had Chakwas smiling a little wider. “Oh come now, it’s not that bad.”

“It tastes like the ghost of a wet cardboard box had a one night stand with a jar of pickled pyjack, and you know it,” Shep replied dryly, gaze flicking to the older woman. She was already cleaning up Shep’s shoulder, before quickly and efficiently injecting the contents of the syringe into her. A cooling sensation spread from the spot, easing the tingling edges of raw pain emanating through Shep’s system. The genuine sigh of relief it earned came with the bonus of further delaying her first sip of the nutripack.

“Better than what I’d have forced you to eat if you couldn’t sit up,” Chakwas replied airily. Only at that did Shep give a mild shudder, mercifully moments after Chakwas had pulled away the syringe. “At least you’re good with your shots.”

“I don’t think you get as far as I have without being able to handle a few needles,” Shep murmured, reluctantly bringing the straw to her lips. With a bracing breath, she took a draw of the space slurry, and shuddered.

… Damn, though, if she wasn’t hungry.

Breathing through the side of her mouth to lessen the impact of the taste, Shep set about quickly downing the packet under Chakwas’ watchful eye. If nothing else, it eased a previously unnoticed ravenous emptiness in her gut. Right as she finished it, the doctor pulled another out, and with less reluctance but still no pleasure Shep took it and downed it, too.

“You burn through your reserves as quickly as the commander,” Chakwas said. Shep blinked, looking up at her. For a solid minute, she’d all but zoned out, body so ravenously hungry even the crappy, overly-nutritious medical slurry meant for long haul space travel wasn’t half so bad. After a moment, her mind caught up with the moment, and she lowered the nutripack.

“How much did he tell you?” Shep asked, meeting the doctor’s steady gaze.

“Precisely what I would have deduced from operating on you for the 9 hours I did,” Chakwas replied with a small sigh, shaking her head. “Quite probably just as much as you were able to tell him, or close to it, regardless. But,” she kept her gaze on Shep as she lifted her arm, her omnitool flaring to life. It was orange, Shep registered fully. Or maybe an amber… she’d been wondering if it was just those researchers, or a strange standard here. Unfortunately, it seemed it was the latter. “I oughtn’t say more without him here. Commander Shepard?”

Shep had to catch herself before she responded.

“Is she awake?” Came the swift, professional reply, slightly crackling around the edges of the ship’s intercom.

“Indeed. I would like to keep her here longer, but she doesn’t look like she’s going to go horizontal in the next few minutes.”

“I won’t,” Shep chimed in wryly.

“On my way,” came his response.

“Now, let’s get you covered up before he gets ahead of us,” Chakwas followed up as the comm line cut out. The older woman was turning to the side table, pulling something out of the drawer there as Shep glanced downwards in a moment of confusion.

“Ah,” she said, succinctly.

As it turned out, while she was in a pair of standard issue sweatpants, Chakwas had kept her torso bare, no doubt for easy access to check on her too-quick healing. Shep had shucked the blanket when she’d awoken, and ran warm enough to hardly notice. There was precisely nothing left to the imagination on her upper body.

“Yes, I do believe it makes for a stronger impression if you’re at least properly clothed,” Chakwas mused, shaking out a Cerberus branded hoodie. Shep’s jaw tightened, but her expression was already schooled by the time the doctor had turned and moved to draw it around her shoulders.

“Oh, I don’t know, I think tits-out is a rather strong impression,” Shep replied airily, slipping her arms into the sleeves. At least the thing was soft.

Chakwas snorted, one slim hand coming up to cover her mouth as she looked down at Shep’s carefully crafted serious expression. As she was zipping up the hoodie - good enough coverage for now while not being skin tight, which was a mercy given everything still felt awfully raw around her abdomen - Chakwas reached down to smooth out the neck of it and gave it a swift once over to ensure the woman was covered.

“Perhaps the quality of the impression, then, is what we’re adjusting,” she offered.

“Oh, if you insist ,” Shep faux-huffed, earning herself a truly amused smile from the doctor.

If the sight warmed Shep as much as it wounded her, well, no one needed to know but herself.

“-Doctor, how is- Shep!”

Shep’s gaze was already on the door before the mechanism had it quietly whooshing open. John strode in, dressed in dark jeans, an N7 shirt, and a leather jacket. A half-step behind him and to his left was Miranda, who carried a small box with her, braced against one hip, while her other hand supported a data pad.

His eyes had widened slightly, a hint of relief in his expression as his gaze met Shep’s.

“Was I out that long?” Shep asked with a half-smile, straightening slightly with a casually confident posture despite her injury. Part of her wanted to slide off the bed and go shake his hand, but the sudden and sharp glance she got from the doctor the moment her leg twitched had her remaining in place.

From the flicker of John’s focus and the wry tilt to his mouth, he hadn’t missed the little exchange. “About 30 hours, including 9 hours of surgery,” he said, carefully. Shep watched his expression shift - or rather, stop itself from shifting.

Faint recollection came back to her - of his face, Chakwas’, Miranda’s. Garrus’, too…

“… Sorry for… whatever you may have witnessed,” Shep said, more quietly. Her gaze broke from his, moving to the ceiling. Identical… like nearly everything else. “I don’t remember much, but that doesn’t excuse whatever I might have… put you all through.”

Her gaze fell, meeting Chakwas’, then Miranda’s.

“To the both of you in particular. Thank you for putting me back together. And,” her gaze went to John’s, “for bringing me here in the first place. It was a risk, but I’m… grateful.”

John stared at her.

Shep was, thankfully, far less pale than she’d been when he saw her last. Her cheeks were no longer tear-stained, though the shadows under her eyes were pronounced. Bandages followed the curve of one side of her neck, disappearing into the spare hoodie Chakwas had given her. In one hand was one of those god-awful nutripacks that were a standard experience when coming out of a hard stay in the Med Bay, before you were allowed back on solid food. Another empty one was off to the side.

“Are you?” He asked, quietly.

Shep blinked. Then, her gaze shifted to the side.

For a long several seconds, the room remained silent.

“… Yes,” she finally said. Her hand squeezed the packet just a little too tightly, leading to some of the liquid  dribbling out of the straw. Absently, she seemed to register this, and took a sip. A momentary grimace later, and she was looking at him again. “For you taking me out of there, and onto… the Normandy, your Normandy… and for patching me up and helping me survive… I’m grateful.”

Her gaze was tired and hard, all at once.

John slowly exhaled, nodding.

“Then I’m glad that much is the case,” he said honestly, stepping closer. With a gesture encouraging her to continue ‘eating,’ emphasized by Chakwas passing her what seemed to be a third pack to Shep’s dismay and minor amusement, he accepted the data pad Miranda smoothly stepped up to offer him. “That said, I think everyone here would feel better if we addressed the elephant in the room sooner rather than later, right?”

Miranda was already looking at Shepard, gaze calculating, and Chakwas was monitoring her regardless. John watched as Shep glanced at all three of them, finishing up the second nutripack and uncapping the third. To his relief, she nodded.

“I remember everything clearly up until… about the shuttle,” she confirmed for him, “though it gets a bit muddy before then.” Gesturing with her nutripack towards the data pad in his hand, she mused, “I’m guessing Miranda was able to get a lot from the facility. Enough to confirm that they really were making a mess out of the boundaries of space-time, on top of the data to back up the fact that the tanks couldn’t just be clones.”

John blinked.

“… Am I this straight-shooting?” He asked no one in particular.

“More than is advisable, yes,” Miranda immediately replied.

“It’s rather refreshing, isn’t it?” Chakwas added.

Shep laughed, just the once, and very clearly winced afterward. Her free hand went to her torso, above the spot John had seen wide open the day previous. Nonetheless, she shook her head casually when Chakwas moved in.

“Nothing broke open,” she promised. “That was… huh. You’re a regular space-faring comedian, John,” Shep mused, tired gaze lifting once more to his. Amusement crinkled the corners of her eyes.

“I do what I can,” he replied dryly, and found himself rewarded with an easing of the subtle tension in her face. She smiled a little, and nodded. John lifted the data pad again, ever so slightly, getting back to business. “But as you said… yes. There are missing pieces, but we’ve got a lot of profiles that back up what you’ve told us so far, including your own profile.”

“To that point, for clarity’s sake,” Miranda smoothly cut in; John glanced down at her, curious but already having a guess as to what she was about to bring up. “We didn’t find a single file referencing you that included your first name. The other profiles all included that detail - most of them were named John, though not always - but your first name was always listed as ‘ redacted .’ It would be easier to converse if we had that much to work with,” Miranda concluded, studying Shep’s every slightest shift of expression.

For her part, the woman from another universe seemed at best idly surprised.

The… lack of a reaction hadn’t entirely been what John had been expecting.

“Don’t have one,” Shep answered simply, before taking another sip of the nutripack.

“You… don’t have a first name,” Miranda repeated, gaze narrowing.

John’s eyebrow had quirked, betraying his own mild disbelief.

Shep shrugged. “It’s a long story. But to make it short - sure, I had one as a kid, but by the time Mindoir happened, when I went into the Alliance in the first place,” she gestured idly with the packet, “I was only ever Shepard from then on out. Hell, most of the time before that too. Never liked my first name, anyways, so after a while I was able to get it fully redacted. I’d been Shepard for a long time, and wanted to keep it that way. The only alternate has been Shep.”

“And given the overlap, that’s why you told us to call you that,” John finished the obvious, and Shep nodded. “Well. I’ll admit that doesn’t make it too much easier, but I can’t see a reason to lie about it, either,” he hummed. “Shep it is, then.”

“Thanks,” she said simply. For what, precisely, John couldn’t be sure, but she wasn’t giving anything away with her expression either, so he’d have to unpack that another time.

“So, with that settled, I’ll cut the long story short here as well,” John said, crossing his arms. “Everything so far backs up what you’ve said, but it’s still a hell of a thing to take at face value. A dangerous thing, worst case scenario. So I’ve got two things that I think will confirm it and verify where you stand, to the best of our abilities.”

Shep cocked her head slightly, looking intrigued. “I’ve been curious about what you might land on, honestly. Hit me.”

“We’ll take them one at a time. First… tell me about your childhood.”

“My childhood,” she echoed, brow arching. “Something specific, or..?”

“Not the biography highlights,” John confirmed, gaze sharp as he studied her features. She’d sat up a little straighter, but aside from that, didn’t seem nervous or agitated. A good sign. “Things that only someone who’d lived there would know. Who’d lived as us ,” he emphasized.

Her eyes brightened, and she set aside her last, now depleted nutripack.

“Clever,” she murmured, nodding just the once in the exact same way John had. “Yeah, I thought they’d said our backgrounds matched more than some of the others… so you survived the attack on Mindoir too then-“ she absently studied him, thinking aloud, and John kept himself from shifting under her gaze. For all its absent nature, it was… intense. Focused.

He couldn’t help but wonder if he had a similar gaze. If so… he supposed it explained a few things.

“-alright, then,” Shep nodded, looking thoughtfully away. One hand was still absently at her torso, gingerly holding the spot where she’d been pierced through. “I might jump around a bit, it’s… been a while since I really dove into the memories.”

“I understand,” John said.

“I thought you would,” Shep chuckled softly, before closing her eyes. “Mmm. Spent a lot of my days, when not helping dad with mechanical repairs or pops with herding the other kids in for some morning lessons, getting my hands dirty with whatever interested me. I was always elbow deep in whatever building projects didn’t mind a kid’s stature or constant questions. Then… when they’d kick me out to go study or play, there were a few different kids I’d end up around - Cain, Vera, D’lana…”

John swallowed thickly around a lump in his throat.

Shep’s voice had gone a little softer around the rough edge of it, and even when her eyes opened again, they remained lidded and in the middle distance somewhere between the commander and Miranda.

“There was this bit of fencing in the northwest corner of our subgroup of prefabs. It’d been installed in a rush, and if you knew how to hook a screwdriver or the like under the overlapping layers of it, you could make a big enough opening for even a teenager to squeeze through - cut a whole ten minutes out of a trek to the hill at the edge of the town… not to mention, avoid a bunch of questioning adults.”

She laughed, faintly, a rough sound that faded slowly in the quiet Med Bay.

“D’lana got a little scar on her forearm around her ninth birthday when crawling through it, thanks to Cain trying to spook her with the rumor that a varren had somehow gotten loose on the last supply ship and escaped. Both of ‘em got chewed out to hell and back when they came up with a lie that we’d been climbing on some of the abandoned mining equipment in the older quarry. Which, we actually had done as well; made the lie more believable, I guess…”

Slowly, she released her torso. Apparently satisfied to find herself able to handle that much, she leaned forward a little, fingers interlacing in her open lap. Only the quiet hum of the Normandy’s systems running in the background filled the space as John, Miranda, and Chakwas waited for her to continue.

“… There was this family that had two kids ‘n three adults living together. Heard they had two more adults that were part of the family, but they were spacers and could only reunite once every few years. Never did find out how true that last bit was, only really knew the triad.” Her head shook briefly after an idle moment, shaking off the tangent. “More important to me as a kid was one of the adults, they were a master hand with figuring out how to turn colony rations into something more than just edible. They actually figured out how to make proper bread that rose in the weird atmosphere - y’know how it’s been the bane of bakers off-earth everywhere. Had an honest-to-the-stars sourdough starter that was the pride and joy and straight envy of the entire colony. Once or twice a year, everyone in the prefabs closest, including my family, would pitch in portions of our rations and we’d have a whole celebratory feast where everyone could eat as much bread as they could handle, along with food that tasted like food .”

Her eyes shut again, and John heard the tightness in her throat as much as he felt it in his own. Even still, it wasn’t a grimace that crossed her face, but a faint smile.

“We had the last celebration only a week before the batarian raid. I remember sitting at the top of the hill late at night, staring up at Andraste - the moon - perched on this one rocky outcrop that was perfect for it. Just smooth enough, at the right height for your legs, even had a bit of a higher ledge to lean back against … the other kids and I had a tradition of carving our names into it when we first made an impression on the others for one reason or another. I think my hand just… traced where I’d carved mine, a lot, when I went up there to think. I stayed up there half the night with D’lana and Vera and Cain, us talking about what we wanted to do once we finished our intensive studies…”

For the first time since she’d started talking, Shep looked up at John. He couldn’t look away. Wouldn’t.

He knew what came next.

“Cain was killed before the Alliance took down the batarian slaver ark ship,” Shep murmured. “D’lana, I saw get caught the next street over. Vera… Vera, I hauled her through the opening in the fence, tried to, but -“ A careful breath, “They grabbed her. She screamed, fought back, but they… shot her in the legs. She begged for me to run. Pushed me, before she shoved herself back inside and managed to close the opening before I heard more gunshots and screaming.”

Shep was very, very still, her gaze remaining on his. Her words seemed to have run out.

“That’s enough,” he managed to say. “That’s… more than enough.”

Slowly, Shep exhaled. John was deeply aware of the other two women in the room, watching the pair of them… the pair of commanders.

“… Do I pass?” Shep finally asked, voice carefully level. It was as if she’d aimed for levity, but had embraced the bare neutral it left her in. She leaned back, straightening her posture, almost squaring up.

He wouldn’t leave her waiting, after that.

John nodded, closing his own eyes. “I’m sorry to have dredged it up. I know I’d have hated to relive it, let alone after what you’ve been through-“

“You had to be sure,” Shep said, interrupting him casually and offering him half a smile. Her gaze, previously a little distant, sharpened once more, focusing solely, it seemed, on him. “To say I‘m an unknown is putting it lightly. The mission, but even more pressingly, the crew - they had to come first. I respect the hell out of that.”

“You mean it,” John observed.

“I do, and perhaps I should be sorry, but - I’d have done the same to you,” Shep replied readily.

“I guess that speaks just as strongly as to you being… me.”

“Or you being me.”

“This is going to get confusing,” John chuckled, the air in the room feeling a little less dark as they shook off the collective memories.

“You’re telling me.”

“Touché.”

“So… any discrepancies?” Shep asked, head tilting a little.

“A few,” John admitted. “Nothing major. I mean, hell, I felt like I was crawling through that fence hole and sitting on that rock myself all over again… And Cain, Vera, D’lana…” he shook his head, and for a moment, their gazes met again.

It was Miranda who broke their shared moment of empathy, at last speaking up once more.

“So what differed? Anything to be concerned about?” Miranda asked, keeping them in the present. John noted she seemed ever so slightly more relaxed than before - with this final bit of approval from him, she seemed on board with accepting Shep’s identity, as much as she could be.

He shifted his weight, crossing his arms and looking up. “As I remember it, Cain and D’lana gave the excuse for D’lana getting scarred as being us messing around on the rockier edges of the beach. Which we’d also been doing, same as messing with equipment in the quarry, so it is a pretty minor detail. Hard to say what small changes lead to something like that. Also, I spent less time with building projects, and more time exploring or catching up with the guards and local hunters, but that’s likely personal taste. I get the feeling we ended up with slightly different focuses - your profile mentioned you’re an engineer?”

“Combat Engineer, highest class - and an engineer by hobby, too,” Shep grinned a little more truly at that. “From our escape from the facility, seems you’re a dyed in the wool soldier type, huh?”

It was John’s turn to grin. “If it can be used as a weapon, or comes into play in a battle zone, I know it inside and out.”

“You two can compare N7 notes later,” Miranda cut in, shaking her head and walking forward. The box she’d had braced on her hip was swiftly placed on the table next to Shep, who watched as it was opened up to reveal standard issue uniform for the SR2. “I think the lady ought to be allowed to wear real clothes before we press on with the second matter, right, Shepard?”

“Right,” John quickly responded, straightening and clearing his throat. He glanced sheepishly back to Shep, who was staring at the contents of the box with an unreadable expression. “Er. Sorry, we only have so much on hand, and Miranda told me the best clothing we had for you at the moment was the standard Cerberus crew outfit-“

“No, I- thank you,” Shep shook her head lightly, reaching into the box. Her hand smoothed over the uniform, lingering for a moment before picking it up. Beneath were a pair of boots. “I’ll get dressed fast.”

“Not before I change your bandages, you won’t,” Chakwas cut in. Her hands braced on her hips, she directed a particularly intense stare at John. “Ten minutes, Commander, if you’d be so kind.”

“Yes, ma’am,” John replied immediately, turning on his heel and walking out of the Med Bay so quickly that he almost missed the startled laugh that came from Shep.

“You want me to meet the crew?”

“One by one, yes. The core team, mostly, but I’d like to get Joker down here as well.”

“… You want to test how I interact with them, huh.”

Shep crossed her arms, staring down John with a critical eye. He smiled a little ruefully.

“Got it in one,” he confirmed, crossing his own arms.

He’d brought her to the port observation deck. Almost none of the ship’s crew had been in the mess or the hall as they’d walked there, save for Miranda, who was leaning casually against the mess table. She nodded to Shep when their eyes met, but her gaze had betrayed nothing else. If she’d took special note of the way Shep  glanced towards the Main Battery, she certainly didn’t betray it. There was nothing to see, regardless; no other members of the crew were around. Shep had braced herself to at least see Samara in her usual spot upon entering the port observation deck, but the room had been empty, curiously.

She had ignored the pang in her heart at that, figuring it made sense for the commander to have cleared a more casual space to talk, and walked without hesitation towards the windows to stare out at the vast reaches of space beyond. The conversation that followed quickly got to the point, and now they stood at the window facing one another.

“… Understandable,” she said slowly, glancing out of the window. “Of course me knowing that’s the point kind of ruins it.”

“I’m not running a double-blind study, here,” John shrugged. He waited, then, till Shep looked back at him, and soon enough she obliged. “I’m confident at this point that you are who you say you are. I just want to see how you interact with… the crew that you had as well.”

“How I react to the faces of the people I lost,” Shep remarked. She kept her tone even. “You’re not going to ask me what happened?”

She turned away, then, fully towards the window. Her hands braced against the rail that kept anyone from pressing up to its curved surface.

There hadn’t been a delay between coming here and John coming back in after Chakwas cleared her and she’d gotten dressed. The crew uniform had naturally been a perfect fit - Shep knew it would be, when Miranda had been the one to give it to her. She’d declined Chakwas’ offer to provide an omni-tool mirror display once she was dressed. When John returned at Chakwas’ following ping, he’d simply looked a little relieved and asked her to come with him.

Not a single question had arisen about the specifics of what happened before she’d been brought to this universe.

“Would you answer me fully, if I did?”

Shep glanced towards him, brow knitting down. He was leaning against the railing, body facing the opposite direction from hers, towards the door. His face was angled towards her, however, and it was unreadable.

“… Yes,” she looked back towards the stars so many lightyears away.

“But it would hurt to talk about.”

“And?”

John sighed. His arms crossed, and he considered her.

Her gaze remained fixed on the distant reaches of space.

“… You haven’t made any overtures about going back to the facility. When we were pulling you out with us, you didn’t ask about any of the tech, the research, or imply you wanted to keep any of them alive in particular - so there’s two main possibilities I see.”

Shep’s grip was tight enough on the railing to turn her knuckles white.

“Yeah.”

“Either you gained some information while trapped that lead you to the certainty that there was no way to go back,” John murmured, his gaze never once leaving the woman whose every muscle had gone rigid, “or you have nothing to go back to.”

For a moment, Shep distantly thought she might have heard the railing beneath her hands creaking under her grasp.

“What did the files tell you?”

She heard John exhale, a displeased grumble beneath it.

“Most of what we were able to salvage related to the… subjects of the project - yours, and most of the others. Some technical files, nothing complete. Pieces and parts of the project’s overture, it’s origin, particularly… and then more recent files, about their current efforts to - well.” John gestured reluctantly towards her, and she tightly nodded, without looking directly at him. “… There were some solid theories we’ve came up with, but we couldn’t exactly be sure of…”

There was nothing to hide, really. Truly… nothing.

Shep inhaled, keeping the clamor of sensory recollection pushed far to the back of her mind, refusing to fall into the depths of it. Astride the maw of desolation, she exhaled, gripping the railing so tightly it made her fingers ache and kept her firmly in this new reality.

“They destroyed the fabric of other universes to get to us, John.”

Shep’s grip on the railing spread slightly, barely letting up, and she leaned forward over it. Her gaze was off to the distance. Towards untold stars, systems, clusters… galaxies.

Towards an infinite nothingness that contained everything she’d never known.

“… What happened?”

“ Nothing happened,” she said, her voice cutting.

One question.

One question, he’d asked, and just like that, the single frayed thread keeping back the crushing collapse of what she’d restrained until now snapped.

“They cut a ragged hole into my fucking universe to take me , as a fucking contingency plan, and in the process ripped apart reality as we knew it. They played with variables that must have been the foundation of existence itself, because they could, and because they wanted to. Reality itself frayed, collapsed in on itself, and took everyone and everything I knew with it.”

Her body suddenly straightened, and she whirled on the man that was her equal, and her equivalent. He was staring at her, arms still crossed and leaning against the railing she’d nearly managed to bend in half, as if he’d forgotten how to even move as she spoke.

“They made my universe into nothing ,” she spat, every ounce of control she’d been wrestling to keep since this man and his crew rescued her slipping from her grasp even as she desperately struggled to take hold of it once more. “I thought Cerberus was bad before. Loathed the idea of working with them; but when the Alliance and the Council refused to face the reality of the Reapers, of the Collectors - I knew I had to bridge the damned gap and take care of this crisis before I could cut them loose or do anything else. I knew that there were good people doing their best even as a part of it, at least among the Normandy crew - but that those bastards , rogue or not, could go this far-?!”

Shep’s hands curled into fists and she twisted and began pacing, hardly caring for John’s silent stare, his own rigid form.

“I want to tear it all apart with my own hands, but I can’t, I won’t , because I know damn well Cerberus is your only chance too!” she ignored the heat pricking at her eyes, ignored the way her voice threatened to break, and channeled it all into her anger instead. “And even still, if you hadn’t killed them all before I got out of that stasis machine I’d have done it myself, slowly !”

Abruptly, she came to a stop in front of the door. Her fists trembled.

“ Universes John. 57 universes , mine fucking included.”

Her head turned, ever so slightly. Just enough that her profile must be clear to him - that the humorless, enraged, devastated smile on her lips had to dominate his view.

“What’s that quote from earth history? A single death is a tragedy…”

“… a million deaths is a statistic,” John whispered roughly.

Shep turned fully towards him. Her fists, after a moment, relaxed, hanging limp at her side as she looked up at him.

“What does that make trillions of deaths in 57 universes?”

The room was silent.

Eventually, Shep turned to the long, curving couches that framed the deck. She sat; quiet, heavy. Elbows to her thighs, she hung forward over her own lap, muscles no longer tense, yet no relaxation to be found in the line of her form.

Soon enough, the sounds of boots to metal signaled John’s approach, and the faux-leather creaked softly next to her as he took a seat as well.

“What do you want to do, Shep?”

Her eyes studied the faintest trace of the edge between metal floor panels. A small, unremarkable section was framed between her boots. Nothing more, nothing less than a piece of the Normandy, yet a piece she’d never studied.

Not on this Normandy.

She’d spent quite some time in the port observation deck on her Normandy. More time than a lot of the crew realized, honestly. It wasn’t just the window - though the view of the dark expanse was its own sort of reassuring disquiet. Rather, the person who had made the port deck her home had been a quiet strength during the long stretches of interstellar travel where she couldn’t find it in her to sleep. Samara’s presence was… a strange tether, even when all she was doing was meditating.

For a long time, Shep didn’t think of herself as meditating when she sat quietly on an identical spot on an identical couch in a nearly-identical universe, alongside a meditating matriarch. But, she now supposed, her mind had never been more quiet than those stolen minutes with Samara she’d scarcely been granted time enough to know.

A simple truth settled deep within her: she would never know the same pensive peace again.

“I want to make sure not a single one of the bastards working on that project survived.” Shep’s head lifted, looking out the window. “That not a single other universe will be destroyed. Even for the sake of your own.” Her head turned, and she saw John in a position much like her own. Elbows to his knees, shoulders square, head turned to her. Just a couple of handspans were between them. She took a breath, and her fingers loosely interlaced. “And I want to help you stop the Collectors - and the Reapers.”

John blinked.

Shep steeled her resolve, and didn’t look away from him. “If you don’t want me here, I get it. I’ll still be doing it wherever I go, though. You want a contact on some hub, I’ll be it. There’s too much to do, and too few of us taking it seriously to do it. I’d stay on the ship, if you’ll have me, but two commanders might be too much so, I get it, that’s unlikely to-“

“-Join my damn team, Shep. Please.”

John stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, a sturdy clasp and a squeeze that held just a little more tightness than she thought he intended.

“I- yeah?” Shep, for the first time in a long time, stumbled over her words.

“Yeah,” John held her gaze, determined. “I was already planning to ask. There’s a lot of reasons. When we get down to it though.. Tell me - what’s better than one Commander Shepard gunning for the Reapers?”

A beat passed, and slowly, Shep grinned.

“Two Commander Shepards,” her toothy grin held no small amount of danger, but more than that, relief. After a moment, she stuck out her right hand to him, and waited.

John didn’t hesitate. He clasped her right hand with his, rough palm to rough palm, and they both shook, just the once.

“I’ll still be Commander,” he pointed out, his mild concern bleeding through in the way the right corner of his mouth tugged down.

Shep barked a single laugh. “Neither of us was always a Commander. I’ll adjust. Hell, I suppose I ought to look forward to less paperwork.”

“Maybe we ought to say you’re being brought in as a consultant, or a lieutenant - I could make room for you at the extra desk, we could both be buried in paperwork between missions,” John mused as they released each other’s hands. “Can’t have you feeling at a loss.”

“Absolutely not,” Shep rejected instantly, grinning. She eased back, leaning against the couch and quirking a brow. “Though, it is worth figuring out what my story should be. Can’t go telling the universe there’s two of us.”

She noted John studying her expression carefully, and waved him off casually, glancing away.

“Don’t give me that look,” she said, voice serious. “I’ll figure it out, come to terms with it. There’s no other choice. Best thing for me is to focus on the mission. I get the feeling you understand.”

“… I do,” John sighed, but acquiesced. “We could go with you being a merc. Plenty of those running about.”

“Don’t have much of a resume to back me up though,” Shep pointed out. “Even Zaeed has some name recognition among the right - or wrong - circles. People would recommend him - someone like me without a history wouldn’t get recruited.”

“Like Kasumi then - a thief?” John countered thoughtfully, leaning back as well and throwing one ankle over the opposite knee. “Most people don’t know her name. Besides, it’s not like we’re advertising who is on our ship.”

“Could work, but…” Shep lifted a hand and wobbled it vaguely, grimacing. “I’m good at stealth, but not thief-good. Kasumi would beat me 12 times over before I got halfway through something equivalent. And we aren’t advertising, but important people take note of Shepard and the Normandy. We’d be idiots to not figure that the Alliance and the Council itself are keeping tabs on who comes in and out of it.”

“Humble and smart,” John chuckled, but nodded. “Technician, then. Could say we picked you up on a mission, or as one of the survivors of a base or some such. We were going to drop you off, but you had a lot to offer, and joined the crew.”

“Not bad, but then again, maybe we should be looking at two different stories.”

“Two?”

“Have to consider what outsiders would know, versus what Tim would know,” Shep jerked her head upwards - in the direction of the FTL comm room.

John was silent for several seconds, staring blankly at her. She stared back, mildly confused in turn.

“Tim,” he echoed, exceedingly slowly.

“The Illusive Man?” she replied, also slowly. “Y’know. T-I-M. Tim.”

John snorted, loudly, before laughing so loudly it startled her.

“Tim,” he wheezed, voice hoarse as he bit back on further laughter. “Billionaire head of underground interstellar organization Cerberus - and you call him Tim?? ”

Shep’s grin was growing now, eyes crinkling at the edges as she found herself having to stifle her own laughter. “What? His ‘title’ is pretentious and too damn long. Not my fault the man doesn’t want to give a shorter name.”

“Oh, he must’ve loved you,” John said, a fist lifting to half-hide his grin. He was trying to force his expression back to neutral, but Shep had the feeling he didn’t much care either way.

“Truly, an exemplary camaraderie was formed between us,” Shep drawled. “Yours is going to have similar endless questions and opinions I’m sure - if he isn’t already filled in.”

“Half-filled in,” John shrugged. “There was a lot left up in the air while you were out. Miranda will finish the report after this, and I’ll have a completely infuriating conversation with him soon enough, I’d bet.”

A matter of course, Shep knew. They’d have to come up with something good - no matter where things were at in this universe, she didn’t have any intention of letting him dictate her identity here.

“Something good enough to sell even Tim on,” she murmured, looking up towards the ceiling. Her hand cradled her chin, and she hummed under her breath.

“Something worth the skill you have, even if we can’t get you an Alliance position that matches,” John quietly chimed in. The fact that he cared about that spoke volumes.

“Thanks,” she murmured, looking back to him. He simply nodded.

“It’s pretty much the least I can do.”

“No, you could do a lot less, John. So thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Shep.”

“… I figure we should sit on this for a little bit, probably consult with Miranda - she’s always had too good of a head for this sort of thing. Maybe Kasumi too, though she’s liable to go a little overboard on establishing a fake identity for someone,” Shep chuckled, and John did too. “But first comes first - I got us sidetracked, but… how do you want me to meet your team? Are we just going to say I’m a potential teammate, or what?”

Shep watched as John stood up at that, lifting his left arm to summon his omnitool. He began typing on it with a confident tilt to his slight smile.

“No. The Normandy’s general crew, we’ll tell whatever story we decide on in a bit. To the dossier team, though? We’ll tell them the truth. EDI? Is Joker available?”

“You don’t have to ask the robot, Commander, I’m right here,” came Joker’s voice through the filter of the comms. Shep only tensed briefly, before taking a careful breath and easing back. “ What’s up?”

“If you’ve got a minute, could you come down to the port observation deck? There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“Oh shit, is it our new dangerous and blood-soaked rescue? You really do collect these types, huh, Commander-“

“Joker,” John intoned, and a huff came over the comms, tinged with the curl of a smile Shep swore she could all but see.

“Aye-aye, Commander. Be there as fast as my bones’ll let me.”

John lowered his arm, omnitool fading out as he did so, looking back down to Shep. Studying her, again, as she was studying him.

“You mean it,” Shep observed.

“I do. Joker gets included, because, well…”

“Yeah. Can’t leave him out of the loop on something like this.”

The two shared a glance, and half a grin.

“...Alright then, Commander,” Shep pushed to her feet, dusting off her hands of nothing in particular. “Let’s meet your crew. Observe away. And hey, about where I’m staying…”

“Sorry, I’m gonna keep the loft.”

“Damn.”

“You can feed my fish for me though, if you want to borrow my shower.”

“You know the water pressure is the best up there. That’s just playing dirty.”

“What choice do I have? I’ve been trying to figure out who to bribe. A trillion dollar spaceship apparently doesn’t have the technological capacity to install a feeder.”

“It really is baffling…”

“So you’ll do it?”

“… I get to take my time in the shower. And pet your hamster.”

“… Hamster?”

“You didn’t get a Space Hamster?!”

Chapter Text

It had been a solid 30 seconds since Joker had taken her hand in a casual shake - and since John had casually and fully introduced her.

“… You’re fucking with me.”

“Why would I lie about this?”

“I dunno, Commander, but you getting into the pranking game seems a hell of a lot more likely than- than this! ”

“Joker, I didn’t beat around the bush before telling you who she actually is because I knew you wouldn’t care about the minutiae. It’s the truth - she’s Commander Shepard, too. Just… a bit to the left, universe-wise.”

John grimaced ever so slightly as he spoke. With a deliberate sort of exhale, then, he looked to Shep. Though it was out of her peripheral vision, she could tell he was gauging how she was taking this; as of yet, she had only gone so far as to shake Joker’s hand without hesitation when he’d offered it to her upon ambling in.

Now, though, she knew it was time for her to chime in.

“He’s not lying, Joker. Much as it would be easier for everyone otherwise, well - here I am. Universe notwithstanding, no thanks to Cerberus.” Not mincing words was the better choice with him, she knew. Shep considered him, weighing what would best prove her case. “… You were the first one from the old crew that joined up with John, right? Definitely the first he saw post-Lazarus. Walked in on him having a virtual meeting with the Illusive Man. Got the pleasure of being the first to reveal the SR2. You were predictably horrified to figure out EDI was in the ship - compared her to cancer, and have been in something of what’s becoming a prank war since. You’ve probably recently smudged up the cameras in the cockpit, and laughed about her just being mad because it made everything up there look like a dream sequence.”

The pilot-that-wasn’t-hers gaped at her.

… Not that she could blame him. Neither she nor John were pulling punches here, and the facts quite simply turned a person’s comprehension of the limits of possibility upside-down. 

They hadn’t exactly rehearsed what they were going to say, but she supposed she also would’ve started with something as point-blank as Joker - this is our latest teammate, the one we rescued from the facility. To cut a long story short, she’s literally Commander Shepard from another universe, but she can’t go back because the rogue Cerberus unit destroyed it in the process of bringing her over, so she’s signing on to our mission.

Now that it was her turn, she wasn’t about to leave room for doubt, even if she was completely rearranging the man’s understanding of reality. She could empathize with that, at least. Still… Best to get down to business when you had a galaxy depending on you, and a space pilot who’d already been through the impossible with you.

Or, a version of you, anyways. Everything else had held true in pattern so far, so she was going to bet on this much too.

Her gaze softened slightly, and she quietly added, “they grounded you. Even after you rallied the fifth fleet for the Battle of the Citadel, after you were the linchpin in making sure we all - and the leaders of the Council races - had a ghost of a chance, you were denied any further assignment… But that’s not what got to you - not really.”

She met his wide-eyed gaze with her own steady one.

… She knew. She’d always known. His heart was with the Normandy and navigating through space, and it crushed him to no longer have that… but he’d been the last one she - or John - had seen before they’d died… had been the reason they’d lingered on the exploding ship at all.

And Joker knew it.

She’d never blamed him. Never would. And would do it all over again -

-but that fact didn’t matter to him, not really.

Gently, her hand squeezed his own, and she saw his rigid shoulders tremble for just a moment. Shep had a feeling John felt the exact same as her - and likewise, had never had the chance to broach the topic with his pilot.

It only took Joker another 12 seconds to find his voice again - and with a brief clearing of his throat, he half-whirled on John.

“ -Fuck , Commander, she’s you- !”

“Yes.”

“I - okay! Cool, cool cool.” Joker’s adam’s apple bobbed, and Shep took her own steadying breath. Maybe his voice wasn’t tight - maybe she was imagining it. He shook it off quickly, if it even had been. “Cool. She’s you. From a different universe.”

“Yes.”

Joker turned to look back at Shep as if his gaze alone could either confirm or deny her existence.

After a few more moments, she carefully relaxed her grip - both to cue him into the current unyielding grasp he had on her despite the questionable reliability of his skeletal structure, and to remind herself to keep it together. She glanced down at their hands, a wry grin on her face, and with a mild strangled sound Joker suddenly released her.

“Shit, sorry, uh- Shepard… er. Other… Commander?”

“Just Shep’s fine, Joker - I’ve got no status with the Alliance here,” Shep waved off the rare uncertainty in the man, settling back to lean against the railing in front of the port observation deck’s window. He nodded, a little slowly, staring at her for a long minute.

Finally, without looking over at John, he observed, “But she’s a lady.”

“… Clearly.”

From fingertip to palm, Joker’s hands pressed together in an overly thoughtful manner at John’s dry reply. He brought his hands up, half-obscuring his lips with a drawn out sound of arch observation. Then, promptly, he brought his hands down in a short chopping motion.

“That’s an improvement, really,” he declared. “No notes.”

“Pretty sure one or both of us ought to be offended,” John drawled, but from the lack of any tension between his brows, it was clear he didn’t take it seriously. Meanwhile, Shep was feeling like a tiny series of jumbled knots were slowly unraveling in her gut. She always had faith in Joker, but - well. It was a relief this one was as willing to take things in stride as the man she’d known.

“No offense intended, Commander, just stating facts; a high-powered lady commander is just plain inspiring-“

“I am right here,” Shep interjected, barely keeping a smile off her face. Still, for effect, she managed a deadpan expression. Joker just shrugged, a corner of his mouth turning up as if he knew damn well she was fighting a grin.

“Against all odds, really, but the Commander really does know how to collect ‘em. Like rare and eclectic, occasionally-to-often violent and murder-ready flowers-”

“Please stop making it sound like I’m some sort of space pervert.”

Joker didn’t openly react, but his mouth twitched into a smirk before he got it under control, while Shep tossed an all-too-amused grin his way. John rolled his eyes at her for her trouble.

“So. You rescued her from that facility, where yet another Cerberus cell had gone rogue - really, it’s officially a trend, almost like getting a bunch of the most eccentric and brilliant wackos the galaxy has to offer in one room with more money than god has it’s downsides-“

“-yes,” John managed to cut in, trying to put the man back on rails.

Surprisingly, it seemed to work, and Joker did pause, his gaze on Shep’s.

“… And those Cerberus goons destroyed her universe, and probably a bunch of others?”

“Yes.”

Joker closed his eyes, and his arms crossed. Shep watched him, carefully, while John openly observed them both.

“And she wants to help us, but also take some casual revenge along the way.”

“Yes.”

“Commander.”

 Shep tilted her head a mere fraction, sensing something brewing in his tone that she knew all too well. It took a moment for her to remember it wasn’t her he was addressing with that title, but mercifully she hadn’t said anything to have to awkwardly shake off.

“Yes, Joker?” John’s tone was suspicious, but magnanimous.

“Permission to request we adopt her?”

“What?” Shep choked.

“… Permission granted?”

“John?!”

“Let’s adopt her.”

Joker spread his hands at his final declaration, a grin splitting his face. John lifted a fist to his mouth, gaze flickering to Shep.

“Now, Joker, we need to do this right. I’ll need to hear your reasoning.” John’s perfectly serious voice somehow didn’t waver behind his poorly hidden expression.

“Am I being recorded?” Shep demanded, glancing around the room as she straightened. Her teeth bit the inside of her cheek -

-she couldn’t break and let her own smile bloom. Joker couldn’t be given the satisfaction that fast-

“Probably, if the robot has anything to say about it,” Joker shrugged, shuffling towards the couch. He leaned against the side of it as the smooth voice of a familiar AI came over the comms.

“It is against my protocol to commit recordings to my databases without reason, Mr. Moreau.”

“The number of ways that could still mean you’re recording us isn’t exactly reassuring, you know,” Joker shot back in the general direction of the ceiling.

“I see. Your preferences have been noted, Mr. Moreau.”

“You hear how she said that??” Joker shot a long-suffering look to John. “She has got to be doing that on purpose!”

“You have a knack for giving her the opportunity,” John pointed out.

“Yeah, yeah, come tell me that again when our robot overlords have us hooked up to tubes as bio-batteries,” Joker scoffed, before pointing a finger at Shep and switching tracks with ease and a grin. “Anyways, congrats, my logic is flawless, you’re adopted! I’m sure our resident robot would-be despot has the paperwork already in order, with how she’s definitely recording this anyways.”

“There is little procedure in place for adopting a fully grown adult human, let alone one without a figurative paper trail, Mr. Moreau.”

“Ahhh, details, details. We adopt fully grown adults all the time. I’m not convinced the commander isn’t trying to run a mobile space house for wayward orphans-in-spirit here.”

“Huh, he’s got your number, John,” Shep grinned. It was easy to keep in the moment, like this. Particularly when John’s expression shifted and he groaned.

“Et tu, Shep?”

“Oh please, I all but advertised my adult space orphanage. Pretty sure half Miranda’s job was fielding applications.”

“Man, Commander, I like this one.”

“Good to know you still respect some of my decisions, Joker.”

Joker gestured vaguely in the direction of the rest of the ship. “Who needs respect when you’ve got a ship full of single-minded space criminals and vigilantes?”

“He’s got a damn good point,” Shep mused, standing up and bracing her hands on her hips as she shot a look at John. “Lack of respect is all the more reason to forge onwards, y’know, pick up more wayward souls and really big guns, dismantle the corrupt power structures in the way of helping people, commence masterminded plans to-“

“New adoptees don’t get to weigh in on masterminding. Also, remind me to not let you and Garrus in the same room for too long.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Shep grinned, striding towards Joker instead of lingering on the little lance of something unpleasant in her chest at John’s idle joke. “You’ll never fully become Comman- dad Shepard with that attitude.”

Joker snorted and John gave her a deadpan look that could’ve turned lesser women to dust. She simply winked.

Wheezing now, Joker managed, “Yeah, Commander Space Dad, be nice to your latest vigilante adoptee. What’s she gonna think if you don’t section off a whole chunk of the ship for her sole use? Can’t go playing favorites.”

“… I hate that I don’t have an argument with that one, given the current trend.”

“You’re doing great, Commander Space Dad, very welcoming, I promise.”

“I have no idea what I was thinking, having you and Joker meet first.”

“True wisdom is gained through experience,” Shep intoned, clasping Joker’s shoulder with her hand as she tossed a farcically sage look at John. She then grinned. “Hell of a mistress, eh?”

“Okay, total dibs to have her on my team for any group bonding exercises that involve schemes.”

“Since when do we have time for bonding exercises?” John closed the mild gap between them.

“Um, excuse me?? You totally did bonding missions - exercises - whatever with Garrus, Wrex, and Tali when we were on a crazy cross-galaxy Saren-stopping quest! And you like just went and bonded on a super-secret mission with Miranda!”

“What? No, that doesn’t-”

“If you say that doesn’t count I’m gonna mutiny, Commander.”

“... Okay, I guess it counts, you’ve got me there,” John conceded, rubbing his neck. 

“Exactly, so let’s make time right now on *my super cool group bonding mission. Dibs on our new scheming commander-not-commander, Commander.”

“No way in hell,” John replied, to Shep’s laughter and Joker’s mild cursing.

Joker pushed to his feet once more after bemoaning his newfound cause for half a minute further, carefully getting himself upright before giving Shep and John a casual salute.

“Now - much as I’d like to stay and continue to completely destroy my comprehension of universal truths, literally, I’m still on shift and I don’t trust the robot to not get any inspiration from this space-time crime stuff. Permission to head back, Commander?”

John chuckled and nodded. “Naturally. Just try not to damage the trillion-credit space ship with more greased cameras, this time.”

“… That’s specific enough that I’ll happily comply,” Joker grinned, before turning to Shep. “Welcome aboard, Shep. Guessing you already know the ropes, but if you need, I dunno, snarky commentary or the insight of the galaxy’s best pilot, you know where to find me.”

“Thanks, Joker,” Shep replied, the quiet warmth in her tone genuine. She extended her hand to him, and this time he was the one to take it - and the one to release after a much more reasonable time. “I’ll be here for now, gonna meet the dossier team, but if there’s anything I can do for you, let me know, too.”

Shep and John waited for the door to close behind his carefully slow pace before both of them exhaled in perfect sync.

“Thank fuck,” Shep breathed.

“He took it well,” John agreed, looking nearly as relieved as she was. Their gazes flickered towards one another, realizing the same, and they smiled slightly.

Rolling one shoulder as her opposite hand braced it, Shep looked back towards the door. “Yeah, he’s… Joker’s an MVP, no matter what universe, I think.”

“Seems like it,” John murmured, hand going to his omnitool. “Probably ought to keep at this, if you’re okay to-?”

“Let’s do it,” Shep agreed, settling back into a relaxed, but well-composed and confident, posture. “Got the whole team to go through and… meet. Some will probably take it in stride, others will have some thoughts. I’d rather take it in stride. Who’s up next?”

“Honestly, working top-down will probably be simplest - so next, let’s see…”

==============

“So, this is the lady Miranda was filling me in about. Good to see you on your feet, ma’am. And not skewered.”

“Good to be unskewered, honestly. Hope I didn’t take you away from anything important, Jacob.”

Jacob sized her up, releasing her hand from the confident shake he’d met her with. She didn’t falter under his considering stare; knew it all too well to do so, or to misinterpret it.

“Just some standard maintenance in the armory. Nothing so important it compares to meeting Commander Shepard, Mark II.”

Shep grinned, lifting a brow. Bless Miranda - judging from how unsurprised John looked at Jacob’s casual declaration, he must have asked Miranda to fill him in to help speed along the process.

“Who’s to say he’s not Mark II?”

Jacob laughed, shifting his weight. “Touche, ma’am. Maybe we oughta say one of you is Shepard 1, and the other is Shepard A?” He shrugged.

“I mean, that’s one way of keeping things equal. What do you think, John?”

“Dibs on Shepard 1.”

“What? No way, you get to be A. I’m 1.”

“Why am I A?”

“….. It’s. Well, it’s clearly short for…. Shepard Amnesty.”

“What?”

“Because you grant amnesty to Shepards.”

“… You’re so full of-”

John cut himself off, but Shep caught the begrudgingly amused look he shot her. She was, indeed, full of shit as his expression communicated, but it was easier to joke like this than consider the serious weight of the undercurrent of it all.

“Y’know, I like anyone who can get the commander to pull that kind of face,” Jacob decided, making it that simple. “What should we call you?”

“Shep’s fine,” she assured him with a smile. She hadn’t exactly thought he’d be one of the tricky ones, but it was a boon that he was on board nonetheless.

“Guess it’d get confusing to have two outright Shepards running around, huh. Though I’ve served on ships that have siblings before.” Jacob looked between the two of them thoughtfully. “Everyone gets used to the double names after a bit, even if it causes a few misunderstandings.”

Shep blinked. “Siblings, huh?” Her gaze flickered to John, their earlier conversation coming to mind. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of that - of course siblings would have the same name…”

He was already looking to her, too, his hand absently framing his chin. “Too bad we don’t look much alike…”

Jacob crossed his arms and scoffed. “Are you kidding me?”

Both of them looked at him in the same instant, but it was John that spoke first, incredulous. “Surely you’re not saying Shep and I look that alike.”

He stared back at the both of them, thoroughly unimpressed and equally nonplussed. “Anyone who looks at the way you two stand would assume you’d been raised together. Your mannerisms are identical.”

“No they’re not.”

“No they’re not.”

“… I’m not sure if it’d be funnier if you two had planned to do that on purpose, or if it was a genuine accident,” Jacob scoffed, but he was smirking. “Did you know your eyebrows arch in the same way? It’s uncanny.”

Shep and John looked at one another. Each had a brow arched.

After a moment, they both huffed. Shep’s was a laugh, John’s was nearly a groan.

“… Y’know, now it’s a touche to you, Jacob. Thanks for the inspiration - we might have something to roll with now,” Shep readily admitted, the idea taking root.

“We’ll need to iron out a lot of details, but it’s our most promising option yet,” John nodded, hands going to rest on his hips as he looked at Jacob. “Thank you. Since you’re already up to speed, no need to waste time rehashing, but… any pressing questions, for our newest member of the team?”

“Honestly, I figure you’re more mentally prepped for a suicide mission than anyone else here,” Jacob said, blunt. He met Shep’s gaze even as John frowned. “Sorry. Just calling it like I see it - can’t soften the blows with what’s at stake here, no matter what someone’s been through.”

Shep shook her head, her own expression serious. “No, you’re right. I am prepared for it. Nothing to lose, and everything to gain. I’ve got some stuff I’d like to take care of first, if possible, but that’s par for the course. I’ll give it everything I’ve got, regardless.”

Jacob and John seemed unable, for a moment, to have anything to say at her frank statement. She supposed her voice had been fairly… hard.

… Well. It was the truth. And Jacob himself had invited it.

“… Yes, ma’am. Regardless, I trust the Commander to make the right calls here. And given the likelihood you’re at least in the same ballpark of skill as he is… well, you’re a welcome addition. I’ll leave it to him to figure out the details.” Jacob saluted the Commander, then nodded at Shep. “You need anything, particularly of the gun persuasion, I’ll be in the armory. Nice meeting you, Shep.”

And with that, Jacob turned and left, leaving the two commanders in the quiet of the port deck once more.

“… He’s as blunt as ever,” John observed, glancing down at Shep.

She huffed a wry laugh, and looked up at him. “Can’t say I hate it. Bit refreshing, given the runaround we’re both accustomed to getting from a lot of people.”

“Touche, ma’am ,” John chuckled, earning a more genuine laugh from Shep before he brought up his omnitool to call down the next crew member.

====================

“A-ha! Confirmed reasoning - greeting unexpected new member. Injuries severe, but recovery times match Commander. Similar holding. Spatial displacement proving no trouble? No, lack of molecular repulsion clear. Theories confirmed. Commander Shepard, pleasure.”

Mordin never did let her down.

“The pleasure is mine, Mordin,” Shep grinned at the salarian that had come to a sudden stop two steps in front of her. He’d entered at a clip that threatened the speed of the door opening, and circled her twice as he spoke before either she or John could get a word in edgewise. Never a wasted moment. To her side, John looked calculating - he was staring at Mordin, hard, though the professor paid him no mind.

Shep crossed her arms and nodded, her posture square, confident, yet respectful - salarian culture didn’t have handshakes, though she knew many adopted the custom.

He glanced down at her hands, then up to her affable expression. He smiled slightly, one hand shifting to support the opposite elbow. “Indeed, understand cultural mores. Better than most Alliance trained. Or more willing to adjust. Like, yet unlike Commander here... Hm. Referencing designation quickly redundant. Preference?”

“Call me Shep,” she answered easily, then glanced to John. “Like I’ve told the others, I’ve got no history with the Alliance here - my old title won’t apply.”

“Noted. No first name interest, unlike most humans. Curious decision. Speaks strongly to personality, experiences, background. Less inclined to interrupt observations, too.” Mordin nodded to himself, one hand framing his chin now. He peered at her, openly, and John cleared his throat pointedly.

“She’s not an experiment, Mordin,” he said, staring at the professor. Mordin waved him off idly, opening his mouth, but John quickly continued, “I want to make sure I’m understanding you right, though - you’ve figured out who she is then? How?” After a beat, he sighed. “… Damn. Made a bet with myself, too. I owe myself five credits, now.”

Shep caught the skeptical but almost entertained look John shot Mordin. “You made a bet with yourself?” she chuckled. “And you gave a greater-than-zero chance that he wouldn’t figure it out?” For damn near anyone, it would be an absurd leap of logic. But for him…

“He gets distracted sometimes,” John reasoned. “When we came back he was still working out the kinks on some new bio-armor upgrades, if I remember right. And we are talking about coming to the conclusion that someone is from another universe, I feel I need to point out.”

“True, but still… Always bet on Mordin. Especially when he has access to medical records and the Normandy’s systems,” Shep chuckled, and John nodded with a wry half-smile.

Mordin, for his part, looked both mildly pleased and mildly affronted.

“Naturally figured it out! Impossible to miss - already said. Accelerated recovery times match. Similar stances, mannerisms. Hush-hush return to ship after mission; abject distress yet confusion in both commander and turian sniper upon leaving medical bay. Medical documents proved key - same modifications, body stressors, benefits of work done. Lack of announcement to crew intriguing. Lack of plan, more so. Commander dutiful, responsible, informs of new crew members prior to acquisition. Plus - Cerberus involvement, always fishy.”

“Spot-on,” Shep mused, eyeing the doctor. What was that about the distress in the commander and Garrus, though…?

“A rogue unit,” John added, clearly attempting to be reasonable. Shep bit her tongue and glanced away.

Mordin had no such qualms. “Always rogue units with Cerberus. Always pushing boundaries, frequent actions defying declared human morality standards. Reasonable to expect this much.”

“It’s reasonable to expect they’d poke a hole in space time?” John arched a brow at the salarian. In response, Mordin merely nodded, as if this was a perfectly sensible question as part of some lecture set up.

“… STG’s already looked into the concept, haven’t they?” Shep asked.

Her tone was perfectly even, and her gaze was locked on Mordin. John inhaled a little sharply.

“Cannot speak to current activities,” Mordin said, spreading both hands. Shep huffed, knowing damn well that was untrue, and Mordin cocked his head slightly at her. For once, he paused slightly, before continuing. “… Salarian interests run full gambit, however. Practical to theoretical. Testing space-time boundaries only natural. Many theses in advanced educational studies on topic.”

“You’ve been space-faring for more than two millenia, so I can give you that much,” Shep sighed, shaking her head. “And I know- knew a lot of academics who would drool over the chance to make it a reality.”

She smiled humorlessly. How many idle late-night conversations had she had during her studies on the concept of a multiverse? If not fantasy, then a realm of speculative non-fiction so far removed from possibility it seemed fictional…

Shep shook herself of the train of thought, continuing with a sharp once-over of the professor’s features, “From the looks of it though… no, this isn’t a state secret. Salarians haven’t succeeded - or anyone in your vast network, at least. Not that you know of.”

John glanced down at her, curiously, and she sent him a similarly curious glance.

What was so interesting about what she’d just said..?

Moreover, Mordin readily responded. “Frankly, too dangerous. Played with numbers myself on rare quiet mornings. Dark matter concerns high - instability to secondary universe, plus universal constant of indestructible matter needs balancing.” He scoffed, shaking his head and crossing his arms. “Doubtful Cerberus accounted for all. Ham-fisted methodology. If you’re here, resulting damage to home universe immutable.” His intense gaze locked with hers. “Condolences.”

“… Thank you,” Shep closed her eyes.

“How did you know her universe was…?” John asked, carefully. He’d come to stand by her side, and she could hear from the refraction of his voice he’d been looking at her, then looked back towards Mordin. “… No, actually, nevermind. I can’t doubt your ability to come to the conclusion, even if it seems… improbable anyone could just guess from idle reasoning.”

“Not idle, never idle,” Mordin shot back. “Reasonable questions. Natural to science. More questions you ask, more answers you might find. And more questions.” He gestured vaguely. “Usually more questions. But better questions.”

“Honestly, I wish you’d been around to ask them some of those questions,” Shep muttered, opening her eyes and exhaling.

“… At gunpoint?” Mordin offered.

Shep laughed, a short bark that did something drastic to lighten the weight on her shoulders.

“Yeah. Preferably, at gunpoint, I think.”

“Some questions best asked while armed,” Mordin nodded, a grin playing at his mouth.

Shep considered him for a long moment, taking idle note that John was once more studying her and his recruited science officer. Same scars, in all the same places, she was fairly certain. She’d known her people damn well. Made a point of it - she just never thought the time spent studying their features would pay off like this…

“… Mordin. Would it be alright if I came and hung around your lab on occasion? I’d… enjoy learning from you. I’ll be of assistance, if you’ll let me.”

“Wait, seriously?” John blurted.

“I’m an engineer by trade and nature, not just a soldier,” she shrugged, a gleam in her eye as she looked back at him. She’d started to properly feel him out, his personality quirks and habits. They had a lot in common, but she was increasingly certain they had some striking differences. Some… small but undeniable part of her wanted to delve into those differences.

As it turned out, an interest in the pedantic might just be one of them.

“… Oho, intriguing juxtaposition. One Commander prefers battlefield excellence in arms and force; other, subterfuge - no, technological superiority. Or both, perhaps. Very very intriguing. Want to see more. Then yes - do visit. Much work to be done, only excellence permitted. Questions will be a mandatory part of assistance, however.”

Shep looked back towards Mordin, and grinned to find him smiling with an almost mischievous, overly-focused glint to his eyes.

“You’ve got to know that look means trouble,” John told her, still more than a little incredulous. “I’ve got other work you can do if you want to keep busy.”

“Ha! No, no, you can keep your reports,” Shep mused, to John’s brief protests, but she shook her head with a smile. “I know you’ve got other genuine options. And if you need my help on something, I’m glad to give it. But I mean it.” Her hands shifted to her hips, and a truly pleased and determined expression crossed her features. “I’d like to learn more from Mordin - cross compare some facts, universal constants, and dig into a few problems I never had the time previously to put my mind to.”

“… Well, I’ll trust you, then,” John said slowly, before glancing to Mordin. He grimaced. “Nothing that will result in experiments on the crew, at least?”

The offended looks both Shep and Mordin gave him made the man almost wish EDI was recording all this.

He wasn’t surprised that Shep was a natural with his crew; but it was strange, nonetheless, watching her interact with each of them.

She greeted them like any natural new member of the team might, just another recruit or transfer onto a ship - he’d seen it and been there himself too many times to count, it was practically muscle memory he saw echoed between them. Yet it was in the little things that John caught the true nuances - like how she watched the door, nearly seeming prophetic with how she was clearly in a ready and waiting stance a few seconds before the next person entered, no matter how disparately they arrived. John tried to think whether that was something he did too - whether his eyes were often on the door before the person walked in. He didn’t think so, not on average, but then again, he was more often visiting his team in their preferred nooks himself rather than calling them to another part of the ship. It was hard to determine what precisely that said about Shep’s apparent discreet ability-

-or, really, whether it just spoke to how wired she felt in the moment, no matter how well-hidden she kept it after they’d started this process.

Whether she was keeping a silent countdown or not, she’d been ready for Thane’s entrance as easily as she had the other three - her stance not dissimilar, but her bearing ever so slightly altered. For Joker, she’d been more at-ease; for Jacob, more like an Alliance soldier; for Mordin, a professional, alert fellow scientist of sorts, if he had to describe it somehow - on top of being the first one she hadn’t automatically offered her hand to. For cultural reasons, John had gathered, but it was interesting she tailored things so much to each crew member. John kept the angle of treating his crew equally - with a mind for any cultural insults, of course. But on board a human-centric spacecraft, he’d long since learned aliens tended to adopt the human-standard hand shake. It seemed polite to him to keep it up, to keep from tripping up their expectations.

Shep was different, in that small aspect, it seemed.

Thane’s entrance had her at a less soldier-like, but no less clearly battle-experienced confident stance; not at attention, but at a subtle sort of ready, calm alertness that reminded John of the drell himself. Upon Thane’s entrance and John’s welcome, Shep bowed at the waist - nearly identical to the bow John remembered Thane offering when he’d come aboard the ship for the first time.

If the assassin was surprised, he didn’t show it. He bowed back, before clasping his hands behind his back per his usual stance.

“Our newest team member, then, Commander,” Thane stated more than asked, his dark eyes refocusing on him after lingering on Shep briefly.

John nodded. “Yes. To put a long story short… she’s from a universe adjacent to ours. It turns out a rogue Cerberus unit was conducting dangerous research, and has collapsed several universes in an effort to bring over… another version of myself. She is their latest attempt - and the only one to survive. We rescued her from the facility we investigated.”

“… I see,” Thane replied. His gaze returned, subtly, to Shep. She was watching him in turn. “… You are the last, then, I presume.”

“The last they will ever bring over,” she confirmed, her voice measured and heavy. John swore he saw her eyes flash as she glanced away, in the general direction of the bookcase along the distant wall, though he didn’t think she was looking at anything in particular. “… And the last of my universe, yes. They were not careful , ripping holes open into other realities.”

Thane inhaled, just a little too sharply, John thought. He might be having respiratory issues, but…

“… I am sorry to hear it, Shepard,” he said with a gravity John had heard once before - in the prayer he offered after taking Nassana out.

For a moment, John thought Shep might have frozen entirely.

“… You can… just call me Shep, Thane. And… well. I… can only hope Kalahira will embrace them well.”

John’s brow furrowed at her tight, weighted words. Who was…? But it seemed Thane understood immediately, from the way his posture shifted - and the next moment, his head bowed. Shep smiled then with a depth of sorrowful emotion she’d been sealing away since they’d started greeting the crew as Thane spoke, “May they be set on the distant shore of the infinite spirit.”

For the first time since they’d begun this, John felt as if maybe, just maybe, he should let Shep have a moment alone with his crewmate.

Her head turned, however, and he didn’t hear the break in her voice he’d expected when she replied, “Thank you, Thane. I… couldn’t ask for a better man to pray for them so well.”

Thane lifted his head, his large, nearly-black eyes on Shep once more.

John was neither blind nor an idiot. There was something Shep understood about Thane that he… didn’t. Was she close to him - the him she’d known in her universe? John had assumed perhaps she was closest to Garrus, given how she’d worked and interacted with him at her rescue, but perhaps that was just the working of a longer history.

… Then again, there was the way she’d been so quickly on the up and up with Mordin, too. John was amiable, but she seemed to know their language, so to speak - he’d hardly had the time to begin addressing some of the deepest lingering concerns his crew had. Not all of them had opened up to him. But Shep-

“… If you need anything, Thane, let me know, okay?” Shep said quietly. Shaken from his train of thought, John realized she’d clearly settled whatever had risen within her. Thane and she were standing a bit closer now.

“I believe it should be the more senior member of a crew who offers such a thing,” Thane replied, and John blinked.

Was the drell… smiling?

“Old habits die hard,” Shep mused wryly, a hint of a smile on her own face.

“Indeed,” Thane hummed. “Very well. I can only offer the same in turn.”

She nodded, and John cleared his throat lightly.

“Any questions for our newest crew member, then? Or me?”

“I trust your instincts, Commander Shepard,” Thane replied without missing a beat. “And your trust in her, I trust as well. I look forward to working together.”

John nodded, pushing aside his growing list of mental notes on some new minutiae in the behavior of his crew and Shep alike, and smiled. “You’re free to go about your business, Thane. Thanks for your time - I’ll go to you in Life Support, next time.”

“You are both welcome there at any time,” Thane replied with a small bow. He bowed then in the same manner to Shep, before turning and leaving as silently as he’d entered.

“… You’re a people-person, huh,” John murmured as the door quietly sealed behind him.

Shep glanced up at him. “No more than you are, I think. I guess I just…” a corner of her mouth quirked, and she looked back towards the door. “They really are… alike. Or perhaps the same. I’m trying to keep from making any assumptions that’ll bite me later, but…”

“… It’s good to know you’re treading familiar ground, at least,” John hazarded. After a moment of watching her expression subtly tic, he added, “If a bit complicated.”

She huffed a laugh. “Yeah. That’s… a good way to put it.”

“Any concerns so far?” John asked, moving from his place in the vague middle of the room. Shep trailed after him, almost absently, and joined him at the bookcase.

“Concerns? Not really,” Shep said slowly. Her expression spoke to something else, though, and John waited for more as he idly began to shift a few books. Behind one of them was a panel, and he pressed it until a subtle mechanism disengaged as she finally continued, “They’re… not the same people.”

“No?” John echoed, glancing towards her. Silently, he withdrew a large glass bottle of liquor and lifted it in her direction, and after a cursory glance of surprise, she half-smiled and nodded to his unspoken question. He gave her a smile in return, and re-engaged the hidden panel before putting the books back in place so nothing was amiss.

… He was the CO of the SR2, he was allowed to have a secret stash or two.

“No,” she agreed. “Or rather, that’s what I keep reminding myself. They look the same, you know? Down to the scars. Only difference has been Chakwas’ haircut,” her voice was almost far off. John walked to the closest section of the couch and sat down, and she joined him. He uncapped the bottle, took an appreciative sip, and passed it to her, unconcerned about affecting either of their performances after this brief break. The liquor felt… needed. Or at least a welcome boon. Besides, it’d take several bottles of outright ryncol for either of them to truly leave sobriety.

“I can’t remember a time her hair was a different length,” he commented.

“I would have said the same,” she murmured, shaking her head as she stared at the bottle. After a moment, she took a long, long sip. Her eyes closed as she lowered the bottle. “But the physical… it’s all but the same otherwise. The personalities, the way they talk… fuck, they feel like my crew - but for the way they don’t know me.”

John looked at her.

If he’d expected self-pity, or misery, he’d have been disappointed. But he’d had a feeling that wouldn’t be what he found. Indeed, instead, she merely looked pensive, her eyes vaguely tracing the shape of the bottle. She’d leaned back into the deep couch - practically idle.

She took another drink.

“… They will,” he said.

It was hard previously to know what to say, before and while she’d bared her heart, her fury, her sorrow for what had happened - it was hard now. Not because she was difficult, but because there was just no damned comparison , no reference point, for either of them. Nothing did justice to the magnitude of the horror she’d experienced - no mind could truly comprehend it.

Yet… He didn’t think she wanted pity, either.

Maybe his guess was right, because when her face turned back to him, it was without anger or deeper sorrow. “They will,” she murmured, and passed him the bottle back. He took a sip. “But nonetheless… I can’t make the mistake of thinking they’re the same.”

It finally clicked.

“… Not just because you might guess a detail wrong, or overstep - but because they’re literally new people.”

“I can’t do my crew the cruelty of acting as if they’re replaceable,” Shep nodded, looking away, out the window. “And I won’t do your crew the disservice of acting as if they’re replacements.”

John passed the bottle back to her, the wide base of it bumping into her slack hand. Her fingers wrapped around it without looking, and she exhaled before looking back up at him.

Both of them, for a moment, held onto the bottle. His hand, at the neck, hers, at the base.

“Thank you, Shep,” he said.

Ever so slightly, she smiled. “Thank you , John.” She slowly took the bottle, and John released it. A beat passed, and then she lifted it in toast, eyes on the glimmering liquid within. “To… the irreplaceable.”

He smiled. “To the irreplaceable.”

She took a deep drink, passed it to him, and he did the same. They both relaxed back in sync, a warmer, alcohol-tinged exhale passing their lips.

“You’re a damn good bartender,” Shep remarked. He chuckled.

“Came from the critically acclaimed school of ‘hide it where the crew doesn’t have the time to look’,” he mused, and she laughed in the way only a fellow CO ever could.

“So, who’s next? Kasumi? Since she’s been in here for a bit, and Miranda’s probably busy still…”

“Wait- what?” John nearly sputtered on his sip.

“Damn, Commander, you really do have a knack for finding the good ones,” came a sing-song voice next to him.

John thanked his lucky stars Kasumi had tried to pull a sudden-appearance act on him one too many times to end up physically reacting when her cloaking suddenly deactivated in a shimmering cascade. She was leaning against the bookcase behind them, the picture of casual ease… and grinning like a cat. Her hand lifted, and she shot a finger gun at Shep.

“Your latest is a real looker - runs in the identity, I suppose,” she commented before nimbly leaping over the back of the couch and landing comfortably on Shep’s other side. Shep, for her part, merely chuckled and waved the thief off while making a bit more room for her.

John, meanwhile, exhaled very, very slowly.

“… You’ve been here since Jacob came in, haven’t you,” he concluded, before taking an extra slow, steady sip of the bottle and eyeing his stealthiest crew member over the edge of it.

… she’d seen the secret stash. Of course, that was his luck. Not that he’d expected it to remain secret for too long with an expert thief on board, but still.

“Who? Me? Follow the sweet siren call of the most lovingly sculpted muscles this side of the nearest star system?”

Splay-fingered, her hand rested lightly above her chest, her tone arch and innocent. John rolled his eyes.

“He does have a great ass,” Shep commented, doing nothing to mask her amusement.

“Shep,” John’s voice came out closer in tone to betrayed than disappointed.

“So our new teammate does have good taste!” Kasumi slid closer and nudged Shep with her elbow. Shep shrugged, a mostly- apologetic grin on her face as she glanced over towards him.

“Never could allow myself to acknowledge it before, and I’ll admit to feeling a bit dishonest about the fact. But lacking a position of power and the ethical quandry now, well, it’s just a fellow team member applauding the man’s hard work,” Shep reasoned, not that John entirely trusted that look on her face. Or the way Kasumi was leaning in closer yet, nodding fervently. “I mean, come on, John. Did you know the man just drops to the floor of the armory twice an hour to do core work, glute work, and just about every-other-work on a rotating schedule?”

“… seriously?”

“Your tone is disbelieving, but your AI could confirm,” Shep grinned. “Seriously. No one keeps up that kind of definition without a wild amount of work.”

“… Not sure whether to applaud him, or double check to make sure his actual work’s getting done,” John finally acquiesced. Of course, Jacob was on top of what he’d made his standard work. It was more the fact he did it on top of the two women’s assertion of regular workout breaks that was impressive, and John had simply been doing a perfectly good personal and ethical job of not thinking too hard about one of his crew member’s extreme fitness levels. Until now, of course. John was fit himself - thinking about it, he couldn’t deny the work that went into achieving their kind of form, let alone the definition John refused to admit aloud he knew Jacob kept.

… How the hell had these two gotten his train of thought so off track?

With a sigh he lifted the bottle to his lips once more, more to hide the slight grin they’d won from him than to take a drink.

“You should reward him,” Kasumi emphasized, “And also encourage him to start an extranet profile demonstrating his workout routine. For morale, of course.”

“Morale, right - that’s what this is about,” John said dryly. He pushed the bottle back into Shep’s hand.

“Yes, yes, we admire your ass too, Commander-“

Shep snorted over the sip she’d just taken and John choked on precisely nothing at all.

“It’s equality,” Kasumi maintained.

“You beautiful woman,” Shep wheezed faintly into her drink, hiding her face behind her hand. John shot her a sharp look to no avail, then Kasumi, to even less effect. Rather than dig himself out of this minefield, John opted to address the general direction of the ceiling instead.

“EDI, please let Miranda know I’d like her to join us sooner rather than later.”

“Of course Shepard.” Mercifully, only a few seconds later, EDI continued before Kasumi could speak up again - “She’s approaching the door - she was already on her way.”

“Bless whatever gods Miranda believes in, if any,” John exhaled. “And eavesdroppers don’t get special stash liquor, Kasumi.”

He looked pointedly back at the woman, whose hand was a generous centimeter from closing around the bottle Shep still held. Even knowing Miranda was on her way didn’t dampen Kasumi’s intent to have a good time, and despite the fact that Shep did seem to realize Kasumi had caught their more subdued moment of privacy a minute ago, she wasn’t showing any sign of unease. In fact, in the brief span of time he’d addressed EDI, Kasumi seemed to have gotten closer to Shep, who was shaking her head with an amused expression at something the thief had whispered to her. Kasumi pouted for a moment, before grinning-

“Hold that thought,” John requested firmly, deftly keeping any hint of worry out of his voice. Whether for the antics he was realizing they would have the power to get up to, or for the sake of sparing Shep from an accidentally overly-brash question, he wasn’t certain. Two pyjaks, one shot, maybe.

The door to the deck opened and Miranda strode in, gaze locking immediately onto the trio on the couches. John and Shep were relatively relaxed, but still semi-professional in appearance in spite of the open bottle of liquor in Shep’s hand. Kasumi had since crossed her legs, perching comfortably with her body mostly turned towards the commanders. Her hands loosely grasped her overlaid ankles, and from beneath her hood she shot Miranda a charming grin.

“Don’t start,” Miranda drawled, placing one hand on her hip.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kasumi sang, with the distinct impression of one who had started far too many things to count.

“Miranda,” John said on an exhale.

“Miranda,” Shep chimed in, perhaps for effect as much as a greeting.

“Commanders,” Miranda sighed. “Particularly, mine. Is there something I can do for you?”

“It seemed only right to give you a turn next, even if you’ve technically met,” John answered, shaking his head with a helpless smile. “Particularly given the fact it turns out Kasumi decided to mingle her turn with a few others.”

“I like to call it offering ‘secret backup’.”

“Funny, it rather sounds to me like an invasion of the Commander’s guest’s privacy,” Miranda replied, gaze sliding back to Kasumi. “Or rather, the privacy our commander deigned to allow the newest member of the crew. I rather doubt that you’d appreciate similar treatment, Miss Goto.”

“On the contrary, I expect it,” Kasumi grinned. She took a swig of the bottle of liquor Shep and John had been sharing. John blinked, then shot a look to Shep - Shep was glancing down in mild surprise at her hand, then back to Kasumi, who was passing it back to her with a wink. John sighed. Kasumi tsk ed cheerfully, then continued, “The ship itself is an AI, even in the best of circumstances! Nothing against them, but they were pretty much made to be the optimal information gathering units.”

“She’s not wrong,” Shep hummed, recapping the bottle and passing it deftly back to John. “Potential peeping habits aside, I’m assuming you don’t need my backstory repeated, given you’ve heard it a few times over, Kasumi. Can I answer any questions?”

“Oh, I’m not a peeper, that’s never as fun as people think-“ Kasumi started, but a glare from Miranda had her adding impishly, “That is, definitely morally objectionable, yes. I simply gather a greater understanding of a situation. Don’t give me that look Miranda, I’ve seen your information requests. And no, you two are quite good at that little speech at this point. Very to the point, well-tailored to the crew member without skipping any important bits, all that. Offering condolences isn’t my strong suit, but you truly have them, Shep. Now, I’m more interested in this fabricated backstory you were talking about. Jacob’s right - the sibling angle is perfect . And think of the drama! Oh, the media would just eat it up.”

“We’re not looking to write a soap opera here,” John replied with a frown after a beat to process the flood of words Kasumi had kept to herself while cloaked. He shook his head. “That’s my main concern with that one…”

“What’s this about a sibling angle?” Miranda had closed the mild distance between them and gracefully sat down on the adjacent couch. She crossed one leg over the other and eyed him and Kasumi, then Shep. “I know we’d considered a rogue mercenary or some sort of specialist out in the Terminus Systems, but-?”

“Jacob pointed out our mannerisms are similar enough to make a strong visual argument for siblings,” Shep explained smoothly, leaning forward and resting an elbow on one knee. “We noted that we didn’t look much alike, but he said that it didn’t matter much, not with how we act. He’s got a point - and we tabled the idea for later at the time. What do you think?”

“… Hm. There are natural but nonetheless remarkable similarities in how you bear yourselves and speak. And… the Commander did have siblings,” Miranda noted. Her gaze flickered back to him, and John knew what was rolling through her mind.

“It’s okay, Miranda, it’s been a long time since they passed,” John nodded, leaning forward a little himself. He laced his fingers loosely together, letting his hands hang between his legs. “I gave it some stewing space while we met with some of the others. I… think for something like this, for Shep’s situation… they’d understand making space for someone who didn’t have a place to belong, here.” He half-smiled, glancing away. “We were a… rag-tag bunch, as it was. I think they’d find it fitting if we adopted one more stray with a good heart into our family.”

“… John…”

The commander turned to look at the woman stranded here, alone, her universe gone. His expression remained a bit fondly nostalgic. She was so clearly searching him, and he let her.

What would he do if their places were switched? It… hardly bore thinking about. Not with what it meant for losing everything, everyone he’d ever known. Yet she sat next to him, watching him with steady, clear eyes. Her shoulders were squared beneath the invisible weight she bore. He’d already told her she was on his crew - and she’d accepted.

That was already as good as family, to him.

“I mean it,” he assured her, before continuing more pragmatically, “besides - it really is the best cover. That day was… hell. Chaos. It’s easy to see the possibility - we lost you when they invaded the colony, presumed you dead…”

“… And in the end, I was taken with a few fleeing batarian pirates, only to manage to escape their straggler vessel in Terminus space; was stranded, hopped transports in exchange for work, made my way on my own for years,” Shep nodded, her gaze unmoving from his even as she helped build the narrative.

“Right. We could go a mild amnesia route - or just trauma and circumstances. It’d be nearly impossible for a kid, even a teenager, to make it back to Alliance or even Council space on their own.” John clasped her shoulder with one hand, and she nodded, taking a breath and flashing him a warmer grin. He grinned back. “Of course, my long-lost sister was of Shepard make; she wasn’t about to go down without a fight. Always had a knack for mechanics - joined some scrappy crews, built her skills, took on work, hopped crafts and slowly made her way closer to Council space.”

“Until we found her on a mission - part of a distressed crew signal, fending off local wildlife or rogue geth, what have you,” Miranda smoothly slipped in, and both John and Shep shot her a conspiratory smile to match the one she was already wearing. “Neither quite recognized the other at first, not in the heat of battle and a last-minute rescue, but something in the way the Commander barked commands and her ability to get a mech’s artillery working in our favor connected a few long-lost dots.”

“Oh, how dramatic!” Kasumi leaned forward, her shoulder nearly bumping with Shepard’s. She was grinning wider than a salarian card shark at the budding narrative, and John made a swift mental sidenote to keep a close eye on the extranet rumor mill about members of the Normandy. “Of course, she’d never have been registered as an adult citizen of Council Space, and who’s going to blame the war hero Commander for being forced to mourn and accept the loss of his family - only to be reunited at long last against all odds? And how could he be expected to kick his own sister off his ship… particularly when it turned out she was nearly as good a shot as him, and twice the engineer?”

“Hey,” John chuckled, before glancing thoughtfully towards Miranda, “Won’t people look back at old records, though? We don’t need another weird conspiracy throwing an iron in the works - we’ve got enough of those with me rising from the dead. From Spectre-oriented conspiracies, to geth-cyborg conspiracies, to anti-human conspiracies right next to the polar opposite anti-alien conspiracies, to the weird dark-matter-zombie ones in the corner of the extranet… we run the gambit as is.” John looked back to Shep in concern. Sure, she’d probably gotten the same before, but this was an entire new universe where she wasn’t going to get to continue being the Commander Shepard… it came with plenty of cons, but the pros helped - and she wouldn’t get that anymore. 

John might never shake the sense of guilt he already felt over that. 

He grimaced. “I’m used to it, but if it causes you trouble in the future with identity documents that will already be forged…”

She was quiet for a moment, a hand at her chin, staring back at him.

“… Unless,” Shep murmured.

Three pairs of eyes locked on her

“Unless,” John echoed.

“Unless…” Kasumi mused.

“Unless?” Miranda prompted.

Shep grinned.

“ Unless , of course, a rumor starts to spread that the real reason the Great Commander Shepard was MIA for two years was that he was tracking down his long-lost sister who he heard was out in the Terminus Systems.”

Chapter Text

“ Fuck that. She wants to talk, she can fuckin’ come find me herself.”

“Jack,” John sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Don’t fuckin’ act like you’re so far above me that you get to call me up ‘n over like your fuckin’ pet. I’ll blast the shit you need me to blast, but this is a damn contract, and I don’t owe shit to some bitch who could barely survive some shit experiments-“

“Shep’s not from our universe. A rogue Cerberus unit punched a hole in her reality, and a bunch of others. She’s the only one to survive. Oh, and she’s me. Or, the Commander Shepard to her universe, as I am to this one.”

“…”

“Her universe is gone, and she’s joining our team. That’s all. If you have any questions, ask me. Or her, if she wants to talk.”

The faint hint of comm static chuffed around a short grunt on the other end.

“… Well shit. Sounds like she’s got a fuckin’ bone to pick with Cerberus too. Tell her the offer to come down’s a bit more real, now. Later.”

John didn’t even sigh as the comm line cut out. Releasing his mild grip on the bridge of his nose, he glanced over to where Miranda, Kasumi, and Shep were standing near the door to the observation deck. 

“-So you’ll keep an eye on the extranet, Kasumi, and poke it where needed,” Shep was gesturing towards the thief, who was already tapping away on her omnitool display.

“Things are where they were like I said earlier, the old rumor mill is as reliably seedy as always,” Kasumi seemed to confirm, talking quickly and cheerfully. “Introducing the rumors will be a cinch. If we stop by a few different hubs, too, it’ll be even easier to sync the rise in them with your appearance with him, alongside little unique local rumors. I find the flare helps.”

“Right, I’ll plot options into our recommended stops,” Miranda had her omnitool active as well; only Shep was left out of the active work. Right - her strange, half-busted purple omnitool had been set aside when they’d brought her in. Even Garrus seemed unable to fix it. John made a mental note to get requisitions on a replacement sooner rather than later for her. “Cap that off with confirming it with the Illusive Man, and our network will be on it too. Plotting in a little pushback will only help our preferred versions take root more thoroughly - like there’s just enough of a coverup and mystery to pique people’s interest.”

“I’m assuming Jhalani is as notorious here as I knew her to be,” Shep drawled, bracing her hands on her hips. 

Miranda scoffed, and so did John. The noise from him drew the women’s attention, and with a wry tilt to his expression, he rejoined them.

“Not many civilians have tested my patience as much as she has,” John admitted. 

Shep grinned. “What about the Council?”

The expression of utter exhaustion that crossed his face spoke loudly enough for them all to end up chuckling. Kasumi shut down her omnitool, grinning at the three. “Right then. Delighted to have made your acquaintance, Shep, but I’ve quite the bit of work cut out for me, and I’m itching to get started on something this juicy. Do come visit me down the hall when you’ve got a moment. I’d love to share more gossip. Learn about your tastes in exercise routine videos, maybe?” 

She laughed when Shep snorted. John simply lifted his hand to his face while Miranda rolled her eyes. 

“Sure thing, Kasumi,” Shep gave her a wry grin. Kasumi winked back, and the doors opened behind her without Kasumi even interacting with the holo interface. Without further ado, she turned and strode out with a cheerful wave.

“Try not to plot too much of the fun stuff without me!” She called back. The doors shut briskly behind her, and the remaining three were left to themselves.

“… She’s not still somehow here, though, is she?” John murmured, and Shep chuckled. 

“Nah, doesn’t seem to be. Remind me later once I’ve got omnitool access and I’ll ping you a little protocol I programmed to help keep track of if she was in the same room as me on the ship. It’s not perfect, she’d probably hack around it well enough, but…”

“Better than nothing,” John agreed. 

“She ever surprise you during a late night coffee?”

“For all our sakes, thankfully not,” John huffed, eyeing Shep. “You?”

“At least I wasn’t wearing my favorite N7 tank top,” Shep sighed with a wistful smile. Neither of them touched the fact that it was long gone now. “Wrote the program that night after taking the whole pot with me.”

“Now I’m starting to think I should’ve taken a few more of those programming specialty courses during training.”

“They’ve come in handy,” Shep chuckled. After a few moments of quiet, in which Miranda tactfully or perhaps with genuine purpose remained focused on her omnitool, Shep switched topics. “Jack’s staying below,” she stated more than asked. John nodded and she smiled a little. “Expected as much. When we’re done with the rest, I’ll seek her out too.”

“Already informed her about the basics of who you are,” John said, pulling up his own omnitool thoughtfully. “Honestly, I think we ought to just visit everyone else rather than call them up, anyways. Zaeed will likely be matter of fact and a quick enough response, and Grunt…”

“Best to minimize how much you have him cooped up in the elevator?” Shep hazarded, and John and Miranda both firmly nodded. “Fair play. Tali’s down there too, probably elbow deep in the engine or it’s periphery,” she added. It was impossible not to notice that her tone was a bit softer and more fond when she spoke of the quarian. 

“Yeah, she has been since she joined us last week. Easier to focus on the interesting strides in the tech than… who funded it, I think,” John replied, diplomatically. 

“… Last week?”

The two commanders looked at each other. 

John’s brows rose, the surprise and confusion in Shep’s voice unexpected. The lack of understanding was relayed in his own expression, which seemed to only deepen the confusion on hers. 

“We rescued her from the Haestrom mission she was on last week,” he elaborated carefully, expecting her expression to clear. When it didn’t, when she frowned instead, John did too. He… hm. Had they picked up their teammates in a different order? He supposed it was an easy enough possibility, given the waves he’d gotten their files in. If anything, surely, it was likely. “Er. When did… you pick up Tali?”

“… How long was I out, again?” Shep asked slowly, glancing towards Miranda. She was already staring back at the two Shepards, expression calculating. 

“Since we left the facility, 30 hours. We can estimate that you were trapped there for two, perhaps three days.” Miranda’s gaze flickered to John. He was frowning at her, his mind beginning to race again. 

Without realizing it, he’d - no, they’d all begun making a few assumptions. Was it the familiarity of her rapport with the crew that had done it? The similarity in their backgrounds, their mannerisms, even their expressions? How had he let himself start filling in the blanks without explicit confirmation? This many unknowns, and yet… 

Miranda continued, “Though we cannot say just how long you were ‘in transit’ between our universes, honestly.”

“What’s the date?” Shep asked without missing a beat now, firm. 

John blinked. Her body language had shifted, confusion not gone but rather put aside - her arm had twitched, a twist and a lift that just as quickly fell away. The habitual check of an omni-tool user,  he realized - but hers was gone. 

“Month 8, Day 12, 2185, by the Galactic Standard Calendar,” John supplied after a beat, before even Miranda could. “Just past 1600 hours.”

“… That can’t be right.”

Brows furrowed, Shep stared at him, then Miranda.

“Was the date different in your universe…?” John said slowly, the possibility dawning on him. Of course, how had he not considered it more seriously? Sure, she’d had the crew, clearly been on the same mission, but space itself had already been violated to drag her here - why not time?

A sharp shake of Shep’s head only served to muddy the situation further.

“That’s the thing. It’s the same. ” 

“How is that…?” Miranda began, then paused. Her gaze shot down to her temporarily forgotten omnitool, and suddenly her slender fingers were flying over it. Her focus was fierce, and neither commander had to wait long for her to continue, her typing stopping as fast as she’d begun. “No. Surely… Shep. How long have you been active since revival?”

Shep frowned at the phrase, but nonetheless replied, “Three- no. Closer to four months.” Her eyes widened then, and her gaze shot back to John. He caught on in the same instant, already staring at her. “You?”

“… Six weeks.”

“ What?! ”

“I’m just as confused-“ John muttered, feeling the itch to pace deep in his bones. He kept himself rooted though, crossing his arms and looking between the two women. “How is that possible? The same date, but you’ve been going longer… wait, have you -“ He nearly bit his own cheek, quickly correcting himself with a pang of regretful sympathy, “ had you already recruited everyone? What more did you accomplish-?”

Miranda swore quietly under her breath, staring at Shep too. “Did you already face the Collectors? But - no, you can’t have gone through the Omega 4 relay yet, not with the way you’ve been talking-“

“I hadn’t,” Shep held up a hand, brow pinched together. Her gaze had gone to the floor, and now it lifted, towards the ceiling. “Yes, I had recruited everyone on the dossier. Helped them all settle their scores. We were on our way to the IFF when we stopped by for- for what should have been…” Her eyes closed, and she scowled. “Just another routine mission.”

Something deep in John’s gut sunk with the wording; so familiar a rueful notion.

“… IFF?” Miranda echoed slowly. John hadn’t been able bring himself to break the brief silence, and both silently thanked and chastised Miranda for not letting it linger.

Breaking from her momentary reverie, Shep’s gaze flickered to Miranda, then John, her frown growing more pronounced. “The Reaper IFF. The key EDI was able to discern we needed after the-“

Shep inhaled sharply, her eyes going wide.

“ What? ” John’s voice was sharper than he intended. Internally, he winced, but Shep simply looked at him.

“… ‘ Have you already recruited everyone?’ So you don’t - that means…” Her eyes lidded, lips briefly moving as she seemed to momentarily glare, concentrating in the direction of the middle of the Normandy. Mental calculations, John suddenly suspected, and before he could supply the answer, her eyes were wide again. “You’re missing Samara. Of course , how did I- we’re literally in her observation deck-“

“I give the only remaining deck to our last team member?” John murmured despite himself, gaining a nonplussed look from Miranda. Honestly, though, the choice made sense. He really would have chosen to do so. Samara was supposed to be some sort of powerful asari matriarch, he wasn’t about to ask her to share a bunk bed with the crew… 

“Yeah,” Shep answered vaguely, both of them neglecting the matter of free will for a moment. “You don’t have Samara, and it was after getting Samara when Tim-“

Her teeth clicked together as her mouth suddenly shut. 

“…. Oh no. Oh no you absolutely do not- “ Miranda quickly said, advancing a step towards the newest of their haphazard team. Shep looked at her, her face suddenly hard to read - but for the slight draw of her eyebrows. John knew her well enough already to know she was thinking hard, fast . “You do not keep intel from us because - let’s see, if you’re Shepard, then - out of some misguided attempt to not cause ‘problems’ with the flow of our own universe’s events,” Miranda hissed. Her hand had lifted, cutting through the air with a gesture that was as vehement as her words.

“Give me a moment to think,” Shep said tightly, closing her eyes. Her jawline flexed, a subtle muscle twitch as her teeth must have clenched. John waited, but she remained quiet, brow furrowing deeper by the moment.

“Shep,” John said carefully when the other commander didn’t seem to come to a resolution. Her eyes opened and her gaze, sharp and careful, cut to him. He’d seen conflict, battle in a person’s expression before this. To him, there was a war in hers. Part of him wanted to shake her - what in the cosmos could possibly have her thinking it was better to keep details of future missions from them? But- he refrained, refrained from speaking his more impulsive thoughts and forced himself to remember that she’d just seen her very reality come apart around her… and her people with it. There was no fathoming her state of mind, no matter how well she’d reigned herself in more than once since waking. So, he quietly addressed her, his impatience and desperation under control in every way he could manage. “Whatever it is - think about it from my perspective. We only stand to improve our chances as a team, here. You might be worried about… hell, any number of things. But would you have wanted the information kept from you, if the situations were reversed?”

Something flashed over her features before John could pin it down, but his words got her speaking. “And if the details are different? If the path I took isn’t just not available to you, but the very base facts are wrong here?” She pointed out, voice harsher than he’d heard it yet. Miranda was scowling now, but Shep just shook her head. “At best, the facts of my universe would waste your time, if not so much worse - leading to faulty decisions, or prejudices and biases…” She turned slightly away, but didn’t begin pacing like John thought she might. The tap of her foot, though, betrayed how much she wanted to. She grunted, soft, agitated. “... But- you’re right, too. Yes. Of course I’d want to know. Need to. And it might help avoid…”

She went quiet again, looking out the window of the deck. Miranda opened her mouth, but John subtly lifted a hand, making eye contact and shaking his head. His de facto XO’s expression was displeased, but she closed her mouth and waited. John simply turned his gaze back to Shep’s slightly smaller frame; she was tense - no, practically rigid. Whatever she was recollecting, whatever she was weighing… things must not go smoothly. But perhaps he was just reading too far into her agitated body language... 

Still, he got the feeling that if she didn’t want to be seen as such, she would have hidden it. It felt promising that she let that much show - that she wanted, even subconsciously, to let them know she was conflicted.

After nearly two minutes of strained silence, the tension in the body of his newest companion suddenly eased. John’s breath caught as she sighed and turned back to them, her expression grave - but determined.

“After I picked up Samara, once I had my whole crew… Tim contacted us with intel on an abandoned Collector ship in a system that had kept it hidden thanks to - no, doesn’t matter,” she frowned, skipping the details for the moment, “We went, and the damn thing was a trap. EDI pinged the fact once we were in the depths - namely, that it was not only a trap… but that Tim knew it was a damn trap, and sent us in anyways. Blind.”

“How-“ Miranda began quickly, but Shep was already answering with subtle derision for the events she had to recall.

“The Collectors encoded the SOS signal using turian codes to make it look like it was tracked down then left by them. Thing was, it wasn’t actually encoded properly - in a way that made it impossible for Tim to have missed, because he literally wrote the program to detect that sort of discrepancy.”

John and Miranda were dead silent. Shep looked towards the ground, grim.

“… We got out alive. Barely. Got the intel we needed - decrypted it, and it was leading us to a… reaper husk.” She simply grimaced at the visceral tension that ran up John’s spine in a visible way to the watchful eye, and the sharp inhale from Miranda. “The Reaper IFF -  a signal that should let us… should have let us through the Omega 4 relay with the precision needed to actually survive the trip. That was the final mission we were about to head to, with everyone’s unfinished business wrapped up at last - just one last necessary stop before the relay. Obviously, we didn’t make it that far. I can’t tell you what awaits on the reaper husk, but… I’ll give you whatever I can. If it’ll help… of course. Of course I’ll give it.”

John took a steadying breath. 

The woman they’d saved stood in front of him, arms crossed, shoulders square. Her gaze lifted to his. It felt like a thousand things were shared in an instant. The pressure put on them, the responsibility given to them as commanders - as Shepards , heroes of the Blitz, survivors of Mindoir… champions of the Battle of the Citadel. Leading the charge against the reaper threat, and before it, the Collectors. 

They never could afford to hesitate.

“Tell us everything you went through up to then.”

She nodded tersely, but there was a flicker of discomfort in it. After a moment, she began, “John…”

He held up a hand before folding it back into his crossed arms, an air of understanding to the gravity of his features. “I’m not saying I’m banking on your variables. But a lot has matched up so far, and we’d be idiots to not plan for at least one strong potential outcome for a lot of them. I want to have the best shot we can, and Shep..” he exhaled, a half-smile tugging at his lips, and an apology in his gaze. “You’re our saving grace.”

Shep studied him for a long moment, before finally… she nodded.

“… Let’s sit back down. This is going to take a while.”

“It’ll be stranger if you don’t answer, you know.”

“I never said I was going to ignore it for long-“

“Just answer him already, bosh’tet.”

“One of these days I’m going to find one of the rare turian dialects that don’t get universally translated and start calling you - ah, hey Shepard. Need me for something?”

Garrus’ mandibles twitched at the muffled snort that came from his supposed friend of a quarian. He ignored her in favor of making his tone as casual as possible.

“ Got a minute to talk? Wanted to swing by with Shep.”

“Uh,” Garrus replied eloquently. His mandibles twitched again, and not for the first time, he was grateful the comm channels were voice-only. Next to him Tali gestured fervently, and he glanced her way.

In front of them lay the shambled bits and pieces of no less than three disparate omnitools, and all the paraphernalia two obsessive tech lovers needed - and wanted - to be able to take them apart. And, ideally, put them back together.

Eventually.

“… Caaan it wait a bit? I’m in the middle of-“

“ -some calibrations?” John’s reply was dry and Garrus winced ever so slightly. He was pretty sure his commander was doing that human thing that was catching on with a lot of species - the eye rolling. “ Yeah, alright. You gotta take a break at some point, though. We’ll come see you later then. ”

“Sure thing,” Garrus responded, keeping the relief out of his voice. “Let me know if you need anything.”

The comm line disconnected and he exhaled in relief, refocusing on his Omni display as Tali made an amused sound.

“Really convincing there, Garrus. Excellent work distracting him from noticing your little project.”

“ Our project,” Garrus protested. One mandible flared out a little higher and wider, and he shot her a smug look. “You’re implicated now, Tali.”

“You are terrible at appreciating someone lending your desperate carapace a hand,” Tali grumbled. She was seated cross legged next to his splayed legs, the deep arch to her calves not dissuading the human-like pose she’d apparently adopted in the years since they’d first met. “See if I help you the next time you come crying to me about a cross-universe tool incompatibility.”

“Like you could resist poking at tech from another universe,” Garrus snorted. After a moment, he added, “And I was not crying-“

“ Tali, please, I’ve really done it now! Turns out an omnitool from another universe that glows purple and seems overpowered doesn’t respond fully to my tools and now I’m locked out and maybe made its malfunctions worse! ” Tali laid a hand over her chest, tilting her head just a little as she eyed Garrus. Her attempted shift in accent was abysmal, but the way she tried to pitch her voice down to match his was even worse. “ Stop keeping a critical eye on the engines and help me with my impromptu disaster! ”

Garrus tried not to laugh, forcing his mandibles into a scowl instead. “Your impressions are worse than mine.” 

“And yet, their impact is on point.”

Snorting, Garrus shook his head and refocused on the glow of his omnitool display. The cross-analysis of the three omnitools was proving… questionably helpful. Still, it didn’t hurt to see it through. A deft talon flicked open a new holo window, and he began quickly entering some notes. The engineering bay was quiet in the noisy way it usually was; the engine core thrumming around the corner, the occasional rush of pressurized air or fluids through pipes, the hum of some of the more active monitoring displays… 

It was easier to lose himself in a strange, frustrating bit of engineering down here than it was to stew in questions and half-baked theories up in the Main Battery, with only the company of the ruined barrel of his own sniper rifle pulled from the guts of a woman that was, in essence, his commander.

… How was he even supposed to unpack that? Shep - from what he’d seen, heard, witnessed… she both was and wasn’t Shepard . The one he knew. He was used to the larger-than-life human man who had not only become one of the most personally influential commanding officers he’d ever served under, but… a friend. A damn good one, at that, and a hero several times over to boot- he’d even dragged Garrus into the glory with him, not that he’d been looking for it. Neither did that glory do a damn bit of good when it came to getting politicians to take the very same hero’s words more seriously when it wasn’t their own lives immediately on the line.

Garrus’ mandibles twitched in agitation as his talons flew over the input display, charting possible discrepancies and variables for his programs to scan. Shep must have gone through the same crises as Shepard. She’d clearly been… augmented, like Shepard had - spirits, she’d even had a regained crew on her own SR2 it seemed - himself included. 

Were she and… him, the other him, close? In the same way he and John were friends now on top of the rest? That… had to be it, right?

… It was because of that, he… the other him, must have… just been nearby when something happened on the other side of whatever portal had dragged her over. That’s how the barrel of his rifle ended up… Right. That’s the only thing that made sense. There must have been an explosion, or attack, and Garrus even in another universe was right hand turian and had simply been in the wrong spot and-

Tali broke the white noise of the engineering bay with a quiet hum, and Garrus, barely keeping himself from jolting, answered with an absent grunt.

Funny how random supposition and hazy guesswork had only made his mood worse.

“... So. Think she… remembers any of it? After you guys pulled her from that dais, I mean.”

Garrus’ talons paused over his omni display.

“... Didn’t seem like the doctor could give even the Commander an answer on that. She was… I don’t know. Hallucinating isn’t accurate, but… lucid isn’t right either,” he finally said. 

“Poor Shep,” Tali murmured, shaking her head minutely. She remained focused on her task, but her mind seemed unable to help but linger on the person they were doing this for. Garrus empathized. “If you and the Commander weren’t there to witness it, I’d… have trouble believing it. I know Cerberus has gotten up to some awful stuff, but this…” Tali’s face was as nigh-inscrutable as ever behind her semi-opaque face plate, but Garrus could practically hear the frown in the turn of her tone. “If it wasn’t for the Commander, and the fact that they gave us a new Normandy-”

“-But they did,” Garrus sighed, glancing over to her. “And Shepard’s seen something in the situation worth working around. Maybe even Shep- that is… well. At least we got to her.” He made a sound deep in his subvocals, the absent thought crossing his mind that it would have been so easy for Miranda to miss the signs that pointed to them in that facility in the first place.

… Garrus forced his train of thought elsewhere.

Gaze flickering back to the task at hand, he said, “Gotta admit, I doubt the Collectors would stop at humans once they get whatever they’re looking for.”

“The kind of scale they pull this- this kidnapping off on-” Tali shuddered, if only just - her hands hardly wavering in her delicate observation of Shep’s omnitool. Once more, she brought up her own omni display - adding notes to an increasingly thorough modeled diagram. “The Flotilla would be decimated in just a few attacks.”

“You’re too well concentrated and mobile for them to manage it,” Garrus offered, though his mandibles remained tight to his face.

“Still,” Tali huffed. “I don’t know. I’m not on Cerberus’ side here, but I suppose it’s true I can’t blame them for throwing everything they have at such an escalating problem. Not sure if I’m supposed to be grateful or not that Shepard happened to be one of their options.”

Garrus huffed at the dry roll to her words, something close to a laugh. “I think we all have the right to be biased on that front.” He looked back to his ongoing scan readouts. Supremely unhelpful, but gratifyingly thorough. “Through hell and back… again,” he drawled. “I’m in for the ride. Take out the Collectors, and with any luck, the Reapers after that - before damned galactic bureaucracy gets us all killed.”

“I just hope we can get Shep her omnitool before that happens.”

“Ha. If anyone can figure it out, it’s the galaxy’s most stubborn quarian-turian pair of tech experts.”

“Flattered, Vakarian, but I feel I need to point out your tech expertise is mostly in the offensive munitions department…”

“Well, I’m feeling awfully offended by how this omnitool won’t respond to our usual tools, so.”

“Strange. It’s almost like it’s foreign tech from an entirely different universe.”

He glanced at the pieces they’d gathered on trays before them, and to the more whole one in Tali’s hand; the latter was Shep’s, and the other two that were extras on board. Or, had been extras. Now they were sacrifices to the cause. “How was I supposed to know that another galaxy would decide on different frequencies… and routing methods.”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that it’s a universe different enough that Shepard is a woman might have been a hint at a few discrepancies-“

“That’s gender! This is engineering!”

“Have I ever told you how much of a bosh’tet you are-“

“-Only twenty times since I came down here today, surely you’ve got newer words that don’t translate-“

The sound of the nearby door to engineering disengaging its lock froze both turian and quarian mid-squabble. On the other side of the door, two figures froze mid-stride.

Human eyes locked on quarian and turian eyes.

Human eyes then turned down to the floor of the corner of the engineering bay, the remains of omnitools glimmering as if in guilty presentation on the work trays.

Human eyes returned to now avoidant quarian and turian eyes.

“… Are we… interrupting?”

It was Shep that spoke up first. Garrus’ awkwardly wandering gaze flickered back to her. Hands on her hips, she looked less alarmed and confused than she did amused, if the bitten back upwards turn to her lips were any hint. And Garrus had gotten pretty decent at reading human faces in these past few years.

“…. No?” He hazarded.

“Well that’s good,” she replied, the upwards turn to her lips growing. “So. How’s the… calibrations?”

Garrus’ mandible flared, and his gaze finally met his own commander’s again. John’s arms were crossed, one brow arched.

“Going well,” he said slowly, now locked in a dead stare with John. Neither gave an inch.

“He’s lying,” Tali said casually, and Shep seemed to stifle a cough very quickly. Not that Garrus saw , considering he hadn’t broken the staring contest he’d entered with John. He caught the choking sound, though.

“... I figured,” Shep mused, stepping forward. Only when she dropped into a crouch across from Tali and Garrus did the latter finally break first from the deadpan look John was leveling at him. It was out of consideration for their new arrival, that was all. He definitely didn’t feel guilty for wandering off and taking the initiative with the tech he’d been passed.

… Shep was… looking better. A small sound rolled in Garrus’ chest, but he quieted it just as quickly as he eyed the red-haired human now observing Tali - who had picked up her work again, leaving Garrus to take any heat. If Shep was still injured, she hid it well - but given that from what he understood, Shep was like Shepard down to the augmentations and new, quicker healing factors… well, he felt a little relieved that she no longer looked like the same woman that had been bleeding out in his arms on that shuttle.

“Dare I ask what you’re calibrating this time?” John drawled. Garrus glanced back up at him. His old friend and commander had shifted his weight towards one hip, looking, mercifully less annoyed than admittedly interested. A good sign, and Garrus huffed an awkward chuckle.

“… An omnitool,” Garrus replied carefully, glancing meaningfully towards Shep. She’d shifted slightly, picking up one of the calibration tools in a deft and practiced manner, flipping it over with interest. From the way Tali’s motions had slowed, it was a safe bet that she was also eyeing Shep with curiosity.

“You don’t say,” John replied vaguely. Their gazes locked again, and finally, Garrus offered a small shrug - a habit he’d picked up on the Normandy. John sighed quietly, but finally nodded. “... Hey Shep, mind if I leave you here for a bit? You can take your time with these two - I should catch up with Miranda and tackle our Illusive problem before it becomes…”

“A debilitating pain in the ass? Yeah,” Shep huffed, glancing back up at John. She offered him a smile, and nodded. “Yeah, I’m right at home in Engineering. I’ll probably bunk here or in the Cargo Bay, like I mentioned before, so don’t worry about me. Take care of our quantum-entangled headache.”

“I really can give you the other observation deck-“

Shep waved him off, sinking to sit on the ground cross-legged across from Tali and Garrus. “Nah, save it for Samara. I like the hum of the engine core, anyways - makes it easier to focus.”

“… Alright, just let me know if you need anything.” John said, sounding somewhat unconvinced. He glanced back to Garrus, who was watching the back-and-forth rather than his omnitool’s readouts. “Guess I can leave her omnitool outfitting to you, then,” he added dryly.

“We’ll take care of her,” Garrus assured him, offering a turian grin back. “Good luck with our sponsor . Try not to hang up on him, I’m getting pretty attached to the new Normandy.”

“Thanks,” John muttered, but gave them all an amiable wave. “Ping me if you need me.”

He turned and left the way they’d come, with Shep calling out a friendly, “Don’t be a stranger,” with the intonation of a joke that was only just beginning to be a trend. Garrus caught the snort from his commander as the door shut behind him, and his gaze flickered back towards Shep. To his mild surprise, she seemed to catch the unspoken question in his features, and chuckled. “A stranger to yourself in a new universe, after you saved yourself,” she said, picking up one of the cracked open omnitools with interest. “There’s a fun irony in it... somewhere. Or, I suppose I need to find it fun. The other options are a lot more depressing.”

“... Fair,” Garrus murmured. She looked to him and her half-smile turned a bit more true, and she seemed to study him for a moment. He tried not to shift under her bright, sharp gaze. “… You two definitely have some… similar qualities.”

She laughed, just the once, at that, her gaze easing in its intensity. “Yeah, so we’ve noticed. Sorry - I just…” she shook her head, and took a breath, glancing away. Whatever she was looking for in the middle distance she seemed to find it quickly enough, because when she looked back a few seconds later, she seemed more… prepared. Steady. Less searching, Garrus thought. “I want to thank you. You saved me in more ways than one back in that facility.”

“No need,” Garrus replied, glancing down to his omnitool. The scan he’d started was still running steady. He vaguely tapped at some inputs, not changing much at all. “We weren’t going to leave you in that place, that’s for sure. And I mean,” he glanced back up, one mandible twitching out a little wider. “You’re a good shot, even bleeding out. You practically made your own way out.”

“Ha! That’s generous, but thank you,” Shep replied, lifting a hand and running it through her hair. Her gaze turned then to Tali, and she offered up her wrist - fingers loosely tucked into a fist, arm extended. “Tali’Zorah vas Neema,” she said. After a moment, as if remembering, she added, “Please, call me Shep.”

Tali paused for only a moment, having already been watching the two more than working on the tech she was holding. In the faint glow behind her tinted faceplate, Garrus swore he saw the hint of a smile tug at her cheeks, only moments after the almost-glow of her eyes had widened. The quarian extended her own arm, and bumped the top of her wrist to Shep’s in a quarian greeting. “Shep, hello  - just Tali is fine. It’s good to meet you,” she said, and the two women drew their hands back, the atmosphere feeling just a bit warmer, even to Garrus. “I’ve already heard a lot.”

“I figured you might have,” Shep said, gaze sliding to Garrus. His left mandible lightly clicked against his face, an absent thing, and he watched her body language. She shifted slightly, leaning an elbow on a knee… and smiled. “Saves some trouble. Glad to see some things I knew still make sense here.”

A subtle tension in Garrus’ spine eased at how readily Shep accepted that he’d talked about her situation with Tali. Not that he’d have regretted sharing such important details with her, but… well. It was better that there was no harm done. “So, your Garrus and Tali were friends too?”

Tali made a disbelieving sound that might have been a new quarian curse, and elbowed Garrus. He grunted, head turning towards her in mild shock, only to find her staring hard at him. 

Ah.

“Er, that is-“ Garrus quickly followed up, head turning back to Shep- “I don’t mean to- that is, you don’t have to talk about-“

Shep lifted up a hand, and he realized she was still smiling. It was softer, and her brow was a bit lower, but… she didn’t look upset. He found himself wishing he was better at distinguishing the ways that human eyes crinkled at the edges, though. It happened when they were smiling, but also other times too. When they were angry or distressed, or sad… damn, they were so expressive in the strangest ways; it was a lot to keep track of.

“It’s okay. Talking about it will be… weird. For a long time.” She glanced towards Tali, and her smile went a little lopsided. “Thanks though, Tali.”

After a beat, Tali looked down to the idle work of her hands. “I don’t have all the details, but, I mean…” she exhaled. “There really aren’t words. I’m… so sorry for your loss, Shep. There’s nothing I can do, but…”

“Thanks for saying as much, anyways,” Shep murmured. “And thanks for the interest, Garrus.”

His gaze widened slightly as she looked back at him. For the… interest? Her turn of phrase baffled him for a moment as he realized she was watching him again. 

… Everything about her was just a little smaller than Shepard, Garrus noticed vaguely. Smaller, but the word didn’t really do justice to just how sturdy she looked. In comparison to how fragile she’d felt when he’d carried her battered and bleeding form out of the facility, he could now pick up on the well-built muscles in her frame, accented by the suitable broadness in her shoulders that betrayed the strength she clearly possessed to make her as formidable as his own commander on the field. 

It was a confusing juxtaposition, made all the more complicated by how viscerally aware he was of the fact that she sort of knew him, and he sort of knew her - and yet they were, nonetheless, strangers.

“You’re… welcome?” He said slowly. Both to his relief and his ongoing confusion, the pensive lilt to her expression seemed to give way at his uncertain reply, and she was at ease once more. With a simple nod, she shifted the topic with ease.

“... To answer you: yeah, they were close. Already got along well on the SR1 - we all did. Found myself down there a lot with them, in fact - helped with the Mako on longer inter-system travels, or talked enginecraft under the hum of the SR1’s core, or talked mods with both inter-mission…” She looked upwards. Garrus and Tali had both gone still, listening with unavoidable interest. 

In the back of his mind, Garrus wondered if Tali was also caught up in the wistful, bittersweet memories of that chaotic time they spent on the SR1. Shepard- their Shepard - hadn’t been one to work on the Mako or talk like an engineer, but he’d still come down more often than not. It was complicated, but… a good memory. He couldn’t help but noticed the same seemed to be the case for Shep. 

Finally, she continued, “By the time… just before coming here, I’d have bet good credits they considered one another best friends. And uh,” she lowered her gaze, her hand going to the back of her neck. She rubbed at it, huffing a little as she added, “I’d like to think I was pretty damn close to them, too. More than most. Or maybe… differently. Hard to say. There was the chain of command and all, though. Hard to say where lines were drawn, even with the SR2 being a lot more… egalitarian.”

Garrus wasn’t sure what to say to that; mercifully, however, he wasn’t alone.

Tali had long since learned that it was difficult for most people to pick up on the focus of a quarian’s gaze. It had come in handy time and again, and even better, only those who spent a lot of time around quarians picked up on the subtleties of their body language. Garrus had picked up on how to read her better than most aliens, but he still had a lot to learn. 

Stars, by the way he stared at Shep, did he have a lot to learn.

“So you’re that interested in engineering?” Tali asked, picking deftly up on a secure thread to follow from what was shared. Garrus glanced towards her, just a flick of his icy-blue eyes, but it was funny how obviously relieved he was that she was there to give him a hand. And sure enough, Shep’s grin returned a little at the chosen topic.

“Since I was a kid,” Shep confirmed. “Seems like John went for becoming an outright beast of a soldier in his Alliance training, but I blended the standard soldier training with an engineering focus. I’m certain he’s more of a powerhouse than I am on the battlefield, but I'm confident enough to say I'd win on the tech front.”

“Was there an engineering track in N7 training?” Garrus asked, intrigued. Shep’s head tilted thoughtfully as her gaze returned to him. Tali watched them both - equal parts intrigued by Shep’s answers, and how Garrus was handling the human woman.

“Not exactly - by the time you reached N7, you were already expected to be some sort of promising force in your own right - whatever your focus was. They pushed us hard and… you could say they honed us in our strengths, and forced us to confront our weaknesses. I was a better engineer than soldier before becoming an N7, but by the time I was out of the program I'd gotten better at both. Particularly the ' shooting, stabbing, punching things' part of being a marine.”

“There’s some of that in the turian ranks, too,” Garrus mused. “We serve where and how we’re needed, but we’re encouraged to delve into our strengths and develop them to their limit and beyond.”

Tali deftly twisted the omni-tool core in her hand, faceplate half turned down towards it as she fiddled with the strangely confounding tech. Her gaze, though, immutable to her current company, had been transfixed watching the deft and familiar way Shep handled the tools - despite the fact that from her own cursory experience, they must be at least a little different from the standard in Shep’s universe. She certainly didn’t seem to be all talk - not that Tali thought she would be. 

Just how different were she and Shepard, anyways? The engineering thing was a pretty big divergence, in her opinion, though maybe she was biased. Both of them had walked into the room with a similar bearing, similar confidence - Tali even saw a bit of Shepard’s tendency to smile in that crooked way in the way Shep’s lips quirked.

Tali hummed, gaze flickering down to the task at hand, though her mind was hardly on it at this point.

“Meanwhile, I doubt there’s a single quarian that gets away without being a bit of an engineer,” Tali huffed.

“Ah, but you’re above and beyond the usual skill level,” Shep replied easily. Tali looked up at her, surprised. Garrus chuckled, in apparent agreement with Shep’s call.

“Hardly,” Tali muttered, but it was hard to mask how pleased the praise made her feel. Then again, maybe Shep was speaking more about her Tali… but she wasn’t about to be that conflicted about an honest compliment.

“Definitely,” Shep declared. “I mean, really, how many people could get as far as you have in repairing a busted omnitool from another universe without the right tools?”

Both Tali and Garrus stuttered in their movements for a moment. Shep chuckled.

“… How’d you know?” Garrus asked, sighing. His own hand lifted to the back of his neck. Tali couldn’t remember if he’d had that habit back in their early days on the SR1 or if he’d picked it up since then. She bit back a smile as he idly scratched at the plating at the back of his head. 

“Omnitool cores are small ,” Tali added in protest, her hand shifting to show the little thing off - it was no bigger than a human thumb nail, and not even activated - no purple glow to be seen, much to Tali’s disgruntlement. For all Shep should have known, they were working on any other omnitool.

Honestly, its similarities to their own universe’s omnitools was probably why Garrus had convinced himself he had a fair chance at fixing the thing. Shepard had apparently brought it to him after Shep’s original surgery had finished; the woman herself seemed like she’d be out for a long time, and Shepard had taken it upon himself to see what could be saved from what remained of her original gear. Her armor was ruined - Tali had gotten a glimpse of it when the Commander and Garrus had passed by, Shep’s bleeding, unconscious form in her turian friend’s arms. Of course, Tali  knew the commander would try to clean it up to have it for her to decide what to do with it… and among her few things on her person was, of course, her omnitool. 

Shepard had been unable to get it to work and brought it by to see if Garrus knew what was wrong - he hadn’t, but he’d hazarded he might be able to get it working. Why he hadn’t brought it to her was beyond the quarian, but then again, Garrus’ usual haunt was conveniently off the crew deck… and he’d actually met Shep. Maybe he’d thought Garrus would have an extra bit of insight, or increased interest in fixing it sooner rather than later. 

Garrus had certainly tried on his own, she knew. For hours, probably, the stubborn bosh’tet.

… Pure hubris, of course. After too long tinkering, he’d brought it down to Tali and enlisted her help. After a cursory explanation, she’d been both too sympathetic and too intrigued to resist the temptation herself, and they’d taken apart two other omnitools of different models just to cross compare and see if they were missing something. Better to ruin some extras than the one-of-a-kind piece of technology from another reality.

Yet somehow, Shep had figured out it was hers they were working on, even with the other disparate pieces in front of them.

“Call it a gut feeling,” Shep offered. The dry looks she immediately earned from both her new companions made her laugh in surprise and lift her hands in surrender, however. “Alright, alright - first, it seemed odd for both of you to be down here doing something like this as a pair. For all Tali is busy, Garrus’ spot in the Main Battery technically has a work desk, too. So you were either at it for a long time, meaning Tali would benefit from being close to Engineering in case something here needed more urgent attention, or you guys wanted to avoid being interrupted by the increased traffic of the crew deck - or both.” She grinned at the suspicion in Garrus’ narrowed gaze - and glanced to Tali. Whether she noted the doubtful narrowing of her gaze, Tali wasn’t as sure. “... And you both are too good at what you do to look so confounded at an omnitool. Besides the odd timing of it all, you both being hunched over and so focused on the ground spoke to a hell of a problem in the tool you’re looking at.”

“… She’s got us there,” Tali murmured, a bit impressed despite herself. 

“You know, I’m starting to wonder how we ever doubted you were Shepard,” Garrus sighed, shaking his head. “I hope it’s okay that we… well.” He gestured towards the defunct tool in Tali’s hand. “We didn’t crack it open, if that’s… better?”

Shep shook her head, smiling. “Honestly… I’m touched. Thanks for trying.”

“It’s truly broken then?” Tali sounded disappointed.

Shep hummed thoughtfully, and extended her hand, palm up. Tali didn’t hesitate to pass her the omnitool, leaning forward with interest as Shep began to examine it. Garrus shifted his weight, angling closer to Shep and peering at her hand. His visor was on active readout mode - Tali recognized the familiar faster scroll of the tiny turian script on it. She’d had her own scans running; and they both concluded there was just enough hint of life in it to prove it wasn’t a total lost cause. The energy signature was low, though, even as Shep began to poke at it. 

“… It definitely is worse for wear,” Shep murmured. Disappointment curled in Tali’s gut. Would Shep even be able to recreate her old universe’s technology here? Stars, Tali knew she’d be disappointed at not just the loss of her own customized omnitool, but the unique data on it. With what had happened to Shep… to say it would be a blow if she couldn’t get it back was putting it far too lightly. “… But not unsalvageable. Don’t suppose these are the extent of your tools…?”

Tali perked up at that, exchanging a look with Garrus. She’d been fascinated by his recollection of a purple omnitool with an unusually powerful overload ability, and he’d clearly been just as interested in the unique make of it. Both of them wanted to see it fixed - and to cross compare its capabilities and quirks.

“This is already a broad array since omnitool core modding is so finicky, so… for anything more specialized we’d have to go to a shop on Illium-“ Tali murmured.

“Omega might have something,” Garrus said slowly, “if you know who to… bargain with.”

“Well, we’re in luck then, aren’t we?” Shep shot Garrus a mischievous grin, and Tali watched with slowly raising brows as Garrus’ own grin rose in return, mandibles flaring in a way she hadn’t seen often since they reunited. “We’ve got just the turian with an eye for potential.”

Garrus sat up a little straighter, gaze narrowing in what seemed to be pleasure. Uh-oh. “I do have a bit of unfinished - no, rather, I’ve got a few favors left un-called upon,” he revealed. “Then, we’ll try to find time whether we stop at Nos Astra or Omega next. I’m sure Shepard won’t mind a quick detour while we restock.”

“Psh, we’ll make time,” Tali asserted, excitement coloring her tone despite herself. If Garrus was going to get himself into his usual trouble anyways, and drag Shep with him, Tali wasn’t about to be the one left in the know yet uninvolved. Her head turned more fully to Shep, making her focus obvious. “Is it really purple? Do you really have some sort of overpowered modifications on it?”

Shep laughed, surprised. “I ought to be asking why yours are orange ,” she said, incredulous. “Doesn’t that cause eye strain? I get a headache just thinking about it-“

“Orange is a perfectly acceptable omnitool color,” Garrus shot back, a brow plate ever so slightly shifting up. He leaned an elbow on one bent knee. “That purple looks like you modded it to suit being a fixer in some neon club district.”

Shep threw back her head and laughed, while Tali gasped and barely muffled her own laugh. 

“Ohhh, it’s on, Mr. Rogue Turian Vigilante,” Shep shot back, hand coming up to her chin, half-hiding, half-framing her grin. “I bet that if I can get my old omnitool working again, you’re gonna fall in love with it’s purple display. Think of how much stealthier a softer purple is to a damn orange neon light.”

“It’s stealthiest to not depend on it at all,” he drawled, but grinning, he offered out his hand in a very human gesture. “But you’re on. I bet you’ll be clamoring for the clarity of an orange omnitool display before you ever get your old one up and running.”

Tali stared at the way their gazes locked and Garrus fell into such a tone so easily. Did… did he hear himself…?

Shep took his hand in a firm clasp and shook it once, a gleam in her gaze. 

Her grip was clearly strong, but there was a friendliness there even a turian and a quarian wouldn’t miss.

“You’re on,” she declared. “What do I win when I have you clamoring for your own purple display?”

Keelah . Shep really was a human after Tali’s own heart. Maybe she should root for her in this unexpected wager.

“ If you win, I’ll buy you the best mod on the market for your preferred weapon - and adjust it myself,” Garrus drawled. Tali hummed, surprised, and Shep grinned wider. “But when I win,” Garrus continued, to the roll of Shep’s eyes and the unnoticed quirking of Tali’s brow, “ You have to…”

He paused, for dramatic effect. Shep narrowed her eyes at him, and even Tali started to lean ever so slightly forward, waiting for the throwdown-

-only to realize by the subtle freeze of Garrus’ features that he had no idea what he wanted . 

He was stalling, having fallen so naturally into this back-and-forth he didn’t actually think what to ask for. Tali froze, her mouth falling open behind her mask. Had he… had he really just agreed to the bet without thinking about it? Keelah se'lai, she knew he wasn’t that much of an idiot but - then why did he amp up the stakes and his own confidence like that? It must have been because she was like the Commander in so many ways- the familiarity was easy for him, admittedly for Tali too; the sass, the pushback, the good-natured rivalry- 

But Garrus didn’t have a long-standing rivalry with her, or some running inside joke to bank on and come out on top of to mutual righteous competitive amusement. He didn’t have that, and he realized it, and Tali watched him realize it with dawning disbelief as the split seconds began to stretch just a little too long, as Shep began to tilt her head, affable interest just beginning to turn to confusion…

… Damn him, Tali should speak up, right? Of all people, Garrus needed to be covered for, and - quickly, something Shep could do that was equivalent… of course! It was easy, she obviously had a knack for modifying omni-tools, so-

-so of course, before Tali could bail him out, Garrus blurted out his own choice.

“-Dance.”

The constant loud hum of the Normandy’s core only seemed to punctuate the silent, speechless stare the women of two totally different species leveled on him.

“… Dance,” Shep repeated, extremely slowly. Almost like she thought her translator had glitched. 

Tali witnessed the faintest twitch of his still-bandaged right mandible, tilted just enough away from Shep as to be hidden.

“Dance,” he repeated. How his lower vocal cords didn’t break and relay his no doubt certain personal horror, Tali had no idea. His jaw clenched, a little click of his sharp teeth betrayed to her suit's finely-tuned auditory receptors. Somehow, he kept his voice light. “Shepard is awful at dancing - so awful, I’m betting it’s a universal standard.”

Great. Yep. He was definitely nailing this. 

“So… if I win, I get a new mod for a sniper rifle ,” Shep emphasized, and Tali started wondering if turians could sweat. If so, he must have been. He sure had just promised to mod a gun of Shep’s choice, and she sure did have a gun preference that was the priciest to mod. Tali swallowed around the growing tightness in her throat, biting her own lip. “Installed and personalized by one of the best gun modders this side of the galaxy, and if you win… you… make me… dance?”

“That… certainly is a bet,” Tali managed to say, sounding a bit strangled even to herself. Garrus shot her a look, only to look away immediately.

It was taking everything she had to not break and start laughing.

“… Recorded, for posterity, and uh, posted for the crew to see,” Garrus coughed. Shep raised a brow.

“Your aim is… blackmail?”

“… I have no idea what answer would be better here,” he muttered under his breath. 

How deep was this turian going to dig himself? Stars help him, he was already in deeper than a rachni nest-

“No, no, tell me the truth,” Shep’s face was growing increasingly hard to read, and Tali’s shoulders were trembling harder by the moment. No way was she going to bail him out now . “C’mon, Vakarian. Is it for blackmail, or personal use?”

Garrus choked.

“Neither!” He sputtered, and both Tali and Shep broke out in laughter so hard they doubled over. Tali’s suit beeped a mild protest at her for how loud her own laughter was in her helmet and the mild air pressure displacement it was causing, but she ignored it, tears beading at the corners of her eyes. She could barely see well enough to notice Garrus releasing Shep’s hand with a groan, raising his to his face and obscuring as much of his features as he could. “Never mind, spirits help me-“

“No, no, you shook on it, it’s a bet!” Shep managed to say, laughter around every other word as she looked up at him. Tali was wheezing. Garrus only groaned harder. “You had me going for a minute- but I keep my word, Vakarian. You’d best keep yours.”

“You still have to win the bet,” Garrus grumbled, pretending like his mandibles weren’t betraying him by flaring into a rueful, still-mortified grin. “Purple omnitools… what were your people thinking .”

“That purple is far superior and I’m gonna kick your ass and get a mod even you’ll be jealous of,” Shep laughed, settling back and leaning on one palm with a smug look. Tali snickered, earning herself another glare from her erstwhile friend. She ignored it in favor of looking at Shep, exaggerating her features so her wink came through even to the casual human eye.

“Purple is a good color,” Tali mused. Shep laughed again, bright and warm, and Tali couldn’t stop grinning.

Garrus conveyed the utter betrayal this statement meant via downwards mandible flare and minute brow plate shifting. “You’re gonna eat your words, too,” he promised. Tali scoffed, the sound amused more than anything.

“Hey, I’m not the one making a weird dancing-for-mods bet.”

“That is not what the bet is-“

“Sure, sure.” Tali waved a hand at him, before humming casually and slowly tilting her head thoughtfully.  “Remind me how much time you spent in Aria T’Loak’s bar on Omega, again…?”

“See if I share dextro rations with you next time we’re low.”

“Can’t wait for you to admit what a superior color purple is,” Tali replied with a smirk so obvious it came through in her words, the same moment an insistent beeping started up on the terminal behind her. It startled her, but with the ease and practice of a lifetime of responding to a ship’s beck and call, she was on her feet before her two companions could react.

Garrus was still grumbling under his breath and obviously avoiding the triumphant look on Shep’s face when finally Tali sighed. 

“Mmm, I need to iron this out. Nothing serious, but…” her shoulders minutely shifted. To another quarian, the motion would read as disappointed but professional. Absently, she recalled the species of the two people behind her, and turned to speak further - but Shep was already moving.

“No worries,” Shep said amicably, leaning forward and going to pick up the trays they’d corralled the pieces parts and tools on. Garrus started forward as well, quickly helping her. “We’ll get out of your hood, Tali. Unless there’s anything I can do to help?”

Tali stared at Shep for a long moment, tilting her head. 

… Happenstance, right? Or just the general good judgement of a commander that cared. Maybe she really did have more in common with Shepard than not; he had a knack for reading his people, even if he didn’t always pick up on the finest aspects of interspecies nuance. Shep must just have a similar intuition.

It was… nice. Even more so when paired with such an upfront offer.

After a few seconds, she waved them both off. “No, no, it’s nothing so complicated. But if you ever want to keep your hands busy, come find me - if you’re half as good as you and the Commander and Garrus claim, I wouldn’t mind another pair of hands down here.”

“Yes ma’am,” Shep replied with a grin, getting a pleased and amused bob of the head from Tali before the quarian’s attention returned to the console. Shep rose to her feet with a couple of the trays in hand, looking back down at where Garrus was still crouched; she extended him a hand.

Garrus was just a beat slower than he usually was, having been staring at Tali staring at Shep. The once-commander’s hand appeared in his vision before he realized she’d offered it. Surprised, but willing, he accepted it, and smoothly stood to join her. He didn’t really rely on her help to do so, hardly putting any pressure on her grip, and it seemed she knew it. Still, the gesture was clear. 

“… ‘ and Garrus claim?’ ” She echoed quietly, turning with a slight smile back towards the door out of the engineering bay. Behind them, the soft sound of Tali’s fingers flying over her console’s interface followed them out of the room until the door shut behind them. Any questions he had about her reaction to his blundering of the bet would have to wait… as would any slightly desperate requests for her to help him save that particular situation.

Garrus sighed, his mandibles twitching as he fell into stride besides the human woman.

“I just told her about the escape from the facility… and how you handled those mechs.”

Shep blinked, a rueful tilt to her growing smile as they passed through the two doors out to the deck’s main hall. “Oh, that . Yeah, very… skilled engineer of me - ripping mech heads off with my thighs, crushing them under my feet…”

Garrus glanced away, standing a little straighter as they approached the elevator. 

That had definitely been a sight . Even knowing nothing about her besides how she apparently recognized each member of their ground team, something that topped just about any level of confusion he’d experienced in his life, he couldn’t help but notice how, uh, flexible the human woman had proven herself… on top of the raw strength, even while injured.

He cleared his throat. “Honestly, it is though.” She glanced up at him with a doubting angle to her brow, and he eyed her in turn. “You’d have to know how they’re constructed to do that so efficiently. Their weak spots, what joinings to target…”

“Most things react poorly to having their heads ripped off,” she pointed out; but she was smiling. The elevator interface before them beeped softly, an alert that it was on it’s way once they came to a stop and called for it. “But… true, I suppose I have studied all the updates to mechs a lot.”

“ And turian coordinate codes-“ Garrus added as an afterthought, voice coming a little faster as he studied her and recollected that particular moment. “They’re not precisely classified , but I could count on one hand - my hand - how many humans I’ve run into that have studied it enough to know it. Let alone calculate it in an active fight.”

Shep grinned outright at that, shifting her weight to one hip. They each bore a few trays, and each balanced them in one hand - her free one lifted to her hair, running through it and pushing it back once more in a motion that he was starting to suspect was a personal tic… whatever mood or mindset it may indicate.

“… I’m a bit of a nerd,” she admitted, and Garrus huffed, tilting his head minutely with the barest lift his brow plates could manage. She rolled her eyes, continuing, “Alright, a big one. I’m an engineer, and a combat one at that, for fuck’s sake. It’s part of the job description. But - back when I was in boot camp for the Alliance, they gave us a crash course in all major forms of cryptography amongst the major species in the galaxy. They weren’t entirely up to date, and knew it, but at least they provided some basic knowledge. Patterns to note, if nothing else.” She shrugged. “I… wasn’t really satisfied with that. So I started researching the most up-to-date info on them whenever I could.”

“I’m getting the feeling you didn’t stop there,” Garrus mused, following her into the elevator. Interestingly enough, she was the one who chose their floor - rather than the crew deck, though, she requested they go down a level - to the cargo deck, proper.

“Am I that easy to read?” She chuckled, turning around to look up at him.

Garrus’ left mandible flared out a little. “Maybe. Or maybe I just know your type.”

“Ha! Alright, that’s cheating, but I’ll give you that,” she grinned. Garrus chuckled, and she continued, “I fell into a rabbit hole. The up-to-date codes simply lead to more questions, though; why choose this form of code, for one? So I started researching military history. Then I started wondering about the mindset - what lead these people to have this outlook? So I started looking deeper into each culture. Of course, that just brought more questions. What lead to the current state of affairs, current trends, current outlooks? So, I added history to that. But to understand history better, I needed language, religion, philosophy, hell - anatomy, home planet and colony backgrounds…”

Garrus’ mandibles were flared wide by the time the elevator doors opened. The slightly cooler air of the cargo bay rushed in, and without thinking, he followed her lead out of the lift, too.

“That had to have taken-”

“-years,” Shep was smiling wryly. She turned off to the right, heading towards the corner. “Honestly, I was still researching it by the time I left training. Hell, even when I was in N7 training.” She hummed. “If I’m being honest, I’m still researching it all, even though time’s been… uncooperative, lately.”

“That’s… dedicated,” Garrus managed, staring at her. The back of her head, honestly - he’d slowed as they’d come to the corner, her lead pulling ahead without breaking stride. She put the trays she carried aside, on top of one of the crates they stored down here. He watched as she shrugged with a mild smile by way of reply, and focused on eyeing the different crates. After only half a minute or so, she seemed to find what she was looking for, and started towards one of them. “... Why?”

“Why not?” She replied, hardly turning her head to look over her shoulder. She tried an input on the large coded crate, and seemed pleased when it worked and unsealed with a cheerful ping. Without waiting, she cracked it open. 

Garrus didn’t really have a reply to that. 

He… just hadn’t heard of many humans that had professed that much interest, practical or academic, in a variety of other species’ cultures. Or - at least not one in some form of military - outside the civilian ranks, for sure. Not to the extent he was pretty sure she implied. It was possible, he supposed, that she was just glossing over some facts - some long-term mission, or maybe some early motivation to aim for a more espionage-focused unit. All those things she mentioned would certainly come in handy for an agent. Yet her presence seemed to bely an ability to go easily undercover - like she’d be noticed sooner rather than later, just by sheer force of the way she moved, or simply inhabited her own space.

Even watching her almost breezily root through the crate in the cargo bay of the Normandy, wearing a slightly ill-fitting Cerberus uniform that was so obviously a spare…. Garrus couldn’t entirely doubt what she’d said.

… Her wrists were a little darker than any other patch of skin visible, he noticed. Sort of… purple and black. Fading, but…

Garrus couldn’t help but wonder if those same markings of human injury lingered on her torso.

“... Hm?” 

Shep glanced up at him. Garrus’ talons had closed around the edge of the box’s lid - lifting it higher than she’d been able to, propping it out of her way. He’d set aside his trays next to hers on the neighboring box. Putting away his latest project could wait.

They held gazes for a moment.

“... So. What are you looking for, anyways?”

The corners of her eyes crinkled, and a lopsided grin had human teeth flashing in the utilitarian lighting of the bay.

“A few things. Tell me, Garrus - have you ever set up a hammock?”

“... A what? ”

Chapter Text

“Your reports are certainly thorough. Bioscans, field reports, personal interviews… I’ll admit, I’ve seen far worse prospects.”

“You can’t be arguing that she’d be anything but an asset.”

John’s voice was flat, his expression unimpressed. The room was dimmed, serving to punctuate the countless points of light that gave form to the hologram of the Illusive Man. The man in question had gone quiet; the only hint that he wasn’t simply ignoring John the sound of the crackle of his cigarette as the man took a slow drag as he stared at some unknowable part of the room he was in.

He always took a drag when he needed an extra few seconds to weigh precisely how much he wanted to reveal, John had noticed.

“… There’s no denying she’s skilled, Shepard. After all - she appears to be you, in essence, if not effect. But her newfound hatred of Cerberus is concerning.”

“Can you blame her?” John said bluntly. He took a breath, forcing a slow exhale to carry any irritation away before it could seep into his voice, then shook his head. “Hell, you already put Jack’s dossier on my desk, and she’s proven to be an asset too. Unfinished business with a rogue unit isn’t anything we’re unfamiliar with on the Normandy.”

“A traumatic experience as a child and a destroyed universe are on somewhat different scales,” the Illusive Man noted lightly. John frowned, but the holographic display of the leader of Cerberus lifted his hand. “But as I have stated previously, I will trust your judgment. Unless I deem things have come to a critical crossroads, I won’t interfere, Shepard. You have my commendation for finding her and securing her skills for our mission; anything else will remain to be seen, but if you believe she’s a good wager to make, I look forward to seeing the results.”

“… And regarding her identity?”

“I approve - the cover story is a good one, if unexpected. Miranda’s work is thorough as always. I’d say tell her to keep up the good work, but I know she’s standing in the wings nearby.”

John barely refrained from wincing. Sure enough, Miranda was standing just a little ways behind him, near the door of the FTL Comm room, perfectly out of range of the holoscanner. It wasn’t exactly a secret he’d been keeping, but nonetheless, he hadn’t announced her presence either - nor had she announced herself.

Behind him, Miranda lightly cleared her throat. Smoothly, she said, “Thank you. I’ll keep you up-to-date on any developments on our end.”

The Illusive Man exhaled a curling, languid line of smoke. “Indeed. You’ll have all the back up you need to make it happen.” He tilted his head minutely, glancing off to one side - and after a moment, nodded then looked back in John’s direction. “We’ll place breadcrumbs where necessary to account for her ‘past’ within 32 galactic standard hours.”

“Good,” John nodded, hands shifting to his hips. “I’ll relay to her that the cover story is set, then. If nothing else, a little good will goes a long way.”

“True,” the other man remarked. “And provides plenty of leverage. There is, however, the matter of her… experience discrepancy.”

A lifetime of dealing with military bureacracy graced John with the good sense and better skill to not show an ounce of his true feelings. “Like Miranda noted in the report, we’re still in the process of discovery there. There’s a lot of similarities, but a lot of variables. We can’t let ourselves be tripped up by assumptions.”

“Hm. But she’s truly ‘ahead’, as you put it?”

“Not by way of the date. Our current theory is that she required a little less time to reconstruct,” John glanced back towards Miranda. Her eyes were on him and the hologram of the Illusive Man, but her fingers were flying over her omni-tool. “But we don’t want to delay our own operation out of an overabundance of weight to her experiences. My next priority is getting the core facts of what she’s done that we plan to do, and branch out from there, while still continuing our own operation.”

“Make those discoveries a priority,” the man replied without hesitation. His hand rolled a little at the wrist, a lazy gesture as his gaze flickered to Miranda’s approximate location. “I won’t say no matter the cost… but ‘Shep’ and her skills aside, her intel is priceless. We can factor the variables ourselves - but we need as much of an edge as we can get.”

With that, the holographic display of the older man disappeared, and the faint static of the connection cut cleanly off.

“… For a man that doesn’t like the Council, he sure does hang up like them,” John muttered, tension leaving his body as he stepped back and the conference table resumed its normal position. He rolled his shoulders as he exhaled. It was leaving a bad taste in his mouth that the Illusive Man was echoing his own sentiments regarding learning what Shep knew. Common sense was common sense… but for a moment, John had to wonder if hearing those sorts of sentiments from the Illusive Man himself was enough to give him pause.

Granted, they’d already learned more than they let on to the man that was ostensibly their boss - but given what Shep had said about that trap of a Collector Base, even Miranda had agreed to play this close to the vest.

“He’s a busy man,” Miranda said diplomatically, but John noted a hint of dryness to her tone.

Turning to her, John made a noncommittal sound, gaze flickering down to the datapad in her hands. “Everything according to plan?”

“So far. Kasumi’s already at work, we’ve got a few seeded rumors stirring at some fueling ports, and a handful of message boards now have back-dated forum posts that’ll match up to our fabricated storyline.” Miranda flipped through a series of information feeds; John strode closer, nodding at the now-familiar progress chart she had pulled up. “Shep’s already slotted into your family records. There’s a few loose ends here and there, and time is needed for the story to seed into enough of the public consciousness, but…”

“It’s a good start,” John breathed, finding a faint smile. Their gazes met, and he gave her a grateful nod. “Been a hell of a day Miranda - thank you for the hard work. Now go take a break - you’re well past your rotation for it. Twice over, in fact. I’ll handle the crew announcement.”

“An XO’s work is never done, haven’t you heard, Commander?” she replied, though he knew that crinkle to the corner of her eyes well enough by now to catch the humor. “… 20 hours is pushing it, though, I suppose - that is, if I want you to ever listen to me about breaks.” She lowered her datapad, acquiescing with less push back than might have been expected - if not for the information marathon they’d been running to establish Shep’s identity. “Very well then. But I’ll be available should you need me, and watching the reactions after your announcement. Try to get some rest before we reach Omega.”

John huffed with a wry smile as she glanced over her shoulder before passing through the doors. Her pointed look and raised eyebrow were encouragement enough. “Noted, Miranda. I’ll try to practice what I preach.”

“One would hope,” she replied, before striding off to the left, disappearing from sight and leaving the doors to the room to close with their quiet whoosh behind her.

After a few seconds, John shifted back towards the conference table, his eyes going naturally to the projection of the Normandy’s schematics as he did so. Mentally running through his more immediate to-do list, he brought up his omni-tool and quickly accessed his message log with Garrus. A few swift taps at the interface and he had fired off a new message.

-Were you able to get Shep a new omni-tool?-

Waiting, his focus shifted back to the schematic display. Idly, he noted the size of the Cargo Deck. She must be aiming to set up in one of the corners… probably closest to the elevator. But there was a table in one, and boxes in the other - for the fourth or fifth time since she’d pitched it to him, John was thinking that he really should just insist on her taking the spare observation deck-

His omni-tool gave a haptic buzz, and he glanced back to it. Rather than a message, though, he found a reply in the form of a slightly amber-tinted picture.

… John choked on a surprised laugh after raising his arm for a closer look.

The picture was from a strange point of view - an arm lifted up, a selfie, he realized, but rather than having Garrus’ face closest as he would have expected from his friend’s own omni-tool, Shep’s face took up a substantial corner of the view offered. More confusingly, she appeared to have a grip on the turian’s arm, which was dangling from a twisted bundle of- was that… a tarp? Or no, canvas cloth? It took him a long moment to decipher what the hell Garrus was tangled up in, and how on Earth it could really be-

“-A hammock?? ” John mumbled, baffled. Sure enough, his turian friend was tangled up in a hammock - and the mystery of where Shep planned to sleep in the Shuttle Bay was simultaneously solved. She’d apparently set up a hammock to hang above one corner of the space closest to the elevator, fashioned from extraneous supplies even John might not have thought to dig up. More impressively, though, she’d somehow gotten Garrus to try it out.

His omni-tool buzzed softly again, and a message bumped the picture up in the conversation history.

-Turns out turian + hammock = a new kind of knot.-

John didn’t register how widely he was grinning as he quickly replied.

-I’ll take that as a no, then.-

It didn’t take more than a few seconds to get a reply.

-Think I’ll keep this one actuallyyykjekajfdsfk-

Then, swiftly:

-TATE. I SAID DICTATE- IS IT DICTATING? I SWEAR I JUST UPGRADED THE - WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING - OH. RIGHT. ERASE THE LAST SENTENCE. THAT’S A COMMAND - RIGHT - ANYWAYS. ERASE THAT LAST SENTENCE, TOO. THAT’S UH, NEXT ON THE LIST, COMMANDER. ALSO, I RECOMMEND WE KEEP LONG STRIPS OF CLOTH AND ALSO ROPES AWAY FROM OUR NEW CREW MEMBER - WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING? WHAT? WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY ‘ALL CAPS-‘-

It had been a while since John wheezed.

A new message followed while he was quickly saving the sent image to his own omni-tool.

-Did you know turian script doesn’t use capitals? Really hard explaining how funny his old-man shout-messaging is across cultural lines.-

-Proud of the work you’re doing already. Minus hog-tying my sniper. I don’t need to send backup, do I?-

-Nah, think we’ll use this as a team-building exercise. That, or the intro to a new galactic joke. How many vigilantes does it take to untangle a turian from a hammock- -

John chuckled, interceding before Garrus could wrest control of his arm back.

-Before that, I need to check - are you set for me to make the announcement to the crew?-

John saved a couple of copies of the picture Shep had sent via Garrus’ omni-tool as the seconds ticked by. At the minute mark, he twisted around, watching his display patiently and leaning back against the conference table. Ten seconds after that, sure enough, the picture disappeared.

“Too slow, my friend.”

Another minute passed, and his omni-tool buzzed again.

-Sorry about that. I untangled a bit of him and he tried to mutineer his arm back. You’re good to go, John. Or should I say big bro?-

John rolled his eyes.

-No one says that.-

-Right you are, bro.-

Not dignifying that with a response, John swiped down and his omni-tool display flickered off. Though sorely tempted to take the elevator down to the Cargo Deck to witness Garrus’ plight in person, he resisted the urge as he left the comm room and instead made his way into and through the CIC towards the cockpit. He’d let those two bond for a bit without him. He was going with his gut more often than not ever since he woke up in Lazarus headquarters, and his gut said giving Shep and Garrus a little time together after what they’d both been through was the right call.

Besides, he’d already saved the picture.

Whispers trailed in his wake, and even if he pretended to pay them no attention, he took note - he hadn’t been through since they’d brought Shep aboard, after all. No doubt, he was behind a few rounds of crew gossip. The ship had since set course for Omega, only making the crew more curious given how recently they’d been there, and there had already been a few crew members that had witnessed Shep in passing both before and after her stint with Chakwas - plus, the entire crew manifest had since received the shipwide memo that the medical bay was available once more if needed for non-emergency matters.

Time to put the whispers to rest… Or, he wryly supposed, point them in the direction that would benefit them all.

“Hey, Commander,” Joker greeted easily, barely sparing him a glance as John came to a stop over his right shoulder. “Should be coming outta FTL in a couple hours. Ready to make the big announcement?”

John pretended not to catch the grin in Joker’s words. Or on his face.

“Open ship-wide comms,” John nodded.

“In 3, 2…” and Joker pointed at him.

“Crew, this is Commander Shepard speaking. I promise not to take up much of your time. But given the nature of a relatively small crew frequently isolated in hyperspace, I’d rather be on top of the rumor mill.”

John paused for a brief moment - he knew he had their attention, and those sleeping were probably being shaken out of it.

“… Regarding our recent rescue - the rumors that she is the newest member of our specialist team are true. To the point, however…” John straightened where he stood; he could practically feel the eyes of the CIC behind him straining to catch every minute shift of his body. Good. “… Shep is my sister.”

John didn’t often make ship-wide announcements; the few times he had, the crew remained quiet to a one, focused and unwilling to miss a thing. That trend finally broke as he heard several gasps and shocked whispers and at least one very loud WHAT the F- echo behind him, accompanied by the unique sound of a hand slapping over one’s mouth.

He grinned, unbeknownst to everyone but Joker. Just as quickly, he schooled it away.

“Many of you know that I’m a survivor of the batarian raids on Mindoir - one of the few. I lost my entire family in those raids… or, I thought I had. And so had Shep.” It was like reading from a well rehearsed script - he, Miranda, and Shep had gone over it several times, after all. Then Miranda had drilled him further, just to be sure. Not that thoughts of his family required much acting. “For now, I won’t say much more than Shep was forced to survive out in the Traverse all these years after escaping from a few batarian straggler runaways. She’s an expert engineer, and a savvy combat technician. She’s as invested in our mission as the rest of us. She’s asking for no special treatment, and as Commander I hope you’ll treat her like any other crew member too. Keep up the good work, everyone. Commander Shepard, out.”

Joker tapped at his console then nodded to him, a cheshire-grin breaking across his face as he looked up at John. The commander simply raised a brow at him.

“What? Can’t be pleased about our favorite commander and his long-lost sister reuniting? Brings a tear to a guy’s eye.”

“Your eyes are dry,” John drawled, but didn’t hide the smile his navigator won.

“I didn’t say I was the guy,” Joker shot back. Turning back to the console, his fingers were already flying over the many interfaces unique to the access of the pilot’s seat. “Well. Glad she’s got a family with us, anyways.” He paused. “Hope it sticks.”

“… So do I, Joker. So do I.”

John pat the shoulder of Joker’s seat, careful to avoid actually jostling the man, before turning to EDI’s glowing projection. He stared at her in consideration, or at the manifestation of her up here, anyways. After a few seconds, she seemed to glow just a bit brighter.

“What can I do for you, Shepard?”

“Could you let me know if anyone tries to pin down Shep?” he said, making up his mind. “She can handle herself, just…”

“You are a very famous, or perhaps infamous, human,” EDI smoothly replied. John huffed, and in the many reflective surfaces of the cockpit, he caught the roll of Joker’s eyes.

“Yeah, just a bit famous,” Joker shrugged. “Not like there’s thousands of bootleg VIs of him or a dozen documentaries or his face on some colony currency-“

“Don’t remind me,” John winced. “Anyways, just - let me know. Or make up on the spot that I requested her wherever I’m at then let me know - give her an easy out, if needed.”

“Of course, Shepard.”

“Really think she’ll like that?” Joker asked.

“Can’t be everywhere at once,” John sighed, glancing in the direction of the CIC. Several faces quickly turned away and back to the work at hand. He shook his head, and looked out the side windows of the cockpit. The shimmering blues twisted and curled, mesmerizing in the effects of FTL travel on mass effect fields as always. “If she wants to yell at me if it happens, I’ll take it. Better than leaving her to face the cons of being related to Commander Shepard alone.”

“… Hate it when your doom and gloom has a good point, Commander.”

“You’re telling me.”

Garrus didn’t even glance up when the doors to the Main Battery slid open.

“They’re still not fully calibrated, huh?”

“Not to complain about ship upgrades that might save our lives, but maybe if you’d stop being so thorough in getting them done faster than I can recalibrate in compensation…”

“Sure, that doesn’t sound like a complaint at all,” his commander replied as the door closed behind him. His measured footsteps marked his moving off to the left - though Garrus didn’t yet tear his gaze away from the algorithms and notes he was elbow deep in. Lucky him, he had been around humans enough now to pick up on the amused sarcasm in John’s tone; his commander wasn’t in a rush.

Sure would be easier to tell these things if they had subvocals like a reasonable species, but here they were.

“Glad you agree,” Garrus chuckled. Unsurprisingly, Shepard settled in quietly as he worked to find a stopping point.

Generally, if his commander and friend closed the door and waited without further pressure, Garrus knew there was something important the man had to talk about. Of course, the thought didn’t fill him with dread or anything, no. Not after all they’d been through. They talked about more than just imminent peril, thankfully - even if peril was frequently on the menu.

… Maybe he should feel dread, on second thought.

It didn’t take long to wrap up, at least - he made quick work of his hanging threads of thought before waving a hand and dimming his console. With a slight groan he straightened, rolling his shoulders back to release the pent-up tension in them as he turned to face Shepard.

“… I could put in a work order to raise the height of that console, you know. I don’t think Cerberus took turian height into account when outfitting the ship.”

“So I’ve noticed. But damn, with your track record of interspecies networking? They really do count their chickens before they egg.”

“… hatch. Also, I think that might not be the right idiom for the situation.”

Garrus waved a hand, left mandible flaring lightly in a mild grin. “Chalk it up to translator error. So, what’s this about?”

“’Chalk it up’ seems to go through fine,” Shepard mused with a half-smile, but shook his head. He’d taken to leaning against the table where Garrus did his fine-tuning on his rifle. Garrus just gave him a pointed look, and Shepard regarded him in turn before finally continuing, “Now that you’ve spent a bit of time with her, what are your impressions of Shep?”

Garrus would have preferred to have been surprised at the topic, honestly. If only he knew whether this question was from the professional man who lead the Normandy - from the perceptive commander… or from the amused friend that had been sent a compromising image of Garrus at what perhaps had not been his most savvy moment.

… Best to assume the former, for his own sake.

“She’s adjusting well, all things considered,” Garrus said slowly. He looked upwards, tracing the path of the exposed pipes on the ceiling with his gaze. “I’d say too well, but… well, we both know that sometimes there’s no option but to take the worst the galaxy has to offer in stride.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw John nod, expression somber.

Garrus exhaled, recalling their time together.

“She’s even better with tech than I’d have guessed. She’ll give Tali a run for her money - and we both know that’s high praise. They got along well.” Too well, but John didn’t need to know that. Or how thoroughly Garrus had screwed up what could have been a perfectly reasonable bet between new teammates. Or that he made a bet with her at all. “She doesn’t like Cerberus, of course. But neither do I, or Tali. We’re here for you. Her, though…”

Crossing his arms, Garrus leaned back against his console. He and John stood a handful of feet apart, disparate species in nearly matching poses, though neither particularly registered it.

What did Shep want? To complete her own mission in the only way she could now, ostensibly. Revenge too, that much was sure. Garrus understood that. Hell, her case was on a scale he couldn’t imagine; his own with his own team betrayed and killed already had him itching to— But… no, now wasn’t the moment to get consumed by that. He had his contacts digging for intel on his own case, that was enough. Maybe - once he’d taken care of his business - he could… help her track down her own loose ends. At least offer his hand in the intel department - if she wanted it. If she was anything like him… he had a feeling…

“… We won’t want to let her fester with it unresolved,” Garrus said quietly. He looked back to John, who was watching him with that serious expression he so often wore these days. Funny - for all their different features, something about it reminded Garrus a little of his own as of late. “You’ve been talking with the others about their… unfinished business, right? Well, I’d say it’s obvious she’s got her own. Can’t say for sure how it’ll pan out, but humans have a knack for forgetting to handle their pent-up emotions before they blow up. Spirits know we wouldn’t want it to happen at a bad time.”

No matter how unjust it might be to expect her to play nice in the meantime.

“I think you’re right,” John murmured, looking off to some point in the middle-distance. “Got a ping from her - thanks for setting her up with an omni-tool, by the way. It’s clear she’s working with humor right now. Which, I guess I’m glad to see considering the alternatives, but…” He frowned. “Once we’ve got her outfitted properly and a little more settled, I’ll see if we can’t put that on our list too.”

Not for the first time, Garrus wondered just how John found the time for it all. The relief at confirming his friend was as astute as always and intending to look after Shep as much as anyone else was fiercer than he’d expected. All Garrus did was nod though, humming low in his subvocals.

If only Shepard would let someone do the same for him once in a while.

“… All that said, I think she’s trustworthy. Worth talking to, for sure.” Garrus glanced away, voice going lighter. “Think you two should compare notes more - for strategies, or intel, or, you know.” He shrugged. Still a damn good human invention, that motion. “I imagine she’s got a kind of perspective that’s hard for people in your position to find.”

John was quiet for a moment. Garrus carefully didn’t look at him.

“Hm. Maybe you have a point.” Shepard’s casual comment let Garrus’ guard down just enough for his next words to have him sputtering. “I suppose I could always help her set up a hammock. Seemed to work well for you two.”

Garrus head turned so fast he heard it crack. “I don’t- I didn’t-“ his mandibles fluttered, and he grimaced - “I was just there handing her supplies! She didn’t warn me what would happen when she said I should try it-!”

“Warn you?” John was grinning too wide for Garrus’ taste. “About the… dangers of hammocks?”

“There is a very fine-tuned body mechanic to settling in those things, clearly ,” Garrus growled. “One not natural to… anyone other than a human.”

“Honestly, would’ve figured the curve of it would work nicely with the-“ John waved vaguely at Garrus’ upper body, still grinning, “carapace, and all. Oh, but I guess your spurs - or maybe your fringe-“

“ Don’t remind me ,” Garrus hissed, a hand coming up to cover his face - but not fast enough to miss the slight widening of John’s eyes, and the following flash of imaginative guesswork- definitely not canny understanding-

“There is no way you were flexible enough to get yourself out-“

Garrus refused to look up when Shepard cut himself off. Damn the bastard, he could hear the gears turning in his head.

Spirits. Please let him not guess just how bad it was.

”Why would you invent this? What kind of local Earth wildlife has your species disguising a trap as a place to rest?!”

Garrus had known his demanding line of questioning was turning out like more of a squawk, but that didn’t stop him from trying to escape - even as Shep was reaching up and grabbing at the damned canvas tarp thing to stop him from swaying like a krogan two barrels of ryncol in.

“Stop- pff! For fuck’s sake, stop wiggling-“ Shep could barely talk around her barks of laughter, something that had done precisely nothing for Garrus’ pride, haphazardly patchwork as it already was these days. At least he’d gotten his omni-tool away from her and that damned picture deleted. “Your spurs - I swear, how do you navigate getting in and out of your armor? You call a hammock a trap, but this thing was meant to catch every passing loose bit of cloth or wire-“

“It is a trap, I have no idea how you got in and out of it,” Garrus grumbled. “Maybe if you hadn’t strung it ten feet off the ground, I- ghk!”

“Had to keep it out of the way - oops, sorry about that, that’s not sensitive is it-“

“Not. At. All.”

“… Er. Stay still?”

“Stop touching my fringe like that-“

“It’s practically the core of the knot up here, I’m sorry!”

“Spirits, end me-“

Garrus barely suppressed a shiver at remembering how her touch had run over his plates at the back of his skull, the sensitive spot where his fringe met scalp, and- spirits , it was a mercy he hadn’t been able to see her face. Granted, she’d seemed less inclined to laugh the rest of the ten minutes it took to untangle him enough to break free, but she’d definitely still found a grin when offering him a hand up from the ungainly heap he’d ended up in on the floor afterwards.

“That bad, huh?”

“You better not have saved that picture,” Garrus muttered by way of reply.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” came Shepard’s airy response, and at last Garrus removed his hand from his face for the sole purpose of glaring at his commander. The commander in question was entirely unphased. “Duly noted, though - turian sniper, capable of shooting the cigarette out of a man’s hand from half a moon away - weak to hanging cloth beds.”

“You try climbing into a death nest ten feet off the ground with legs like these-“

“Sure do talk a big game about those powerful digitigrade legs, only to struggle laying down in the definition of a lazy nap spot-“

The crackle of the room’s comms coming to life cut the two off just in time for Joker’s voice to grab their attention.

“Hey, Commander, we’ll be docking in 20 minutes. Figured I’d give you a head’s up.”

“Thanks, Joker - on our way to outfit now.”

The comms cut off, and Shepard and Garrus looked down from the general overhead direction back to one another. A few beats passed.

“You’re on ground team this time,” Shepard casually offered.

Garrus took the lifeline without missing a beat. “You always bring us to the nicest places, Commander. What’s the mission this time?”

John chuckled, and gestured for Garrus to follow him. Together they made their way out of the Main Battery and through the Crew Deck towards the elevators. “Twofold, actually. One, we need to gear up Shep. I’ve set aside some funds so she can get something good - also, subpoint to that, I want her to pick up whatever she needs for those omni-tool mods and repairs. It’s essential for a combat engineer, and I have a feeling that we’ll be wanting her to have access to her old omni-tool as soon as possible.”

“It definitely seems like it’s a good piece of tech,” Garrus admitted. Neither needed to add how much it likely meant to her, too. “What’s the other goal?”

“Intel,” Shepard replied readily. Garrus reached the elevator panel first and set it to head to the Command Deck as he glanced back at the man.

“Any particular kind?”

Shepard crossed his arms, then lifted a hand from its place to wiggle it a little, making a strange expression. “Yes and no. I want to check on a few things with Aria - plus, help plant the seeds about Shep and I being ‘siblings’ a little more. There’s a few leads to check in on, and there’s a lot to be overheard in the Afterlife as well.”

“Might be there a while,” Garrus observed, mind already working quickly. No use connecting with the few remaining contacts he had on the station - just about everyone thought Archangel was dead, after all, and that suited him fine given everything that had happened. Still, he knew too damn much about that seedy hellhole to not already have some good ideas-

“Actually, I want to keep the trip brief.” John lead the way out of the elevator, catching Garrus’ dubious look and gesturing with a minute tilt of his head towards the armory. Noting the interested gazes cast their way, Garrus followed him without further comment until the doors were closed behind them. Luckily, it seemed Jacob was elsewhere at the moment, and Shepard continued, “I want to split into two teams.”

“You- what?”

John chuckled in response to the outright shock that had gotten him. Garrus stared at him as John went to collect his armor and guns - apparently, they’d been tended to here since the impromptu rescue mission. “I know, not standard protocol. But we have Shep now, and - well, I have you.”

His tone shifted at that, and Garrus watched as his commander began donning his gear. He’d seen it done too many times to count now - honestly, Garrus could get a human soldier into armor as fast as a human could, at this point. Still, he stared, mostly for all the things that might have gone unsaid just now.

“… Because she’s used to leading missions, you want to see how two units could operate for us,” Garrus said after a moment, still taken aback. “That… makes sense, particularly in a controlled environment - well, controlled as Omega can be,” he scoffed, but shook his head to get back on track. The control was in how limited the ‘goal’ was, rather than a high-risk mission - now that Garrus thought of it, it was the perfect way to both get Shep seen in a place that was a hotbed of rumors and intel dealings, and to see how she handled both this universe and herself. Confidence in abilities went far, but - well. They’d only known her a day or two, technically. “But… what’s this about me?”

Shepard didn’t even pause as he finished donning his greaves, but he did arch an eyebrow as he looked up at Garrus. “You’re an expert sniper, capable in nearly any form of combat, know Omega better than anyone else on this ship, can keep your cool in a bad situation, and you’re one of the people I trust most on this ship. Hell, the galaxy.”

Garrus blinked. A sudden bundle of something tight had caught up in his chest, and felt like it might just squeeze the breath right out of him.

Shepard looked back down as he strapped on the rest of his leg armor, and began suiting up his torso.

“Garrus, if you think I don’t trust you to have Shep’s back, let alone mine, I don’t know what to tell you,” he mused, slipping on his gauntlets. “Hell, maybe we should get you checked out again by Chakwas. That rocket to the face might’ve rattled your brain more than your looks.”

The familiar dry humor broke Garrus from his reverie, and he cleared his throat, his left mandible flaring a little. “Now, just because your scars are all cleared up, doesn’t mean you should let your jealousy out over mine.”

Shepard chuckled at that, and shrugged. “I guess I’ll find a way to soldier on, then. You’ll have to be our intermediary for swooning krogan women.”

“Happy to be of service,” Garrus drawled, glancing out the nearby window. He was already geared up, and John was picking up his helmet and guns as the hum of the ship settled into the silence.

Trust. The commander trusted him. He supposed he had to, given how he’d so readily recruited him despite the hellhole Garrus had thoroughly entrenched himself in after his would-be death. Sure, if asked, he’d have said Shepard must trust him but - something about being told it to his face, so matter-of-fact, not just as a matter of course… as a foundation block to being the one trusted with looking out for and over Shep, a variable of the highest order and quite possibly the key to avoiding more than a few tragedies…

“… So, find out anymore about the differences between our universes?” Garrus asked, gaze flickering back to Shepard. He was weighing his two favorite ARs, clearly debating his choices for slumming it with the dregs of criminal society. “Beyond the obvious, that is.”

“Some,” Shepard sighed. “No time to get into all of it, and really, we’ve only scraped the surface, but…” he frowned, and Garrus came in closer, leaning up against the table full of heavy weaponry Shepard seemed to be absently eyeing. His commander met his gaze then, and with a gesture of frustration, he quickly strapped his chosen guns to his armor. Underneath the sudden sound and clanking, Shepard said in a voice barely loud enough for Garrus to pick up, “If our universes really are more alike than not, we’re going to get a hell of a mission from the Illusive Man. An abandoned collector base with intel we need to make it through Omega-4 intact - but it’s a trap. And he won’t tell us.”

“You’re joking,” Garrus said flatly, only to swear under his breath at how grimly Shepard returned his stare. No longer making enough sound to thwart any eavesdropping, Shepard stepped a little closer, but didn’t make to leave yet. Garrus’ good mandible tapped in irritation to his jaw as he continued quietly, “Great. Love it. Working with Cerberus is as rewarding as being passed a sack of varren meat in thresher maw territory, you know that?”

“That’s a little more accurate than I’d like - only we’re the varren meat, here,” Shepard muttered. He lifted a hand, running it over his face. “Still, we don’t know for certain if it’ll hold true here. Or if Shep arriving will shift what he’d choose to do once it’s an option. Miranda’s helping me keep those specifics from him, among others. We’re playing it by ear for now, and there’s a lot more to talk to Shep about.”

Garrus scowled, wincing a little when his right mandible lanced pain through his jaw. It fluttered, and he lifted a hand to rub at the spot. “So, Cerberus as a whole is about as trustworthy as we originally figured. Can’t say I’m surprised. Anything else?”

“That’s the biggest bombshell so far. I’ll tell you more later,” Shepard glanced in the direction of the little display EDI manifested in when summoned. Garrus gave a terse nod. The AI was… helpful, certainly, but they’d all learned from EDI herself that she collated info for the Illusive Man. “For now, let’s focus on this Omega run. I’ll head off to Afterlife with Zaeed and Grunt - they need to stretch their legs, and they’re a solid pair that don’t stick out among the usual clientele.”

“That’s putting it lightly,” Garrus drawled, but nodded.

“You take Shep to get what she needs. If she opens up more or mentions anything you think would help us figure out this mess, keep it in mind.”

“That goes without saying.” Together, they turned back towards the door to the CIC, and began walking. Garrus fell into step at Shepard’s right side, eyeing him thoughtfully. “You think she’ll open up to me?”

Shepard’s brow drew slightly down, pinching in the middle in a way Garrus was entirely familiar with. “I’m not going to make any assumptions about where she’s at with what she’s been through. But I’d be blind to not see that you two get along. Whatever the reason is on her end, well,” his expression eased, and he met his friend’s thoughtful look with his own, “Shepards and Vakarians seem to go hand in hand.”

Garrus rolled his eyes, but chuckled. “What can I say, I’ve always been a magnet for the chaotic.”

“I think I’m the same - and I’d hazard Shep is too,” Shepard mused wryly as they reached the airlock. Off to their right, Joker gave a lazy wave, only half-turning his chair around and keeping his focus clearly on the minimal docking protocols for the outlaw asteroid. Shepard lifted a hand in response before lowering it to wave over the door interface, the faintest hint of voices on the other side revealing they were the last to arrive. “Probably for the best we have her first real stop here be Omega to test that theory-“

The doors opened to Zaeed laughing and Shep gesturing at a scowling Grunt.

“-I mean it, the size of your forearm!”

“I’ve never been that small in my life.”

“No one remembers being a baby, even if it didn’t last long-“

“I’m tank-born, stronger than that-“

Zaeed snorted and Grunt made a rude gesture at him that Garrus was entirely sure he’d picked up from the mercenary himself.

“Just ‘cause you spent your time bein’ a runt in a tank-“

“-He just grew up fast,” Shep interjected, arms crossing as she arched a brow. Her gaze flashed towards Shepard, who Garrus noted was looking awfully amused for a man about to stroll into Omega. “C’mon, John, back me up here- Grunt as a baby was downright cute .”

“I’ve only seen a picture of a baby krogan,” he replied, moving into the airlock proper. Garrus followed, and the airlock door shut behind them. “Is the debate about how cute krogans are as babies, or-?”

“I reckon they look like a potato you popped in the rehydrater too long,” Zaeed smirked. Shep gasped, mild mock horror on her face, but to Garrus’ sharp eye there was a bit too much of an upwards twitch to her mouth before she smacked Zaeed on one arm. “What, am I wrong?”

“More like a bulldog, grumpy and lumpy and cute as hell-“ Shep gestured again with the return of a grin. Her brows knitted slightly though, and she looked towards Shepard once more, then Garrus. “Please tell me you’re kidding though. That can’t be one of the differences, surely-“

“You can’t be telling me you picked up a baby Grunt,” Shepard replied, losing a fight against a disbelieving grin.

“ Please be telling me you picked up a baby Grunt,” Garrus added, a delighted smirk flaring his mandibles. “That’s utterly insane. Why would you bring a baby krogan on board?”

“Were you gonna strap the little bastard to a rocket and launch ‘im at the Collectors?” Zaeed snorted. “Suppose it might buy thirty seconds or so before they could get his hands outta their eye sockets-”

“Okeer said he’d finish growing fast, and he did!” Shep shot back. Her ears were a bit pink, Garrus noticed. Maybe it was the lighting bouncing off her red hair? “It wasn’t even two weeks before we had full-size Grunt! Most of it was in FTL between systems-”

“Fuckin’ unhinged woman, like that isn’t worse,” Zaeed muttered, but his smirk had only grown. “Krogan goddamn babysitter, and the first human t’do it, I’d wager a thousand fuckin’ credits-“

“I was clearly an asset from the start,” Grunt muttered, apparently landing on accepting he’d once been a baby after all, and missing the point besides that. “Size is better, but I would still be worth more than ten other krogan if I was stupidly small.”

“I mean, he did take down a varren that tried to sneak onto the ship when we had to restock at Omega-“

“You’re lying,” Shepard cut her off, but his voice held a sort of delight Garrus wasn’t sure he’d heard before.

Garrus was right there with him. “You had to have taken pictures, right?”

Shep looked torn, but amused- “I mean, I was busy pulling him out of the guts of the thing before he could enter a toddler blood rage, but I saved every single one Zaeed and Kasumi and Garrus took on my omni-tool.”

“We have to get that thing fixed,” Garrus wheezed.

“Do krogan toddlers go into a blood rage?” Shepard asked, equal parts intrigued and horrified.

“I wasn’t about to find out,” Shep shrugged.

“… If I was cute it was because I was ferocious,” Grunt decided.

“Very cute, very ferocious,” Shep assured.

“I’m still stuck on the fact you decided to bring a fuckin’ baby on board a suicide mission. A krogan baby.”

“Zaeed, you wouldn’t say that if you knew how entertained you’d be by the fact that he was speaking in full sentences and demanding a good fight right out of the tank. Took my shins a few days to recover from his first tackle.”

“… Any vids of that?”

“A few.”

“Damn. I might be inclined to agree with our resident vigilante then. Get that tool fixed.”

“Don’t suppose that’s in the budget, John?”

Shepard’s hand settled solidly on Shep’s shoulder.

“Get whatever you need at the markets to take care of it.”

Shep laughed, a singular bark of it, bright and warm at how deadly serious John was as EDI came over the speakers to announce their successful docking. The announcement of the standard decontamination scan roving over the team came on, and the commander cleared his throat as it ran.

“… That aside, we’ve got a straightforward plan today, team. Zaeed, Grunt, you’re with me; we’re going to the Afterlife. I have a few things to ask Aria, and I want to get a bead on the current rumors circling Omega and the bar’s a great place to do it. Garrus, Shep, hit the markets. I want Shep outfitted in gear that’ll suit a combat engineer of her caliber - no need to get the cheapest stuff, but exercise some judgement and don’t get fleeced. Omni-tool supplies for Shep’s repairs, and the upgrades needed to run something decent in the meantime, are the secondary objective.”

“Understood,” Garrus nodded, and Shep echoed the word and motion in near sync. She glanced up at him, flashing a brief grin. Garrus lifted a brow plate ever so slightly, not sure what that look meant to communicate, but his left mandible flared up and out a little.

The door to the docking bay slid open at last, and Shepard lead the way out. Zaeed and Grunt fell into step at either side, while Garrus and Shep took up the rear as they made their way into the grimy corridor towards the transport depot. Distant blaring advertisements, the constant drone of the news reports, and the underlying hum of the seedy station accompanied their footsteps.

Through the doors and out into the plaza, Shepard glanced back at the small group and met Garrus’ eye. With a brief exchanged nod, his commander then met the eyes of the human woman at his side. She tossed him a confident, reassuring look, and with a small almost-smile, Shepard looked back towards the Afterlife and moved away with Zaeed and Grunt in tow.

“Wonder if Aria’s the same with him,” Shep mused quietly, watching them go even as her steps turned her towards the market.

“How’s that?” Garrus asked, matching her stride. His hand was never far from his gun, but he looked casual in the way Omega demanded of those who didn’t want to be at the bottom of the food chain. She was holding herself in a similar way, he noted, like it was second nature.

“Somewhere in the crossroads of unimpressed, might allow you to be stepped on by her, and intrigued in the sort of way you might watch an overconfident colony kid across the bar trying a mixed cocktail made with ryncol,” Shep replied.

Garrus snorted, gaze flickering back to her after studying the batarian and salarian duo off to one side looking their way. “I’m not sure the commander would have put it the same way, but from what I’ve seen…”

“Love to see another universal constant, then,” Shep chuckled. “She’s not all bad, anyways.”

“In the same way thresher maws aren’t technically purposefully evil,” Garrus noted dryly.

“Honestly, that’s higher praise than I’d expect.”

“The fact that she can keep a semblance of order in this place speaks to something most people don’t have.”

“Now, if you could say that without looking like you’ve been asked to lick a batarian…”

“Humans have a sick sense of humor.”

“And you have an easy to read face.”

“Now I know you’re lying,” Garrus huffed. They rounded the corner past the questionable but better-witnessed food stalls, foraying into the markets themselves. As ever on the run-down station, no street was clear, and they wove around some of the slumped bodies framing the walkway that had the stains of red sand on their collars and the bugged-out look to their eyes that made even the most experienced spacer wary - Shep subtly glanced at them, but Garrus could tell in his visor’s readouts they weren’t dead, just deep in their own drugged-up state. He wouldn’t linger here if that was the case - nothing to be done as it was. Their problems were deeper than a sympathetic stranger could help.

Omega had long since taught him that.

“… Nah, you’ve got your tells,” Shep idly replied, eyes shifting back over the market. Garrus wondered if she noted anything particularly different for her; if she did, she wasn’t telling.

A sound of disbelief rolled in his subvocals. The flicker of a grin on her face was an odd coincidence in the moment that followed, but he drawled, “Sure, sure - but honestly, I ought to be pressing you for the details of your Grunt situation. You really took a baby krogan on board?”

Shep grinned, fully glancing up at him as they came to one of the stall interfaces. Garrus tipped his head at the batarian manning it - he recognized him from Shepard’s last visit here. With a brief scowl from the shopkeep but a nod too, the interface briefly flickered - the prices improved, marginally.

“Okeer refused to leave the planet - told us to take Grunt, and he’d follow in a week once he gathered his materials. By the time we got Grunt on board, Eclipse had thrown a riot, and from what I put together Okeer decided to not leave any of them alive when they threatened to hunt down his ‘pet project’…” her expression shifted, a flicker of a frown. “They killed each other before the shuttle could get down in time and I could… well, do a damn thing.”

“… So he left you with a baby krogan,” Garrus couldn’t quite keep the disbelief out of his voice. She nodded. Absently, she gestured him forward - he leaned in, and she pointed to a few chestplate options, a few gauntlets too, and he hummed noncommittally, to which she grunted quietly in agreement about their quality. “But… why was he a baby? He was fully grown when we picked him up, if inexperienced.”

Shep flicked through a few more options, but her eyes met his for a moment. She seemed to search his gaze, and he let her, before she broke to look at the screen again. “… One of our discrepancies, I’m thinking. The core fact we’ve found out so far is that it seems I came out of the Lazarus Project a couple months before John did.”

“ Months? ” Garrus balked. Shep shot him a look, and he frowned, but glanced around. The storekeep was busy haggling with a couple of fussy salarians. A few vorcha were loitering nearby, whispering and staring at them, but a hand sliding over his gun convinced them to turn around. “How is that- how are you-“

“-alive?” Shep muttered. Garrus didn’t say anything further, but she shrugged a little. “My guess is the differences in our body types and the damage we… underwent falling down to Alchera must have been enough to make it a little harder to put John back together - or easier to put me back together. Either way…”

“So that’s why you’d gotten more done,” Garrus murmured. Shep stilled for a moment, and Garrus, after a beat, filled the silence by pointing to some of the better options he’d noted. She seemed to be in agreement, but remained quiet as she began cross comparing.

“… Yeah,” she finally said. Garrus gave her the time, half-turned towards her, half shielding her. She wasn’t wearing as much armor as he’d like for a teammate on Omega, frankly, but that’s why they were here. “Guessing John revealed the bit about Tim’s bastardry, then.”

Garrus hummed in affirmation, and a look of frustration crossed her face. Before he could make up his mind what precisely she was frustrated about, she swiped down and clicked on a few of the options.

“I won’t let you guys go in blind,” she muttered. Garrus blinked at the vehemence, the determination in that statement. She relaxed, though, slipping back into casual confidence, and motioned for him to look at the screen. “For that, though, I’ll need the gear to have your backs. What do you think? I’m leaning towards a shield-regen focused setup, with power boosts to support tech attacks.”

“… What do you think about something that’ll add to your shields, not just their regeneration speed? Humans are awfully soft.”

“We can’t all have carapaces, you know. But you have a point- maybe this hip pack then, and if I get these greaves, it should balance between holding power and regeneration…”

“There’s a human that sets up nearby sometimes that has a chestplate that might mesh well with that. The commander mentioned something once about humans preferring a weight distribution that favors the hips?“

The better part of the next two hours was spent perusing various market stalls and shops, interspersed with only the occasional threatening look or palmed gun and one sprained vorcha wrist. Thanks to his days at C-Sec - and his time on the SR1 and SR2 - Garrus had become solidly familiar with important human armor preferences, and he liked to think he was actually helping Shep’s decisions here. Human legs weren’t bent much and that shifted their whole center of gravity, plus they had all that foot contact with the ground, and their need to spread out the load of their armor from compressing their shoulder joints with no benefit of a sturdy carapace... He was pleased to have caught the one merchant before she could switch out an acceptable strap for a worn down alternate, and later was slightly impressed when Shep had the eye sharp enough to detect a trader from passing off a batarian breather as a human one; they looked nearly identical. Given the different oxygen filtering requirements, that could have been a minor disaster in any mildly toxic world environments.

If anything, they got a little too into it, Garrus realized as Shep exchanged the needed credits for her last piece of armor. They’d haggled with every single broker, and with one another more often than not. She’d sworn regenerative shield transistors were a better investment than power banks for up-front damage, while he pointed out the number of rockets that came the way of the Normandy crew - accented by a gesture to his face. She’d scoffed but conceded slightly, and he’d troubled the latest poor quarian half-stranded while on pilgrimmage for a better attenuator to accommodate her preferences on regeneration too. She’d then insisted on buying her holstering equipment from the same kid, for entirely practical reasons of course, unrelated to how awful a spot the kid had been forced to take or his luck - down-vent of a vorcha pack, no less.

Quarians had better responsive magnet fields and mass effect buffers for weaponry, she casually observed, much to the quarian’s eager agreement. Garrus held his tongue when she passed the kid more than he’d been selling the secondhand equipment for. If she knew the commander had effectively bought another quarian pilgrim’s way off the same station in a spot not from here just a week ago, well, she didn’t say it - and Garrus didn’t think noting yet another curious yet minor similarity would change anything.

She was different, though, in how she carried herself on Omega.

It was fascinating, realizing the subtle tics of her body language that had built his understanding of her since this little outing started. The commander had a way of, well, commanding any space he entered; even the seedy corridors of Omega had a way of bending about him, leaving only the most foolhardy and untrustworthy of its already questionable denizens bold enough to linger and face the man himself. It wasn’t that he strode with a threat in his gait, but that he simply filled the space in a way that people had to acknowledge.

Shep… Shep commanded a room, too, Garrus thought. But not in the same way. It was like a light on a dimmer; she could turn it up until it was all you could notice, or bring it low, or flip it off entirely. When she wanted to cross the bustling thoroughfare to catch an item a trader was just putting up on a shelf, people sidestepped before she was even in their path. When she was strolling, observing, eyes on the wares and ears on the halls, no one quite bumped into her, but they rarely spared her a second glance, either. And then, once or twice, Garrus had turned around from eyeing a potential pickpocket or brawler only to seize up when she was just…. gone .

A few moments later she’d tap his elbow, nearly catching him off guard. No explanation, just a quick half-smile and a waggle of an ammo pack or a medigel dispenser upgrade he hadn’t seen on sale.

Garrus wasn’t sure how much he liked that.

“That should do it,” Shep hummed as she finished checking the shoulder bag that now held her much-needed spoils. With a deft twist of her hand she sealed the simple rucksack up, snapped the lock into place, and without pause slung it over her shoulder. The strap crossed her torso, pressing into the worn, oversized leather jacket Shepard had lent her. It covered up the Cerberus symbols on the borrowed uniform she wore, though the clinical yet dingy white of the sides of the pants was still a bit obvious to anyone who knew what to look for.

“Good - we don’t want our newest combat engineer full of holes before her first mission’s even started,” Garrus replied with a blithe twitch to his mandible. She rolled her eyes, but there was amusement to the crinkle at the corner of them. He was glad he could read humans well enough to catch it. “Bit longer than we probably should have taken… but I don’t think the commander will mind given the reason. All that’s left is your omni-tool upgrades.”

“No news from John is good news,” Shep said easily, glancing down the market street. They’d wound through a few levels of the heart of Omega at this point. She’d only half-heartedly paused at what few omni-tool upgrades and mods they’d come across, and now her eyes were searching more seriously. “We’re not far enough from the Afterlife to have missed any news to worry about, too.”

“True,” Garrus replied, wryly glancing the same direction she had after checking the nearby alleys. They both began walking, Garrus tending now towards the lead. Without hesitation, she fell into step with him. “I’ve got an idea of where we might find what you’re looking for - and a backup, just in case. Between mods for your interim tool and stranger tools for your original one… well, let’s just say it’s a good thing we were closer to Omega than not.”

“You can always find something questionable but uniquely needed here,” Shep agreed. One hand was resting easily in the pocket of her borrowed jacket; the other rested low on the strap of her pack, close to the Carnifax strapped to her hip. “From what I saw on the ship, your tools are pretty close to some we used - I’m thinking we might just have slightly altered standards. I’m thinking a rare, uncommon fitting where I’m from is the standard here, so…”

“The opposite might be true, too,” Garrus concluded, meeting her gaze. She nodded, and he felt a little hope flare in his chest. It’d be a relief to have the chance to see her omni-tool fixed - not just for how rare and clearly powerful a piece of personally-modded tech it was, but… for her sake, too, and what it must hold on it in terms of… memories.

Garrus had some of his own backed up deep within his omni-tool’s databanks, and in a few other spots. He couldn’t quite bear to look at it now, but someday… well. He preferred to have the option, at least.

Shep rounded the corner with him, keeping closer to the walls, with Garrus’ advantage in height lending well to being towards the center of the corridors. He used it to his advantage, and she kept unhesitating match with his stride and didn’t miss a beat when he shifted to one side of the corridor or the other. It was almost uncanny, how quickly she was able to adjust to his shifts, but that had to be another one of those…. other-him things. She just… knew how ‘Garrus Vakarian’ moved.

It was strange to think about.

Part of him wanted to ask about it. Just… how close they’d been. She knew ‘him’ well, clearly - but from the murmurs he’d heard after leaving the Shuttle Bay, she also knew how to talk to the other members of the crew, too. Shepard had said she was ‘ahead’ - and she herself had said she’d had more time with her crew to date than Shepard had. What all did that entail? Had she found out what happened with-

“So, this contact - anyone I might know?”

Garrus blinked. “I, uh, wouldn’t know. Depends on how much time you spent on Omega, but then again, I’ve never brought Shepard here.”

His companion made a thoughtful sound, eyes appearing to be on the passing makeshift storefronts and alley entrances. “Well, never as long as you, but a month certainly had me finding my fair share of back-alley merchants… oh, wait! Is it Weaver? No - don’t tell me. Monteague?”

Garrus stopped short.

Shep glanced back over her shoulder, expression simple curiosity. Her gait carried her a few steps ahead, the stop coming as an afterthought.

That curiosity shifted after a second. Slowly. Gave way to concern. Confusion.

Garrus didn’t know what expression he wore.

“… Garrus?”

He opened his mouth. A mandible flared, then clicked tight to his jaw. Both did, actually. So tightly it hurt. Something was straining beneath the bandages on the right side of his face. He focused on the pain as he stared at her.

“… How do you know those names?”

Shep’s brow furrowed. There was only a few steps distance between them, but it felt like a gulf had opened there. “What? What are you- shit, wait,” her expression pulled, but not enough, not enough, “Don’t tell me- another difference? Did John not get the chance to meet them?”

“Meet them?”

His voice was quiet, too quiet. She seemed to hear him, even so. Something deeper changed in her expression. He wasn’t feeling too skilled at comprehending human nuance at the moment. Her steps brought her closer.

“… Yeah,” Shep said slowly, staring at him. Her eyes were flickering across his features minutely. There was something grave in her voice, and if he’d remembered what it meant when paired with the way her lips were pulling and a muscle in her jaw twitched on one side, maybe he’d have assigned a meaning to the way her pupils were shrinking. “Garrus. Where… where are Weaver and Monteague?”

It felt like static was creeping at the edges of his talons, dragging up his fingers, digging into his marrow.

Shep’s eyes were widening now. “… Erash? Mierin?”

Garrus felt like his mandibles might snap off.

She didn’t stop. “Grundan - Melenis? C’mon- don’t- Garrus? ” Her voice strained. Each name was tighter. Harder. They were all branded in his mind, in his throat, his chest- “Ripper-? Sensat, Vortash, Butler- Sidonis-- “

“Don’t say that bastard’s name!”

Shep flinched, just a little, but the passing group of low-grade mercs cursed and gestured angrily at him in dialects his translator didn’t pick up. He didn’t even register them, but Shep did, and she glared at them with a sudden ferocity that Garrus might have flinched at if it didn’t feel like his blood had turned into boiling tar-

“You don’t-!“ Garrus faltered, subvocals harsh and dragging like spikes at his own throat. Shep looked back at him, her expressions shifting too fast to follow at the moment.

“Take a moment, breathe-“

“ You don’t even know-“

“Garrus, what happened?”

She reached out to him, a hand towards his elbow, and he all but jerked back. Staring at her, the words fell from his mouth harsher and faster than he could have ever intended. “They’re dead.”

Hand still hovering, stopped shy of touching him by his own movement, she froze.

Turian and human stared at one another.

Omega moved around them.

“… How?”

It was a whisper more hoarse than his own subvocals.

“ Sidonis ,” he spat. A curse.

… She looked as if she’d been the one betrayed.

Garrus found himself scoffing, moving, finally; turning away - towards the alley entrance they’d unceremoniously stopped in front of. “He’s the only survivor.” Vitriol, pure and simple, burned any softer edge to his voice adopted for the benefit of translators. “He won’t be for long.”

He had no idea what expression she wore. Had no idea why, or how - how had she known, why was she shocked-

“Fuck,” was the only word that managed to escape her.

It was full of more meaning and emotion than he’d thought Shepard knew how to react to his situation. More fury . He’d listened, of course he had, might even agree to help once Garrus tracked Sidonis down, but this was different, Shepard didn’t sound like that when he heard-

But this wasn’t Shepard.

… This was Shep. From a universe singularly destroyed, in front of her own eyes, without her being able to stop it, or save those she’d cared about.

Garrus’ eyes flickered back down to her. Her face was turned away, towards the ground, but the knuckles he could see at the strap of her pack were straining, white with tension.

He opened his jaws, closed them - a mandible twitched, releasing, just barely, from the iron grip against his own jawline, and his throat rumbled as he tried to find the question that was burning him the most-

“How did you-“

A crackle of harsh static in their respective comms made them both subtly flinch, but the voice that followed completely derailed their already spiralling thoughts.

”Vakarian, Shep, get your asses to the Afterlife’s lower fuckin’ exit - southeast, by the damned vorcha pit! Shepard’s been poisoned and he’s not goddamn breathing!”

Chapter Text

A distant ringing in her ears was filling her head with a static cotton.

He’s not waking up.

Cold - pure, simple, terrible - that’s all she felt. Funny. She’d always run a little warm since… since the SR-1 had been destroyed. 

… Poison.

Poison?

Who would-

Why-

No.

Where were they-

“Fuck-“

Garrus’ snarled word beat her to the punch of released visceral emotion. All at once time caught up to her, like the split second between a shuttle's engine cutting out after the blow of overwhelming enemy fire, the brief weightlessness before your new reality registered - and the sickening drop that followed as inertia ripped through your body, gravity sending you plummeting to the worst kind of landing. Her heart was in her throat, but every ounce of high-adrenaline combat experience was kicking her instincts and training into taking the helm of her thawing body-

Garrus turned fast, his hard, booted talons digging into the metal plate flooring of the station with a sound that would make a krogan flinch, but her hand shot out and closed around his elbow to drag him back a split second before his legs could launch him into a dead sprint. A furious sound escaped him as he half-whirled on her, looming, not even a handspan between their bodies - but her gaze didn’t flinch back.

“Don’t run. We’ll take the back way and-“

Garrus looked ready to snap. His mandibles flared and his brow plates drew a fraction up in disbelief, then down in fury. “Don’t run?! Shepard’s about to die and you’re telling me-“

“We’ve been modified. Our systems are stronger than most humans, now. He’s not dying in the 40 seconds we’ll save by sprinting - but he might if we drag the attention of Omega’s worst in our rush to save the very incapacitated friend we’re trying to help.”

Shepard’s voice was firm, her gaze unwavering as it locked on Garrus’. 

“The poison was strong enough to drop him.”

His pupils had shrunk, practically slits in his hard, wild stare, and even through the armor covering his arm she felt his muscles tense, very close to straining out of her grip. She’d drawn up her own height, standing steady and steely, but her grip, despite his tension, carefully gentled. There weren’t words that would further make her point.

How recently had he lost his team?

The answer was clear enough in his reaction. So she waited, never looking away. There would be time to process later. Always later. It wasn’t the moment to think about how recently she’d seen their faces, cracked open a bottle of something hard and foul but effective in celebration of a successful mission and a few more lives saved, learned some strange new bawdy joke from-

Later.

It only took a few seconds, though it felt like more as the world closed around them; the threat of new loss like narrowing perspective through a pinhole. Something seemed to shudder in his features, and then his eyes closed for a fraction of a moment longer than they usually did to blink. 

She immediately recognized the terse acquiescence that followed as he squared up. When he met her gaze next, his pupils weren’t quite so small, but the wild intensity remained.

Shep nodded to him and took off at a purposeful pace that only just remained shy of a jog… but was probably just as quick.

Purpose. 

People didn’t question purpose on Omega. But they did take advantage of fear. So she refused to show it.

“On route, Zaeed, Grunt. One minute, 30 till we’re there.” She turned sharply into an alleyway, noting the subtle shifting of metal behind her that told her Garrus had taken out his AR. She didn’t comment, and neither did the couple of vorcha that had started to heckle them but scrambled out of their way at whatever they saw on the face of the turian shadowing her when they passed. “Give me the details, Zaeed.”

“If I fuckin’ had a full picture you think I’d be crouching with the man’s body in a stairwell- Grunt, if any of those shit-tier mercs look over here twice, don’t goddamn hesitate-“

Winding through the back passages and unsavory alleys that barely deserved even that much of a name, Shep hauled herself over a particularly thick pipe nearly the size of her then leapt over a mess of debris past it to land on top of a ventilation shaft that took up the nearly nonexistent space between two buildings. Garrus remained at her six, his footsteps as quiet as she always knew - had known her own friend’s to be despite the heavy grade of his armor. 

“… The events, Zaeed. Quick.”

“Goddamn batarian bartender, is my guess,” he begrudgingly spat, and in the distance of his end of the call she heard a shotgun blast. From the lack of dying throes or bloody screams, it was either a warning or a miss, but the scramble of feet and hissed, ill-translated curses on the other end said it did the job well enough.

“Damn it all, I should have warned him-!” Garrus muttered behind her. “I should’ve - but I didn’t think he’d-“

“I thought he’d know better than to take what’s served from a batarian on Omega,” Shep replied, voice deceptively calm. “What he drinks isn’t on you, Garrus. Don’t try to make it the case.” Without missing a beat, she turned down a narrower passage, just wide enough for Garrus to slip through too. 

He didn’t reply, but the air was thick with unspoken thoughts.

The other end of the line was quiet for a moment.

Registering it, then, over the heavy silence of her companion behind her, Shep’s gaze narrowed on nothing in particular.

“… Grunt, Zaeed?”

“…. Thought the man could use a little lightening up, okay? We had time t’kill anyways. Who the fuck’d cross a couple of mean lookin’ bastards like us with something as idiotic as-“

“Half the galaxy, right now,” Shep said bluntly. “You took a drink from a— never mind. Is the batarian dead?”

“ Ran before I could shoot him,” it was Grunt’s voice that came over the comms this time. The aggravation in his growl dragged like gravel. Shep twisted as they approached the end of the ventilation shaft - a narrow corridor was beyond it, a seven foot drop down. From a smooth crouch she grasped the edge of the shaft, swung down, and released into a smooth fall. Her stride hardly broke, and a glance behind her confirmed Garrus simply dropped down, legs taking the impact without issue. “Wanted to track him down, but this idiot said not to.”

“You’re the idiot, tank-bred, might’ve been a goddamn trap-“

“You were right to leave with Shepard, whether it was a trap or not. 20 seconds away. Grunt, good job on spotting his disappearance. Did you get a good look at him before then?”

“He’s a batarian, what’s there to look at?”

Shep exhaled tightly, and behind her she swore she heard Garrus’ grip tighten on his gun. Something too quiet and fierce to be picked up on the comms rolled in the turian’s double vocal cords. 

She had to agree, but was careful not to voice it.

“Anything. Weird patches, type of gun on the hip, scars-“

“He wasn’t packing anything serious. Sidearm, SMG, not sure what kind,” came Grunt’s slow response. “It was dark. Minus the flashing lights. Had some sort of weird patch on his shoulder, though, yeah. And tape around a shoulder strap I guess. Yellow and orange stuff. Couple of scars at his chin. Left side. One looked like shrapnel did it - blew a chunk off.”

“That’s a damn good start,” Shep praised, and a chuffing grunt of some kind came over the comms. In other circumstances, maybe she’d have smiled, however briefly, at the sound from the young krogan. It was a pleased one, but reluctantly so; like he didn’t want to show it. The number of times she’d heard that same sound from a krogan that looked just like him-

… but here, now, she and Garrus reached the top of an uneven and ill-repaired set of stairs identical to a set she’d used at a dead sprint once before in another universe. Shep punched a few manual keys at the particularly beat up looking door there, and after a groaning protest it slid open to reveal a side alley opening near the lower exit to Afterlife. 

“Oughta go and shoot the bastard myself- there you fuckin’ are, ‘bout damn time!”

Zaeed was crouched on the ground, next to a horrendously pale John slumped in an approximation of a sitting pose against the wall. Standing in front of them both was Grunt, shotgun pre-emptively leveled on the door they’d come through. 

Shep didn’t break stride, coming to crouch on John’s opposite side as Garrus came to a stop directly behind her. His steps sounded uneven right at the end, but she didn’t spare the time to check. Her hands quickly shed the protective but thin gloves she’d been wearing, shoving them haphazardly into a pouch at her hip before taking up his wrist, the other hand going to the side of his neck. 

He didn’t react at all.

“Status?” 

“Heartrate’s outta control. Dropped like a dead krogan over a cliff barely half a minute past when he drank the damn thing. Tried slapping him too, but…” 

“You slapped him?!” Garrus’ harsh splitting dual vocals was lower than it had been - literally, physically. He must be crouching behind her now.

“He’s a tough bastard, thought maybe the shock might help-“

“Shock? For poison ?”

“Humans’re able to bounce back from more than you give us goddamn credit for, turian-“

“He was poisoned , not hypothermic-“

Shep didn’t dignify their arguing with a response as she kept her hand moving quickly and took stock of the omni-scan’s results. It was all too vivid for even black humor, staring at the too-limp soldier of a man in front of her. His skin was clammy, his pulse racing, his muscles twitchy yet weak as she searched-

She resisted the urge to call his name and instead cut off Zaeed and Grunt’s mounting argument.

“Have you contacted the Normandy?”

“Sent a message by way’a the pilot. Told ‘em to get the medbay ready right before I contacted you two.” He grimaced, watching Shep’s omni-tool flare to life and pass over John. Her hands shifted to his face, swift but gentle, and she carefully opened one eye. It was heavily dilated and barely reacted to the sudden influx of light. Zaeed continued after a moment, “He won’t stop pingin’ me now, but best we can do is get him back to the ship ‘n see if that doctor can work the same miracles she did on ol’ skull face behind you-“

“Cut the insults and help me lift him up,” she twisted her wrist, omni-tool flickering to focus on another program. 

“Shep-“ Garrus’ voice caught on her name. Shifting her body weight, her gaze turned to him as Zaeed shuffled which gun he was holding. He wasn’t looking at her - but rather at John, something inscrutable on his face, yet… 

She understood.

“He’ll make it,” she said quietly, resolutely. His gaze finally moved to hers, and after a moment, he nodded and stood, mandibles remaining tightly aligned to his jaw.

Her arm slid under John’s, looping it around her shoulder and grasping around his middle as Zaeed mimicked the motion on the other side, gaze hard on her face. 

“Shit that drops a man with as many upgrades as he’s got, quick as that-“

“He’ll make it ,” Shep repeated, steely.

She ignored his pointed silence in favor of speaking the moment her earpiece gave the subtle click that told her the line was open. “Joker, this is Shep. Have Chakwas and Mordin at the ready at the airlock for emergency code 509-C. Two minutes out.”

“Thank fuck you’re answering calls- you got it- how’s he doing?“

“He’ll make it,” Shep bit out, voice sharper than she intended. She took a careful, quick breath, then firmly added, “We’ve got the best and brightest on the Normandy. Just gotta get him to them.”

Garrus growled low in his throat as she and Zaeed got to their feet, more than a couple hundred pounds of extremely fit N7 soldier material and all his heavy armor and gear laden between them. Knees bent and braced and torso adjusting to the load, her eyes flickered over to the stairwell, where Garrus’ gaze was trained - slurred voices, krogan and batarian in tone, were just beginning to get close enough for human ears to pick up. She grunted, he looked, and she nodded to him and jerked her head back to the stairwell. His gaze hardened, and he moved to the spot.

“Grunt, take the fore. We’re taking the back way out down here, then making a beeline for the Normandy. We’ve got a drunk commander, that’s all, got it?” Grunt nodded, striding towards the door, and Zaeed made an almost-approving sound before following after him, lining up his steps to match Shep’s. John’s feet dragged behind them. “Joker- patch Chakwas and Mordin in.”

“—Both of them? You sure?”

“We’ve got an expert doctor and an expert scientist-geneticist on board, I want them working together sooner rather than later,” she shot back. Behind them, an undignified yelp and a slurred krogan curse pre-empted the thuds of two bodies hitting stairs. A minor commotion and a singular racking of a gun punctuated the noise, followed by several pairs of footsteps going back up, and one quiet pair going back down. 

“Fair enough,” Joker muttered as Garrus took up his position behind them again. Shep could feel the tension radiating off of him, but kept walking, keeping focus on moving and carrying her half of John’s weight. He was starting to shiver, and her teeth felt on edge. “Patching them in-“

“-What’s the Commander’s status?”

Chakwas’ warm voice had taken on the firm, in-control tenor of a lifelong professional. 

“Heart rate at 125,” Garrus cut in before Shep could answer. There wasn’t even a need to double check his terse words - his visor kept a constant accurate readout, she knew, of anyone he had tagged. “Breathing too shallow for human standards.”

“Eyes dilated and unresponsive to light,” Shep added. They cleared the stairs that lead from the markets to the front of Afterlife - they were getting more than a few stares, but Shep left the matter to Grunt’s unfriendly gun-based gesturing and Garrus’ cold, dark demeanor bringing up the rear. “Suspected poison, possibly batarian in origin. Enough to drop him less than a minute after ingestion.”

“A minute? Impressive indeed. Bad sign. Reworked anatomy should prevent most poison-related troubles.” Mordin’s candid observations didn’t wholly set Shep’s spine on edge, but she heard Zaeed muttering something unpleasant under his breath. “Sample retained? ”

Shep glanced to Zaeed, who scowled and shook his head.

“No sample, Mordin. It was mixed in with alcohol, if that helps narrow it down. Unclear if there was a taste associated, though.”

“Many possibilities, will need blood tests to verify-“

“ We’ve got a stretcher at the airlock, Shep, are you almost here? ”

“30 seconds,” Shep replied. They entered the gangway leading to the Normandy - the ship’s familiar shape outside the grungy windows reassuring in spite of the half-dead man hauled between them. “Grunt, the door.”

“Got it,” already moving ahead, he glanced behind them, only to snort. “Company.”

Shep frowned. “Garrus.”

“Got it,” he muttered darkly. 

Shep pushed forward with Zaeed, heaving the commander between them and getting a read on the situation behind them through the hazy reflection in the station windows. A pair of batarians had crept in behind them, now swaggering their way towards Garrus’ heavy stride. One had a datapad in one hand and a heavy pistol in the other, while his partner was idly stroking the barrel of a particularly hefty, modded shotgun.

Switching to comm channel talk, Shep spoke only in a whisper. “No gunfire if possible. Threaten them however you like, but don’t get shot before you follow us.”

“ The former’s entirely up to them,” came Garrus’ vitriolic drawl. Shep exhaled tightly but hummed a sound of affirmation and warning alike.

… This wasn’t her team, she knew it. But old habits died hard, and they were down and out their primary Shepard, as it were. With any luck, no one would begrudge her actions here.

“Eyes on the situation, hold the door for him,” Shep said to Grunt as they passed him, moving down the connection port into the airlock. The doors closed behind them, and Shep sincerely hoped the vicious cracking thud and shout that echoed behind them wouldn’t develop into much more. 

The thirty seconds or so of decontamination procedures began, testing her patience from the start, but she resisted the urge to bypass security measures… barely. Particularly when she felt John begin to seize up in her grip. 

Her gaze was already flicking in agitation between the spinning interface on the door into the Normandy proper and back to John; but as she readjusted her grip on his forearm, shifting his elbow a little more securely around her neck and her hand around his back a little more securely along his waist, she heard the faintest choking sound from him. Her eyes snapped to his face, hanging low, head and neck practically limp. Covered in a sheen of cold sweat, he was several shades paler than he should have been. A muscle jumped in his jaw, and she realized he was clenching his teeth to the point of grinding. 

“Just a few more seconds, John, hang in there,“ she murmured tightly. On his other side, she felt Zaeed shift, a little more of his weight easing onto the older man’s shoulders. 

“… How’d you know the right emergency codes?”

Shep frowned, gaze still studying John’s face. “What?”

“The codes. You said the right shit to the pilot, yeah? How’d you know that shit didn’t change too?”

Her gaze moved back to the door in front of them. The timer was almost done.

“Studied them.”

“… What, here? Already?”

“Yeah.” Her voice was quiet. “Cross-referenced everything I could think of in the operational standards.”

“Shit. You’re fuckin’ thorough, aren’t you.”

“Never thorough enough.”

There was a rejected ping of the door behind them a second before the door in front of them chimed in signal of the decontamination procedures success. It slid open, revealing two crew members bearing a large stretcher alongside Chakwas and Mordin. 

Shep and Zaeed moved forward immediately, steps in perfect tandem as Chakwas quickly instructed the crew members to move and give them a better angle. The door shut behind them as Mordin crossed to the opposite side of the stretcher and swiftly secured John to the bed as they settled him. 

“Heart rate elevated to human extremes, but unsteady. Checking eyes- confirmed overdilation, no response. Muscle activation sporadic and irregular in intensity. Seizures?”

“None yet, but the muscle spasms are getting worse,” Shep stepped back, fighting every urge to assist in the process and instead making room for Chakwas to step in. “Body temperature has dropped too.”

“Get the commander to medbay, now-“ Chakwas’ order had the two crew members carrying the stretcher shift into a quick pace, as close to a jog as they could risk. “Mordin, get your samples on the elevator, we’ll be starting IV procedures right away-“

“On it,” Mordin replied, already unclipping a pouch at his waist and pulling out some manner of multi-chambered syringe gun. Shep kept pace with them as they moved to the elevator. Every eye in the CIC was on them. “Cross comparison useful, already have standard blood samples. Will keep on comms for procedure, provide assistance if-“

“I’ll let you know,” Chakwas smoothly replied as the elevator loomed. “And Shep-“

“What do you need from me?” She stepped close, but remained outside the elevator. Barely. There was simply no room left. “Just say the word.”

Chakwas leveled a steady look on her. Two seconds passed. The elevator doors began to close.

“Good work, Shep. Miranda’s already prepping to assist. I’ll let you know if there’s anything.” 

The doors closed on the medical crew, Mordin, and their ailing commander.

Shep stared at the door’s interface, fully aware of the eyes of the CIC on her back  and on the doors. Her blunt nails dug into her palms, white knuckles betrayed by how she’d forgotten to put her gloves back on. Her left shoulder ached; dully, she realized it was due to the weight of the pack on her back. Her supplies, new armor, just purchased - slung over one shoulder.

John was too sturdy, too stubborn a man to fall to poison. She knew it. It wasn’t just empty sentiment.

Because she was too damn stubborn, too. 

Her eyes shut, tightly drawn and brow long since furrowed. Stubborn, yes, but invincible… no; no matter how it seemed thanks to the Lazarus project. A single spacing could kill them both, after all. 

Had killed them both. 

Damn it all, she needed to improve his odds - but there were lean pickings on options. She was too damned new to his crew... His crew . The words felt strange, but were as grimly real as the man had been limp in her hold-

-too new, too untested. Maybe the dossier side of the crew would give her more of a chance, since they knew who she really was. Even still, asking them for help would be… no, that wasn’t her call to make. 

There was one person she could still command though…

Herself. 

… She’d never felt more alone. 

Her head lifted, and her eyes opened. It was simple enough to make up her mind, but then again, she mused wryly, there was only one right thing to do given the circumstances, and a clear path to trace to the cesspit this particular problem had been pulled from. It was the nature of an N7 to find themselves deep in the worst the universe had to offer - or the multiverse. Probably even more so the nature of a Spectre.

It didn’t matter if a dozen people knew she was either of those things. It didn’t matter if one person did. 

Time to dig until she reached daylight.

Just as she was turning around, a commotion near the cockpit stole her, and mercifully everyone else’s, attention.

“Garrus, they’ve got him in Med Bay, slow down-“

“Nothing we can do right now, turian.”

“Let go of me-“

“Slow your goddamn roll, ostrich legs-“

“Shit,” Shep breathed, already breaking into a jog. 

Grunt and Garrus had made it through the decontamination process of the cockpit, but Grunt and the lingering Zaeed seemed to each have a grip on Garrus’ shoulder while Joker had managed to leave his seat only to lean haphazardly against the doorway to the cockpit. He was wincing, keeping a hold on the frame of the arch, and with a pang of empathetic guilt Shep realized he must have been there since she’d come in with John. That was less pressing than the bloody murder that was on Garrus’ face, though.

“They shouldn’t if you’re gonna tear down there-“ Joker argued, only to lift the hand that wasn’t busy steadying his body against the door in relent when Garrus shot him a glare.

“Is there some sort of Cerberus rule against checking on your own commander when he’s in critical condition, because if so I might have a few choice words for-“

“Mordin’s taken blood samples and is going to begin cross-analyzing the samples to determine the specifics of the poison, to start. Chakwas has him in the Med Bay already, Miranda’s there too as the expert on his modifications. They need time to stabilize him right now, but they seemed confident.”

Garrus stilled at last as she strode to a stop in front of them as she relayed what he’d missed. Sharp, icy-blue eyes quickly studied her features for any hint of a lie, but he’d find none.

“Then why are they stopping me?” he growled. Joker grimaced behind him, shooting a look to Shep that held more than a hint of pleading. Grunt looked wholly unaffected, and Zaeed looked unimpressed.

“Their reasons are their own, but probably because you look liable to throw someone out an airlock and not in the direction of Omega if they glance at you wrong,” Shep replied dryly. “Not that I’m inclined to disagree at the moment, but - steady, Garrus. I need you.”

“I- what?” In the middle of clearly fighting the fiercer edge of a scowl at her supposition - that at a glance back towards Grunt, Zaeed, and Joker, they’d shrugged in general dismissal of or agreement to - his glare faltered. A mandible twitched, and a hint of the tension coiling his muscles released in favor of straightening and focusing on her.

A corner of her lips turned faintly upward, her gaze nonetheless serious. With a tilt of her head back towards the elevator, she raised a brow. “Come with me?”

A few seconds passed, but finally, he nodded. Zaeed let go and grumbled a “not my problem,” while Grunt’s hand released with a firm pat turned cavalier shove, sending Garrus stumbling a single step forward where he shot an annoyed look back at the krogan. Joker snorted, waved all of them off, and Grunt shifted to settle against the archway to the cockpit, back now towards the CIC and looking around the glowing surfaces of Joker’s realm while Zaeed began heckling the pilot about loosening airlock procedures.

Shep didn’t spare many glances as she led the way back through the main deck, though out of habit she looked at Kelly as they rounded the massive center console. The worry and overly-saccharine reassuring smile was a little too familiar, a little too certain-yet-questing, and Shep forced a nod and a small wave to her before quickly accessing the elevator to let herself and Garrus in.

The door shut, and her hand moved to the highest of the deck selections on the glowing interface before catching herself. With just a moment to shut down any stray thoughts about the fact, she lowered her hand and entered the request to be brought to the Shuttle Bay.

“… What do you need?”

It was interesting, how almost filtered a tone his voice took on when strained. His dual vocal cords seemed to nearly enter the same octave, doubling over, and from the way he crossed his arms and kept his gaze trained on the door, well, she knew the state of mind he was in wasn’t far from her own.

“It’s less about me, and more about the crew… and about you.”

“Come again?”

The doors pinged softly, whooshing open and letting in the comparably cooler air of the Shuttle Bay as she stepped out and turned to the right, towards her claimed little area. 

… It was hardly this morning when he was ‘helping’ her set up her hammock. 

“They need you, Garrus.” Shep looped the strap of her pack off her shoulder and slung it onto the table beneath her hammock. Normally used for last minute gun checks before hopping in a shuttle, it now held just a couple of things that were semi-officially hers now. A simple, standard-issue gun care kit, a thermos, a datapad. 

“Shepard recruited me, after all,” Garrus replied, voice flat. Shep looked up at him - he’d not quite approached the table with her, but wasn’t exactly hanging back, either. “What’s your point?”

“... Tell me something. Why do you think he recruited you?”

He blinked.

“I don’t…” he frowned in the turian way, mandibles twitching down. “Well, I was part of his crew when we chased down Saren, after all. I figure that was worth something.” 

Shep looked back down to the table. She reached into the back, and one by one, began pulling out the armor and basic supplies they’d purchased for her. She first ordered them, then began to double check them.

“So was Liara,” Shep observed. “And Wrex. And Kaidan.”

“... Wrex is busy on Tuchanka, last I heard,” Garrus’ words were measured. “Liara’s caught up in some sort of business chasing down the Shadow Broker. And Kaidan…” he scoffed lightly. “Didn’t deem the commander worth a proper chance despite it all, apparently. Walked away on Horizon before John could get in a few sentences, in the end.”

Shep briefly paused. That much was the same, then, at least. Small comfort, knowing how much Kaidan’s reaction on Horizon had hurt her , no matter how understandable his reasoning was. She hummed under her breath, flipping over her new hip pack and beginning to sync the systems up to her other armor pieces and her omni-tool.

“Busy, busy, and, technically, busy,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t speak to you.”

“... I had nothing left to take care of.”

“Bullshit,” Shep shot back. He made a sound of annoyed protest, his weight clearly shifting as he shifted in shock at her blunt callout, but she didn’t look back at him. “You know damn well - and so do I, now - you’ve got things you could be doing.” She wasn’t going to touch what those things were. Not yet. But it was true, and his sudden still silence said he knew it. “Yet one way or another, you decided to join up with him without hesitation. And no matter what’s different between us-” she only turned then, rounding on her heel and gesturing with a small wrench up at him, gaze bright and intense as she captured his own- “I’d bet every credit I’ll goddamn earn here that you were the first one he recruited.”

Garrus’ mandibles twitched.

“I- he already had Miranda and Jacob with him, and he definitely looked for Kaidan first-”

“Capable though they are, Miranda and Jacob don’t count, and you know it.” She gestured a little further with the wrench. Kaidan was an interesting note- but she filed that away. “He woke up and they were there - part of the Lazarus crew. Kaidan is Alliance, crew before he was even Normandy’s CO - they have history. But the person he truly recruited first? You, Garrus.” She lowered the tool, gaze softening. “And I’d bet my own superior omni-tool that there was nothing but relief in his expression when he found you.”

Garrus stared at her. Finally, he looked away, his injured right mandible twitching.

“... He found me as Archangel ,” he half spat the name, “in my own suicidal last stand of a hellhole, three of Omega’s biggest gangs hunting me down, my entire crew dead, betrayed, and me too late to save them. I was slowing down, and they were starting to close in. Don’t get me wrong,” he chuckled, a lifeless, dark sound, “I’d have taken most of them out with me before they got me, but…”

Without turning his head, he looked back down to her. His injured mandible slowly flared, and he tersely gestured towards it with one hand.

“Clearly, I didn’t get out of there unscathed, even with his help.”

Shep didn’t look away.

“... And still, he took you on his ship. Trusts you as his best sniper, his gunnery officer, his friend,” she took a step closer. He didn’t step back, but his head was forced to face her more fully once again. “Garrus, you’re the one John trusts most on this ship.”

The deadlock of his features cracked at that, and his eyes widened.

“... How would you know that?”

He aimed to make it sound like an argument, a rebuttal. She heard the thread of something deeper in his subvocals.

“I’ve seen the logs, Garrus. Do you know the recurrent percentage of you being on his ground team compared to anyone else?”

His talons squeezed his own arms, crossed once more. “I- that’s just because he knows me better, knows my strategies better, it’s a safe call - and Tali’s a more recent addition, there hasn’t been time for someone in a similarly familiar position to-”

 “John’s an excellent sniper, Garrus, and certainly not hopeless when it comes to tech, even if it’s not his strongest skill. And he commands enough respect to have the others taking to his lead. There are other members of the crew that would be a better balance at times, strictly speaking. But he still chooses to bring you.”

“... Being surrounded by Cerberus agents-”

“-Is definitely stressful, yes. And who does he most rely on?”

“Miranda’s his XO, isn’t she?”

“And a capable one at that. And if I’m not mistaken, he already helped her with her own… loose ends.” Shep shook her head. “Sure, they trust one another now. But it’s different. I’ll give you that she’s saddled with all the paperwork and overseer work that comes with being XO on paper - on top of still being Tim’s main contact… but Garrus, you’re his right hand. ”

He was staring at her, still, and she could see in the cast lighting of the bay that ever so slightly, his muscles were straining. In his jaw, twitching at the corner of his eye beyond the protective harder layer that encircled it, in his hands. 

Shep exhaled, and reached out. Her hand settled on his arm. 

He was utterly still.

“Being trusted doesn’t mean you don’t have choices you regret. Being his right hand doesn’t mean you don’t have calls you wish you’d made instead. But Garrus… you’re worth his trust. You’re worth the weight he places on your experience, your thoughts, your decisions.” Gently, no matter how little difference it made with his armor still on, she squeezed. “The Normandy relies on you, as does John. For good reason. And they need you now more than ever.”

The moment hung, the hum of the ship’s engine the only sound to fill the space, even in their oddly private corner of the broad shuttle bay. No one else lingered in this area of the ship, not if the shuttles weren’t in use or in repair; that was part of the reason Shep had chosen the spot. Not just out of the way… but of no bother to anyone in particular. Quiet, yet spacious-

-a space she had only spent limited time in on her own Normandy.

“... Why are you telling me this?”

A tiny, stoic smile quirked her lips at how soft his own voice had become. 

“Because you needed to hear it - and because, like the rest of the Normandy, I need your help too.”

She released him, turning back to the gear on the table. It was quick work to sync it all up - not quite the heavier armor she’d have donned despite being an engineer when she acted as commander, but perfect for a combat engineer on someone else’s team… with a penchant for stealthier strategies. 

Behind her, Garrus was quiet for a long minute. She felt his gaze on her, but it didn’t bother her. There was a lot she wanted to talk about, to learn, to… to process - but now wasn’t the time. This is what he needed now. And John needed them to get to work if he was going to come out of this sooner rather than later - she wouldn’t entertain any other option.

By the time she’d finished up, set aside the outer layers and was giving a once over to the layers she’d wear beneath the simple but robust armor set, he seemed to make up his mind. He came alongside her, facing the table, but turning his head to her.

He cleared his throat.

“What are you planning?”

Despite everything, she found a small grin. “Think I have a plan, do you?”

He snorted, softly. “For all your differences, you’re more alike in key ways than I’d have known to expect. You’ve got a look in your eye, Shep, and it means trouble.” His chin tilted down a little bit further, eyeing her. “I know a thing or two about trouble.”

“Touche. I intend trouble for the right people, with any luck,” she mused, setting down the last of her supplies with a nod. “The core of it? I’m going to track down that bartender and get a sample of the poison - they’ll make an antidote and treatment faster with it. Barring that, I’ll trace the supply channels to their source and get what I need that way.” She crossed her own arms. “Might be a few explosions. Can’t say I’m a fan of leaving a supply of heavy poison in the hands of vengeful batarians hell-bent on poisoning humans even in Aria’s own bar.”

“... Alright, then. I’m with you.”

Shep took a breath, steeled herself - and shook her head.

“No. I need you here.”

“What?!”

Shep turned to him as he turned to her. Shock and frustration mingled on his features, but she wasn’t about to let him linger in it.

“I meant what I said about you being John’s right hand man. With him down and out - for now - you’re the one best suited to running the show.”

“Miranda is literally the XO, Shep,” he argued. “Spirits, even you are literally him from another universe!”

“I’m new to the crew at large - capable or not, I don’t command their respect, even with the story of being his sister,” she pointed out quietly. “Miranda is running the Cerberus crew, but she’s also helping Chakwas save John- she’s spread damn thin, not even counting whatever interference she might need to run with Tim. Besides, you’re still at least equal in the dossier team’s mind as far as who John turns to the most-”

“I’m a turian on a ship full of Cerberus-employed humans ,” he hissed vehemently, hand coming to splay on the table at their sides. It brought him lower, closer to her face, but it was her turn to not back away.

“You’ve talked to most of the crew at this point,” Shep called him on something she was certain of, and from the twitch of his mandible, she was right. “Not only do they respect you in part thanks to your role in taking down Saren, but as a person in your own right, the only one keeping those damn battery guns in decent shape, a force to be reckoned with on any ground team, and as John’s friend and best officer. On top of that, a lot of the crew turned to Cerberus for this mission not because of human-first sentiments, but out of a desire to stop the Collector raids and to help the Commander Shepard. If shit hits the fan, which it often does with us, they’ll trust your calls - even the dossier team will. Far more than anyone else on this ship - and I’m definitely including myself in that list. If you’d like, you can even talk with Miranda, take things on evenly. That’s the thing - you can make the call. I trust you on that, too.”

“You- do you-” Garrus’ talons curled against the table, his head lowering a little further. It forced her face to tilt further back, their gazes remaining locked. She could see every curling twist of his still-healing scars, the carved lines of his plated features interrupted on one half of his face, and cast in the blue glow of his visor on the other. It was both hauntingly familiar and, with the subtle differences in his scars… eerily just different enough to remind her of reality. “-Do you ever get less stubborn?”

The curl of exhaustion at the end of his words startled a laugh out of her. There was something akin to suspicion in the narrowing of his eyes, but for the first time since they’d been in the market, his mandibles had relaxed slightly.

“No,” she grinned. 

“Figures,” he sighed, gaze studying her. “Can’t ever leave critical mass of unyielding bastards on this ship.”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Precisely - I’m an expert,” he airily replied. His left mandible flicked outward briefly, and at last he straightened. “Speaking of, you’re not going alone.”

Shep frowned. “But-”

He held up a hand. “Right, right, I can’t come with, your rousing speech convinced me,” he begrudged, but shook his head. “There’s someone else I had in mind. I don’t care how good you are or who you are, going out into the seediest depths of Omega alone is a suicide mission - and we’ve already got one of those on our plates.”

She wanted to argue. She almost did. She’d spent a month on Omega, learned crucial ins and outs, even if she didn’t fool herself into thinking she knew it all. What she was going to do was dangerous - there might not just be some one-off anti-human batarians behind this, but a whole gang, or syndicate, or who knew what. But-

- but .

As he lowered his hand, the look he leveled on her, so heavy and resolute, was edged in a shadow that she recognized haunting her own features now. 

So instead, she gave up an inch, and nodded.

“Good.” He lifted his omni-tool, tapping away briefly at it before turning his face to the side. “Thane?”

Shep’s brows rose. It wasn’t a synced comm line, so she couldn’t hear a response, but from Garrus’ expression easing he clearly got one.

“Holding steady, then? Good,” there was genuine relief in his tone, and it seeped a little into Shep’s own body. Good news, or at least no worse news about John, then. Bless Thane for being on top of his information. “Right, I have a request. Shep’s going out to investigate and see if she can’t get a sample - or a source… ha. Yes, exactly. Great. I figured I could count on you. Airlock in ten.”

He lowered his arm, his omni-tool disappearing as the call clearly ended.

“Thane?” she prompted. “Didn’t know you two were close.”

“We’re not,” he admitted, eyeing her thoughtfully. “But I suppose someone’s stubborn insistence I might have a little mutual respect among the team made me think I ought to test her hypothesis.”

“Sounds like that someone has a good idea now and then. Worth listening to,” she hummed cheekily. Her gaze was approving, though, as she added. “Good call.”

“He’ll be your shadow, he said,” Garrus nodded, left mandible flaring out a little again. “That way you can operate as needed. But he’ll be backing you up if ‘shit hits the fan’,” he lifted his hands and wryly mimicked quotation marks - a universally entertaining gesture from any three-fingered set of hands, “and lending a hand in… well, the ways he does best.”

“For an expert assassin, that’s a lot of ways…”

“That’s the idea. Meanwhile, I’ll stay here - make sure nothing goes belly up while Shepard’s down… and I’ll be feeding you any intel I dig up while you work. Report in when you can - I’ll get everyone focused on what will help the most. So, Shep?”

“Yeah, Garrus?”

“Do what you need to do, and get that sample - but come back in one piece.” Garrus paused, then wryly added, “and that’s an order.”

Shep grinned.

“Understood.”

It wasn’t news that people on Omega were uniformly unhelpful at first pass. Or second. Or, really, ever.

“I dare point out that both of our jobs would pay substantially less if it were that easy to get illicit information.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” Shep murmured via comm link to her unseen shadow. Thane had been nearby in the hour or two since she’d left the ship, never once losing his line of sight on her, but she had to admit- the drell was as skilled as she’d known her own favorite assassin to be. 

A few wandering hands tried to grab at her or her pockets as she pushed through a particular thick crowd. Her continued movement and the poke of her unhappy-to-see-you gun gave her the leeway to make it to the rear doors. Maybe now that she had a little more time on her hands - in theory, anyways, and after she got the damned poison - she could talk shop with Thane on the matter. Being both an engineer and someone used to working both on the frontline and from the rear of a mission lead to an invested curiosity she’d always been itching to scratch. Cloaking tech was a possible factor, but he seemed to move without even the glimmer of an overreliance on finicky tech… Drell physiology might allow for some unique movements, she’d need to look more into that; or maybe that was just the effects of training an assassin since childhood-

For now though, she refrained from further entertaining her desire for a distraction from the current situation and wound her way through the back staircase down to the precise bar that had served John poison. It had been her first stop, in fact, but naturally the batarian was long gone, and her purposefully casual investigation and convincingly tipsy and casual demeanor hadn’t gotten her far in the same spot. Neither hand the upstairs bar, though at least the one turian could certainly serve a decent hard liquor. 

More than once while up there she’d glanced the way of Aria’s overlook. Tempting, true, but she was an unknown here - not one worth Aria’s time, even if she tried to name drop John.

… Shep wasn’t willing to risk the news of him being poisoned spreading, either.

Several dead-end conversations, a few under the table credit packs passed, and a dozen sleazy bastards of varying species trying to get handsy with her later, and she only had a few meager leads. There was the fact that the batarian bartender had been working that bar for a few months; that he mainly worked the red-eye end of the night cycle; that he didn’t seem to be part of any major gang; and that any regular worth their salt knew better than to get a drink from him if they were a human. 

Or, in a couple of cases, they knew precisely where to suggest a human causing them trouble should get a drink.

A nursed and well-tested bottle of liquor in hand - no luck in getting the needed poison right off the bat - Shep made her way to one of the few empty chairs in the lower bar, one in front of an asari dancer. Angled just right, she could ‘watch’ the admittedly skilled asari while maintaining an eyeline on the bar itself.

No one really questioned someone with their eyes on multiple prizes on this station.

Shep made eye contact with her, giving her a look with lidded gaze and an interested nod as she sank into her chair. Her body language had long-since shifted to that of a merc with plenty experience under her belt; a hint of a swagger, but not too much, mixed with the purposeful stride of someone used to getting where they needed to go at all costs, plus the intensity of gaze that tended to warn off anyone of too low a figurative weight class. With a pleased and appreciative smile, the asari put a little more purpose into her languid, sensual moves. If she meant it, that was mildly flattering, if not, then the worker was worth her salt in her acting skill alone.

… Her dancing was damn good, too. 

Thane was quiet on the other end of the line as she settled, for which Shep was grateful. She loathed to think the commentary Kasumi or Joker or any number of other crew members might needle her with. 

Flicking a decent tip the dancer’s way right off the bat, Shep settled in, beginning to memorize the faces and behaviors of the bargoers. People-watching served its own purpose, but it also gave her mind time to mull over her intel and options. She noted everyone: regulars, thrill tourists, those passing through the station but with enough of a handle on themselves to make their way this far in… A few miscellaneous pairs or small groups that had an obvious Eclipse or a Blue Suns member… a Blood Pack krogan leering at a small handful of asari dancers he’d managed to wave enough credits at to get the group attention of. There was a complete mix of species here; even a hanar in one corner. Shep tried not to focus too hard on the sounds of that one , presumably, flirting with a particularly intoxicated human playing with one of its tentacles.

Before she could get too morbidly curious, though, she felt a little flare of awareness catch her attention. Something was off; too-long trained in high-risk situations, she knew when her senses had caught onto something her mind hadn’t registered yet. Someone was watching her - and not just with the casual interest of a pickpocket or horny merc. As easily as anything, she shifted her weight, legs spreading a little as she lounged in the chair, giving the asari a long, lingering look before letting her gaze fractionally shift to her side, past her again, searching…

Shep lifted her bottle to her lips, took a long draw of the drink too weak in comparison to what her system could now handle, and caught the man just as he surreptitiously glanced away.

He was on the opposite end of the semi-circle bar from where her table was situated; perfect line of sight. He wore a well-tended bomber style jacket - in fact, everything she could see on his person was best described that way. Carefully, almost, not-new, and yet almost meticulously cleaned and cared for, practically in spite of the general state of Omega and its inhabitants and visitors. It didn’t stick out like a sore thumb, but it was of note, even as he half-hid his face with the glow of an omni-tool.

His hair was dark - black, probably, not that the low lighting helped determine that. Curly, too. Half-tamed, half-unruly, like it was grown out more than he was used to. He lifted a drink to his mouth- but when he lowered it, nothing had changed in the level of the liquid within.

There was a sudden clamoring behind him. A couple of Eclipse grunts had gotten frustrated at how the Blood Pack krogan was taking up so much dancer attention and a predictable but brief brawl was instigated and broken up seconds later by one of the brutal looking bouncers gesturing with a particularly large shotgun. The man that had been staring at her had turned to look, though, and in that moment his omni-tool flickered off, just in time for a flashing light to catch his profile-

-Shep nearly choked on her drink.

When he turned back around, his eyes swept the bar, and  this time, they made true eye contact. Shep stared openly back at a face she’d been through hell with -

- no . A face nearly identical to the one she’d known…

Kaidan Alenko. 

Her heart felt like it seized in her chest as the memories of the last time she’d seen her friend slammed through her. His approach, his hard words and softer frustration, his back turning, her hand reaching out, her feet and voice following, trying to get him to talk it out-

Like an emergency response system, an iron wall in her mind slammed down before she could lose herself, cutting herself off at the pass. A growing habit. A growing need . She closed her eyes, just for a second, took a breath, sealed any trace of an opening to that line of thought, and opened her eyes once more.

He’d looked away, but was eyeing her out the corner of his eyes, his expression clouded. Confused, almost; worried, and a little frustrated - that last one, she had a distant feeling from her own recollections of her Kaidan, might be at himself for getting caught. 

Idly, as idly as she could manage, she raised her drink to him in a bemused toast from across the room - now that her body was cooperating with her and her expression could match.

He blinked, a few moments passed, and he slowly lifted his drink to her in turn.

… Good enough to use as an invitation.

“Do you know that man? Or rather, did you?”

Shep’s left hand curled in on itself, tapping her wrist once. Thane hummed in the receiver at her affirmation.

“... Be wary.”

She half-smiled. Kaidan’s head tilted almost imperceptibly, and she glanced back to the asari. With a wink and a nod as she began to stand, Shep pinged her a generous tip. The asari practically purred at her, a more genuine tilt to the smile she got at that. 

Without rushing, but without looking as if she might head elsewhere either, Shep strode around the bar and towards Kaidan. 

He watched her come, watched the way her drink dangled casually between fingertips and thumb. Shep had opted to wear the leather jacket she’d gotten as an option to go over her more subtle style of armor, and he watched the tail end of that too, flaring slightly with her movement. In something that came as close to amusement as she could get right now, she wondered if he was searching her for more weapons than was obvious she already had strapped to her.

… Naturally, she did have more than the pistol at her hip and the rifle on her back, but they weren’t that easy to find.

“This spot taken?” Shep casually gestured to the stool next to him with her drink, their gazes once more meeting as he finished his quick study of her. 

“...No, go right ahead.”.

His voice was the same. The same polite, raspy half-drawl of a voice, nostalgic and familiar and new all at once. 

Of course it was the same, though - of course it was. 

It hurt just a little more than nearly everyone else’s had, though.

She gave him a nod of thanks and slid onto the seat, leaning casually against the bar and looking back over the room and its varied occupants as she took another sip of her drink. 

Though technically in a rush, she still didn’t rush . 

“... Come here often?” 

Shep choked a little on her drink, properly this time. She huffed, wiping at a little liquor that escaped her lips and ill-hiding a sudden grin as her gaze flickered back to them.

“Say that to all the ladies at the bar?”

He straightened a little, and she caught the edge of a grimace as his features twitched in mild self-horror. It was schooled away just as fast, too quick for a stranger to catch. “I- no, god no, I- sorry, just… curious, is all. Seems like a… dangerous place to linger alone, is all.”

Shep was taking the opportunity to soak in his appearance. She’d been right before - his hair was longer than she’d ever known it to be, though it looked good on him. His gear was all well-cared for, his features were as chiselled as she’d ever known them to be - and, mercifully, he didn’t seem to be… bearing any obvious scars. 

The real question was why he was here .

“That’s Omega for you,” she shrugged, looking away again. She didn’t comment on the alone assumption, though. “At least Afterlife’s danger is usually predictable.”

“Usually?” he mused. “Reassuring.”

She chuckled. “I don’t think anyone finds themself lasting longer than an hour on Omega without figuring out that’s better odds than the general chaos of the rest of the place.”

“Fair,” Kaidan murmured, finally looking away himself.

Things were quiet for a bit then. As quiet as a mercenary-filled dance club and bar on a lawless dug-out mining asteroid ever could be, anyways. If nothing else, it was always a little entertaining to watch the occasional body get thrown a dozen feet or so before cavalierly picking itself up and stumbling back for more.

Shep took another slow sip as she watched the krogan from earlier lift two asari on his biceps, prompting a few cheers, a jeer, and several more bets that he either could or couldn’t lift more willing bodies. Easy credits, with how much ryncol the guy had been downing ten minutes ago-

“Been here long?”

Shep’s gaze flickered back to him. He seemed idle in his question. It almost impressed her. He’d… well, maybe this Kaidan was different. But… if not, he’d come a long ways. Whatever he was doing here, it wasn’t your standard mission, or even an unusual one like hunting Saren down. He was some kind of undercover, and if not for the fact that Shep knew him, he wasn’t exactly broadcasting it. It was out of the wheelhouse she’d known her own Kaidan to have… two years prior, at least.

Time was a hell of a thing. Seemed she was always getting shorted on it.

“I pass through Omega now and then,” she replied, casual - vague. As most people with decent sense would. Truthful, too, more importantly.

“Same here,” he said. Liar , she thought to herself almost fondly. “Afterlife’s a new venue for me though. What are you drinking?”

“Why, you wanna buy me another?” she grinned. There was no resisting a queue up like that.

This time, though, her teasing was taken a hell of a lot more smoothly. He grinned, and shrugged. “Why, do you want me to?”

She laughed.

“Tempting,” she hummed. “But I’m afraid I’m not drinking much from this particular bar these days.” Her gaze shifted, then, towards the bartender- on the opposite side, currently. A turian. She looked back to Kaidan, the playfulness gone. “You shouldn’t either.”

He stared at her.

“... You know about the poisonings?”

So he was in the know for that much. It confirmed her suspicions about how little was gone from his drink. Had he poured out what was missing? Seemed clever and simple as a solution - precisely his style. He was a thinker, an overthinker, frankly, but he was quick in the field.

She nodded, and tapped the bar twice with her index finger, sighed, then patted it with her whole hand and let it rest.

On her comms, she heard a single click of confirmation. New mission focus, understood.

“Don’t take a drink from a batarian, here,” she murmured at last, as if reluctant to let the information slip. “Best avoid the drinks from this bar, period, as a human.”

“How do you know that?” He asked, quiet but intense. He was leaning a little closer in, face schooled to not betray the intensity in his low voice. “What happened?”

She remained silent for a few long seconds. He didn’t break away from how she studied him in that time, eyes carefully narrowed. He had no way of knowing she wasn’t merely deciding whether to spill a minor secret to him - no way to know she was instead trying to piece together why he was so intent on this. Was he here by chance? Did someone he know become a victim? Was this Alliance related  - or just happenstance had him here and hearing about it, and his integrity was now compelling him to try to do something about it to prevent pointless death-?

“Who wants to know?” she asked, just as quiet. Only now did she lean in a little herself- side to the bar, one elbow down. 

He weighed her question. His brow was drawn down, furrowed and tight, but he finally said, “... Kaidan. The name’s Kaidan. I’m passing through but… well. Inquiring minds.” He shifted his weight, folding his hands together in front of him. “There’s a lot of rumors swirling about and I aim to get to the bottom of them.”

“Bold proposition on this station,” Shep murmured, studying him still. He grimaced, and nodded a little.

Whatever his reason, he was keeping it close to the vest. Rumors, right. Which rumors? She had a feeling it wasn’t just about a batarian with a shit M.O.. But… this was Kaidan, after all. He didn’t have an ill-intentioned bone in his body, no matter what he’d been through. John had been to Horizon already himself - it seemed more things were different between herself and John and their circumstances than they’d first realized, but Garrus himself had mentioned that Kaidan and John had met, and it hadn’t gone great for them either. Yet John had to want to see him, right? To get a chance to talk more? From everything she’d learned about the other version of herself, limited as it was… no, she’d be shocked if that wasn’t the case. 

But John wasn’t exactly able to go about greeting anyone , let alone an old friend and missed comrade. Kaidan wasn’t an idiot though, and Omega talked - he had to have heard that the Normandy was here. So what was Kaidan’s angle? Was it all a coincidence? Did it have to do with the Alliance’s distrust of Cerberus? What had he done after the Collector’s attack on Horizon…?

She just didn’t have enough information to know for sure.

… Well then, she’d have to change that.

In the meager shadows between them, Shep extended her hand to him. He blinked, seeming more than a little surprised, and looked up at her. Her expression remained steady - not quite daring to smile, but not dark or foreboding, either. Confident, interested, and - an open, genuine offer.

After a few seconds, he took her hand.

“Call me Shep,” she said. 

“... Shep?” He echoed, voice going just a hint thin - but after a beat, confusion ending up more prominent on his features. “Just Shep?”

“Just Shep,” she grinned a little, and squeezed his hand before releasing it. “So, Kaidan. You’re looking into the poisonings too.” His name came easily, even as he stared at her, her own nickname so clearly new. “I think we can help one another.”

“‘Too’,” he narrowed his eyes thoughtfully, lowering his hand a bit slowly. “So you do know something.”

“A friend of mine was a victim just earlier,” she finally revealed. His eyes widened, and she saw his mouth open, condolences no doubt on the tip of his tongue, but she shot him a thin smile before they could escape. “He’s hanging on. Barely. Got lucky with a certain salarian that knows his way around poisons, let’s just say.”

He whistled low, but gave her a long look. “That’s some kind of luck you and your friend have.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” she huffed, barely refraining from laughing at the mild absurdity of it. “But I need a sample of the poison to make sure he gets through. It’s usually fatal.”

“Good way to figure out an antidote,” Kaidan nodded. “Earlier, you said- how long have you been here?”

“Couple hours. No luck so far, not a lot of substantial leads. Just a bit about the batarian in question.” she frowned. “Was thinking about crowd-watching a bit longer, but…”

He made a face. “Sorry to distract you.”

“No harm done, I was mulling over where to go next more than anything.”

“Ideas?”

“I take that as a request to come with.”

Kaidan glanced down at his hands, one laying atop the other, clasping it lightly. 

“I know you don’t know me from Adam, but…” He squeezed his own hands. “Well. I’m not saying you have to trust me that much. Two heads are better than one though, right?”

“You don’t have a reason to trust me either. Why take the risk?” Shep was watching him with an unreadable expression. He barely spared a glance at it.

“... I have my reasons.”

“Urgent ones, I’d wager.”

“Something like that.”

“I’m the first person willing to have a reasonable conversation who knows what’s happening and actually cares to get to the bottom of it, aren’t I?”

“That might be a factor.”

They shared the rueful half-smile of people who knew dead end leads and wasted time like the back of their hands. She could see the familiar amused weariness in his features she’d known so well. It seemed he recognized the same in hers. It kept him staring, for some reason, and gave her a moment to consider the next step.

“Omega’s not a nice place to be crawling into the darker shadows of.” It was hard not to think of his… argument on Horizon. Better to be sure. Better to not work on hunches and another universe’s standards. “You sure you’re up for it?”

“You say that like you’re certain what I’m capable of,” he rolled his eyes, and finally met her gaze again. When he saw she was serious, he frowned. “Don’t worry about me. I’m ready to do what’s needed - though I’m not going to let it slide if you’re planning something awful.”

“The only ones getting something awful in their future at my hand are the ones that poisoned my friend,” she replied, deadly serious. 

He searched her face.

“... Fair enough, within reason.”

Shep finished her drink at his acquiescence, and stood, absently rolling her shoulders. Kaidan, after a moment, joined her in standing, and with a mild stretch, knocked over his largely unfinished drink towards the interior of the bar counter.

“Damn,” he said, deadpan. “What a waste.”

Shep snorted, and clapped him on the shoulder. He glanced over at her, one brow quirking - she resisted the urge to lift her hand, playing into it a bit. 

“C’mon. We’ve got to see a krogan about a batarian.”

“That is the least enticing invitation I think I have ever received,” he muttered.

“And yet,” she hummed with a half-grin, striding away - Kaidan falling into step behind her.

“I’m starting to second guess this alliance.”

“Tell that to the results we’ll be getting.”

“Only if you get them.”

“Oh, I always get results.”

“That kind of talk is so not helping the second-guessing. Who are we going to?”

Shep glanced over her shoulder back at his artfully arched brow and shrewd gaze. Her grin grew.

“Everyone knows a matriarch runs Omega. But there’s a Patriarch that knows more than a lot of people give him credit for, too - and he’s a hell of a lot easier to get in a room with.”

Chapter Text

Shep was hiding something. Kaidan knew it, Shep knew he knew it, he knew she knew that - but unknown backgrounds were a credit a dozen on Omega, and still, here he was. And as Kaidan watched her fist expertly connect with a batarian trying to solicit her for the kind of work no sober man would expect a woman dressed like her to be doing, he knew Shep was hiding a whole hell of a lot behind that moniker.

Carefully schooling away his shock at how quickly she’d pivoted and dropped the alien, Kaidan gave himself one more chance to take inventory of the increasingly strange… stranger he’d decided to risk forging an alliance with.

… it had to be the relation to his old commander’s name that was making him see things in her that weren’t there. It didn’t help that she walked with a very… particular kind of confidence; for all her casual pace and subtle keen watch on her surroundings, Kaidan had rarely seen someone stride with that same pragmatic ease… the kind that slung him two years into the past. 

She was too different to keep him there, though. It wasn’t just her physical appearance, though that said plenty. Her boots seemed anything but new, and she walked more like an Earth cat on the hunt than a hard-boiled soldier. She didn’t style her hair like a soldier either, but there must have been something to this maybe-mercenary’s spacefaring life that had her styling it, or rather not styling it, in a way that reminded him of one. There wasn’t a single heavy plate in what showed of her armor, yet he had a feeling there was more defense than met the eye to what she wore - 

-the kind of defense that could keep her current stance casual in spite of the blood dripping from her knuckles as she stood over the batarian who had propositioned her twenty seconds ago. 

“I thought you said it was easier to get in to see this patriarch,” Kaidan muttered, carefully stepping over the groaning alien who was too busy deciphering up from down to make a grab for either of them.

Shep lightly curled and uncurled her fist, eyes not on Kaidan or even the batarian that had come between them and their apparent destination, but on a krogan bouncer drumming one set of gloved claws on his shotgun.

“I did,” she hummed. The krogan she was eyeing leaned against the wall next to a doorway Shep had been heading towards before their batarian interruption. She rolled her right shoulder, and gave a single shake of her hand. Blood flecked the already grungey floor of the half-stairwell. The krogan’s eyes narrowed a bit. “Doesn’t mean the old bastard likes his time wasted. Come to think of it, neither do I.”

Kaidan stared at her, picking up on just how pointed her words were in light of their one-krogan audience - but rather than seem annoyed, the krogan chuckled and gave a jerk of his head towards the door.

Shep smirked and winked at the krogan; she spared just a moment to glance back at Kaidan before moving forward, offering a lifted brow of invitation.

The look, the walk… softer sounding steps, sure, but just as confident. Damn if it didn’t spark memories he’d thought better buried. 

She was a bit quicker to throw a punch, though.

“If you’re that feisty in bed, catch me after my shift,” grunted the krogan as they passed. Kaidan frowned, but Shep chuckled and swiped at the door’s interface to let them in. Beyond it was an ill-lit corridor of a size that was downright cramped for krogans and taller turians, and not much better for anyone else. 

Shep strode in with little wariness to Kaidan’s eyes, though he assumed she was simply hiding it as well as she was hiding everything else. The door hissed shut behind them, mercifully muffling the worst of the noise. Kaidan had, as usual, nearly grown used to the pain of it. Wryly, he had to wonder if it almost felt worse now, given his awareness of his own ongoing migraine rose thanks to the comparative quiet of the corridor.

“Surprised you didn’t knock him out, too,” he observed dryly. “Should I be prepared for you to start a fight that easily with this Patriarch, or…?”

Shep huffed - it was almost a laugh. It was even maybe just a little more genuine than the chuckle she’d given that krogan. “Wasn’t a fight, was it?” She seemed similarly amused by the flat look Kaidan gave her at that. “The people using these rooms aren’t the types to like time-wasters. That bouncer just needed to see we weren’t lightweights - or the wrong kind of troublemakers. I had something else in mind, but since the opportunity presented itself…”

“It’s Omega. There’s a wrong kind of trouble?”

“The incompetent kind, mostly.”

“... So, should I be glad a batarian offered to hook you up with the ‘nice’ kind of red light district job when he did, or-“

“Given it was a krogan on duty, I’d say be glad we didn’t have to break into a head-butting deathmatch.”

“That was your first plan?”

“Who knows?”

He sincerely hoped that was a no.

A few turns into the narrow hall, a few locked doors passed, a little more distance gained from the noise of the bar - and Kaidan’s mind shelved his analysis of her character long enough to note that as they passed another set of doors, a slightly muted series of grunts and moans were easy enough to catch.

“Please tell me we aren’t going to be… interrupting whoever this man is,” Kaidan said, gaze flicking away from the mercifully unseen room and around the corridor, the corner of his eyes always on Shep. “This isn’t… oh, no.” Please, no. “Don’t tell me this area is…?”

He looked at her, and she glanced at him, a subtle grin on her face. Oh, no .

“Private rooms attached to a club in Omega? Hmm,” she mused. “What do you think, Kaidan?”

“I think I’m hoping you’re full of it,” he drawled. “Or that you think you’re funny.”

She grinned a little wider, looking forward. “Nothing’s illegal here, L-“ she broke off into a breathy laugh and shook her head as she slowed to a stop in front of a door at the end of the hall. “… Luckily, I don’t think these rooms stand up to a krogan’s idea of a good time.”

“Luckily?” he pressed, and she banged on the door. The other key information in her sentence caught up to him on the third knock. “- Krogan?”

The doors opened to a krogan staring them down, eye to eye, his hump imparting a more imposing looming effect than Kaidan appreciated.

“Here to see Patriarch,” Shep said. In front of Kaidan’s eyes, and before the krogan could catch it, her expression had flipped; no longer grinning, but displaying casual, unreadable purpose. She felt like a different person without that hint of good humor, he realized. “I’ve got a proposition.”

The krogan stared her down. When she didn’t look away, he snorted, eyes moving to Kaidan.

“… And the goody two shoes?” he growled.

Kaidan scowled, staring back at the krogan and feeling an itch of annoyance. 

But Shep simply smiled, and shrugged. “Call him my krantt.”

Mercifully, Kaidan could keep confusion off his face even in a situation like this. The krogan, however, looked practically surprised - then amused.

“Ha! Patriarch, you got a couple of humans here with somethin’ for you. The female means business,” he called, barely turning his head towards one shoulder, eyes sliding back to Shep.

There was a sound like a boulder being crushed into gravel from deeper in the room. Kaidan recognized it - Wrex had made it on more than one occasion after being told he had to stop shooting something or other. 

“… Hmph. Fine then.”

The bodyguard stepped to the side.

“Hope you’re more entertaining than the last idiots wasting his time,” the bodyguard grumbled, leaning against the wall next to the door as it closed behind them, a bit snappier than most on Omega. Kaidan simply leveled a look at him while Shep gave a lackadaisical wave of acknowledgement. The krogan shrugged and turned his attention to his gun. 

Odd choice of attitude for a bodyguard, Kaidan had to note. He hardly seemed invested.

Odder yet was this room. For what little Shep had said of this Patriarch, Kaidan had nonetheless gotten the impression he must be some kind of important - someone with his claws in a lot of pies, as it were. But this room was… unremarkable. No personal effects. There weren’t even any holo displays or portable tech - and apparently, only the one bodyguard. A single krogan stood before one of the couches hard-built into the room, while a couple of turians and an asari talked quietly on another one. There was music, even more strangely, though it sounded a bit filtered- as if it was the sound of the club itself being fed in, with the volume turned down.

It… looked like any other side room, frankly. Not like a meaningful place for an important man- er, krogan - to be found. 

“Patriarch,” Shep greeted, coming to a stop only a few paces before him. Kaidan came to her side, hands clasping loosely behind his back. “Glad to see you’re still kicking.”

“And who the fuck are you to care?” Patriarch grunted, crossing his arms. His armor was a similar style to Wrex’s, Kaidan noted - he was pretty sure that meant this Patriarch was similarly old. It wasn’t as popular a style with relatively younger krogans. 

Shep crossed her arms in mirror to him, eyes glinting in the lackluster light of the back room. “Someone willing to be associated with an old bastard like you.”

Kaidan’s eyes snapped to Shep, equal measures horrified, frustrated, and baffled. This was starting to feel like a worse alternative to nursing a drink at the poison bar.

Patriarch in turn snarled, to the surprise of precisely no one.

“I could wipe my damned boots with a whelp like you, and I’m not seeing a reason I shouldn’t.” He stepped forward, and Kaidan breathed in the steady, intentional way he’d long since mastered to keep his biotics under control. Neither he nor Shep moved.

“I happen to know that everyone benefits from there being someone capable on the playing board who happens to be more than a dusty trophy of Aria’s conquest,” Shep said. The krogan froze, a subtle thing from how still he was already holding his hulking form in as daunting a manner as possible. His head slowly turned from eyeing Kaidan back to her. Kaidan’s own gaze remained locked on him, ready for things to go sideways - but surprised by this angle. “Plus, you being more of a player gives more for the gangs to be concerned about.”

“And you’re itching to pick a fight with them?” Patriarch grunted, gaze narrowing. “Or trying to seed your own venture? I’ll tell ya where you can shove it, if that’s the case. I’ve got enough bootlickers trying to sidle their way past an old relic like me just to get at her-“

“I’m not interested in a long term stay on Omega,” Shep cut him off, and he grunted in obvious doubt. She spread her hands a little, low and inoffensive; practical. “But Omega’s a convenient stop for me. No, what I want is to solve a problem that affects someone with my disposition, and to take a pound of flesh for what’s been taken from me.”

That got the krogan’s interest.

Kaidan kept his face blank of emotion, even at Shep’s little comment about wanting revenge. He was getting what he hoped was a read on her - she was willing to perform what the other party wanted, if it got her what she needed. That, or… she meant it. What that meant for him he didn’t yet know, but for now…

“And what’s in it for me?” Patriarch finally leaned back slightly, crossing his arms. 

Shep smiled, ever so slightly. “A number of gears turning in your favor, but most importantly - Aria’s got a problem. Her own bar’s staff, undermining her by poisoning humans? Not just cutting into profits - seeing as dead humans can’t buy more drinks, and word gets around, after all. But seeding that kind of disrespect and letting it fester…” Shep tsk’ d, and Patriarch rolled his eyes - but didn’t interrupt. They eyed each other for a long moment. “… Listen, I’ll cut to the chase. You point me in the right direction of a batarian bartender who hasn’t missed a chance to kill a human customer via poison, and I’ll give you the credit for solving the problem. Anyone I come across - who doesn’t need to disappear - they’ll know Patriarch’s got more power than anyone guessed. Enough to get some powerful humans to do the dirty work for him; that he’s the kind of krogan that doesn’t just have favors to pull, but has irons in the fire. You’re not just yesterday’s news, Patriarch, and I know it. Soon enough, the rest of Omega will, too.”

She rested one hand on her hip, letting her declaration settle as Patriarch, unreadable beyond his scowl as many krogan were, considered her. 

Kaidan did, too, though he kept his eyes on the krogan.

“… to be my krantt, is it,” Patriarch muttered at last. 

That word again-

Shep nodded. “As far as anyone knows. Of course,” she added, “That’s if there’s a battlemaster left beneath that hump.”

Kaidan knew a provocation when he heard one, but he was starting to get the feeling Shep was better with handling krogan than any human had a right to be - because Patriarch suddenly laughed , just the once, hard and eardrum-piercingly loud. Kaidan winced as his head throbbed, but rather than pull out a gun or simply launch himself at them, the krogan grinned. “Shit, human, you’ve got a better bite than most your species. Fine; I’ve been thinking I might be no better than some asari museum trinket these days, but… hn. Maybe there’s blood in the air for me yet.”

He turned around, gesturing sharply to the long-since quiet group on a nearby couch. They cleared their throats and began talking amongst themselves again, and Patriarch moved to sit in what must have been his spot, pulling up his omnitool display. With a few flicks of his claws, he appeared to send a file Shep’s way - and Shep indeed reacted, pulling up her own interface and perusing it swiftly.

“Batarians hate humans in general, but there’s been some rumblings of particularly proactive ones lately,” Patriarch shrugged. “New gangs come and go, most of ‘em shoot each other dead before they can grow big enough to tip any scales. But you’re not wrong about this case bein’ bad for business, human. I’m lookin’ forward to making use of this kind of foothold… if you’re as good as you seem to think you are.”

Shep was quick in going over whatever he’d sent her, hardly reacting to the jibe. “I get the job done, Patriarch, you’ll see that. And I appreciate the intel on this smuggler… You seem to be missing a relevant location, here, though.”

“Hmph. Decent eye. You want that - then I’ve got somethin’ more specific you gotta do along the way.”

Shep raised a brow, gaze on Patriarch once more. “What would that be?”

“Some mid-tier Blood Pack are planning to kill me tonight. Might’ve let the fight happen, but there’s not much better to prove I’ve got krantt than someone fighting ‘em for me.”

“You want us to kill for you?” Kaidan said. 

His interjection was sudden, and seemed to surprise Shep - her mouth twitched, and she glanced back to Patriarch who was staring at him. 

Kaidan didn’t bother glaring at Patriarch. There was no point - hell, he wasn’t even surprised. This was Omega . No, he looked to Shep now, a frown on his face. She studied him, and he studied her before simply saying, “I’m not interested in getting involved in Omega’s politics.”

For whatever it might have been worth, her expression didn’t shift much. She simply continued looking at him, and eventually turned back to a thoroughly unimpressed Patriarch.

“Give us a moment,” she said, and simply turned around, moving back out into the corridor. If Kaidan didn’t know any better, he’d say the krogan looked more surprised than angry - but Shep simply gestured to Kaidan to follow her - not impatiently. Practically polite, really, given the circumstances.

He followed, the door snapped shut behind them with the noncommittal bodyguard’s stare on their backs, and she turned to him.

“I understand why you don’t want to get involved,” she began, but he shook his head.

“Do you? Because so far you’ve promised an interesting lead, offered to help poisoned people, and then promptly lead me into a fairly down-on-his-luck and pissed-off krogan’s rented sideroom, and insulted him to get him interested in giving you a lead you don’t actually know the specifics or quality of and offered to be his huscle in return.”

She at least had the good graces to grimace. Kaidan simply crossed his arms and arched a brow at her. A long minute passed as she considered him, but eventually, she spoke.

“... Again, fair. Though I might point out krogan don’t take you seriously if you’re not willing to provoke them, either by violence or pride,” she countered, sounding a little wry. She held up an idle hand before Kaidan could interject, nodding as if to acknowledge his unstated argument in turn. “More importantly though - you’ve got a good point. I’ve made some assumptions about your interests I shouldn’t have. Let me be frank with you , then-” and she met his sharp gaze head on, gesturing lightly towards him. “What is it I can offer you in exchange for your help?”

“That depends on what kind of help you want,” he replied. 

She nodded. “Easier answered now that we’ve gotten this far with Patriarch - if he isn’t too annoyed by me walking out,” she half-smiled, but quickly dropped the humor. “I’m interested in accepting his offer as a fair trade - he may not look like much, but he knows damn near everyone on Omega, and has old, often neglected ways of getting intel. Taking out some Blood Pack to keep him from getting assassinated seems a fair trade for that kind of intel,” she pointed out, but continued with apparent earnestness, “But it’s obvious I could use a hand doing that much - and from there, following the leads to the poison source. My ideal goal is to at least get a sample of the poison - an antidote, if possible, but I won’t hold my breath. You’re - you seem trustworthy enough, and competent to boot. Clever, too. I’d like your help in accomplishing this.”

He considered her in turn.

Shep was still hiding a lot. But for all intents and purposes, she seemed to be telling the truth about this much. He could see the slightest edge of urgency in the way she held herself - purposefully calm, used to high stakes, but trying to get to the heart of the problem faster than not. And she wasn’t expecting his help for free.

And of course, he wasn’t opposed to stopping a serial poisoner. It was more about weighing the pros and cons - because so far, this was going further and further off his main course, even if he didn’t have any working leads at the moment.

“... Alright, then - information,” he finally replied. When she seemed neither surprised nor opposed, he carefully continued, “Information on Cerberus, namely.”

“What about them?” she asked, half-interested, half-neutral.

“Fair,” he echoed her mildly, considering his words. “I’d say ‘anything of importance,’ but I’ve got the basics of them - I’m looking for more current information. Operations, active missions-” he trailed off, searching her expression. “You’ve gotten this far - you seem the type to know how to find information.”

“Information is always worth the effort,” she half-smiled, and glanced to the side. After a beat, she ventured, “Would it be safe to assume you being here at the same time as that Cerberus-branded Normandy is no coincidence, then?”

Kaidan’s brows furrowed. “... You do know something, then?”

She hummed softly, thoughtfully to herself. Tilted her head a little, muscles pulling a little at one corner of her lips. It was like she was looking at the question in her hands, from all sides. “... I know a damn lot more than I’d like to, if I’m being honest.”

Kaidan felt a spark of long-lost optimism in his chest, followed by swift wariness. “How? Are your sources reliable?”

“... Let’s just say Cerberus has fucked me over in the past, and I took it a bit personally,” she drawled. Finally, she glanced back up at him - he wasn’t sure yet whether to feel reassured or cautious at that declaration. “Tell you what. I’ll ask you a question that has information in it - as a show of faith, and a down payment of sorts. If you think it’s promising, you agree to help me. I’ll give you more info once we sort out this Blood Pack problem, and if you’re still in to help get the poison after that, then I’ll give you everything I know about them if we succeed.”

He stared at her. It was taking a lot to keep his heart rate from spiking - there was an edge to the previously casual grip on his own arms, disbelief warring with hope in his veins at just how certain she sounded in her offer.

“... What’s the question?”

She almost smiled, as if amused and approving. “Smart man. I respect wanting to make sure first.” One hand went to her hip, and she shifted her weight. “Alright then. Do you know anything about the Lazarus project?”

Kaidan couldn’t keep the shock from flashing across his face. 

He’d only just found out about it. Alliance intel wasn’t even solid on the existence of it - only the events on Horizon had actually confirmed anything at all-

“How-” he whispered harshly, stepping in - then caught himself when she took her turn to arch an expectant brow at him. He frowned, but sighed. “Okay. Okay, then. You actually might have something, huh?”

She nodded, her expression slipping back to an even, cool neutral.

For just one more moment, Kaidan weighed his options. It seemed too good to be true - but then again, no matter how hard Cerberus worked to smooth over its footprints, there were always crumbs - be they shiny and golden… or bloody. And here before him was a secretive woman, on Omega, speaking vehemently of Cerberus, and mentioning as a mere hint the ultra-secret Cerberus cell that had taken months if not longer for Alliance intel to dig up.

He was done dealing with bread crumbs. He wanted something substantial to sink his teeth into.

Kaidan stuck out his hand.

Shep grinned, and took it.

“Glad to have you aboard, Kaidan.”

He shook her hand the once, unsurprised at this point at how firm her grip was. “If your info isn’t good enough, I’ll be expecting some assistance getting more,” he clarified wryly. 

She simply chuckled, a sound a little too dark for true humor, releasing his hand and turning back to Patriarch’s room and waving a hand over the interface. “You’re going to be begging for less info if you really help me see this through.”

“Doubtful, but intriguing,” Kaidan chuckled, taking up her side as they strode in. Patriarch had crossed his arms, leaning back in the couch he apparently claimed as his; stewing, it seemed, but maybe there was something to Shep’s words about picking a fight with krogan to get their interest because he simply glared expectantly at them.

He was the one who met the head krogan’s hard gaze this time. 

“We’re in, Patriarch. Give us what you know about the Blood Pack group after you, and we’ll take care of it-” he brought up his omni-tool, already collating his hard-earned intel and experience into the beginnings of a plan. “And send the coordinates for this vorcha smuggler while you’re at it.”

“She’s met with a krogan?”

“Patriarch, he is called. He appears to be the one Aria T’loak usurped as de facto leader of Omega many years ago,” Thane reported.

Garrus’ mandibles twitched as he passed through the door into the Main Battery with his arms full. It had been a hectic few hours but he was pleased to find that his queries to the various crew members had gone well in spite of their, well, Cerberus background. Some were downright eager to give him the data he’d asked after. Setting his load down on his work table, he got to work sorting the data pads and other supplies. Maybe he really should think about taking the commander up on that offer for a turian-fitted desk… 

“Already in with the former king of Omega? Sounds like Shepard alright…” he exhaled. How had she even known about Patriarch? Even Garrus had only barely heard about him, and only after several months. “… Her kind of Shepard, no less. Anything of note happen?”

“She’s sent me the coordinates to a lead; I will continue to shadow her.”

Garrus nodded, more to himself than anything as he made quick work of activating a few of the data pads. The displays filled with a number of intel feeds, charts of commerce, suspicious interstellar movement patterns… as well as maps of Omega’s ever-shifting political landscape, rosters of known merc and gang members and activity, and yet more specifics of Omega itself that Garrus wryly wished he’d had access to months ago. Shaking off the pang, he brought up his omnitool and began compiling the information.

“Seems she’s on a trail, then - hopefully the right one. Forward the coordinates when you get a chance. Any success in figuring out the identity of the human she’s picked up?”

According to Thane’s brief coded message earlier, some human at Afterlife had gotten Shep’s attention enough to refocus her attention and chase a new angle. Part of him wanted to send her a message himself to ask what she’d thought of, but he resisted. He had more pressing things to do - more pressing help to offer, soon enough.

“Ah, yes. I thought he might be using a moniker, but it appears the human male is either bold or blithely trusting and offered her his true first name after all. He is of the human Alliance, though further query is blocked and will take time to process.”

“Alliance?” Garrus’ mandibles twitched downwards. Alliance craft occasionally passed through Omega, but not often. “What’s his name? Forward what you have, I’ll look into him too.”

Garrus’ omnitool pinged, Thane’s voice accompanying it. “ Already done. He is a man by the name of Kaidan Alenko; he appears to be a Major, and- what was that?”

“I need to go, Thane. Send me every update you can.”

“Very well. I shall be in touch.”

Garrus was halfway to Miranda’s room before his dropped datapad finished clattering across the floor.

Kaidan vaulted over the edge of the walkway, landing in a deft crouch six feet below. The scraping plod of a dozen vorcha were around the corner, and while the alleyways were mercifully darker than the club they’d left behind, the smell was infinitely worse.

His comm clicked on in his ear, and a now familiar voice spoke up. “ Nearly done with the Blood Pack’s present. How’s the vorcha hunt?”

“The coordinates were accurate, but wide - there’s at least fifteen vorcha groupings in this district,” he murmured in reply, stepping quietly through the alley. He brought up his omni-tool to double check Patriarch’s intel - the description and markings were the key part, but in a surprisingly helpful twist, the krogan had also supplied basic descriptions of contrasting vorcha groups in the same area. It was making it a hell of a lot easier to narrow down their target. 

“I do not envy the sensory experience you’ve got to be having about now.”

“I’m starting to rethink offering to track down the source,” Kaidan agreed wryly. Frankly, he preferred ensuring he wasn’t being lead by the nose down a false path and would choose this of the two options again, but… it was a close one. “I’ll get what I can from this Toxvik and meet up with you then.”

“Sounds good. Patch me in when you reach him, it’ll be faster than rehashing whatever he says.”

“Will do,” Kaidan replied, glancing around the corner he’d come up to. Shep was likely hedging her own bets, too, but in a reasonable way. He could appreciate that. “This might be them. Comm silent for now.”

“Roger that.”

Disengaging his omni-tool, Kaidan pulled out his AR and used the scope to get a better look at the group of vorcha in the larger alleyway he’d come to a crossing with. It seemed to branch closer to some of the main corridors, and had a few access doors to the buildings on either side- largely run-down but operating dwellings and some shady shops. There were piles of debris a few of the vorcha were rooting through, one passed out possibly drunk with another one poking him with the barrel of their poorly repaired rifle, and a group of three apparently arguing over something.

Apparently was the key word here - there was a lot of snarling and spitting, but frankly, most vorcha sounded like that no matter their mood. 

He cross-referenced their appearances one at a time, but it wasn’t until one vorcha with his back turned towards Kaidan, mid-argument, turned to gesture emphatically at the passed out one that Kaidan let out a pleased exhale.

“Found you,” he murmured and lowered his AR. With just enough unique splashes of decorative paint and a particular style of strap around his waist, Kaidan felt as confident as a human could that he’d found the right vorcha.

Shouldering his rifle but making sure his heavy pistol was secure and ready at his hip, Kaidan rounded the corner and strode down the alleyway-

-only for a sudden, crackling explosion to nearly blow out his earpiece.

Nearly half a lifetime of active duty kept him from freezing up. He pivoted and exited the alleyway as muffled cursing followed the fading explosion.

“Status report, Shep!” He spoke quickly but quietly, instinct leading him to kick into a run that would take him to her location at pace.

“-ucking son of a-” a krogan roar and several shotgun blasts cut off Shep’s voice, and Kaidan swore under his own breath. He rounded a corner at a dead sprint, one hand thrown out to catch a drainage pipe and keep him at full speed. Shep wasn’t quiet for long. “ Here sooner than they should’ve been - tripmines worked but I was closer than planned-”

The ratchet of a freshly loaded rifle and a burst of gunfire cut off one of the krogan’s shouts.

“En route,” Kaidan said, half leaping up a flight of stairs. “Numbers?”

“Ten, now- ” her breathing hitched and a faint grunt and a switch of the directional ambience of the worst of the noise gave Kaidan a growing imprint of the makeshift battle space. She must have dodged behind cover - and the subtle clicking and careening of a tech interface told him she was setting off a few more inferno blasts than he thought her omni-tool could even handle. A krogan roar signaling their charge suddenly shifted into vicious cursing and screaming- followed by a heavy thud. “Make that nine. All krogan.”

All krogan, and all surrounding her, from the sounds of it.

“30 seconds,” he huffed, cutting up and over a cluttered balcony or two to leap onto a venting unit and cut into a maintenance corridor. “Approaching from the southwest vector-”

“Two on your right on entry, three forward! ”

“Perfect.”

Like unleashing of a force of nature, he let his biotics flood his body.

It was a second skin, a second breath, a  second heartbeat. His implant may be an older model, and he paid for it more often than not, but he’d long since learned the perks and the power he could harness - and just how much more there was left to harness. And the past two years, he’d been holding back less and less.

If only he’d had the mastery he’d since gained sooner.

He cleared his mind of anything but the sensory input from the battle he was rapidly approaching. Several shotgun blasts forward, thermal clips ejecting to the left, grunts, yells, the blast of an overload-

Kaidan burst onto the scene, body blazing an unholy blue, and charged fullbody into the krogan directly to the right of his entryway. Single-minded biotic mastery directed every ounce of force his biotic charge could amplify and focus onto the side of one extremely shocked krogan mercenary. With several times the force of even a biotic throw, Kaidan slammed the krogan into his nearest companion, who took only marginally less impact for being the second one absorbing the impact. 

The two mercenaries slammed into the metal walls and slumped to the ground, armor crushed inwards and blood pooling below. Without missing a beat, adrenaline and the electric high of his powers pumping through his veins, Kaidan pulled out his AR and turned to unleash a hail of fire on the scrambling, shouting krogans remaining.

Three simultaneous overloads lit up the group between him and Shep, shouts turning to seized grunts as their weapons backfired and the shock hit their primary and secondary physiology. Kaidan took the opportunity to fire an inferno at the middle one, where it caught and spread to the other two. The crack of a sniper rifle dropped a krogan further from Kaidan that had turned on him, and Kaidan flung out a hand and biotically threw another charging the cover that the sniper fire had come from. 

It took only half a minute of gunfire, two overloads, and one biotic lift to finish off the remaining Blood Pack assassins. 

Kaidan stood in the midst of them all, chest heaving, blue corona fading, and watched as Shep rose from the cover she’d taken between a listing support beam and some discarded cargo containers. Her omni-tool faded from it’s bright blaze, and she wiped at a few flecks of krogan blood that speckled her face, grinning in what Kaidan had to figure was pleased surprise.

“That was a hell of an entrance,” she praised, tossing her legs over the crates and slipping to his side of it. 

“Haven’t gotten the chance to try that out on a krogan,” he admitted, panting slightly. He rolled a shoulder, lowering his gun at last and glancing around the wider space offered between oddly shaped and haphazardly arranged structures of the lower reaches of Omega. There really were a dozen krogan - and at least at first pass, they were certainly no longer a threat to Patriarch.

“Seriously? You biotically charged at that merc like you were born doing it-” she came up alongside him, checking bodies along the way. “Where the hell did you learn that? Not a lot of biotics have that kind of control.”

“Nearly broke three bones the first time I tried,” he agreed. Ducking into a crouch, he started checking over one of the more important, well-armored krogans. Shep checked the other one, lying adjacent. “Been determined the past couple years.”

She glanced up at him. Her brows lifted - impressed, if he was reading her right. “Most biotics get mastery of whatever they’ve got to work with by maturity,” she observed. 

It was leading, but Kaidan obliged. “Older implant, and a lot of experience.”

“Clearly,” she mused. After a moment, she perked up. “Ha- got something-”

“Just a few credit chips here, and a decent sidearm,” Kaidan straightened, showing off the Carnifex Hand Cannon he’d found in near-pristine condition and the two credit chips. By quick omni-scan, they added up to a pretty sum- “Payment, maybe…?”

“Payment, bribes, hard to say,” Shep gave them a cursory glance, and whistled low. “You take them, for now.”

“Seriously?”

“Gesture of good will,” she shrugged. Then, with a smile like an afterthought, “or a bribe to keep you interested.”

“I’d prefer the info,” Kaidan huffed, but pocketed one of the credit chips - and tossed the other one to her. She caught it with mild surprise, but flashed him a softer grin after a moment. 

“First bit of it coming up - but let’s look at this before that,” she gestured him over, and despite the slight thrill of anticipation at recalling it was indeed time for her first promised info on his true target, he acquiesced. 

This many Blood Pack for one krogan, and a datapad with something intriguing…? Well, he was only human, after all.

He leaned in towards her as she held the datapad between them, her touch flicking through the interface. Message logs filled the screen, and the first she paused on showed conclusive evidence of a plot to kill Patriarch. Skimming the messages revealed that it was part of a power move - Patriarch seemed to be considered a bit of a relic, but an important one, and powerful enough in his own right to be a good target for mercs trying to rise in the ranks of the Blood Pack. More interestingly, though, were several other unencoded messages - ones about trading with vorcha, acting as bodyguards for a series of handoffs, tying up some loose ends… and taking out the client’s ‘competition.’

Kaidan frowned, hand lifting to pause Shep’s scrolling. “Wait- here. They’re talking about transporting something that kills humans. Are they the ones - or, no, is this whole thing a concerted effort-?” He glanced at his companion. “Multiple anti-human gangs, maybe?”

“There’s more than a few gangs with anti-human sentiment, after all…” Shep nodded slowly, her expression all but mirroring his own. “The timing of it can’t be coincidence.”

“And Blood Pack’s involved?”

Shep’s expression tugged downwards, but she shook her head slightly. Her thumb swiped the edge of the screen, flicking through a few different correspondences, lingering only just long enough for Kaidan to get the idea of them. “More like… all these interests are tangled up. Blood Pack, Eclipse, Talons, some smaller time groups… Look, the next message - it’s among Blood Pack members, they’re talking navigating the territories to handle this. I’d wager there’s a new gang that’s supplying narcotics for trade, reaching out to all of them with a hell of a lot to offer. There’s the usual suspects like red sand among the choices, but newer ones too - ah, this message here, Blood Pack’s been asked to bodyguard a handoff.”

“That acronym - SD,” Kaidan pointed out a line at the same message. Shorthand for illicit trade was commonplace and the Alliance tended to send out updates of the worst types to be wary of, but this was a new one to him. “It’s popping up a lot, here most of all. Do you know what it is?”

Shep was staring at a different part of the screen. “No, but…”

“But?”

“Don’t those Omega coordinates look familiar?”

Kaidan glanced down. It took him a moment to mentally cross reference the updated map from Shep he’d been memorizing.

“... You’ve got to be kidding.” He exhaled sharply, straightening and crossing his arms. “Patriarch’s intel was worth the effort, after all.”

“And you found the vorcha, right?”

Kaidan glanced over. Shep’s mouth had pulled into that little half-grin he was starting to become familiar with - the one like a varren with a pyjak in sight. 

A hint of smile perked his own expression at how pleased she looked. “Follow me.”

Before he could turn away, though, her hand caught at his arm- gloved fingertips curling around his bomber jacket, not quite tight enough to fully get a sense of the armor beneath. He looked back, surprised.

She let go, but her expression had shifted to staunch- and amiable. 

“First, I’ve got my end of a bargain to start holding up,” she pointed out. Kaidan blinked - surprised… at himself, as much as at her. 

He hadn’t forgotten, just -

- it was strange. Something about it all had begun to feel so natural. A sequence of action and investigation and lead-chasing that was so damned familiar-

He shook off the sensation and nodded, letting a hint of his gratitude show in his features.

“Right. Cerberus intel - and the Lazarus project.” She met his gaze, and whether she caught the depths of anticipation behind his measured expression, Kaidan wasn’t sure. “From your reaction earlier, it seems that sort of info’s up your alley, right?”

“Yes,” he answered simply.

“Okay. Lazarus - both a project and a cell. Cerberus operates on cells,” she explained, eyes flickering over his face. Reading him, maybe, for recognition versus confusion, to determine what to expand on. He tried not to give too much away, even so. “They’ve got a handful right now, as far as I know. Not sure exactly how many… I mostly know of Lazarus. Each cell is completely independent of one another - lateral, not hierarchical. Losing one cell doesn’t affect others, and the others usually don’t know much about one another, if anything. They’ve got focuses. Some are on research, other development, other financial…” she scoffed, “They’ve got a lot of irons in the fire.”

Kaidan nodded slowly. “Right,” he didn’t reveal what of that he did or didn’t know - even though his heart was racing. Most of it was new. How much could he trust of this? “But the Lazarus cell? What was its purpose?”

“It’s purpose is … mm. Twofold,” she hedged, frowning. “Overall? Investigate the Collectors, stop the colony attacks, to boil it down.”

“Overall? Twofold?” he pressed. It took a lot of effort to bite back a retort about the Collectors - even more to hide the storm of emotions brewing. 

“... Originally…?” she ventured, paused, then asked, “What, uh. What do you know about… Commander Shepard?”

A muscle in Kaidan’s jaw twitched.

“A lot,” he replied, words tight. “But probably not everything.” He forced himself to breathe evenly, trying to look casual, and thanking his twisted luck he’d had a couple years of practice. “Still, he… died a couple years ago, in an explosion out in the Terminus. Ship gone, some of the other crew too…” Or had he? Had he been alive? In hiding? Working with Cerberus? Nothing of it made sense-

“He’s not dead,” Shep said. Kaidan almost thought she sounded soft. It was almost certainly his own narrowing field of vision and hearing playing tricks on him. “I’m not just referring to the rumors - besides a couple of newscasts, and the like… that’s what the Lazarus project was originally about.”

“Recruiting him?”

“No, he really was in that explosion. Totally out of commission the past two years. Lost in space, or killed, or-”

“What, you’re saying Cerberus resurrected him?” 

Shep seemed to not care how demanding the questions came out, or the disbelief. She spoke matter-of-factly. “Yes and no. Maybe he wasn’t entirely dead - there are some theories that freezing in space cryo-froze him, others that he was near death but scavengers got him and put him in some sort of stasis… point is, though, Cerberus got their hands on him, and spent two years and a practically limitless budget on bringing the man back.”

Kaidan didn’t know what to say.

Shep continued, “Miranda Lawson was the project head. Far as I know, they weren’t entirely finished when he woke up. Still some damage, I’ve heard - physical. But something happened to the super secret space lab,” she shrugged, “and they fled. Commander Shepard’s been popping up around the galaxy ever since - mostly in Terminus space.”

“Could just be a clone,” Kaidan pointed out, almost proud of how steady he was keeping his voice.

Shep shook her head, though. “I don’t think so. I uh, don’t know if you’ve ever met the man, but…” she glanced away. “He’s… something else. He’s popped up on the Citadel, on Illium, here in Omega… out in obscure colonies, and from the grousing of some shitty mercs, has taken out some real bastards along the way. Hell, he helped save a quarian team trying to help one of their own at a colony where the Collector’s hit recently. How many evil clones go out of their way to help quarians?”

Kaidan opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “I happen to know some lovely quarians.”

“So do I,” Shep gestured emphatically, “people are assholes to them for no good reason, but that’s part of my point. Not a lot of people not only act reasonably to quarians, but outright help them.”

Kaidan was quiet.

What was he supposed to say to that? Shep didn’t seem to recognize him , and that was fair - he hadn’t shown up in near as many of the news vids after the Battle of the Citadel. Kaidan didn’t want to give away that much, at least not yet. Maybe, just maybe he would if he was certain he could get better info out of it, but…

He blinked, a thought coming to him. “Wait, how do you know all this?”

Shep’s mouth pressed into an even line. After a few moments, she sighed, and said, “Much as I like and appreciate you Kaidan, that’s a bit…”

He frowned, but couldn’t entirely blame her.

“... So. Is that everything you know, or…” he straightened, and finally uncrossed his arms. Honestly, he hadn’t realized he’d even done as much. “Will I get to hear the rest if we figure out this poisoning case of yours?”

Shep looked back up to him, quick and wide-eyed. A beat passed, and her tight expression began to lighten up. “You’re sure?”

It was Kaidan’s turn to sigh, but he smiled faintly afterwards, and nodded. “I think you’ve proven you’ve got some high quality info… and the integrity to share it as promised. If you say you’ve got more…”

“A lot,” she promised quietly. “And… hey. If we succeed? I’ll even tell you how I know it all.”

Kaidan’s brows shot up. She didn’t waver though, and while he wasn’t sure just waited ahead for him and this strangely well-informed woman, he couldn’t help but chase deeper into this rabbit hole.

“What are we waiting for, then?” At last, he turned once again, leading the way - and gesturing for her to hurry up. “We’ve got a vorcha to question.”

“She’s acting as what for Patriarch?”

“Krantt. A manner of comrade, or teammate, one with more explicit intent and trust and mutual investment who-“

“-Right, okay, and they’re taking out Blood Pack for him?”

“Didn’t you say you were in the middle of something? I can report via encoded message, if you would prefer.”

“I can spare a few more seconds. How many Blood Pack?”

“As of seven seconds ago, none.”

“… None, out of how many?”

“Twelve. They stumbled wholecloth into her trap, but earlier than expected.”

“And - Alenko? ”

“Your mandible is clacking rather audibly, Garrus. He was not there to assist in the fighting, initially - I was checking on him to verify his intent and progress while communicating options with Shep. But before he could investigate the vorcha lead Patriarch had supplied, the trap went off and…”

Garrus listened to Thane’s ensuing report with a growing desire to snap his datapad in half. He ignored the calm, collected gaze on him. 

“... Great,” he finally muttered. “Barely showed up in time.”

“They are now following up on the vorcha lead. It would seem Kaidan’s forethought in narrowing down the vorcha’s haunting grounds has paid off.”

“Right,” Garrus replied tersely. “If they split again, try to keep an eye on Alenko’s movements- but favor providing backup for Shep if needed. I might have a lead on figuring out his angle, with any luck.”

“Then good luck indeed, Garrus. I hope you and Miranda find what is critical.”

Garrus huffed a sound close to surprise. “...You would’ve made a great vigilante investigator. Pay’s terrible, but if we get out of this alive...”

“I do believe I’m effectively in the business now,” Thane sounded almost amused. 

“Lucky us,” Garrus’ mandibles twitched. “Unlucky for anyone crossing us.”

“No! No tell!”

“We just want to meet with your suppliers, that’s all-“

“No, humans lie! Humans want to cut Toxvik out of it! Buy, buy from Toxvik!”

“Toxvik, we’re not here to buy-“

“Waste of time, then!”

Kaidan bit his lip as he watched Shep take a clearly forced, slow breath in front of the cornered vorcha. It was hard to breathe for him, too, but not simply out of humor - experience had dulled the memory, and the extranet’s graphic descriptions of their smell never had done the reality justice. 

Granted, he still might laugh if it wasn’t for the headache; shared headache, if Shep’s exasperated expression was anything to go off of. Ten minutes of trying to reason with a vorcha was apparently better spent asking a brick wall for directions.

“Might want to try another approach with this particular lead,” he commented quietly behind her, glancing up and down the alleyway for the umpteenth time. The vorcha that Toxvik had been arguing with had scattered by the time they arrived, and not much else was happening in this particular ill-lit stretch of corridor besides scrap-digging from some of the less savory locals, though. Shep continued trying to get Toxvik to give her something, but every sentence was cut off by demands for purchases.

It was tough keeping focused after their conversation when there was so little actually happening with this vorcha, but Kaidan was well-trained to in the art of shoving down distractions… and he had more info to earn, anyways. 

Kaidan glanced back at Shep and their cornered vorcha dealer. “Not sure he’s got any sort of intel, frankly…” Maybe they could simply track his movements, or search his belongings…?

“He knows what we need,” she bit out, sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose. Her expression said she was thinking along the same lines, but she was stubborn enough to try one last angle. “Alright, Toxvik- let’s strike a bargain then.”

“You’ll buy Toxvik’s drugs?”

Kaidan swore he saw a vein twitch at Shep’s jaw. 

“No, I will not buy Toxvik’s drugs,” she said slowly. The vorcha started to protest again, hand twitching to the pistol on his hip before Kaidan made an obvious motion with his own. Toxvik seemed to have a halfway well-reasoned thought at that, and for the fifth time since they’d started ‘talking,’ the vorcha’s hand moved away from his weapon. “But there’s probably something else you want. I’m guessing you’re not the only one selling these… drugs, right?”

Toxvik narrowed his eyes at her, making a hissing noise that was alarmingly close to gargling in Kaidan’s opinion. 

Shep took this for partial acquiescence and quickly continued. “Listen, our business with your supplier will make less competition for you. Less competition is good, right?”

“… Good for Toxvik?” 

“Yes, good for you,” Shep emphasized, “More people would have to come to you for business, since there would be fewer people selling the same goods.” 

Toxvik seemed to consider this. Heavily. Intensely. Kaidan glanced over to Shep, who was hiding a grimace pretty well. She was neglecting to point out the supplier wouldn’t be supplying much of anything to anyone … not that the fact was any of Kaidan’ business. Shame how market forces worked, sometimes.

“… Yes, Toxvik as only source would be very good,” he finally snarled - happily? Kaidan had long given up thinking there was much nuance in vorcha inflection. “Good, good! And you will do this for Toxvik, in exchange for small discount?”

“I-“ Shep paused. “Yes, exactly.  That’s a great deal.” Kaidan had to bite down on a smile at her deadpan tone. “So, where can we find your supplier?”

“Only at dark cycle in wards! Warehouse 327 B, five sectors up, in the stairwell!” He cackled, rubbing his hands together. “Yes, tell me good news when you come back! Now, leave!”

Shep turned on her heel and did precisely that, Kaidan in perfect and eager step with her, gaze flickering from the apparently eager vorcha and the half-curious denizens of the local scrap heaps, back to her and the way out of this corridor.

“So,” Kaidan murmured. He could almost breathe again.

“Vorcha,” Shep exhaled. 

“Vorcha,” Kaidan agreed. 

They rounded the corner quietly, making their way back through to slightly less broken down corridors and more foot traffic. Kaidan cross-referenced their location on his omni-tool, having updated his map of Omega on the way down when Shep had pinged him one she said was more accurate. He took everything she said or gave with a grain of salt, but so far, she’d been right. It kept him familiar and was a reassurance in the face of so much suspicious unfamiliarity.

How and why the standardized one the Alliance with all of its information-gathering apparatus had supplied him was so much less accurate than hers was beyond him. He chalked it up to the frustratingly slow cogs of bureaucracy…. before he had thanked the curious, commanding, laid-back woman that had given the more reliable one to him.

“First time dealing with vorcha?” Shep asked him as they entered a cramped but clearly lively market corridor. It was far from the ‘biggest’ stores in the main thoroughfare, but he was pretty sure he saw more rare - and questionably handmade - supplies and items here. Not for the first time, he thought of his old teammates from the SR1 - his alien teammates. Kaidan was a good hand with tech, but Garrus and Tali’zorah were a hand above the rest. This would have been a veritable playground for them…

“If only,” Kaidan scoffed. Shep looked a little surprised - and a lot intrigued. He shot her a wry look and offered, “I don’t recommend getting tangled up in vorcha mafia business.”

Shep laughed, bright and sudden. “The vorcha have a real mafia? Where? ”

“Had,” Kaidan smiled slightly.

She looked delighted. “Oh come on, you’ve got to share that story.”

“It involved 5000 credits and a bottle of tequila, but any more than that and it’ll cost you.”

Shep snorted, but her grin didn’t fade. “Damn, you drive a hard bargain. Tell you what - we get through all this, and you’ll get a bonus payment of info just so I can hear it.”

Kaidan chuckled. “Promises,” he mused. “Seriously, though, vorcha never really get any less…”

“Interesting?”

“Generous of you. I was going to say demented.”

Shep chuckled, one hand in her jacket pocket, the other at her side. “I think that’s a fair appraisal. Facing them in battle is one thing - predictable, on average, if tenacious. It’s another thing entirely trying to actually negotiate with one.”

“I’m not sure negotiate is the word,” Kaidan mused wryly, getting another chuckle out of her. He smiled a little, before continuing, “I’m not convinced we can trust what he said, though.”

“Oh, not with a ten foot pole,” she replied easily, gaze on the wares of the tables they were passing. Despite how crowded it was, no one was bumping into her - or him, for that matter, but she wasn’t getting the occasional second looks like he was. “But he wasn’t lying, either. There’s a good chance we’ll find something that’ll point us in the right direction there.”

“That would be nice,” he murmured. He almost missed the look she shot him - it was hard to read, but she looked almost… fond, for a second. 

It was gone just as fast, though, and she paused in front of a booth while Kaidan came to the conclusion he simply misread her expression. He was still putting together everything she’d revealed about the Lazarus cell in the back of his mind, after all - it was hard not to let himself be distracted. 

The booth owner was currently hawking questionably wriggling items to a one-armed salarian, but spared a breath to growl at them to buy something - but watch their hands if they wanted to keep their ‘weird human fingers.’ Kaidan lifted both hands idly in response. 

More quietly, to Shep, he added, “What, unless you have another lead you picked up while I wasn’t looking?”

“I wish,” she murmured. “No, but this is a good start. It could be a few things - but we’re getting somewhere. It really was worth seeing Patriarch - and taking out those mercs. Excuse me, could I get this, and this? For- this much.”

Kaidan watched as Shep haggled, watching with interest how fluently she spoke the language of seedy market bargains. Most shopkeeps had turned to interfaces by now - he’d almost forgotten the sound and sight of in-person haggling.

“Wasn’t he part of your plan?” Kaidan asked as Shep finished, tucking the items away inside her jacket after handing over a number of credits that seemed to half-satisfy both sides. 

“Yes and no,” she admitted, waving him on. His brow knit, but he followed, and when she glanced back at him, she clearly saw the expectant tilt to his features. She half-smiled. “I’ve got a few running plans at any given time, if possible. He wasn’t my first… but wasn’t my last, either. You shifted the balance.”

“Me,” he echoed.

“You,” she grinned. “Can’t expect a krogan to believe someone worthy of acting as krantt without krantt of their own, after all.”

Kaidan rolled the logic over in his mind. “That word, I meant to ask-“ he began, but she caught the gist before he could voice it.

“Think of it like… crewmates. Comrades?” Shep made a bit of a face as they turned off the corridor and down a stairwell. It was a little quieter as they made their way down a few levels. They had a long way down to go before they could cross over into the correct warehouse district. “A cross between that, and… friends, of a sort. The implications are a bit different, though - someone who would trust you to follow you into battle, and get you out again… and whoever they’re krantt to is invested likewise in them.”

Kaidan considered this. Considered their conversation in the hallway - it had seemed a bit more transactional than all that, no matter how amiably things had gone since. Well, she had held up her first part of the bargain, and he’d agreed to continue on, so that was worth something, but nonetheless…

“… You said I was your krantt.”

She was quiet for a moment, leading the way down the staircase. 

“Well, like I said - it’s not unlike comrades.” She huffed then, a sound of humor, and glanced back at him. There was a hint of a smile on her face. “You’re following me down this rabbit hole, so it seemed to apply. And I’m invested in getting you back out, so...”

“We made a deal, and I don’t intend to back out so long as you keep upholding your end,” he pointed out, but he couldn’t quite fight the hint of a smile in return. Rabbit hole, indeed. He nodded at her pocket. “What did you buy?” He raised a brow. “More secrets?”

Now that , she grinned at. 

“What do you know about custom omni-tool upgrades?”

“I understand your urgency, Garrus, but this would be a lot simpler if you provided more precise search parameters.”

“And I’m telling you that Omega doesn’t, and never has worked that way. Nobody keeps an easy-to-follow ownership log. No one records which gangs crossed whose territory, updated in a centralized organization’s database to hack into. There’s no shortcuts. But you know that.”

“I know you’re trying to make a dig at us, but the fact of the matter is we were able to connect you and Shepard - and in the end, save you from a rather certain ill outcome.”

“That was almost entirely Shepard.”

“Almost. And besides, you seem just as twitchy about the other search you burst in here to ask about.”

Garrus’ mandibles twitched, but he didn’t look up from his datapads. It was extremely annoying when she had a point. He shifted, about to cross his legs, but paused and bit back a grumble - between his lap full of tech and the damned human chair he was in, there was no accommodating comfort.

Miranda’s room was convenient to her , but a pain in the spurs to a fully-grown turian. And anyone else, frankly. He wasn’t positive a human sitting in the chair across from her desk would be able to see over it without effort. 

Miranda sighed, her hands nonetheless never stilling on her keypad, her many monitors ablaze with information. “The maps at least were a good find. Shep has been using them without issue?”

Garrus nodded, terse but not indignant. “Thane’s reported the updated overlays are proving accurate. Even the venting systems, what we were able to find, have held steady. Only a few minor updates to power grid allowances and what’s operating smoothly.”

“Excellent. Sources well researched, then. I suppose your time on Omega served you well.”

Garrus didn’t let the narrowing of his eyes reflect through his visor. 

He was pouring through the Omega news feeds, the forums, the few hacked communications they had. Cerberus, of course , had a few informants on the station; not the most scrupulous of types, but types willing to share what was needed for the right price, and that he could manage. Or rather, Cerberus could - in the interest of their investment in Shepard, of course. Choosers would be eaten by beggars, or however that human saying went. 

On his omni-tool, though, were loading a very different set of reports. They were few and far between; more junk data than anything. Nothing useful came out of the more reputable Alliance feed about one Major Kaidan Alenko in the past few months. 

“They likely have him on a mission to investigate our own operation,” Miranda mused as Garrus flicked along the display over his arm for the umpteenth time. She’d been unimpressed when he’d come in wanting everything they’d dug up on him. Lucky for Garrus, he was more stubborn than most people wanted to put up with - especially when he had good reason to be.

“It’s definitely in keeping with their current theme,” Garrus muttered. “Why just him though? It doesn’t make sense. That’s not usually how the Alliance operates.”

“No evidence of him joining the Corsairs, either,” Miranda said at the same time Garrus’ omni-tool buzzed - she’d transferred another file to him. He quickly scanned it, then saved it. “If I had to guess, it seems that Captain Anderson has had his finger on the scale once more.”

Garrus’ subvocals rolled a little harshly. 

Anderson… and the Alliance.

As a turian, he both respected and viewed them with some measure of skeptical vigilance. They’d been at war at one time, but now were allies, shared seats on the Council now… before that he’d of course worked alongside some well-meaning former Alliance types at C-Sec; but more importantly, he had served on an Alliance ship - even if under Spectre-based authority.

If anyone could prove there was true good will, skill, and respect worth giving in the Alliance, it was Commander John Shepard. And Garrus had learned that personally -

-but he’d also been standing in Anderson’s Presidium office when Shepard had been told to his face the Alliance suspected him and couldn’t, wouldn’t back him up - that only the alien Spectres could grant him a title again, and only on a technicality and a sense of… politics. There was good will from Anderson himself, at best , but from the Alliance as a whole….?

But even that was to say nothing of the way Garrus had felt, standing as ever at Shepard’s six on Horizon, the Collector’s chased away, half the colony saved when otherwise it would have been none -

Only to have Major Kaidan Alenko , one-time crewmate, perhaps even friend… throw it all in his Commander’s face. In all their faces. Granted, it had been Miranda on Shepard’s other side, wearing Cerberus armor no less, but…

He scowled, mandibles practically aching at his jaw with how far they pushed down for a brief second.

“Do turians have a saying about your face getting stuck like that?” Miranda asked dryly. Garrus ignored her. And made a mental note to look up the precise meaning of that one, though he was certain he understood the idea.

He sighed, forcing his mandibles to relax. Nothing at all about Alenko was published for the past two months… not even an article mentioning searching for an interview but coming up empty-handed. Shepard was the most well-known of all of the SR-1, of course, but Garrus knew for a fact the other Alliance crew of the Normandy in particular had received commendations and no small amount of press themselves… even he’d had to stave off journalists on the Citadel. 

“Shep better know what she’s doing,” Garrus simply muttered, flicking across his omni-display and shoving down the recollection. Maybe if he changed the parameters… looked up family history? Old crewmates? There had to be a hint as to what his motives were, what his angle was-

“... You could ask her,” Miranda noted. “She might not respond right away, of course.”

Garrus glanced up at her, brow plates shifting down, what little they could. “I think she’s a little busy.” There was a reason it was Thane giving the occasional update thus far. Not that Kaidan’s presence was helping - from the sound of it, Shep was keeping from him that she was a part of the Normandy crew. Why wasn’t clear, but… Garrus didn’t exactly disapprove.

“Like I said, it might not be an immediate response,” Miranda shrugged, a motion she somehow made graceful and utterly blasé, “but I might point out that you are exceedingly distracted at the moment. You are a far better tactician and researcher when you aren’t.”

“You realize everyone is better at any task when they’re not distracted, right,” he said, his fingers absently skating over his omni-tool.

“My point stands.”

“You’re lucky Shepard likes you.”

“Quite the same to you,” she mused, but he swore he caught an upwards twitch at the corner of her mouth. Her eyes flickered down to his omni-tool, and he casually shifted, the laptop on his lap obscuring her view. Not that she seemed any less chuffed.

Garrus was already typing out a message to Shep, but he wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of mentioning it.

The message arrived while Shep was bent over Kaidan’s wrist, a long, thin tool in hand deftly pointing to a key connection. She made a vague sound of acknowledgement to herself, but Kaidan seemed more distracted by the subtle buzz of her omni-tool than she was; perhaps because it brought to his attention just how close they’d ended up in their temporary hideaway. 

She paid his little jolt no mind though. Neither of them wanted his gear fried.

“-And if you adjust this connection here, then you’ll be able to overclock the standard energy release output. Like I said, use it sparingly, but when you need it…”

Kaidan’s gaze snapped from staring at her arm back to his own. His brows furrowed a little further, lips pushed in something awfully close to a pout as he concentrated. His own tools shifted, haloed by his biotics as a backup. 

He still didn’t entirely trust her, she knew; even though it seemed the respect was mutual now, properly, thanks to the fact she’d given him so much information. Maybe the careful remaining wariness hurt a little, but oddly… she was also a little pleased. Smart man. Omega likely wouldn’t get the best of him and his softer edges, like that.

… then again, after he’d blown away two entire krogans with that biotic charge… maybe he wasn’t quite as soft as she’d assumed her own Kaidan to be. 

“… To be clear, normally I wouldn’t take someone’s advice at random on this sort of thing,” he mumbled, carefully replacing a few pieces and taking her advice anyways. They’d done the hard coding work already - after much scrutiny during their carefully roundabout journey to their current spot, he’d even accepted a few of her personally written programs she’d sworn by. “You’re lucky you could prove yours was set up in the same way.”

He’d also quarantined the same programs under a strict bug-search when he thought she wasn’t looking. The fact they’d come back with nothing of note was probably the real reason he caved in to her upgrade offer.

“I think you’ll be feeling like the lucky one when you see what your omni-tool can do now,” she chuckled, sitting back just slightly. Side-by-side, the view through the slats of long-waylaid construction materials thrown into a closet of an unfinished room off a towering warehouse fire escape was flawed, but sufficient for keeping an eye on the supposed supplier meetup spot. A broken water heater gave them no space to stand, and left little room for two well-built Alliance-trained soldiers to sit and wait. Little, but just enough. “You’re the one that was curious how I’d set off so many mines at once.”

“It’s a reasonable question,” he argued, but she heard the rueful smile tinging his tone. “You asked what I knew, anyways - and you’re not exactly packing top-of-the-line omni-tool specs there-“

“Hey, don’t make fun of my omni-tool, she’s doing her best.”

“She?”

“She,” Shep grinned, bringing up her display. Her body was only slightly angled away from him - just barely enough to keep him from easily reading her display. “Any piece of tech, machine, ship…”

“Fair,” he nodded - it was ineffable logic for any space marine. “Well, she’s still an underdog.”

“I can hear you laughing at me. And my omni-tool.”

“No clue what you mean, Shep.”

She rolled her eyes and Kaidan refocused on his newly updated display - a few tweaks she knew he’d have a better time with in terms of access and convenience, and more importantly, he studied the readouts on power and the like for his tech tendencies. It took no time for her to bring up her own new message interface and-

-for her brows to briefly flick up. They were schooled back down just as quick.

- So. Alenko?

Shep found herself having to resist the urge to make a thoughtful sound at the turian’s simple message. She’d already guessed that Thane would have informed Garrus of Kaidan by now; there had been no time for her to step away and call him herself yet. Nothing concrete to talk about, regardless, and he was clearly hard at work getting them updated maps and more. 

She had her own questions about… this Kaidan, but a few more occurred to her as she considered those two simple words.

- Funny that he’s here, now of all times, right? A reliable shot, though. Info for his help is worth it.

It took less than 30 seconds for his response to come through.

- Thane mentioned something about that. Doesn’t the Alliance insist on team-based missions, though? Why is he alone?

- They did for me. Likely true here, too. He might be hiding it, but I get the feeling he might truly be acting solo currently. My guess is Anderson’s involved.

She carefully kept her expression clear. Kaidan’s gaze flickered to her now and then, and she wasn’t looking to reveal anything on this front just yet. 

- I don’t like the timing of this, Shep. 

She hummed. When Kaidan looked at her this time, she met his gaze, gave a half quirk of her lips and a shrug, and glanced back down.

- Have a solid theory, G, or is this on the topic of hard feelings?

… A minute or two passed. She spent it reviewing the latest map update and the intel Thane had sent her recently about movement in nearby corridors and the like. She also sent Thane a quick message

- Hard feelings? About someone who threw literally saving the galaxy together and trust well earned in our faces and didn’t give the Commander 30 seconds to explain himself?

Shep bit back the grimace that nearly accompanied the lance of grief through her chest. There were only a few seconds before the next message came through.

- Not at all. 

A few questions answered, already. Things really had gone just about as well here on that front, hadn’t they… 

- Professional interest it is, then.

She glanced up - and Kaidan barely looked down in time to avoid her eyes. Something softened a little in her, and at least on the inside, she sighed. There was no time to dig up her own wounds. Later . Here and now… well, hell, now, Kaidan was here . And if all he wanted was info on Cerberus, particularly on Lazarus, and no doubt on John… she was glad to give it to him. More than anything, it was hard to appear like she wasn’t eager to actually give the man the info she’d wished she could have in another universe.

What was personal, and what was Alliance-deigned about his interest, though, that was half the real question-

And the other half was how Kaidan currently felt about the Normandy and its most prominent crew members.

What she’d give to know if he… if her Kaidan… had tried to make contact after all. 

Quickly, she followed up the simpler message with, - It’s easy giving him answers about Cerberus, and he’s not the type to shoot you in the back - which is worth its weight in gold here, as you know. He’s clever, too - likely to have an angle on things I’d miss given where I’m from.

Garrus didn’t take as long with his next response.

- Your knowledge of Omega seems to be paying off well enough as is.

- So far. But there’s clearly some discrepancies in events, even if the layout’s the same.

-Are you sure it’s wise to give him a bunch of intel about the mission? What if the Alliance tries to interfere?

-So far it’s just about the Lazarus cell itself - and frankly, I think it’s better he knows. I think John would want him to know. For what it’s worth… he was part of the old Normandy. Whatever happened on Horizon, he’s at least looking for more info rather than turning his back on it all.

- … I suppose that counts for something. Maybe you’re right. But still. Be careful.

Shep blinked at that. She swallowed, feeling her chest go a little tighter than she expected at such a simple sentiment.

-Will do. We’re on the trail, at least- might have a good lead within the hour. I’ll call you then.

- I’ll trust your judgment. Thane’s been on top of things in the interim.

- In more ways than one. 

She smiled slightly at the private joke. It was impossible to tell - but an update from the drell himself let her know he was currently perched on top of a forgotten catwalk in the dark far above that didn’t have any true exits. Only someone with his skillset could get up there and down again so discreetly.

- I don’t even want to know, do I?

- He’s just doing what he does best. Good luck on your end, G. Let me know if John’s status changes. 

After a moment, and a tight breath, she added:

-And keep up the good work. Your insight’s already made a difference.

Just a few moments before she decided to turn off her omni-display, one last reply came through, like it had a split chance of coming at all.

- Thanks, Shep. I’ll get you something worthwhile soon.

Her lips quirked upward, and after a beat, she turned off her display, glancing towards her companion.

He was staring at her. She arched a single brow.

“… Good news, then?” Kaidan ventured lightly.

“No bad news,” she said, “and that’s nearly as good.”

“I think I can relate to that,” he said carefully, refocusing on his omni-tool.

Shep didn’t reply, but not out of disinterest - 

-rather, because the sound of a shotgun blast interrupted their pocket of peace. Shep’s legs swung her into a deft crouch without a second thought, AR unfolding in her palms and instantly levying on the fire escape they were positioned to jump out onto at a moment’s notice. Three stories below, only just visible through the worn grating of the walkway and stairs, a vorcha exploded into view - literally.

She grimaced as viscera rained below, catching on parts of walkways and venting units of the warehouse district below. Muted voices had her ears straining, and in her periphery, she caught Kaidan leaning forward in the same way, his own AR out and at the ready.

Finally, a boot appeared - stepping out of the same level of the half-abandoned warehouse the vorcha had been blasted from and onto the fire escape. It kicked away a few chunks, then the rest of the body followed - turian, with red paint slashed over the helmet.

“Talons,” Shep breathed. Kaidan’s grip shifted so subtly she would have missed it if not for the thin rays of work lights catching on his knuckles through the slats. 

The turian turned around, nodding in a lazy, callous way. Behind him came a krogan and two humans, one immediately walking down the fire escape to rummage through what was left of the vorcha’s torso one story below. The other flanked the doorway they’d come out of, opposite the turian, the krogan leaned in the doorway, and a thin red glow lit up the darkness behind him that neither Shep nor Kaidan could quite see into from their vantage.

The krogan was the only one not sporting the Talon’s signature slashes - instead the familiar skull-and-fist logo of the Blood Pack decorated his armor.

“That the last of them?”

The voice was layered in a raspy dual vocal that gave the impression of a chain smoker. It came from behind the krogan, speaker unseen.

“Should be, boss,” the turian nodded, kicking at a bit of elbow. “Pretty hard to double-deal now, isn’t it, alley breath?”

“They oughta be nearby,” came the grunt of the human on the other side of the doorway. “He gave ‘em the right time and everything.”

Shep tensed.

“Idiot didn’t even know how to try to keep something for leverage,” snorted the turian. 

“Easier for us.”

“Shut up, the both of you, and find those humans.”

“Yessir!”

Kaidan inhaled sharp and quiet, and Shep met his eyes in the next moment. In Shep’s ear, so low even Kaidan couldn’t tell she’d heard it, came a layered baritone.

“ Would you like to take them out, or should I?”

Shep’s grip tightened on her gun, and she grinned at Kaidan in a way that had his eyes widening. Without an ounce of humor in her voice, she murmured, “I think it’s time we pick up Toxvik’s last delivery.”

Kaidan only missed a single beat. His brows settled low, and he nodded, bringing up his omni-tool - and his newly updated display flared to life. “On three?”

Shep’s own lit up right alongside his. 

“On three.”

“One…” Kaidan shifted, a subtle blue tinge beginning to tint the shadows.

“Two,” Shep’s hand moved to the haphazard materials between them and the fire escape, in need of one measly push-

“Three! ”