Work Text:
“Don’t even think about it, Lawson.”
Miranda’s suddenly aware of the pedal beneath her feet. It’s an inefficient interface, a holdover from old Earth ground vehicles that – No. That’s not relevant. With a slow breath, she roots herself in time, focuses on the firm press of the seat against her back, the wheel in her hands. She keeps the Mako pointed toward the sun cresting over the ridge ahead, puts their shadows behind them. She has to get them to get to the top, so they can place that beacon. “About what?”
“About what we both know you’re thinking about,” says Garrus. He’s got his seat reclined back fifty degrees already, and each time she looks at him it’s somehow tilted back further. He slants his head in the kind of challenge she hasn’t seen from him since her – their – Cerberus days, though the green glow of his eyes is new. Hers too, for that matter; she still pauses every time she sees her face in the mirror.
“That’s a challenge if I ever heard one,” Miranda says.
“I’m just advocating a certain amount of caution. This thing won’t hold together forever.”
Miranda presses the pedal harder, and the Mako whines in exertion, its nose tilting even higher up, but it still manages to cling to the cliff face. “Right. Who was it who rode this thing through the Conduit?”
“Fair. It was her idea though.” He doesn’t need to say her name and he knows it, because the wires under Miranda’s skin tingle just thinking of her. She can tell at a glance it’s the same for him. “Do you really think I’d really support such reckless disregard for personal safety?”
“Do you really think I missed that display of yours on the Proscenium? Sniper rifles? Seriously?” Something jolts the Mako from outside, and Miranda bounces in her seat. In most models, she wouldn’t even feel it, but Shepard had taken the inertial dampeners down to 63% capacity, and nobody ever changed them back. She’d explained it let her allocate more power to the main gun, which didn’t make any sense, because mass accelerators didn’t work like that and they both knew it. Somehow that had made it even more adorable.
“I think you’re just jealous because you couldn’t be there.”
“Yeah. I was a bit…” Her throat tightens. She did it, it worked, Oriana’s safe, but…she doesn’t have to think about those days. Not if she doesn’t want to, and right now she really doesn’t want to.
“...busy. I know.”
His words hang in the air a moment, taking up too much of the space between them. Miranda’s fingers dig into the wheel.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t-”
“You know what humans used to call Turians back in the war?”
“ ‘Birds’,” grumbles Garrus, not happy but accepting. He earned that one, and he knows it. “Cerberus didn’t exactly let it go.”
Miranda spins the wheel. The Mako levels out and swings around, revealing a ridge bursting with dense alien flora – with nothing but empty air beyond. It’s a clear day, with the sun at their backs. “Ever tried flying?”
“Please. I rode with her behind the wheel. I’ve seen the worst this thing has to offer.”
“Is that so?” She slams the pedal and hits the jump jets. Then, the moment the Mako leaves the ground, she flips off the inertial dampeners completely.
–
Garrus holds a hot mug in one hand. It smells awful, but well…doctor’s orders. It looks right, a dark inky brown that nearly matches the space outside the hull. He raises the other hand, closes it into a fist. Should he knock? No. Too hesitant. Maybe he should just…press the button, let himself in.
He gives the bulkhead two knocks. Sharp and crisp.
Damn. Old habits.
“Enter,” comes Miranda’s distracted voice from behind the door. With the familiar beep-click-hiss, it slides open. Inside, she crouches over the console, face bathed in orange light. She doesn’t look up. “Coffee, Vakarian? To what do I owe the pleasure?” Her voice is bright, pleased even – but that’s not the same as sincere.
Garrus hesitates a moment before he decides to interpret her lack of…well, any sort of committal response as an invitation. She’s not shutting the door, and she could do that with the touch of a button, so he steps in. “I thought we should…uh. Talk.” He wants to lean casually against a wall, but he’s not close to any walls, so he just…stands there. Casually.
“Talk,” Miranda says, almost nodding. “About our-”
“Situation. Yeah.”
Miranda keeps typing at the console. “So the coffee’s some sort of olive branch.”
It takes Garrus a moment to remember what that idiom means. “Solus suggested it as a ‘dual-purpose stimulant and bonding ritual’.”
Miranda’s eyes flick up at “bonding ritual”.
“He said it was a very efficient ceremony. I…didn’t go ahead with that idea until Chakwas confirmed it.”
“Well.” She glances up and smiles at him, then taps a button on her desk. The door slides shut. “Confirmed.” She kicks the other chair out, for him to sit on, and he does. He sets the coffee cup down too, but Miranda barely lets it touch the table before she wraps a long, slender finger around the handle and brings it up to her nose. She takes a long, slow breath, eyes closed. “Talk, then.”
“R-right. So. Um. Are…you and Shepard…”
“Hmm…” Miranda sets down the coffee and tilts her head back, scratching her head very deliberately. The motion reveals a bone just under her neck that Garrus’s eyes migrate toward. He looks away. Focus! “Are we what now?”
“Uh…” Garrus wraps his fingers together demonstratively. “You know.”
Miranda shrugs, but her eyes sparkle. “And you and she are…” – she wraps her fingers together – “…as well.” It’s a lot more impressive when she does it, because her fingers are long and slender, and she’s got five on each hand.
“Yyyyyeah. We are.” The phrase feels good in his mouth. “We are.”
“Glad we’ve got the obvious out of the way.” For a moment, it’s quiet. Miranda traces a finger around the rim of her coffee cup. “Do we have an actual problem here?”
“Well…I like her, you like her, and she likes…”
“Us,” Miranda says, staring him in the eye. “Is that a problem?”
“It’s…something.”
Miranda tilts her head.
“Can I get back to you on this?” says Garrus.
She shrugs. “Don’t expect me to wait for you.”
Garrus notices he’s staring at that bone of hers again. Shepard has one like it, but Miranda’s is more…pronounced.
“Vakarian, it’s like this. She clearly wants both of us. I’m comfortable with that. If you’re not, you don’t have to partake. I –” She gives a mock salute with her coffee cup “– think I will.” She takes a sip.
Then she freezes, lips puckering.
“Miranda? Are you-”
She spits her coffee all over her desk. And all over Garrus. “What is…” She takes a long pull from a water bottle and swishes it around her mouth. She swallows, wincing, coughing. “What did you do to this?”
“I followed the recipe, and-”
“Who gave you this recipe?”
“Um. EDI recommended it to me, and Joker had some tips on-”
“Vakarian,” says Miranda. “How many people did you mention this to?”
Garrus opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “I should go.”
–
Sunlight streams in through the window, but on the Normandy it’s dead silent. Miranda slouches at her desk, watching the last wisps of steam rise from her coffee cup. She made it with the full intention of drinking it, and it smells good, but…well, she’s not drinking it. It’s been here for at least five minutes, and she hasn’t so much as touched the mug’s handle or slid a finger around its edge.
She turns back to the blue holo-screen, its whisper-soft hum deafening in the quiet. She has work to do. She has to – no, she’d offered to – help EDI prepare a beacon, get the Normandy off this rock. And looking at the schematics, she knows how to do this, but the moment she lets her mind wander she finds herself staring through the screen, across the room, right at the door. She blinks, forces her mind back on task. For a wonderful moment, cogs and wheels of equations turn before her mind starts to drift. She needs input, stimulus, but this dead, deadening silence swallows up the lost moments between one thought and another. She knows exactly how long they’ve been parked here – just under month, her console reminds her every time she looks – but quantifying it doesn’t help. Miranda’s spent just a few short months here before the end, but her memories from before then feel like shadows.
But then, the present – this room, this project and this planet and this silence – feels like a shadow. Hershadow – not Miranda’s, hers. It’s just…what comes after, what remains once that green light burning out into the blackness of space has burned away. There are remnants – the photos, the empty cabin at the top of the elevator shaft, the webwork of wires that tingle beneath Miranda’s skin as she lies awake in bed – but they’re just shadows too.
The Normandy has always been quiet, but not like this. Before she joined, Miranda had known all about the ship – she’d studied its history, scanned its blueprints, watched the SR2 come together, even suggested a few improvements here and there – but that was all data. Precise, yes. Helpful, yes. But it was only once she’d stepped aboard and heard the sounds of the ship that she’d fallen in love with it. And it was quiet, always – but the kind of quiet that brought the smallest sounds to life. The whisper of the engines, manifesting more as barely-noticeable vibrations that coursed through the walls and tickled her skin than as audible sound. The low buzz of Cerberus – and later, Alliance – staff working at their consoles. And, muffled by her door, the clatter of the kitchen, the bouncy tromp of the Commander’s feet as she wandered the halls on her endless circuit about the ship, and the mechanical whirrs and clanks of a certain Turian’s constant tinkering – pardon, calibrations – next door.
He’s busy, though, just like she is. Some project for EDI, doing his part to get them all moving again. She shouldn’t interrupt. She’d interrupted him a week ago, and he’d interrupted her a week before that. They’d talk at some point.
She taps her feet, just to fill up the quiet. Music. Music would help. She turns to the console and waves a hand, selecting a random song. A low, thumping beat fills the room, bringing back memories of neon, lasers, mist – and the Commander, flailing to her own beat. Miranda skips to the next track.
The Commander used to dance to this one too. Skip.
And this one. Skip.
The last time Miranda heard this one, she’d been leading Garrus cheek to pointy cheek around some club on Zakera Ward. She’d dipped him.
She kills the music, slumps back in her chair. Her coffee’s stopped giving off steam. Idly, she tilts the cup, looks inside. It’s still there, lukewarm and dead black. She doesn’t know what she expected.
The bang when she puts it down is the loudest sound she’s heard in weeks.
–
It’s amazing how light Garrus feels without the armor. He practically floats through the kitchen, taking out the grinder, beans, kettle, and...whatever that glass device with the plunger was called. A Finch press? No, that wasn’t it. A Fresh pot? The one night she’s back on the Normandy before they go to Earth, and he forgets the name of her pot. Miranda would kill him. Actually kill him. Brewing coffee is a ritual by now, and his hands speed through the motions as smooth as stripping a rifle. Practiced, efficient, but unhurried, he boils the water, grinds the beans, steeps the grounds, sets the timer. Coffee has become a rare luxury these days, with all shipping lanes devoted to getting vital supplies to the Crucible, but Shepard and Miranda swear it’s worth the cost. Garrus happens to agree. He’s even started to like the smell. He leans against the counter, takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes.
For a minute, Garrus tenses. He waits for the ghosts to come, memories of battles, injustices, arguments – but they’re gone. His heart doesn’t race; his mind doesn’t spin through memories of old battles, wounds, arguments. He doesn’t even think of the vast fleet outside the hull, ready to fly to Earth in just a day. He sees nothing but black, smells only the warm, dark scent of coffee, hears only the quiet of the Normandy at rest.
In a sleepy flash, he realizes he can’t remember not wanting anything before.
Well, except when he thinks of what he’s been doing for the last…how many hours? Five? That’s something he wouldn’t mind more of.
He takes another breath, slower. This is good. This is right.
Ten minutes pass, and the buzzer goes off. He opens one eye, then the other, and drifts over to the press. Slow and steady, he pushes down the plunger, filtering the grounds out. He gets out Shepard and Miranda’s favorite mugs – the first with a photo of a city skyline he doesn’t know, the second with an unfamiliar swirling pattern – then fills them. Into Shepard’s goes two spoonfuls of sugar and some sort of white fluid from an unlabeled bottle in the refrigerator – probably synthetic, but he’s never asked. Into Miranda’s goes nothing. He heads for the elevator, Shepard’s cup in his left hand, Miranda’s in his right.
Garrus selects the top cabin and leans against the wall. It’s a good ten seconds before the elevator hums into painfully slow, reluctant motion. Of all the upgrades Miranda oversaw for the SR2, somehow she’d missed this one. He’d promised Miranda someday he’s stop reminding her of such an obvious oversight. He intended to keep that promise. Someday. But for now-
“Garrus.” The synthetic voice seems to come from everywhere at once. “I have a question.”
Oh no.
Garrus glances vaguely upward. “Why am I surprised?”
“I try to allow crewmembers the illusion of privacy while the aboard the Normandy-”
“Thank you, EDI. That’s comforting.”
“You’re welcome. However, your current behavior is unusual by organic standards in general, by Turian standards, and by your own standards in particular.”
Garrus checks the console across the elevator. He’s passing the bridge. Only one more floor of this. It occurs to him that even though she’s stopped using that holographic sphere avatar since she got a body, EDI can see out of that console. He tries not to think about it. “Go on,” he says, as slowly as he can manage.
“Why are you unclothed outside of personal quarters?”
The elevator stops. Garrus gets off.
Just as he’s working out how to knock on her door with two coffee cups in hand, it slides open. And there she is, loose pants and an open N7hoodie, nothing underneath. In the room behind her, Miranda dozes atop the bed, blankets and sheets tangled about her body.
“Let me guess,” he says. “You should go?”
As an answer, she wraps her arms around him, slow and careful so he doesn’t spill the coffee. The kiss is firm, slow, and sure. It ends, but it’s endless, and when she finally lets him go he can still feel her there. She smiles and presses her right hand to his left, cup of coffee between them. She takes the coffee and turns to leave.
“Uh…hold on.” Garrus reaches for the zipper on her hoodie and fumbles one-handed with it. He gives up. “You might want to zip that up when you get the chance. EDI…um…might have some questions.”
She shrugs and heads past him, into the elevator.
As the elevator closes, Garrus steps into Shepard’s room. The door slides shut behind him, and Miranda opens an eye, then another. As he walks forward with her coffee she scans him up and down, very deliberately, with a very small smile. As he sits down at her side, she sits up.
“Just like old times,” she says, nodding toward the coffee.
“Not quite. I’ve got pretty good with that Fish press you gave me. Joker says it’s borderline nontoxic.”
“ ‘Fish press,’” She arches an eyebrow.
“Yeah, the…the glass thing, with the plunger, where you put the-”
“Smells good.”
It’s quiet for a moment, the kind of quiet Garrus has only found on this ship. In this room.
Miranda takes a slow breath. “It’s been good. Getting back to this. The last few months have been…” She swallows.
“Yeah.” He takes her left hand in his. “It’s been hell, but I’ve been here. Can’t imagine how it was on-” He cuts himself off before the word Sanctuary comes out.
Miranda winces at the word she expects; relaxes when it doesn’t come. “Thanks. I’d…rather not talk about that.”
“Well, look on the bright side. We might all be dead this time tomorrow, so…”
“Just like old times.” His right hand’s still holding the coffee cup, and she wraps her right hand around it, wrist to wrist, her palm to the back of his hand. Then, together, they lift it to her mouth. She takes a sip.
–
In the cargo bay, Miranda crouches over the onion-shaped beacon Tali put together. It’s good work. Put it at a high enough point, and the signal from this thing should reach anyone in the system with so much as a radio – and the virus she’s built into that signal, forcing anything with a basic computer to broadcast it, should carry it farther still. On the floor beside it lies a half-full cup of coffee, cold and forgotten. She taps away at on the green tiny console at the beacon’s base, inputting encryption keys that should help it get through to a few old contacts of hers. She’s acutely aware of a dense, silent presence just behind her, and acutely intent on ignoring it.
“On Earth, Shepard gave you one final call,” says EDI. Her voice still sounds synthetic, but less so; more at ease, more alive than before. “What did she say?” Miranda glances up at the silvery body behind her. Her pose is still, guarded but familiar. In the bend of her back there’s a bit of Joker’s loose slouch, and in the cross of her arms there’s a bit of…
Wires tingle beneath Miranda’s skin. There’s a soft warmth to the sensation that only makes it more unsettling.
“You don’t need me to tell you that,” says Miranda, still tapping away. “You have access to Alliance communications records. You probably saw the transmission before I did.”
“By microseconds, yes.” EDI pauses, awaiting a response. She doesn’t get one. “My question was not one of curiosity.”
The air fills with the crackles and clanks of Cortez prepping the Mako for her mission later today. Miranda keeps her eyes on the console before her. Her hands have frozen cold, the tingling under her fingertips somehow stronger for it. “What do you want?”
EDI’s voice is measured, as if she’s enunciating carefully. “What did Shepard say?”
“Lot of things.” Miranda realizes she’s not breathing, and focuses on it. In and out. In. Out. She makes her hands move, types out the last of the encryption keys. “Goodbye, see you again if we both make it off this place. Why am I telling you this?”
“During your time on the Normandy you were involved with both Shepard and Vakarian-”
Miranda finishes typing with a flourish. She stands and heads for the elevator, away from EDI.
“-but I have noticed,” continues EDI, keeping pace, “that you have systematically avoided interacting with Garrus during our time on this planet…”
Miranda speeds up.
“…and your recent interactions with him have been notably lower in gestural markers connoting affection than prior interactions, public or otherwise. Why?”
Trying very hard not to think about exactly how much EDI has seen of their interactions, public or otherwise, Miranda crosses the threshold of the elevator, then whirls, blocking EDI’s entry. “I’m going to get some work done, if that’s alright.” The elevator door begins to close between them.
“You just completed your work.”
The door shuts before Miranda has to find a response to that. As the elevator grinds into motion, she realizes she’s forgotten her coffee in the cargo bay, by the beacon. She’ll pick it up later. She leans against the wall and closes her eyes.
It’s been rough going on after…everything, but after month in an alien jungle, the Normandy has finally started to stir. Miranda caught Liara grilling Chakwas on pre-spaceflight human history the other evening, and yesterday she awoke to the smell of James frying up eggs for any crewmember with compatible DNA. They were surprisingly good, and Garrus was…
Well. He was around.
“You’re avoiding this discussion.” Miranda’s unsure if EDI means to startle the crew when she does that whole sourceless-voice thing, but it’s never impressed her. The Illusive Man had been fond of sending his subordinates surprise messages through the most bombastic means available, and the little intercom in the Normandy elevator just didn’t compare.
Miranda considers EDI’s words. “Yeah, I am.”
“I would like to know why.”
“No.”
“I don’t believe this silence is healthy for either Garrus or yourself, and-”
“No.”
EDI doesn’t respond. Silent seconds tick by. Somewhere on one of the lower decks, Miranda hears Tali laughing, a distant sound echoing through the space between the floors.
The elevator stops.
“Really, EDI.” Miranda taps her feet. No response. “Really?”
“Yes. I have concluded that you and Garrus need to talk.”
“We’re going to! He just…” Miranda shakes her head, trying to remember why. “He needs some time. I don’t blame him.”
“I’ve also concluded that even within the confines of this ship, you will both postpone such a discussion indefinitely if left to your own devices. Several crewmembers have voiced their concerns.”
“We just – it hasn’t been the right time for him-”
“How much time does he need?” Her voice seems to expand – then it shifts, shrinking and softening, as if spoken by an invisible person standing across from her, leaning against the wall. “How much do you?”
Miranda opens her mouth, but her voice catches in her throat.
EDI left her body in the cargo hold, but something in her silence gives Miranda the impression of a slow nod – one of confirmation, and understanding. “I’ve assigned Garrus to accompany on your Mako trip today.”
Miranda brushes off the wave of shock. “How’d you get him to agree to that?”
“The same way I got you to.”
“You didn’t.”
“Yes.”
Miranda sighs. “And you won’t let me off this elevator until I agree.”
“Yes.” EDI’s silence seems pensive, as if she’s looking for a way to put her words kindly. “The…nature of your relationship with Garrus isn’t my business. But whether you are still…together, I felt you both needed to process…”
Miranda’s mind whirls, searching for a way that EDI might be wrong, finding none. “…everything.”
“Yes. Together.”
Miranda nods once, slowly, then again. She presses the down button.
–
For someone who’s spent most of his life in space, it’s been a long time since Garrus has felt weightless.
With Miranda at the wheel, the Mako rises into the air, the thrust of its jump jets pulling his body down – and then, nothing. Time stops. Garrus knows they’re in free-fall, but there’s something wonderful in the lightness of it, the way the straps hold him to the seat. For the moment, nothing weighs him down, but he doesn’t drift. He’s flying, anchored, stable. Through the windshield Garrus can see the cliff face below approaching, but it barely seems to move. A glance to the left tells him Miranda’s hands have left the wheel, though her long fingers still encircle it halfway, an inch of air between them – the promise of touch, suspended.
THUD. A time later, the Mako’s nose slams into the cliff face below. The straps binding Garrus to his seat wind out with a mechanical buzz, absorbing the impact without breaking his shoulders, then snap him back into the seat – and the Mako bounces. Through the windshield hewatches the world spin about as they rise back into the air – but he’s weightless again, timeless again, it doesn’t matter. Miranda spreads her arms and closes her eyes and the upside-down sun shines on her face and the corona of hair that floats about her head-
THUD. They bounce again, and rise back up, spinning through the air. Garrus’s shoulders ache from the impact of the straps, but he’s breathless-
THUD. Garrus screams, and Miranda shouts, and Garrus-
THUD. The Mako hits the ground, tips, rolls, bounces into a rock-
THUD. THUD. THUD. The bouncing slows. THUD. THUD. The Mako balances on its side for a few seconds, then –
CRUNCH.
The only sound is their breath, fast and hard, like they’ve both sprinted a mile. Garrus realizes they’ve stopped. Then he realizes something else. “Miranda – ” He stops and sucks in a gulp of air.
“Ye…yeah?”
“Your…hair…”
She glances up. Her hair’s standing on end, straight up from her head, as if gravity had inverted, and-
Wait.
Garrus realizes something, and as their eyes meet, he sees she’s seen it too. He giggles, and she chuckles, and they both laugh. They laugh and laugh until it fills the Mako’s cabin and neither of them can breathe. Slowly, laughter fades to chuckles, and chuckles to warm silence.
“You know,” Garrus says, sucking air like he’s never tasted it before, “Shepard told me-” He breaks down laughing again as Miranda starts batting at her upside-down hair, making it sway back and forth. “Damn it, stop that!”
“I’m sorry, you were trying to...haha…You were trying to be deep.” She places her hands solemnly on her lap and does a miserable job of forcing down a grin. “Please, go on.”
“Thanks.” He composes himself. “She told me…”
“What did Shepard tell you?” Her eyes widen in surprise at having said Shepard’s name, then she smiles.
“She told me…” He searches his brain and finds nothing. “…that… listen, all that falling and spinning, I just need a moment-”
“Shepard told me-” Miranda’s voice catches, her grin fades, but she keeps talking. “She said everything would change.”
“Did it?”
She closes her eyes, stays quiet for a minute. “Yeah.” Water drips out of her eyes and slides up her forehead, where it mixes with her hair. “ ‘On our terms.’”
The wires under Garrus skin don’t just tingle; they burn – and not just his skin. Green light shines in Miranda’s eyes, radiating through green-glowing wires that that spread across her face and down her neck. “She say that too, or were you just trying – trying to be deep?” His voice comes out shaky, rough and harsh. Turians can’t cry, their eyes don’t work like that, but if he was human…
“Both?” Miranda asks, more to herself than him, then nods. “Both.”
“She told me-” He stops. The words won’t come.
Miranda meets his gaze. She nods, smiles. He can keep going.
“She said, ‘You’ll never be alone.’” The tingling of the wires under his skin softens, resolving itself into a very familiar shape. A human body, pressed against him. Hands with four long, spindly fingers about his waist.
Miranda’s eyes blaze emerald. “Are you?” She extends a hand.
“No.” Garrus takes her hand, and as he closes his eyes, he feels the distinct impression of another hand wrapped around his, and around hers. A human hand. “I’m not.”
He’s not sure which of them gives his hand a squeeze.
“So…Miranda.”
“Mmmm?”