The Stars May Dream - electronica_dreamly1001 (2024)

Chapter 1: Shore Leave

Chapter Text

Electra Shepard leaned over the bar top, her short fingernails rapping on the glossy surface while her grey eyes searched for nothing in particular. Her gaze meandered to her right where a figure in full N7 armor swirled a drink in a rocks glass absentmindedly. He gave her a curt nod and tipped his glass at her. Comfortably balanced in the high-back chair, he looked as if he had been here for a while. Upon looking down to her feet balanced in a pair of black pumps, the veins just starting to pop out from her pale skin, she guessed she had been here a while too. Waiting.

“Can I get you anything, ma’am?” a voice rang. Shepard’s head snapped up to find the source of the voice; an older asari swished a rag over an empty glass. Her blue eyes regarded Shepard with a welcome softness. Her mouth formed the words delicately with no hint of impatience or urgency. Electra co*cked her head, wondering the last time she’d ever heard something so nice.

“No, I don’t think so. I’m waiting for someone,” she responded, the words tumbling out of her mouth. An image of battered silver armor and blue tattoos flashed into her mind like a flash of lightning, but she shook her head and brought her hand to her face. Another image – her skin sticky with her own blood – flew through her mind, but when her fingers touched her forehead, the skin was clean and soft. This was the part where she’d usually begin to worry, maybe even ping Chakwas on her omni-tool, but she found she couldn’t conjure any reason to do so. Not here. The thin fabric of her red gown hugged her skin like honey and reminded her that it wasn’t every day she dolled herself up and got out; she might as well enjoy it.

“Actually,” she began, holding out her hand to capture the bartender’s attention, “I’ll take a scotch, neat. And make that top shelf, please.” The bartender smiled and ducked under the bar, returning with a bottle of rich amber liquid. Was that Glenfiddich? Single malt, 21 Years Old. She couldn’t believe her luck as the asari poured a healthy serving into a pristine glass and slid it over to her.

“How much will that be?” Electra asked, muttering a curse when her omni-tool didn’t glow to life on her left arm. How could she forget something like that?

“On the house, commander. I think you’ve earned at least that.”

Shepard’s brows knit momentarily and she gave a half-hearted nod before looking all around her. The bar seemed familiar. The sound of sky cars humming in the distance undercut the low chatter and clinking. People in gowns and tuxes mingled amid the soothing jazz and neon. She didn’t recognize a single person but more than once did one of those strangers raise their glass to her as she scanned the room.

“This is going to sound like a weird question, but where exactly am I right now?” Electra asked as she turned around, but the bar was empty except for her. The N7 that had been on her right no longer occupied the chair. She pulled the scotch closer to her and let her vision drift off into the glass. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt quite so weightless, or even had the chance to stare at a drink and think twice before bringing it to her lips. She only wanted to know the name of the bar so she might return after…

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” a small voice said somewhere below her. The complaint was accompanied by a slight tug at her dress, drawing her attention to the tiny blue hand gripped in the crimson fabric. Looking up at her, a shimmering blue child opened its mouth again and said, “I wanna go home.”

“And who are you?” she asked, though she felt her mind stretching at the edges of recognition. Something, something, crucible… it didn’t feel right. He looked a lot like the virtual intelligences she'd encountered before if not for the pressing realness of his voice and touch.

“Please can we leave? I’m tired,” the child complained. She looked up and around again, but this time couldn’t catch a single passing glance from anybody. It seemed unlikely someone would just lose their child at a bar. When she opened her mouth to try to get someone’s attention, the child repeated, “I’m tired. I’m lost. I want to leave.”

“I’m waiting for someone. Where are your parents?” she asked, squatting down to eye level with the child. She guided his tiny balled up fists into her hands. She tried rubbing her thumb over one of his wrists to soothe him, but his face remained twisted up. He looked to be on the verge of tears and, seeing as she’d never dealt with a crying child before, she looked even more desperately into the crowd. The crowd seemed to be drifting further back into the reaches of the bar.

“You brought me here. You aren’t supposed to be here, and neither am I. I didn’t want to come here,” he continued, his voice beginning to waver. “I can’t be here. I can’t stay here. Please let’s go home.”

“Honey, I don’t know who you are,” she tried to soothe, hoping she didn’t sound too desperate to be rid of him. Worse, she still had the nagging feeling that she did know him. Through the flickering of his virtual corporeality, she thought she saw hints of human skin. That overwhelming sense of calm was beginning to fade; ache crept up her legs. “I didn’t bring you here. I need to stay here. He’ll never find me if I leave.”

The child’s hands opened and gripped hard at her fingers, his nails digging into her skin. She held back a startled yelp, not wanting to upset him any more than he already was.

“It’s TIME TO GO!” he shouted and reached his hands out to grab her shoulders. She wobbled in her heels slightly and snatched his hands back into hers. Looking at them, she noticed her previously unmarred porcelain skin looked singed and bloody. She averted her gaze back to the child. “Don’t let me die. Please don’t let me. I’m not ready. Mom, please! Please let’s go home. Please! PLEASE!”

Electra stumbled to her feet and whipped around, desperate for any familiarity, but the bar had vanished. She stood in a vast, unending slate of misty grey. Her dress hung in tatters across her body. Pain etched its way into her core. Her hands shot to her stomach as a jolt of pain shot through her. She glanced down and found rubies of blood spilling through her trembling fingers. A vision ran back through her head of her rushing down a red pillar, pistol heating in her hand as she emptied her clip into it. What else? As soon as she asked, the vision vanished and the bar materialized around her, along with the child. She looked down at him with terror as he crumpled to the floor, gasping and flickering. She fell to her knees and gathered him in her arms, but his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. The boy from earth began to show through the blue glow. No one around seemed to notice the scene playing out – the people had become pillars of shadow and whispers crept in through the seams of light between them.

“How do I save you?” she begged, hands coming up to his face which grew red as he seemingly choked on the air around him. His tiny hands gripped at an invisible cinch around his small neck.

“M-momma,” he choked out, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t watch him die. Not again. Her own breath felt thick in her lungs, like all the empty spaces in her body had been replaced with thick, black smoke. “Wake…Up…”

>>>>>>>>

2230 October 10th 2187

“May we join you?” a soft voice rang from the doorway to the lounge. Garrus’ head snapped up from the drink gripped in his talons – when had the glass become empty? He swore he had filled it only minutes ago. Liara delicately took the stool beside him while Tali walked around the other side of the bar. She tutted as she rifled through the stock of alcohol before retrieving a few bottles.

“How long?” he asked, his voice much quieter than either of them had ever heard it. Liara felt a shiver go down her spine at the stark contrast to the way his laugh had filled Shepard’s apartment on the Citadel not even a month ago. Had it been a month? Even she had begun to lose the days since they had crashed.

“We’ve reached the Sol system. We are about an hour from Earth at our current speed. Turns out we didn't make it that far afterall. We haven’t been able to patch through to any major comm channels yet, but we’re receiving multiple broadcasts from various forces. Would you like to hear?” Liara asked. When he didn’t answer, she nodded to Tali who patched the broadcast through her omni-tool.

This is Alliance Command. As of Earth time 0800 on September 2nd 2187, all Reaper activity has ceased. Mass Relays have taken damage and appear inoperable. We understand your confusion but request your ongoing patience and cooperation while we calculate and repair damages. To reach your designated embassy for instruction and relief, tune to the corresponding frequency according to your –

Tali waved her hand, halting the message.

“Alliance ships and crew are to report to the Citadel. Sounds like it took heavy damage. Another broadcast was calling for aid in the active search and rescue still taking place on Earth and the Citadel. It sounds like the effort has been ongoing since we were last here. Seeing as you are acting XO, we need your approval to dock.”

Garrus tossed the information around in his head before asking, “Do we have any way to reach Admiral Hackett?”

Tali and Liara exchanged a look before shaking their heads.

Garrus felt their eyes glance at the metal plate in his left hand, then to the empty glass in his other, both cold against his skin. Shortly after the Normandy crashed on the small garden planet a month ago, he’d felt some rogue hope that Shepard might be alive still. That certainty burned through his body like wildfire. When he refused to add her name to the memorial wall, he felt it pass through the crew of the Normandy, too. But it had been weeks. No word. Communications had been down and even getting basic navigation up had required every member of the Normandy giving their best effort. Ordinarily, EDI would be the one to take care of those kinds of things but since the red wave engulfed them, she appeared little more than a lifeless hunk of metal and silicone. Despite this, they made their way by scrapping parts and fuel to cross the void of the Local Cluster, only to be greeted with indifferent silence.

Shepard would strip him of his position if she knew he’d spent his time as XO getting wasted and giving up. And if she lived, she would have found them herself by now. Especially now. There would be something left for them to hope with. He swayed on the stool before snagging one of the dextro bottles Tali had just put out and refilling his glass. He was about to bring it up to his mouth when Liara firmly placed her hand on top. He suppressed a ragged growl.

“You were the one who refused to put her name on that wall. You don’t get to regret that decision now,” she said, her voice low. Tali grabbed his drink and plopped her straw in it. He couldn’t bring himself to look at either of them.

“Take us in to the Citadel, and don’t stop trying to reach Hackett,” he muttered, shoving off from the bar with a wobble and striding from the lounge. He heard Tali mutter “Keelah” as the door hissed shut behind him. He should feel shame, but as the elevator brought him up to the commander’s quarters, the only thing he felt was that unshakeable weight. An emptiness and silence that accompanied the still unmade bed where they had writhed not so long ago. He had been sleeping on her couch since they crashed.

When he had first entered her quarters a month ago, it had been with confidence. He felt four years younger – at least his anger and passion did. He felt that blind hope that he could fix the whole world all over again if it meant his Electra could come back to them. To him. It was a feeling similar to the stunned relief that washed over him upon seeing her approach his apartment on Omega and the warmth that radiated from him every time she shot him one of her knowing smirks, those ones meant just for him because no one else knew what choice words she was probably holding back. He could still smell her on the sheets. Sometime during that final month before the final battle, something about her scent had changed in a way that drove him almost mad, but he couldn’t place what it was. When he tried bringing it up, she retorted that she still showered daily with a smack on his arm. Of course she wouldn’t understand with her terrible human nose, but the smell had only made him grip her tighter, f*ck her harder, every night that he snuck up to her cabin. Was it that thing he had heard about once? About being able to smell when someone was going to die?

He shook the thought from his head. It was spinning anyway. Liara was right. He hadn’t put her name on the wall because he knew.

The alternative just wasn’t going to cut it.

>>>>>>>>

2055 September 4th, 2187

Admiral Hackett stormed through the crowded corridors leading to Huerta. Triage had pushed back into the halls and satellite offices and apartments. Between the Citadel closing and that shockwave that shattered so much of it when the crucible fired, Hackett was surprised that every following day brought more survivors from the ruins. In all his years he’d never seen so much destruction, but the spectacle wouldn’t slow him. Not now. Every person on their feet, doctor and patient alike, peeled back from his determined path; the frazzled receptionist silenced himself with a stiff salute as Hackett bore past the entry. A nurse rushed up to him and saluted, her hand a little shaky. Hackett’s scarred lip stitched up into a snarl.

“Admiral Hackett, sir. I’ve been sent to escort you.”

“Were accommodations made?”

“All of them that we could. Are you ready sir?”

He nodded and followed the nurse into the elevator. It descended to what Hackett thought was the lowest level – the morgues – when the nurse punched in an extra code, plunging the elevator down another few levels. The elevator rattled around them. The doors opened to a bright white interior filled with beeping monitors and chattering doctors. All drivel. None of it mattered. What mattered was the woman lying on the stretcher at the center of it all, skin wrapped in bandages and casts. Tubes and wires trailed from the body to the various machines surrounding her. Hackett shoved past the nurse and up to the stretcher. He took an extra moment to stare at the woman’s face, but it was not a face easily mistaken.

“Well I’ll be damned, Shepard. I’ll be f*ckin’ damned.”

Chapter 2: Rebirth

Chapter Text

1900 December 11^th 2187

Garrus’ gaze wavered over her form from the edge of the room. Most of the equipment had been removed at this point as had most of her bandages. The skin grafts had taken so well that were it not for the way the weight had melted from her bones or the constant drip of fluids being fed into her arm, she looked like she could be sleeping. Her chest slowly rose and fell, all on its own to the surprise of her platoon of doctors. Since their arrival, Chakwas had taken over the team, her intimate knowledge of Shepard’s medical history mending many – but nowhere close to all – of the holes in Shepard’s chart. It was Chakwas who suggested that life support may no longer be necessary; her cybernetics had done in weeks what ordinary bodies needed months to accomplish, plus some. By that point, Garrus was so tired and confused that he didn’t bother protesting. Every time sleep won over his best efforts to stay awake, his dreams were filled with the sound of Electra flatlining. When they disconnected the machines, Garrus couldn’t breathe until the monitor measuring Shepard’s heart remained steady for that first torpid minute. Since then, that monitor’s steady beeping became the only thing that kept Garrus from collapsing in on himself. Just below that steady, strong rhythm, a smaller one, faster and fainter, hummed along.

The cot they had brought for him served little more than to give him a place to think a little more clearly over these long days. Every night, when the doctors were called away to the many pressing matters facing the overrun hospital, he’d creep over to her bed and sit at her side until a nurse woke him the next morning from where he’d at some point fallen asleep beside her. They had to be getting annoyed with him by now, but he didn’t care. They didn’t understand. Tali and Liara tried desperately for that first month to get him to spend even one night away from her side, but the best they could manage was the handful of afternoons that Hackett came to check on her. They had all tried – and they had all done their time by her side.

Vega told her she’d never beat his pull-up records at this rate and Joker threatened to spill all the things he’d overheard over the years if she didn’t wake up. Even Javik spent a few nights trying to reach into her clouded conscience with no success. He said when he touched her, his own mind filled up with emptiness and that he wouldn’t be trying again. By early November, they had all been swept into reconstruction in one way or another and didn’t have much left to give the unmoving, unresponsive body of their commander. Garrus didn’t fault them for it. The silence that lay over her, that fine miasma of despair, was a lot for anyone. Meanwhile, Garrus requested his own terminal that he might stay updated on news from the Hierarchy or his family. Information traveled slowly these days. The last he heard, his father and sister were still on Earth, stuck on the immovable list of non-essential transports to the Citadel.

No, unlike the others, he had to be here. If she woke up alone in this antiseptic prison, she’d probably try to kill one of the nurses. This place smelled like Cerberus and considering her condition and history, she’d probably assume she was a part of another one of their experiments. His eyes drifted to her midsection. Only recently had he begun to notice a slight change come over her shape. When her doctor learned who Garrus was, he’d informed Garrus of Electra’s pregnancy with averted eyes. There was no way he could be the father. At that point, he was inclined to agree and had to fight every urge to shake her battered body awake and demand an explanation. That was until the ultrasound he demanded revealed something somehow even more strange – the unmistakable outline of a fetus beginning to develop decidedly turian features. He didn’t remember much past that point. He had found himself expelling his lunch into the nearest bin, a mix of nerves and shock and nutrient paste. A father. Spirits, not like this.

He needed her to wake up. He needed her to wake up yesterday. Every test, every lab suggested she could wake up any day now. They also suggested she could remain like this forever. Dr. Chakwas, unshakeable though she was, was at a complete loss. He nearly ripped the throat from the doctor who proposed they keep her alive long enough to study the pregnancy before giving her body over to medical research after birth, citing the waste of crucial resources keeping her alive any longer than that, but Hackett himself made sure that doctor never set foot in Huerta again. After that, Garrus found himself wondering if Hackett wasn’t actually a turian himself.

Garrus closed the space between himself and Electra and ran his talon down her face, his thumb lingering over her lip. He never got tired of the way her breath felt on his skin.

“You always hated getting up before you were ready, Shepard, but you’ve never slept this late.”

Garrus’ omni-tool pinged. A call from his father. He slipped his hand into Electra’s and answered the call.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked. The line was staticky, bur notably better than it had been a week ago.

“We’ve secured a transport for the end of the week. You said we would have lodgings? They need to know what terminal to drop us at,” Castis clipped.

Garrus looked at Electra with a flash of panic. When he first reached his father back in October, he had it in his head that Electra would be up by now. He’d only told his father that they had a place to stay that wasn’t a refugee camp because he believed Electra might hand over the keys to her swanky apartment. The one both his father and sister knew belonged to her. He’d been reticent about anything involving her, still not used to talking with his family so much, much less sharing the intimate details of his love life. Moreover, even after triple and quadruple encrypting the line, he also couldn’t be sure how safe any mention of her name or location would be. They’d sounded impressed enough that the woman in his life just so happened to be the famous Commander Shepard. He wanted to leave it at that. Breaking them into her apartment while she lay comatose and pregnant with his child out of bond took it to an entirely new level of shame.

“Garrus?”

“Silversun Strip in the lower wards. Docking bay M12. You’ll be staying in Tiberius Towers, apartment 223.”

“And I expect all necessary parties will be there to grant us clearance? Security is tight, Garrus. Protocols are even tighter. You should know this, provided you didn’t spend all those years in C-Sec with your head in your slit.”

“Well of course I did – it’s C-Sec,” he groaned. “You will have clearance. Is Solana there? I’d like to speak to her.”

Anything to break away from talking to his father about C-Sec for another miserable second. Castis grumbled something and Garrus had to bite back another sharp comment. He squeezed Electra’s small hand. He jumped from his seat when after a moment her hand squeezed back. His eyes raced to the monitor. Her heart rate had picked up two beats per minute.

Solana’s voice came through the omni-tool, “What’s up? Dad said-”

He ended the call and brought his hand to Electra’s face, desperately searching for any sign of movement. He swore her eyelashes fluttered, though it could’ve been his own frantic breath on her face. His hand squeezed hers again to no response. Had he imagined it? Wishful thinking? He brought himself back down to the bed, his legs shaking a bit.

“Electra, are you awake? Please be awake. I need you to tell me you didn’t hear that exchange. Frankly, I’d be embarrassed if the first thing you hear is my father criticizing me,” he rambled. His hands ran across her body, her face, her hair. His face felt hotter than usual and his heart pounded in his eardrums.

“Electra Shepard, we both already know I’m crazy, but I do need you to confirm I’m not that crazy. That’s an order,” he begged, a hoarse laugh leaving his throat. The sound bordered on a sob.

For the first time since he’d arrived, he wished a doctor were already there. They shouldn’t be gone long. Was Chakwas off duty tonight? Surely a nurse would be by soon. They could run tests that would prove she’d moved after all. Maybe they’d finally institutionalize him like he was starting to think he might need.

Breaking through the silence, Electra sucked in a sharp, jagged breath, sending her heart monitor surging. The alarms on her monitor turned bright red. Garrus jumped to his feet. The spike in activity brought in an almost immediate flurry of activity as nurses and doctors burst into the room. He instinctively moved to the side to make way. It wasn’t until he saw the panic in her searching eyes and the way her breaths seemed caught in her chest that he pushed his way back to her side. He didn’t even hear the doctor’s demanding that he move.

“I’m here, I’m here. You’re safe,” were the first words that Electra could distinguish in the symphony of unfamiliar sounds. The brightness of the room blinded her, bringing stinging tears to her eyes. The boy was no longer in her arms – where was he? Oh god, had he died? She tried closing her eyes again but met only a brilliant display of exploding stars. She felt words bubbling inside of her but it felt like she hadn’t used her voice in years. She wasn’t entirely sure what sound she made, but it sounded more like a sob than anything. There were so many hands on her body. Hands holding her wrists, hands pinning her ankles. Hands moved over her neck and chest and stomach. Were they her own hands, still struggling to catch the last bits of oxygen from the air? They all felt very different from the course hands on her face. A gentle stroke amidst the fury of light and sound, a dull talon grazing her cheek. “Electra, I’m here. You’re okay.”

“The boy… Where did he go? Where’s the boy?” she managed to get out. Her eyes were open but it felt no different to the searing darkness of them being closed. She could see nothing. Only movement and flashing lights – white and red and red and red. A splash of familiar blue flickered in her periphery. God, if only she could move. If only she could breathe. Blue light began to crackle around her arms and wrists as she tried to draw that familiar power to the surface of her skin. Was this how it felt to be born?

“Biotic activity spiking. Arm the sedative,” one of the doctors ordered.

“You’re at Huerta, Electra. Stay with me. Focus on me. You’re safe, my love. I’m right here,” the voice resounded above her. A soothing thrum of subvocals vibrated through the warm palms on her face. She caught her breath like a bird from the sky and sucked in one long, shaky inhale. Her blurred vision stilled long enough to catch those beautiful eyes she knew she’d see again. She exhaled and closed her eyes, resting her face on the only hands that felt kind. She let her biotics fall back as her breathing started to come more easily. There were so many other voices. Some infernal beeping. This felt different from the original bar, but at least there wasn’t the strangled sobs of that child. Did she save him? It didn’t matter much now. She was safe. He had made it after all.

“You came,” she sighed, picking at a smile.

“Of course I did. Did you think I wouldn’t be here?”

“I waited for a long time, Garrus,” she said. She wanted to reach out and feel him, his arms, his mandibles, his beautiful face, but her arms were still pinned to the bed. “Why can’t I move?”

“Release her,” Garrus growled at the doctor holding her wrists. He scowled at Garrus but moved out of the way. Shepard’s heartrate was normalizing. The doctor stopped the nurse from administering the sedative into her IV.

“You waited? Hah. Don’t you think it’s a little soon to make jokes like that? Give me a chance to warm up first, hotshot.”

Electra peeled her eyelids from her eyes, unable to make anything out past the face of her beloved turian. His brow plates were scrunched into concern. She brought her free hand up to wipe the worry away. Why would he be worried in a place like this? Any place where they were together again was a very good place.

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” she asked. She tried to look down at the dress she wore earlier but felt now like her world was upside down. The heels must have fallen off because her feet felt naked. She couldn’t pry her eyes from Garrus’ face to check lest it disappear into that petrifying gray eternity. “Don’t I look beautiful?”

“Spirits, of course. Of course you do,” he responded, planting a victorious kiss on her forehead. He glanced over at the doctors, who scrutinized her every word and movement. They murmured amongst each other, unsure how to proceed and cautious to cross the turian standing guard. “You have no idea how much I missed you. Those eyes. Spirits. I love you so much.”

“I love you, too.” Electra tried to smile. However, the feeling of her lips pulling up almost broke her. The desperation in his voice, the whine in his subvocals she’d only heard a few times before. Fresh tears sprung to her eyes as it dawned on her why. “I’m so sorry, Garrus. I really meant to come back alive. sh*t. I should have been more careful. I waited so long, though, and you never came. You were supposed to buy my drink first, but I just couldn’t wait much longer.” Her words came out choked and hoarse. Ash coated her esophagus.

“Shepard, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he half-laughed, though her continued confusion only drew more worry into his voice. “I can agree that you should always be more careful but I knew I could never change you. What matters is you’re awake. Electra. You’re awake and you’re alive.”

Electra felt as if she had been slapped. All at once her senses slammed back into her body with a sizzle. A voice somewhere near her said,

“If the biotic activity continues, we will have to sedate her.”

Garrus broke her eye-contact for a moment to shoot his fiery glare elsewhere. Electra followed his line of sight to a cluster of wide-eyed, white-coat doctors, data pads and syringes clutched in their hands. This was certainly different from the bar. Still better than grey. Still better than the whispering shadows. Her gaze snapped back to Garrus.

“I feel weak, Garrus,” she said, her voice sounding real in the space. Her hand on his face fell back to the bed, heavier than before. Her skin looked different, though she couldn’t tell exactly how. An IV drip connected her other arm to a bag hanging over her. Next to her, a screen displayed vitals. BPM, O2 levels, some other squiggles and numbers and letters she’d seen before. She watched the line rise and fall, rise and fall until she registered that it aligned to the thudding in her chest. Her own heart. A smaller screen next to it displayed a similar pattern, though it beat differently. Was she still dreaming? She glanced back at the doctors, expected to see the blue glow of the Star Child among them.

“You’re bound to feel weak, love. You’re okay. You’re alive,” Garrus reassured, half to himself.

“What is that?” she asked, nodding to the smaller screen. She tried to sit up but a knife of pain sliced through her nervous system, causing her to drop back down. Her feeble hand sought Garrus’ on the bed. She looked back to his face but his usually too-quick to respond mouth hung open, one mandible twitching as a response eluded him. The voice that spoke came from a salarian doctor that had stepped closer to her bedside.

“Commander Shepard, I’m going to ask that you answer some basic questions for me. Can you do this?”

Shepard narrowed her sights at him. He had similar coloration to Mordin. It couldn’t be Mordin because Mordin was dead. Right. And she wasn’t. Possibly also right. She had to trust that Garrus wouldn’t let someone with bad intentions this close to her without at least handing her a pistol. She squeezed his hand, the next best thing, and nodded.

“Can you confirm your name, height, and age for me?”

“Commander Electra Shepard, 5’7, 34 years old,” she spouted off. Easy.

“Excellent. Can you tell me the last thing you remember, commander?”

Electra opened her mouth to speak when she found her brain putting up a block. She looked back to Garrus, but he remained speechless.

“A…. The crucible. London. The beam. I went up the beam. I…. Anderson. Anderson was there. So many bodies. Is Anderson alive? Doctor, doctor…” she squinted to read the tag on his coat, “Doctor Valon, can you tell me if Anderson made it out? Who rescued me? Are the Reapers gone?”

Electra heard her heart rate starting to rise again as the memories of her last moments flooded back. Anderson slumped over while the Star Child carried on about choices. Meanwhile, the reapers continued their assault against the backdrop of Earth. From where she stood, she saw fires raging below, ringing the blue sea with bright vermillion. Back to the Citadel. Her pistol growing hot in her hand, bullets piercing metal, and finally a wave of red washing over everything. Then… she couldn’t recall a then. Only now. That she had made it here – alive according to her most trusted source – meant she had to have been rescued. She’d felt her skin burn white-hot then felt as the pain that seized her entire body seared away into the vacuum of space. The pain she felt now was so different than that one. It had felt so final.

“Your body was recovered among the Citadel ruins not long after the Reapers and their forces were confirmed destroyed. At 2300 hours on September 3^rd, 2187, an Alliance recon team determined that you showed signs of life and prepared an immediate medical evac to Huerta Memorial. You have been in a medically induced coma since September 4^th of 2187. It is now 1945 on December 11^th, 2187, making today your 99^th day in a comatose state,” Dr. Valon drabbled unceremoniously. “Your recovery proved rapid. Tissue regeneration surpassed all estimates set from initial evaluation. Typical cases of such severe physical trauma recommend at least 150 days on life support before secondary analysis. Remarkable, truly, though even more remarkable is the additional set of conditions discovered during the first full physical analysis. Despite all known scientific principles--”

Garrus shot the doctor another look. He would be the one to tell her. If she was confused now, news of the pregnancy might only scare her back into hiding and Garrus didn’t know if he could spend any longer wondering if she was still there at all. However, Shepard hung onto Dr. Valon’s words. December. Had it only been three months since the attack? The last time she opened her eyes after dying, two years had passed. At least no one was telling her to get up and directing her to the nearest gun. Still, she couldn’t wrap her head around the time lost. Hell, she couldn’t even figure out where her dress and shoes had gone or when they had been replaced with the thin white cotton that draped over her body. Her body that still felt like it belonged to a stranger. It made no sense that she lived. She hadn’t ever planned this far ahead. Feeling Garrus’ hand in hers reminded her that she did once have dreams of coming back from the Reapers in one piece, but even then she knew they were just dreams. Statistical improbabilities in the brutal calculus of war. She squeezed Garrus’ hand just to be sure it still existed in her grasp. When he squeezed back, she winced at the contradictory duality of her continued existence.

Whispers teased around the edges of her consciousness.

I’m not supposed to be here.

Chapter 3: Just For a Little While

Chapter Text

The tests seemed like they would never end. Garrus had pulled Dr. Valon aside and pleaded that they don’t tell her about the pregnancy until he had the chance to inform her first, or at least to allow Chakwas if they didn’t think he’d do a good enough job. He remembered how jarring it felt to be swarmed by strangers and told the last thing he ever expected to hear almost directly following the most unexpected joy he had resigned himself to never experiencing. To say it was hell on the mind was an understatement. To his surprise, Valon agreed it would be best for her to hear the news from someone familiar. Their initial psych eval and cognitive tests looked promising, but they still doubted Shepard had her mental faculties in order. Garrus didn’t disagree. She almost seemed too calm, not that he’d ever known her to blow her composure. It was borderline unsettling. Garrus agreed to give them room, using that time to draft a message to the crew of the Normandy. He wouldn’t send it until given the all-clear for visitation, but he’d be reamed if he wasted any time letting the others know that Shepard was awake. Drafting that message was the easy part. He snuck glances over at Shepard as the doctor’s peppered her with questions and attached various nodes to her head and body. Her hands were limp at her sides, but with the blanket that usually covered her body pushed to the side, the subtle curve of her belly looked even more stark against her rail-thin frame. He averted his eyes before she noticed and racked his head for the words to say.

So remember how curious we were at one point to see what a turian-human baby might look like? Surprise, surprise…. No. He needed to buckle down and try to be serious.

So about you insisting we didn’t need protection…. He pressed his palm to his forehead.

Well on the topic of using protection, we definitely won’t need to now that… No. No no no, especially not that.

Compared to the liquor drenched abyss he’d been in just months prior – or even the constant quiet despair he’d settled into until just hours ago – the feeling coursing through him now felt like a high. His fire had returned. That same brilliant flame he felt that time she bent over to grab something from the Mako and shot back a wink when she caught him staring. The moment he saw her blonde hair shimmering against the dark ruin on Menae. The sound that broke from her lips the first time he dragged his tongue down her neck. But behind that light, another darker murmur rattled in his mind – that he should have known she was pregnant. If he had just opened his eyes to all the signs and not been so wrapped up in his own machinations and desires, she would have never had to face that beam alone. If he had known like he should have known, there wasn’t a chance in hell the Normandy would have taken off without her – or with him. Did that matter now? When she went down with the Normandy SR-1, he’d punished himself with Omega. This time, the only punishment he faced was the family he thought he’d never have. It felt all wrong for something so right.

“Garrus,” Electra’s voice called softly over the hum of her machines. He hadn’t noticed the doctors and nurses clearing out. He rushed back over to her. She sat up, grey eyes circled with deep purple stains. For all the sleep she had gotten, he’d never seen her look so tired. So thin and pale. Her blonde hair fell around her face in sweaty clumps. How had he not noticed this before? He sat on the bed and clasped her face in his hands before drawing her into his long arms. Electra let out a surprised huff before bringing her hands up his spine to rest under his crest. Spirits, she felt weak. Garrus gripped her tighter, luxuriating in the sensation of her chest drawing in breath against his. Her voice sounding his name – that sweet, treasured sound he swore he’d never take for granted – called him from the embrace to look at her face again. Her expression didn’t match the one of unadulterated elation on his.

“Garrus, do you care to explain this?” she asked, bringing her hands to her ever so slightly extended belly. Garrus had avoided looking at it for too long over the past few months, at least directly. Something about it felt so selfish when she was trapped in that coma. Until now, he never thought to rejoice, not truly. Of course he’d always wanted to be a father – he’d known that for years. And with Shepard? He had never been more certain about something in his life. Even now, he didn’t really believe she sat before him, eyes open and locked on him, awaiting for him to explain the very thing he hadn’t allowed himself to be happy about without her. At least he was sure it wasn’t a dream considering his dreams were almost never this good for this long. He flipped back to his thoughts from earlier. Had he decided what to say?

“Garrus,” she said again, this time with more force. A much more familiar and demanding tone. He brought one of his hands to cover hers, the first time he dared touch the space where their child grew.

“The doctors can’t explain it, so I’m not sure what makes you think I can. I’m just a C-Sec brat with a mind for calibrations,” he half-laughed. When she was silent, words continued to fall out of his mouth. “You know, when they told me, I was about two steps away from cornering every human male that had been in your presence in the past few months and ripping them to shreds. Not even Liara was safe. But then they showed me the sonograms and well… you did it again. The great Commander Shepard achieved the impossible due to the great cunning and prowess of Garrus Vakarian. Turns out I really am the best shot in the galaxy.”

“So I really…. I’m pregnant. Please tell me you’re joking Garrus. Tell me this is one big joke so I can kick your ass and focus on something else.” Her words were pleading, but based on the look in her eye, she had known before Garrus ever opened his mouth. “Please tell me I’m just fat now.”

Garrus smirked and pinched her cheek despite how gaunt they were. “Worried that you’re no longer the one with the hot bod in the relationship? You’ve got a lot of reps to do before you can compete with me again, Shepard.”

Electra smacked his arm weakly and he put his hands up in surrender, opting to pull up the sonograms on his omni-tool. He’d bookmarked them for quick retrieval, having spent many nights staring them down, waiting for them to vanish much as he was waiting to wake up to find her body had gone cold beside his.

“The best estimates have you anywhere between three and four months along, but between the lack of medical precedent and your inability to keep your hands off of me that last month on the Normandy, there’s no real way to know. It’s a about the size of that little rodent you were so fond of,” he explained.

Electra’s eyes sparkled as she looked at the pictures. It was clear with the 4D imaging that the fetus was more than human. It didn’t look like much of anything if either was being honest, but there was no mistaking two tiny three-fingered little hands curled in on themselves and two eyes closed on a face not quite human, not quite turian. Garrus watched Electra’s face closely. For once, he couldn’t read her expression, and her expression didn’t move. Awe, incredulity, anxiety. He even glanced at her heart monitor, though it remained as steady as before. Her fingers grazed over her stomach, her touch soft as if reaching out to catch a breeze.

“Talk to me. We’re running out of time until I make another bad joke,” he said, laying his hand on her thigh. Her eyes roamed to the second heart monitor, beeping steadily beneath hers, then to the hands on her belly.

“How?” she asked in a voice so small it sounded like it could shatter. “How are we alive? How… is it alive?”

“Again, your guess is as good as any, although my guess has mostly been that my skills in bed have transcended all known rules of science into the realm of artistry. I’ve been wondering how to ask the Hierarchy to promote my official rank from Reaper expert to sex wizard.”

That earned him a small chuckle. The sound was like music to his ears. Garrus’ heart stuttered when she grabbed his hand and placed it on her belly. For the first time since waking, her weak smile didn’t entirely fade into the mask of exhaustion commanding her visage.

“Before we have to reenter the world of reality… before we have to understand how and why and what next… or even before I have to inevitably wake up to my final death since there’s no way this isn’t just one of those extra layers of heaven… I just….”

Garrus had only seen Shepard cry three times in the four years he had guarded her six. Once after Virmire when Ashley had been left behind and Shepard found that book of poems in her locker. Coming out from under the Mako, he guessed her tears weren’t meant for his eyes. Before he could get over himself to just go over and comfort her, Kaidan had swept in and wrapped his arms around her shaking shoulders. The second time came after she visited Thane on his deathbed, though he hadn’t seen it directly. He only got a message from Tali that Shepard was crying in life support and he better do something about it. By the time he rehearsed what he thought he should say and got over there, she’d already made her way to the CIC. She hovered over the galaxy map with an impenetrable stoniness that sent him back to the main battery without saying a single word. The third time was right before the Normandy whisked him away from the beam in London. He wasn’t sure he saw it, but he had heard it in her voice. That tell-tale crack when she told him she loved him. And Spirits how he shattered when he heard it. How he tormented over his own late response, and his inability to be insubordinate just once and refuse to leave her there. Now, she cried over his hand on her belly, her hot tears splashing on his rough skin. He could feel his barriers cracking, his mandibles pulled tight against his face. He raised his free hand to her face and swiped the stray tears with his talon before nudging her chin up to meet his steady gaze. Fire crackled in his chest, a bonfire.

“Hey, hey,” he cooed, feeling his subvocals tremble. He was glad she couldn’t read the anguish in them. “Save your tears, my love.” He pressed his mouth to hers, his course lips in stark contrast to the supple softness of hers. He pulled away with a glimmer in his eye.

“You still have to meet my father. Now that should give us something to cry about.”

Chapter 4: Anywhere Else

Chapter Text

They’d fallen asleep on her bed together, creating a careful geometry to the way they stacked their limbs over each other on the small bed without disturbing the IV still sustaining Electra. Garrus had fallen asleep almost as soon as his head touched the pillow, his familiar purr reverberating through Electra’s body. She wondered if he hadn’t been sleeping but decided she’d rather ask another time. She closed her eyes tentatively at first, scared that if she sunk into the darkness behind them then she might not come back out to this decidedly lovely place the next time her eyes opened. However, it felt that as soon as they’d closed, she was jolted awake again by the familiar voice of Dr. Karin Chakwas filling the room. A brief moment of panic overcame her as she realized the other body she’d folded herself into what felt like moments ago was absent. She’d called it. She shouldn’t have closed her eyes, shouldn’t have given up this slice of heaven so easily.

But just as she tried to bolt up, Garrus’ hand touched the side of her face. She looked up at him, eyes irritated in the sickeningly white glare all around her, and felt her breath return knowing he hadn’t vanished. God, he was handsome. For all the things that could’ve been on her mind in that exact moment, she was surprised the loudest one was her overwhelming desire to have his body pressed against her and his talons locked in her hair. If only everyone could stop yelling for a moment, she might be able to convince them to give her back the privacy she so desperately needed.

“I respect your medical authority Valon but your authority ends when it comes to my patient, and my respect ends when you place your blasted protocol over my expertise. You might as well throw out those preliminary cognitive results, because if you believed for one second that anything about Commander Shepard’s unique profile called for standard protocol, I have half the mind to get you flagged for your own cognitive decay,” Karin spat. The datapad clutched in her hand punctuated every word she threw at Valon. Electra felt lost yet again, but the well from which she usually drew her own authority felt tapped. She could hardly raise her hand from the bed.

“Karin, good morning,” she said, wishing she had the energy to sit up on her own. Had she felt this weak yesterday? She couldn’t recall. “Long time, no see.”

Karin looked primed to loose another string of insults at the salarian when Electra’s voice called her back to her usually calm center. She tossed the datapad at Valon and rushed over, clutching Shepards hand in both of hers. Her steely eyes scrunched into a wide grin before she gave a sturdy salute.

“Commander, I’m sorry I couldn’t be here yesterday. I do apologize for any line of questioning this bumbling cloaca put you through. You must be feeling…”

“Like death? Yeah. I could also really go for food. I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’m actually craving nutrient paste.”

Karin’s brows folded together and she pulled up her omni-tool, swiping it over Electra’s body. Words scrolled by in the reflection of her eyes, which looked like they were filled with flint.

“Garrus, you wouldn’t happen to have anything to throw at Dr. Valon would you? I’m all out of datapads,” she huffed through her teeth as she continued to scroll through the report. Garrus’ mandibles flared. He hadn’t ever seen the doctor so irate, and assuming it concerned Electra, he now wished he was holding something to throw at the salarian. Karin spun around and cast the results of her scan up on a nearby console.

“Dr. Valon, would you like to tell me why Commander goddamn Shepard is showing deficiencies in all major nutrient groups? To top it all off, she’s running a low-grade fever. Would you like to tell me how in the span of a single twenty-four hour cycle our patient has woken from a coma and managed to somehow come out worse for wear? Remind me again where you received your accreditation so I can have it shut down. Actually, save it for Admiral Hackett. I’ve heard enough from you. You’re dismissed.”

Electra could barely hold her eyes open. She was starting to think she hadn’t slept at all, though the time and date on the monitor suggested she’d slept for well over ten hours. She leaned her cheek into Garrus’ hand.

“Commander, I recommend you try not move too much for the next thirty minutes to an hour while your nutrient levels balance. That fool had you on the same limited rations set by Huerta for the general public. He better pray it wasn’t his call. You’re probably feeling quite weak but trust me that you will feel better soon.”

Karin’s words had begun to go fuzzy. She hated this feeling. That feeling when the darkness creeps up over all the edges like cobwebs and devours every ounce of clarity she’d managed to hold on to in the past day. There were those whispers again – or was someone speaking to her in the room? It didn’t matter now. It all melded together, the low rabble of many voices and conversations blurring together to make one sound. Ice clinked against the glass of a cup somewhere to her right and a tiny hand started tugged at her gown.

Come with me, it whispered. We can leave whenever we want.

“You promise she’s just sleeping, right?” Garrus watched over Electra, her eyelids fluttering before sealing heavily over her eyes. Her pale skin had a sickly sheen across it. He wasn’t sure how it had woken him, or even how his brain had processed exactly what it was, but Electra’s scent was off from the moment his mind reentered waking. He had Chakwas on the way within minutes.

“I promise, Garrus. I’d have figured you’d know the difference considering you’ve chosen watching her over your own sleep for the past two months.”

“You can never be too sure.” His voice almost fell beneath his subvocals. “That was quite the tirade, Karin. Can’t say I’ve ever seen you get so fired up.”

Karin sunk into a nearby chair, her shoulders dropping. It looked like the entire weight of the Citadel tumbled off of them onto the floor.

“Perhaps it was uncalled for,” she sighed. “I knew that resources would be tight. Correct me if I’m wrong, but if the commander had any say at all, she’d almost insist that any resources being funneled her way be redirected to someone else. Perhaps I was unfair to Valon. He didn’t sign up for this. I just wish we could’ve been here when they found her. There are so many unknowns, Garrus.”

Garrus and Karin had never been particularly close. Aside from the mandatory patching up he required during his time on the Normandy, they’d exchanged few words beyond a cordial greeting. However, upon arriving at the Citadel, they’d been immediately ushered to Huerta by Admiral Hackett and hadn’t spent much time apart since. She’d become a lifeline for him in a number of ways – namely by making sure he always had something to eat when he neglected to go get his own food – but also in providing a buffer of hope between the improbability of Electra’s survival and the medical staff’s indifferent calculations. He needed someone he could trust. He needed to not feel so alone when he looked at Electra and saw more than just a medical marvel.

“I’m trying not to focus on what we weren’t here for. Preferably, I’d rather Shepard never knows how I spent the entire month of September. Or any time after that. Thanks.”

“Scared she won’t like you anymore?” Karin teased. “It’s a little late for that, Vakarian.”

“Right,” he huffed, staring at the face of the woman he loved as it rested against his hand. Some of the color had already returned to her cheeks. “Remind me how I managed to pull that off. Don’t worry, I’ll buy you a drink first so you can lie a little bit easier.”

Karin opened her mouth to respond when both their omni-tools pinged at the same time. The mass message Garrus had sent out to the Normandy crew had gone off like a bomb. Garrus flicked open the chat.

TZ: Garrus, if this is a joke then I’m going to have you put in an institution for officially losing it. Don’t joke about stuff like this.

KA: It does seem a little soon, no? You made it sound like she wasn’t gunna make it for a while…

LT: Since when has Shep ever cared about deadlines? She excels at beating the odds. However, I would also like to know if this is a joke. If so, I’m sure Shepard will understand when we claim no knowledge about your swift disappearance from the galaxy.

JOK: Answer carefully. I’ve got money riding on this one.

TZ: GARRUS

CORT: It has been one minute. One. I don’t even think Vega’s up yet.

VMAN: Whoah, whoah big guy. I’ve already got 200 crunches in by the time your feet hit the floor. What’s this about Lola? This real?

LT: Maybe if we all stopped sending messages all at once, he might get a chance to respond.

KA: You just sent a message. A little hypocritical, no?

ST: Is this real? Joker, this better not be for one of your bets. We agreed, no insider betting.

TZ: And again if this is a joke, I will personally blast all of you through the damn relay once we finally figure out how to get it running. Garrus? Update?

GV: You’re all insufferable. Will update soon.

Garrus closed his omni-tool and lowered himself to the bed beside Electra. A grin played across Chakwas’ face as she continued to read the messages as they flooded in.

“Suppose Electra is really as healed as you have been saying, temporary deficiencies aside. How much longer will she need to be here? I can’t speak for her, but I have a feeling she’d like to go home,” Garrus proposed, pushing a long strand of hair out of Electra’s face. His talon traced the upper curve of her ear, eliciting a sigh from the sleeping woman. Her eyes fluttered a bit.

Karin looked up from the messages and stared at Shepard.

“I can’t lie to you Garrus. Regardless of whether or not she is as healed as she appears, this place is a good neutral zone to test what comes next. Don’t be so quick to overlook those things I promised we wouldn’t talk about until Shepard’s gotten a bit more of her bearings. Valon’s cognitive preliminaries passed by protocol standards, but it doesn’t take a genius to know this falls beyond any protocol. I’m very concerned for her, as I’m sure you know. I know you are too. We just don’t understand what happened to her. We might have to wait until we can get Lawson up here to even consider moving her around the Citadel. I know you haven’t spent much time outside of this room since we’ve arrived, but how caught up with the state of things are you?”

“Enough,” Garrus half lied. He’d spent a lot of time gathering updates through old C-Sec connections and Alliance reports, but Chakwas was right that he hadn’t spent much time outside. He just couldn’t risk it. He didn’t want to think of what could’ve happened had he not been here when she finally woke. Once he was sure she was safe – and sufficiently armed – he would consider stepping back from his post.

“Things are bad, Garrus. You think resources were tight before? Triple the refugee load in Zakera alone and multiply that by every ward on the Citadel. The Alliance and the Council are doing the best they can, but we still haven’t gotten the relay network online. Half of the fleets that assembled here for the assault on Earth are still here. Everything is in a dangerous and precarious balance. Order is stretched so thin it may as well be transparent. You must also bear in mind that we number in a very select few that even know the commander is alive, and it is even fewer that know the details of her exact condition. At Huerta, we are afforded security and we are guaranteed resources. As much as I hate to admit it, Dr. Valon and his team are some of the greatest medical minds on the Citadel at our disposal. Of course they’re not brushed up on Shepard herself – how many of us truly are – but let’s not forget that before we even knew she lived, they brought her from the brink of almost certain death. Should I send you those reports again as a reminder?”

Garrus shuddered at the thought. Reading those reports once was enough.

“I’d like to read them.”

Both Garrus and Karin jumped at the sound of Electra’s voice. Her eyes had opened and she began to push herself up from the heavy gravity of the thin mattress beneath her, her face contorting as pain rippled through her stiff body. Garrus offered her his arm to help pull herself up but she waved it away. She brought her hands up to wipe away the crust that had formed in the corners of her eyes.

“Commander. I expected you to sleep for far longer than that. How are you feeling?”

“A little less like death. What did you do to me? I don’t remember feeling this sh*t yesterday.”

“You were put on the automated nutrient protocol for humans set by Huerta’s board of directors. Another day like that and we could have had a serious problem on our hands. Your body is burning through calories with a vengeance I’ve never seen before,” Karin explained. She scanned Electra again, nodding over the results before closing her omni-tool again.

“I’m going to need access to my files as soon as you can compile them for me. Please. I’m starting to feel a little too much like a science project for my taste. Miranda Lawson. Have either of you heard from her?”

“She’s stuck on Earth for the time being. Transit’s a little locked up,” Garrus responded. His mandibles fluttered at the sight of Electra – though still markedly frail – flicking open her omni-tool and running her tongue out over her lower lip as she always did when hit with a mass of unopened messages. She closed the screen and fixed her steely gaze on Chakwas.

That’s my girl resounded in both Garrus’ and Karin’s heads.

“I need her here. If anyone knows anything about why my body is behaving in any abnormal way, it would be her. I still don’t know everything she did to me. She might have left Cerberus, but she’s locked up like Alcatraz.”

Electra winced and brought her hand around to the back of her neck.

“I specifically remember telling you to not move so much. You’ll overload your implants if you strain your body at this time. There’s a lot of damage that’s in the process of being repaired,” Chakwas reprimanded. She didn’t miss that devil-may-care gleam in Shepard’s eye when she told her to treat herself more gently, but she had missed the life that was returning to her face.

“Unbelievable. I almost die to get rid of the Reapers and I’m already getting bossed around,” Shephard forced a laugh from her nose. Her body felt like it had been slammed by a truck. She leaned into Garrus’ solid body, leaning into the arm he tightened around her back. His hand came up under her arm and he snuck his thumb through the opening of her gown to trace slow circles over her ribs.

“I can speak to Admiral Hackett about locating Lawson and expediting her processing. Getting her clearance to your particular unit may be a bit harder. Huerta’s board remains independent from the Alliance and it’s not credits they’re after. Lawson’s history with Cerberus doesn’t bode well for our cause, but I’ll see what I can do,” Karin offered.

“I might have some favors to cash in with C-Sec. Or I could shake down the board. Whichever is faster,” Garrus added.

Electra nodded, turning the information over in her head. Her brain felt bruised. She hoped that would pass soon. She wouldn’t be much of a Spectre without at least some of her mental acuity. Her eyes grazed the sterile room. She could feel the starkness of the surfaces almost drawing her into that bleak trance. White floors passing to white walls passing to white ceilings. She shuddered, recalling the last whisper she’d heard before losing consciousness.

We can leave whenever we want.

“I appreciate it. God, you know I do. But if it’s still there, I want nothing more than to go back to the apartment. You can hook me up to all the same stuff. Hell you can even make me sleep on this awful mattress for another year if you insist. I just need to get out of here. I don’t recall needing any kind of clearance to have Miranda in my own home.”

Chapter 5: Home Again

Chapter Text

Zaeed paced along the wide windows of the apartment for the fourth time that day. Garrus had gone on about that damned ablative webbing, yammering like a madman about post-market installation techniques as if Zaeed himself hadn’t designed the first offensive application of this technology. He didn’t need to know that. Not today no how. Anyone that knew Garrus knew he couldn’t keep his damn beak shut if he had a real, genuine concern, and that was mostly for the commander. He wasn’t alone in that. She’d become all of their problems. Until recently, he never thought he’d say that about someone who had spent so much of her time putting good honest mercs like himself out of business. At least it made him look a bit more cleaned up for the justicar. Zaeed’s omni-tool buzzed and he flicked up the screen to read his new messages.

GV: Still in processing. Remind me why we got stuck on the damn Citadel of all places. Damn. Everything better be ready by the time we get there.

TZ: I seem to recall a certain XO Vakarian making that call.

KA: You’re not genuinely complaining about processing times are you? You stayed in one room for over two months. If it weren’t for the increased security, I doubt Shep would make it through one transit hub before every major broadcast announced her return. I’m pulling some real weight with C-Port for you right now.

ZED: Sell out.

SHEP: Thanks Kai… still a sell out.

TZ: Ouch

GV: Can I get some confirmation that everything is ready?

JACK: Hey Alenko, which council member’s ass tastes the best?

KA: I won’t respond to that. You’re welcome, Shep.

JACK: Sorry, forgot that you wouldn’t get the chance to know with how far your tongue is up Shep’s ass every second of every day

ML: Nice

VMAN: Nice

GV: You’ll all be tasting your own sh*t for the rest of your lives if I can’t get a very simple assurance that things are in order.

TZ: Daaaamn daddy Vakarian has a bite

LT: The monitoring station is ready to go. Karin is still on call with Alliance medical suppliers. Should have everything stocked by the end of the day.

WREX: Locked and loaded. Just like you like your women.

JOK: I think you mean how he likes that stick up his ass

KAS: Careful joker, you seem to forget one tap from that stick and you’re in medbay for a month

JOK: Try 9 months, am I right Shep?

ST: Encryption is secure. I don’t see how anyone but the shadow broker herself could decrypt this. I’ll keep running tests on the connection to the comm grid. I can’t believe this tech is centuries old and still working.

SHEP: Don’t talk about Wrex’s quad like that, Traynor. Now give me a status report before you give Garrus an aneurysm.

JAV: Will update you in person. This is all juvenile. I was led to believe this line was to be used for tactical communication only.

ZED: Weave stable and armed. Set a few more rigs you hopefully won’t have to thank me for later

KAS: ;)

VMAN: Dinner is already in the oven Lola

JOK: Bones still in one piece. Oh and the rapid transit console is running

TZ: Your security systems are online, try not to trigger anything

SAM: I too have prepared something. Best if I tell you when you get here.

KA: Still working through what’s left at HQ. I’ll send over what I have.

ML: Don’t worry. You know I’ve got it taken care of

Garrus let out a breath he had been holding in as soon as the confirmations rolled in. Bailey still hadn’t returned from the back offices. He almost wished they’d keep stalling with bad jokes if it meant having something to stare at other than the cracked glass divider he’d been stuck in front of for the better part of an hour. Electra had to be getting tired. She’d been left with Cortez until Bailey got him clearance to the C-Sec low lanes; Garrus finally understood exactly what Karin had meant by everything being caught in some kind of head lock. He didn’t blame Bailey. He even agreed with Kaidan that the increase in security only helped ensure some level of order to the explosion of problems facing the station. He couldn’t help but overhear an officer explain to some poor refugee that Arcturus Station had only just re-established grid power and their missing persons network wouldn’t be able to sync until the power allotment could be approved through some other subsidiary advising committee Garrus didn’t care enough to catch the name of. Had he never met Shepard, that could’ve been him. He father would have been proud.

“Good news Vakarian. You’re in. Of course if anyone asks… well, just make sure no one asks,” Bailey said as he limped back to the chair across from him. Garrus was pinged with the clearance codes almost immediately. Garrus’ mounting urge to hack into their systems himself quelled for the time being, not that he could afford losing the last reliable point of access to C-Sec he had left. He sometimes wondered why Shepard never tried recruiting Bailey for herself. Now, it was clear Bailey had seen better days.

“You won’t have to worry about that. You know that,” Garrus assured. He hesitated before asking, “Heard from your family yet?”

Garrus watched as the light in Bailey’s eyes sunk even further back into his skull as he slowly shook his head. He should have known. It had become a rare privilege to know about the fates of loved ones. He still didn’t understand how he had gotten so lucky considering the love of his life happened to be one of the most suicidally inclined war heroes in possibly the entire Milky Way.

Cortez circled around to get Garrus from the C-Sec office and Garrus delivered the codes into the Kodiak. Cortez grinned as the vehicle’s navigation system synced the low lanes with the general access roads.

“You think there’s any chance we’ll get flagged for confirmation?” Cortez asked before setting the path to the nearest low lane access.

“If by some chance we do, my javelin is still an option.”

Shepard raised her brows as Garrus settled into the seat next to her. He knew that look. Best to avoid it.

“Kidding, of course. How are you feeling?” he asked, resting his hand on her thigh. The clothes Karin brought her fit loose around her body. When she’d worn something similar just months ago, it had hugged her curves.

“Nauseous as hell, which is new. Your baby certainly doesn’t lack for new ways to make me regret the day I showed you exactly what I meant about flexibility. Otherwise, some might even describe me as peachy. Providing Vega or your baby doesn’t f*ck it up, I think this will be the first hot meal I’ve had in what… 4 months?”

“Oh, now it’s my baby is it? Don’t forget saying that when I take you for all the alimony the Alliance can afford when you eventually leave me for Kaidan,” Garrus scoffed, bumping her shoulder. Electra snorted, then doubled over herself, slapping her hand to her mouth when the car dipped suddenly into the tunnels.

“Cortez,” she gasped once she was sure she wouldn’t puke. “Do that again and you’ll have something much worse than Vega’s ball sweat to clean out of these seats.”

Garrus rubbed his hand slowly along her spine, noting the sharp ridges that hadn’t been there before. He wondered how badly Huerta had been rationing even her so-called unlimited IV nutrition allotment over those months. He felt a growl simmer in his throat, boiling up from the same intensity in his blood he was finding harder to control since those weeks before Earth. Shephard heard – or felt – the rumble in his subvocals and co*cked one of her arched brows at him. He knew that look, too. A heady hunger burned in her eyes.

“Down boy,” she murmured so Cortez couldn’t hear over the hum of the engine. She pulled herself up straight to plant a kiss on the side of his mouth, her tongue flicking out for just moment on his mandible. Garrus practically had to bore his talons into his own leg to control his plates from shifting any further open. Compared to the nearly constant parade of sex the two had enjoyed in the month leading up to the final attack, these last few months of misery induced celibacy had left him hungrier than he could ever remember feeling. Combined with the heat in his blood that ached for her every time her scent hit his nose, he didn’t know if he could handle another night without at least tasting her skin. Of course, his own interest was predicated on hers, but the look in her eyes assured him that any moment alone between was subject to what their bodies compelled them to do.

Cortez wove the car carefully through the low lanes. The tunnels were lit with only a few service lights. Electra had never seen this part of the Citadel before, even as a Spectre. Her work had taken her mostly out into other clusters. Even with much of the Citadel thrust into chaos amidst the wide-spread destruction, it amazed her that there were still so many secrets woven into its structure. She had uncovered some of the biggest secrets the Citadel had to offer but the prescience of its design never ceased to reveal more hidden mysteries. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back on Garrus’ hard shoulder, relaxed by the surrounding darkness broken only by occasional strobes of warm light filling the cabin of the car. One of her hands found its way to the upper portion of Garrus’ thigh. She was desperate to have him alone to herself. She’d finished out the week at Huerta but could still only count the hours on one hand that she’d been allowed to enjoy some quiet privacy since waking. A voice pulsed in her head like an echo.

I waited for a long time, Garrus.

Then, further back, another whisper added,

I can’t wait forever.

Shephard’s eyes snapped open as Cortez released the door controls. The car was parked in what looked like a subterranean garage. It wasn’t a part of the apartment that she remembered. Garrus helped her to her feet and led her into the garage. The faint sound of familiar voices and even more familiar laughs filtered out from a spiral staircase against the far wall.

“Where was this before?” Shephard wondered aloud. Kasumi popped up beside her in typical fashion and placed a soft hand on her shoulder.

“Stealing isn’t the only thing I’m good at. That Anderson left you quite a few puzzles.”

“No sh*t,” Electra muttered after Kasumi disappeared.

The door at the top of the long stairs took them through a long hallway that led to a hidden door behind the poker table in the study. Stepping into the dimly lit room, Electra found herself immediately enveloped in the solid arms of Vega. He stepped back after a minute and held her out at arm’s length.

“Damn Lola, don’t take this the wrong way but you kind of look like hell. Commander.”

“Good to see you, too Lieutenant.”

She stepped from around him and had to steel herself against the almost violent way the memory of her party overcame her. Tears rushed to her eyes at the sight of all her friends scattered around; she hadn’t honestly expected to see a single one of them again, much less all together. She wanted to say something, but the second her mouth opened, she could only let out a quiet sob. Garrus touched her waist, not understanding until similar moisture leapt into the eyes of Liara who rushed over to embrace her friend. These were those tears that were reserved for moments of happiness. Tears Shepard once called “rare as hen’s teeth.”

She did this. She made this happen. Every life in this room was owed to her. Hell, damn near every life in the galaxy was owed to her unwavering bravery. Garrus had realized this before now – anyone who didn’t realize what Shepard gave to them was a blind fool – but standing among those he had more than once joined in battle with no intention of ever coming back, it finally sunk in that somehow, through all of that, they had still managed to find their way to each other. Not at some bar. Here.

f*cking hell, he loved her.

After some time, Vega steered her away from the small clutch that had enveloped her and sat her down at the kitchen bar. He set a plate down in front of her with a slight bow. Garrus leaned over the counter by her side.

“Are you okay?”

“More than I’ve ever been,” she said, sniffling as she drove her fork into the dish Vega had called enchiladas. She paused and set down the fork, sitting back and letting the most heart-breaking smile spread across her face, tears still spangling her thick eyelashes. “Not once in my life have I been surrounded by so many people that I love and it been an occasion to say hello rather than goodbye. Not once have I ever felt like I’ve earned something like that. If it weren’t for the hell taking place everywhere outside these walls, I would assume this was that next layer of heaven. I guess where we all go after the bar.”

Garrus slid over and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face into the warm crook of her neck. Her hand cradled his head, fingers tucked up under the sensitive spot under his crest.

“You’re going soft, Commander,” he laughed, pulling away to press his mouth against her lips. “I won’t tell Hackett if you don’t.”

“It’s just… hormones. Don’t get used to it. I’ll go back to my normal self after the baby and you’ll think I’m some kind of emotionless monster.”

Checking to make sure no one was listening in directly or watching too closely, he leaned in and wrapped his talons around the inside of her upper thigh, giving it a squeeze. The tip of his long tongue traced her earlobe before he whispered, “What makes you think we’re going to stop at one? Now that I know how it feels to fill you with my seed, what makes you think I’m going to be able to stop?’

He pulled away rapidly, leaning his elbow on the counter so Electra could finally eat. He saw her breath caught in her flushed chest, her swollen nipples hard through the thick fabric of her sweater. Something wild danced in her eyes, almost outshining the sickly gaunt of her face, and rosiness lit up her cheeks.

“That was for earlier,” Garrus smirked, then motioned for the food. “Eat. I’m going to go find Chakwas and see what we need to get you settled in for the night.”

>>>>>>>

Later in the night after everyone felt they had a proper reunion, Chakwas pulled Electra back into a closed off corner of the garage with Liara and Miranda and had her lay on an uncomfortable stretcher. Electra was impressed by the full set-up they had managed to throw together. Screens lined one wall, courtesy of Liara, and the rest of the monitoring equipment had been procured from Huerta as a “tax write-off” for the Alliance service to the Citadel, courtesy of Hackett. Electra thought he might have success in politics if he ever decided that the Alliance no longer suited him. She had thought the same for Anderson. Swept into the commotion of being alive, she still hadn’t forgotten that no clear answer on Anderson’s condition had been given. She could almost hear his laugh as she described how yet again she tricked mortality, further proving that Anderson could turn anything, even some shaken orphan from Mindoir, into Alliance royalty. Her eyes squeezed shut, both as she pushed back some deeper knowledge that he was probably gone and as Chakwas pushed the needle for her IV feed into her arm.

“I’m pleased to see you’ve kept down solids. How do you feel?” Chakwas inquired.

“Full. It actually helped with the nausea quite a bit, though I can’t lie and say I feel good. I still feel like a bag of bones, Karin. A bag of bones that’s been thrown against a few different walls.”

“How is your pain?”

“It’s about a steady 4, mostly still in my joints. It’s better than it was yesterday.”

“Part of being in a three month long coma is your muscles begin to atrophy. One thing of note about your pregnancy is you seem to be consuming calories at a much higher rate than average human pregnancies,” Karin explained. “Your body devoured itself. Huerta’s low supply and limitations certainly didn’t help, nor did the healing process from the damage your body took between London and firing the crucible. You are lucky Hackett has such particular interest in keeping you not only alive, but healthy. Maybe he thinks he owes it to you after throwing you in the face of the worst this galaxy has had to offer. He has funneled a great amount of resources your way to bring you back to full health. Lucky girl.”

“Vitals are strong. Both heartbeats optimal. Incredible,” Liara said in her hushed voice, data from her omni-tool scrolling across one of the many screens. “I’ve never seen anything quite like this. It’s like we’re witnessing some next phase of evolution.”

Something about that phrase caused a flash to race through Shepard’s head. A small blue hand leading her down a walkway. Stars litter the infinity all around them. Reapers screamed through the vacuum, watching, listening to their god-child.

Electra sucked in a breath, brought from the reverie by Liara’s hand gripping her wrist. Her touch felt cold.

“Commander, are you alright?” Karin asked, co*cking her weight to one side to peer away from the screens and back at Electra. Miranda hadn’t moved or said anything once the whole time, but suddenly Electra felt the heaviness of her gaze from the wall behind her.

“Miranda, you rebuilt me. You took all my spare pieces and a bunch of new pieces, and literally built me a new body. I need to know why I’m pregnant. I need to understand how. I want to accept this as a miracle, but science – especially your science – is far too exact for a ‘miracle’ of this proportion. And why now? How would a pregnancy thrive when my body took on so much damage that it took three months for my brain to come back? Realistically, I should be dead. I… felt myself die. And I know how it feels, so you can’t convince me that I didn’t,” Electra pressed. She had been holding back since that moment between her and Garrus, his hand on her stomach, a wish shared and granted as if by some deus ex machina. If she could hold on to that forever, she would, but her and Garrus alike were too pragmatic to ever truly accept that wish as the final word.

Miranda opened her omni-tool and waved it over the blank screens on the left before leaning back against the wall, her dark hair falling over her face as she leaned her head back.

“This is everything from the Lazarus project. Every alteration, every method, every resource. Every detail down to the number of times we had to trim back your nails and hair. Everything. I…. owed you this a lot sooner than today. I’m sorry for not giving it to you before now. You deserved better than that Shepard.” Her voice grew quiet. “After everything you’ve done.”

“Are you saying this data has the answer I need?” Electra asked.

“I’m not. Before I came here, while I was compiling the data, I tried to find any obvious components that might suggest how a hybrid chirality conception and pregnancy might be possible, but nothing came up. Nothing obvious, at least. The…. extended, post project notes outline the success of our allergen dampening enhancement, When it was known that you had made sexual contact with the dextro-amino based turian – and further, that you had not used the recommended protection to prevent the typical allergic reaction with absolutely no repercussions – we were able to confirm that you not only no longer reacted to dextro-amino acids as an allergen, but your own levo-amino acids didn’t act as an allergen to dextro-based life forms. We had never designed this to go two ways, but like other enhancements put in place via DNA alteration and cybernetics, your body had a tendency to take our design and enhance itself. Adaptations upon the original. Call it the Shepard effect,” she said with a shrug.

“This only explains why we are capable of having sex without those extra precautions, not why I am currently carrying a viable human/ turian hybrid inside of me,” Electra stressed. Her eyes narrowed. “Also, how long were you collecting this extended data? And where did you get that information?”

“I am a scientist, Shepard. The collection never stopped. However, Cerberus stopped receiving data from me shortly after you helped save my sister from my father. If I recall, you and Garrus had not yet made physical contact, so if you are worried about the Illusive Man having ever known about this, I assure you he didn’t. If he did, he didn’t get it from me. As for where I got the information… Mordin primarily. That and the Normandy SR-2 was a glorified gossip mill thanks to Joker’s betting pool.”

Shepard groaned, struggling not to laugh at a time like this. Not with so many unknows rattling around in her head, threatening to give her a headache.

“On the subject of your baby, I see no immediate causative link to anything done to you through Project Lazarus. At least not directly. There is a lot of information to sort and process, so there may be answers. We will need to keep monitoring your progression and adding to what we have if we’re going to get anywhere. In conclusion, there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with you or the fetus. Against all odds and scientific principles, it appears that you’ve come by this as naturally as someone like you can. Take that however you want. I wish I had more answers Shepard. I really do. But for what it’s worth, congratulations.”

Electra sensed a certain bitterness to that last word, but she didn’t have the energy to press it.

All the while, Chakwas and Liara had been poring over the Lazarus Project data, cross analyzing it against Electra’s current physical and genetic profile. Electra wasn’t uneducated by any standard, but she wished she knew her way around complex coding and biology the way they did so she wasn’t just left waiting around for answers that may never come. Liara cursed under her breath around the same time Chakwas returned to check on the progression of the IV.

“How are you feeling now?”

“Believe it or not, better. I feel less like a breeze could knock me over,” Electra responded, distracted by the way Liara kept combining and recombining different cross sections of the data and code and following each with a sigh. “Do I look better?”

“Yes. You’re starting to get some color. It will be some time before you start to fill out the way I would like you to. I’m going to recommend you begin physical therapy and you may return to light exercise and activity. Samara has agreed to help you start on your physical therapy. You’ll need to get back into fighting shape before any of us feel comfortable letting you into any form of armed conflict,” Karin warned. “Don’t make me tell Garrus to keep things light. I don’t have the heart to make him that uncomfortable on such a nice night.”

Electra agreed and leaned her head back. She knew she needed more time to sit with the information she just received, but she couldn't focus between the growing heat between her legs and the sounds of frustration still coming from Liara.

“Liara, what’s the problem?” Electra finally asked. Karin removed the needle from Electra’s arm and began cleaning the area. Liara whipped around, her finger worrying her lips slightly.

“There’s something here, I just know it, but I don’t have the information to see just what it is. The problem is the only person who has that information has been dead for three months. Electra, we need EDI.”

Chapter 6: Heat

Chapter Text

Electra slipped upstairs to the master bedroom before her remaining friends realized she had even left the garage. Judging by the softer tones of conversation, she figured she could get away with having just a moment. She slid the heavy door closed behind her and dimmed the lights. Her eyes still didn’t feel quite adjusted to the bright lights they had been exposed to after being closed for so long. They had always been sensitive to the light anyway. Her back against the door, in the safety of that sacred internal, she stripped all of the clothing that had been hanging off her body and approached the large mirror opposite the bed. She hadn’t seen herself in months except in a few passing windows since leaving Huerta. Electra hardly knew what to expect anymore. Once upon a time she died and came back with a glowing scars that shifted and changed according to her morality, so how bad could this be? She stepped into the full view of the mirror.

If Kaidan had said now that he was in the presence of a ghost, she would have believed it more than when he uttered it back on Horizon. She had always been pale, but the gaunt seemed to reach past her complexion and into the mauve hollows that had begun to carve around her bones. Her hands, once calloused and often scuffed, appeared long and slender, her palms all smooth and soft. She longed to hold a gun again – to pop the heat sink and feel the recoil bearing the weight back into her palms and shoulders. She was pleased to see that even though her bones prodded through more places than they didn’t now, her body hadn’t completely devoured the muscles left over her frame. Though her arms were once a bit more built, their inherent muscularity was still obvious. Her shoulders still looked strong, though her collarbone, which was always one of her more prominent features, jutted from her chest. Her fingers traced the outlines of her face. The sharp gaunt of her cheeks was now in stark contrast her soft lips and round eyes. She looked… so severe. Such harsh lines now where her face was once soft. Her hair had lost its shine, now hanging long around her shoulders in dull, lifeless clumps. It didn’t look like it had been washed properly in a long time, and she wondered if it got truly washed at all since her body was recovered. She strolled over to the bathroom and began the jets in the tub to heat the water.

She was not done yet. She stepped back out in front of the mirror as the water warmed up. Her legs, like her arms, were certainly more slender, but not without the framework of muscle she’d spent years building and perfecting. Though she missed her old body, she knew she could have it again. She would have to. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t avoid it any longer could she? Opening them, she let her gaze fall over her breasts. They were never very large to begin with. Now, however, they stood out from her chest, taut and heavy. She had never cared to have bigger breasts – they would only get in her way and limit her ability to wear a good range of armor – but something about this fullness terrified her as much as it made her heart swell. It was proof that behind that swell that stood out above her jutting hips, there existed life. A chill whispered down her arms, raising goosebumps along the skin. She brought her hands to the bump. If she closed her eyes, could she feel it then? Could she sense it? Part of her knew before Earth, even before the Cerberus Base. It made no sense that she did – it wasn’t as if a flashing sign emblazoned with the words “you’re pregnant” lit up her neural pathways – but she did.

She had felt it in the way she sunk deeper into the crook of Garrus’ body at night, in the way she no longer felt safe walking the Citadel streets without knowing he had her 6 with a scope, in the way her body met his, harder, hungrier, more desperate, on those many and all too few nights. The communion of their mortality, their souls clawing together at a time when the acceptance of their approaching deaths ached just behind every breath. They were all counting their breaths, always. Before Saren, and especially before the Omega 4 relay. When they touched down in London, Electra had felt it the most there. Maybe Garrus did too, because despite his usual reticence to show any sign of emotion on the field, much less in front of his Primarch and his men, he grasped her body close to his and drew her into the kind of kiss that should’ve been their last. And yet, even there, they were laughing. They were dreaming. Talking about their impossible child they would have after all of this was over – the one that turned out not so impossible followed by the other impossible event of Electra’s survival. All of their survivals. But most of all hers.

She tried not to think of how it felt exactly when her atoms were blasted apart by that magnificent gale of red light. The thought disagreed with how solid she felt each passing moment since then. Dropping her hands from her belly as if lowering her hands from prayer, she walked to the bathroom and lowered herself into the hot, steaming water.

She wished Thane were here.

There was so much that he understood that she never got the chance to ask. What would he say to the secret prayers about destruction and death she said over the life quickening in her womb?

“Shepard?” the husky voice carried over the sound of the jets. She made a sound from the bathroom and heard the door slide closed. Her eyes remained closed. She felt safer already. Her eyes opened when she felt the water shift around the wall of turian – all 6’5 of him – sliding into the water next to her. As if drawn to him by sheer magnetism, she moved over to wrap herself around him, within him, in the hot folds of water. They were both surprised by the equivalent tenderness behind the way they held each other. The way they were earlier, both believed their first encounter in private would end with bruises and bite marks. Garrus especially surprised himself. He hadn’t been able to get off since a while before he arrived on the Citadel. He ached for her like he’d never ached for another in his life, but he instinctively touched her like she was made of glass and his hands were sledgehammers. Chills shot sybaritically down their spines.

“Garrus,” Electra began, nuzzling the side of her face against his before coming back to rest her forehead against his. His plates had shifted the moment she touched him, extending his full length between their bodies. “We may never get the answers. If we never know, will you be happy?”

Garrus pulled her face back from his, searching her eyes. They didn’t talk like this very often. Neither had the fortitude to push past those defensive walls and just be vulnerable, much less during the war to end all wars.

“All I’ve ever wanted is to share my life with you. I didn’t know if you were even coming back, but you came back. Hell, you’ve come back three times now. Even more than that, you’re giving me something that shouldn’t even be possible. Our child. I mean, we might never be ready, and I do have doubts that our parenting will meet even a few if any of the standards in those parenting vids, but it doesn’t matter because it’s me and you. And just like everything else in our lives, it’s been handed to us with little to no time to prepare for it.”

“Have you been watching parenting vids?” Electra asked, breaking the softness between them with a soft laugh.

“You didn’t think I was bullsh*tting what I said back in London did you? I can’t do that in front of other turians. Subvocals are a dead giveaway every single time. I want this. And I’ll do anything to protect it,” he growled, his long, blue tongue snaking out and encircling her neck up to her jaw.

Electra moaned and pressed herself against his girth, which twitched against the pressure building between them. The air between them was full of biotic static as their tongues met before drawing their mouths together. Garrus’ long arms lifted Electra with ease, bringing her slick puss* sliding down the length of his co*ck. A growl started to build in Garrus’ chest. She didn’t have to tell him to be gentle with her – he felt it through the way she held onto his cowl and ran her tongue across the smooth sections of hide along his neck as he lifted her again and settled at her entrance. He drew her hips closer to him and slowly slid his member into her vagin*. She arched back and her puss* tightened around him, throbbing with urgency. His tongue whipped out to lick her full breasts, one of his hands joining his mouth to very softly take her breast in his palm as he lowered her onto the full length of his co*ck.

“Garrus,” she moaned his name once he had fully hilted himself inside her. She locked his gaze and saw behind them a sultry, powerful darkness she hadn’t ever seen before. Something primal that transgressed the differences in their biology and origin – the call to fill and be filled. To balance.

Garrus began sliding Shepard up and down the slick girth of his penis, holding her hips close so her cl*t rubbed against his chiseled torso. He always stretched her to her limits – a limit she never seemed to have trouble accepting – but this time he could really feel the pulse and squeeze of her walls as he thrusted into her. A moan accompanied by a deep subvocal growl pushed out of him as she started to meet his thrusts a little bit faster, a little more urgently. She gripped onto his cowl, pressing her swollen breasts against his chest. Her soft lips peppered kisses along his neck, sloppy and out of control as her own sense of control began slipping to the building pressure in her inner walls.

His own pressure building, Garrus flipped her over, fully holding her against him, her legs hooked onto his hip spurs, as he completely took over thrusting into her lithe body.

“f*ck Garrus please,” she breathed out, fully surrendering to his tender strength as he thrust into her. “I need you to fill me,” she begged.

“You’re mine, Electra,” he groaned, gripping her hips tighter to him. “You’re a perfect little slu*t for my cum. Beg for it.”

“Please,” she barely managed to finish the word when an explosion of pleasure radiated from a deep point inside her. Moisture gushed out around his co*ck as his long thrusts extended her org*sm. Her legs squeezed against him, pushing her cl*t against his abs. “f*cking fill me, Garrus. I need your cum.”

Just as the cl*toral org*sm caused Electra’s walls to seize around him again, his growl ripped out of him and he slid into her to the hilt as his co*ck pumped his seed into her. He gave a few more soft pumps before turning them back over, holding her on his pulsing member. Electra pressed her forehead to his, their panting in time with each other as they rode out the aftershocks of their org*sms, every slight movement between them sending another jolt of pleasure through their bodies. Garrus rested his head on Electra’s shoulder and encircled her with his arms, each hand gripping her body tight against his.

“I love you,” Garrus breathed into her hair as his co*ck started to soften. He lifted her off of him finally, each groaning at the release of pressure. Electra quickly pressed herself against his hard abdomen to prevent the cum from leaking out into the bath more than it already had.

“I love you too,” she sighed, pressing a soft kiss against his mandible. For a moment they just embraced each other there. The world outside had ceased to exist beyond their bodies entwined together in the water.

“You know,” Electra said, “we’re going to have to shower. Nothing about this bath is clean anymore.”

Garrus barked a laugh and unwrapped his arms from around her. She moved to the side, allowing him to stand before he helped lift her out of the water. Both of them look back into the water with a vague mix of disgust and heat. Garrus muttered to Electra as he turned on the shower,

“You bring out the filth in me, commander,” he chuckled. “If someone had told me that one day I’d make the savior of the galaxy my personal alien cum dumpster, I would have founded Cerberus myself.”

Electra wrapped her arms around Garrus’ slender waist under the rain of hot water.

“You have such a way with words, Garrus. Don’t spoil your wedding vows just yet,” she laughed, pressing her face against him. He raked his long talons through her hair and chuckled at the thought. It would almost be worth it just to see the look on Joker’s face.

Chapter 7: Inertia

Chapter Text

Their friends were gone by the time they woke in each other’s arms. Everyone promised to return as soon as they could, but Electra waved them off, understanding better than most the demands of duty; Vega and Kaidan had even gotten together to arrange a cooking schedule, arguing over who could make her better dinners. The only thing they agreed on was that Electra was far too skinny and Garrus probably had no idea how to cook for a human – a pregnant one, to boot.

The day before, when Shepard heard that many of them were staying in the temporary barracks while the Normandy was locked in the long queue for repair, she’d offered to have them fill the spare bedrooms and even the couches if that meant they too could enjoy the fortified sanctuary, all of them deserving of it for their service. As soon as she offered, however, she learned that Zaeed and Kasumi had already discovered (with a suspicious lack of delay) that the apartments next to hers were abandoned and looked to be that way for a long while. They even bragged that most of them were bigger than hers.

Miranda, who hadn’t found a place to stay yet, happily took up quarters in one of the neighboring units. Jack was taken care of by Grissom and Tali stayed with the fleet these days, prepping them for their return to Rannoch once the relays opened. She’d been pushed to the forefront of that project, awarded with the highest tech specialist rank the Alliance could offer someone not technically in the Alliance. Liara made some snide comment about Kal’Reegar that piqued both her and Garrus’ immediate interest, but Tali changed the topic by asking why Shepard still didn’t have a ring. Electra didn’t have the heart to tell her that he hadn’t even officially proposed, not that she cared for those formalities.

Liara and Chakwas had their reservations about not being further than twenty paces from Electra at all times, but Samantha made some comment that the walls upstairs were a bit too thin and the commander a bit too loud for her to get the quiet sleep she needed. Both women shuddered, realizing that they no longer had the sound protection the Normandy offered and remembering the sounds they'd all heard coming from Shepard's bedroom the night of the party, and took up next door. Joker commented under his breath that they should be glad they didn’t have to hear when one of them accidentally left the comm channel to the bridge open. Before leaving to gather his belongings from the barracks, Vega promised he’d still be over to make her dinner and use her work out equipment.

Javik was a harder sell than any of the others. He insisted that he preferred to sleep in smaller spaces with fewer windows and even fewer primitives, but Liara had finally pestered him enough into co-writing a book on the Protheans. Despite his annoyance with her, it seemed he’d finally started warming up to her. He still called her a primitive more than he used her name but progress was progress. Electra had offered to let him use the bath in her room since he’d expressed interest before, but when she woke the next morning, she realized his touch memory might just make him using her tub a bit more awkward.

Electra pressed herself back into Garrus’ body, his hot breath warming her neck. He brought his arm around her chest but recoiled when she let out a hiss as his arm squeezed her sore breasts.

“Are you okay?” he worried, gripping her shoulder and sitting up to peer around at her face. She rolled over and wrapped her arms around his neck, not ready to break the contact between them.

“Better than. My breasts have just been sore. It’s normal. How do turians feed their young?” she asked. The heat radiating off his chest plates was soothing against the front of her body.

“Our babies come out with teeth and start with solid food, no breast feeding required. For your sake I either hope ours is born without teeth or has them and doesn’t need to breastfeed. Either way, I can’t stop wondering what exactly he’s going to look like. I mostly hope he isn’t some horrible monstrosity, not that I think it would be possible for you to make an ugly baby,” he mused, his voice still soft in the early morning.

“He?” Electra asked, raising her eyebrow.

“Just a feeling. I don’t have a preference except that you both come out of this safe and healthy,” he explained with a low chuckle, pressing his forehead to hers and kissing her mouth. “I spoke to Chakwas and Liara last night after you fell asleep. It took me a while to go down. Electra, you don’t really think we can bring EDI back do you? Regardless, do you really think this is stress you should be taking on right now? You’ve been awake for a week and need I remind you, you’re pregnant. Not just with any baby. Garrus Vakarian’s baby. I need you to prioritize your health.”

“When have you ever known me to stay still for too long? I wish I could right now, but there is so much we have to do. I have to do. Trust that one of those things is getting strong again so I can be a mother to our child,” she insisted, pulling herself closer. “Besides, do you really think you won’t go insane without something to calibrate”

Garrus ground his hips into her, mandibles flaring when a gasp left her lips against his jaw.

“I have plenty to calibrate right here,” he growled in her ear, his plates parting so his long co*ck could slide between her legs against her puss*. She was already wet, her fingers digging into his back. He rolled over her, hands planted firmly on either side of her head, tip of his co*ck perched at her entrance, when his omni-tool began buzzing. Electra groaned. It had to be his father.

Garrus pushed himself to his knees between Electra’s legs to answer the call, his dark gaze glued to her body. He brushed his talons up the inside of her thigh, lingering over her pink vulva before coming up to graze them across her stomach, his eyes softening. Castis’ clipped voice marched out of the omni-tool.

“You missed my previous calls, son. Sleeping in?”

“You could say that. Why are you calling? I thought you wouldn’t be here for another hour,” Garrus responded.

“Make it an hour and a half. The docking queue is backed up. I’m simply calling to remind you of that fact. I’ve forwarded our temporary residency permits to you. I recommend you make your way to the dock and get those filed before we step foot on the Citadel. Your sister and I are very hungry; did you know this shuttle service doesn’t provide dextro food? After everything the turians have done for the galaxy?”

“I didn’t know that. Sorry, dad. There will be plenty to eat once you get here. Have you sent over your medical charts? I’ll need those as well,” Garrus asked, getting off the bed and moving to the closet despite his body’s longing and the disappointed sound Electra made behind him. She only didn’t chase him down because she knew he’d be back in their bed by the end of the day. Electra laid back, checking her own omni-tool for messages. The most recent was her own updated medical chart sent by Chakwas the night before. She had been ignoring the others for a while – the ones sent from the Council. The most recent came from Tevos and was titled “Checked out of Huerta?” How many people knew she was alive now? How long did she really have until the whole world had to find out?

Shepard opened the message as she sat up and moved her feet to the floor. She expected her vision to fill with stars, but rather than woozy static, she instead felt a wave of nausea slam into her. She rushed to the bathroom.

“Garrus, I’ve been hearing strange things from my friends in C-Sec,” Castis said in a hushed voice. Garrus thought he heard Electra shut the bathroom door as he pulled his undersuit into place across his cowl. “Is the commander alright? I respect that information about her isn’t something I have clearance for, but the rumors about her are ranging from the most common being that she’s dead and the most recent being that her body has been repurposed into some high-level computer processor. There have even been talks about erecting a memorial statue of her in London. You made it sound like she would be welcoming us into her home herself.”

Garrus heard Electra wretching and cringed, wishing he could just hang up on his father and go make sure she was okay. He began securing the latches on his armor.

“Considering you’ll be living with her for the near future, I recommend asking her yourself. I have to go. I’ll see you soon.”

Garrus ended the call and hurried to the bathroom door. He was about to knock when he heard her meekly tell him to come in. She was slumped over the toilet, legs sprawled beneath her. Garrus kneeled down and pulled her hair back from around her face. She leaned back enough to rest her cheek on the toilet seat.

“I don’t want to leave you here like this. Should I call Chakwas? Liara?” he fretted, pulling the hair back from her clammy forehead.

“Don’t worry, there wasn’t much to throw up. I just need to get cleaned up a bit and maybe try to eat something. I’m coming with you to the docks. I can help,” she said, lifting her head and quickly closing the lid of the toilet so she could flush without Garrus seeing. Not that he’d care.

“Remind me why we put forth so much effort making sure you got out of Huerta undetected only for you to stroll back into the public eye a day later? Your sense of humor has always been a little twisted, but you’ve lost me with this one.”

Electra pushed off of him to her feet and splashed water over her face. She rifled through the drawers until she found her toothbrush. Garrus got to his feet and leaned against the door frame, watching her reflection in the mirror. If he just left now, she’d have no way to follow behind him unless she somehow figured out how Joker had rigged up the rapid transit.

“The Council has known about me since my body was recovered, though I’m not sure how much they know about my condition. They do know I’m no longer at Huerta. They’ve asked that I report back to them as soon as possible,” she said between scrubbing her mouth out. “I can’t avoid my responsibilities forever. It’s not fair that I get to pretend I’m dead while I could be helping save more lives.”

“No, but you can avoid them until we know you’re well enough to shoot a gun,” he growled, then added, “You know I’d never stop you from doing what you think is best, but could you humor your crazy boyfriend for just a second and think about the risks?”

“Garrus, we’re just going to the docks. Even better, I’m going with my crazy boyfriend. Between your rifle and those scars, I doubt anyone is going to approach me,” she said, rinsing out her mouth. She looked up at Garrus who scowled at her in the mirror, his mandibles clutched to his face. “Yeah, that’s the face. Perfect. You already know what to do.”

“Electra, I’m not kidding,” he said. She turned around and sauntered over to him, hips swaying. She ran her hands up the side of his sensitive waist and pressed her breasts against the cool metal of his chest plate. She lifted a hand beside her head and let her blue biotics crackle and dance around her slender fingers.

“I can take care of myself. Besides, you used to think it was hot when I used my Spectre status to push my way around the bureaucracy. Change of heart, Vakarian?”

“You need to eat. And wear full armor. And have Liara run a scan on you and double check that your remote monitoring program is active,” he conceded, gripping her waist and holding it against him. She smiled and Garrus felt his heart flutter. She’d been doing a lot of that since coming home; it offset the striking gaunt of her face and the persistent image of her unmoving body from those months he’d spent watching her at the hospital. His eyes were trained to catch even the smallest movement and seeing not even a twitch in her expression during that time still haunted him. He always expected the worst, and that image somehow surpassed that.

“You’re cute when you give me orders. I could get used to it,” she purred, stepping around him to move to the closet and begin picking through the various sets of armor she’d collected over the years.

“Cute? I was thinking dangerously sexy. It takes a bad, bad turian to break the line of command,” he laughed, trying to dispel his pervasive worry. Electra pulled up her tight undersuit with ease. It hung loose everywhere except her midsection, where her belly pushed out just slightly against the fabric. She ran her hands over it and huffed.

“Bad, bad turian indeed,” she said, trying the adjust the fabric. “Do you think they make maternity armor? This should be fine for now, but I have a feeling that won’t be the case a month from now.”

“If they don’t already have some on the market, I’m sure Hackett will personally see to it that some is made. You know, turian women often continue service up until and sometimes even immediately after birth. Granted, they don’t show nearly as much as human women, but they do have special armor for the occasion,” he drabbled, moving over to help her secure her breast plate into place across her shoulders when she seemed to struggle with the clasp. With her purple N7 armor fully in place, he turned her around to help tighten it in all the spots it fit looser than before. With armor, it was impossible to tell that she was pregnant, which let some relief flood back into Garrus body. He wondered how long he could put off explaining that to his family.

As they descended the stairs, they were immediately greeted by the sound of Liara and Javik attempting to keep their voices down as they bickered in the kitchen. Upon Garrus and Electra entering the kitchen, Liara broke into a smile and hurried over to her friend while Javik, his frown more pronounced than usual, strode off into the office.

“To what do I owe the surprise?” Electra asked. She’d thought she might sneak away with Garrus without any more drama, but Liara looked positively formidable as she realized what Electra was wearing.

“Armor? Seems like a bit much for around the house. You aren’t planning on leaving are you?” she fretted, her hand grazing the N7 logo on Electra’s chest. Garrus smirked and moved to the pantry, pulling out the protein bars Chakwas had procured for Electra. He slid two in front of her before grabbing his own breakfast.

“Not until you run a scan and make sure my remote monitoring program is functional. Then I’m going with Garrus to bring his father and sister back home. I’m feeling anxious to make some pencil-pushing bureaucrat forget about some paperwork,” she said simply, tearing into one of the protein bars.

Liara’s face mirrored the one Garrus had made when Electra told him the same thing. She crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at Garrus who pretended not to notice in favor of opening up a bag of jerky.

“Your monitoring equipment is working, that I can assure you. I have a constant feed to mine and Dr. Chakwas’ data banks. That’s besides the point. You have yet to meet with Samara for physical therapy. We spent days setting up a system to ensure you made it home without being seen. You’re getting ahead of yourself, Electra,” she chided.

“I’ve been told that more times than I can count, and the entire galaxy has me to thank for ignoring it. I’m just going to the docks and coming back home. I will meet with Samara and Karin then. If something goes wrong, feel free to lecture me then. Now,” Electra said between mouthfuls of food. She was already tearing into the second bar. “Is there anything I should know about my health today?”

Liara frowned at her for a long moment before sighing. She used her omni-tool to scan Electra’s body which seemed to perk up at the small victory. Garrus shook his head.

“Vitals are strong for both you and the baby. The presence of dextro amino acids in your body has increased 0.02% from yesterday, following our predicted pattern of integration with your biology. You appear to be slightly dehydrated and your iron is still low despite the rest of your vitamin levels meeting the minimum desired levels. How are you feeling?”

“Rested. Hungry as sin. My nausea hasn’t completely gone away yet, but it’s not as bad as it was when I tried to stand up this morning. My tit* feel like punching bags and I’m my joints are sore. I’d say the pain is around a 4 – same as yesterday,” Electra answered. Garrus had a glass of water and another protein bar in front of her before she finished responding. She began to chug down the water as soon as it was set on the counter.

“Good. You’re still healing at remarkable rates, despite your nutritional deficiencies. Pregnancy aside, you have blown past every point on your predicted healing schedule. You’ve never failed to astound me, Shepard,” Liara remarked with a sigh, closing her omni-tool. Despite her positive words, worry still crossed her face. She planted her arms on her hips. “While I can’t, as one of your friends and physicians, recommend leaving the apartment, your body is giving no evidence of giving out.”

Electra got to her feet and poured herself another glass of water from the fridge, downing it with a satisfied hum. She felt like she could finish every last crumb of food in the entire apartment, levo and dextro alike, and still want more. She had to shake away the thought of sizzling bacon to focus on what was being said to her.

“I have it on good authority that I disregard most people’s expectations,” she said with a wry grin. “Garrus, are you satisfied?”

Garrus put the bag of jerky back in the pantry and crossed his long arms over his chest. He’d never be satisfied. Even before the coma and everything else, she could never be safe enough for him to feel at ease. He just knew that nothing would ever keep her from doing exactly what she wanted. If their child was anything like her – and its very existence lended itself to that similarity – no parenting book would ever make their job any easier. Luckily, they were both always up for a challenge.

“You win this one, Shepard,” he said, mandibles fluttering when she flashed him her brilliant smile. He turned to Liara. “When my family gets here, no word about the baby until we get a chance to talk to him about it ourselves, understood? Do me a favor and pass that along to the others.”

>>>>>>>>

Pulling up to the local docks, Garrus was satisfied to see not many people lingered around the carport to docking bay M12. He kept his hand on Electra’s waist as they crossed onto the chrome walkway, guiding her as swiftly as he could past the officers that were stationed every few feet. He prayed none of them would recognize either of them. He didn’t look forward to explaining to Hackett the future reports of Commander Shepard strolling the Citadel with a particularly fierce turian. Meanwhile, she walked with her shoulders and head high, paying no mind to the fact that just about everyone in the galaxy knew her face. If anything, it seemed like she was enjoying the stunt.

Years ago, she was the subject of a very popular video games series released not long after she became the first human Spectre, a fact that she only pretended not to enjoy. Half as a joke and half out of curiosity, the crew had spent their first shore leave on the Normandy SR-1 playing through the games and remarking how unlikely it was that Joker ended up being a playable fighter character, much to his insistence that he would best any of them if he didn't have glass bones. It was all fun and games until a cut-scene revealed that Garrus was in love with Shepard and sacrificed himself during the boss fight to let her live. He hadn't been able to live that one down, and it did nothing to quell his own unrequited crush on the commander. However, she didn't think anything about the event at all - she couldn't get over the fact that the game devs had given her cartoonishly large breasts that spilled out from her armor (to the hoots and hollers of the entire crew whenever they were shown in a scene). She nearly tossed Joker from the nearest window when he looked over at her chest and said, "You should consider bringing those out next time you face Saren. Who knew you were hiding the cure to indoctrination behind ablative plates?" Garrus still laughed when he pictured the look of horror on her face as she zipped her jacket up to her neck. She kept insisting it made no sense from a tactical standpoint, to which Liara argued her biotic barrier allowed her to show that much skin and not risk the integrity of her protection. This surprised everyone, considering her avatar wore little more than a glorified bikini. He 'd have to remember to dig those games out of his old files and give them to the members of the crew who weren't there to play them.

The doors to the customs office slid open as they approached and the officer behind the desk did a full triple take as Shepard strolled up and rested her hands on the clean, metal surface. The poor woman still didn’t look like she knew what to say, doubting her eyes even as she kept staring. Her mouth hung open like a fish.

“I was hoping you might help me figure out how to get some new arrivals processed. Their names are Castis and Solana Vakarian. Do you know if their shuttle has arrived?”

The questions snapped the woman back into action, at least for a moment so she could check her screen.

“Yes, I see here that their shuttle is being scrubbed and scanned now. Passengers 301 and 302. If you have their residency permits, I can begin their processing by filing those now,” she informed, sneaking confused glances at Shepard. Garrus stepped up and pulled up their documents, tapping his omni-tool to the pad of light on the desk by the woman’s computer.

“How long do you think it’ll be before we can get out of here?” he asked, not looking forward to another long wait in another office. Soon, more people would probably arrive and Garrus didn’t need a crowd to form around them, all trying to determine if the woman at his side was the Commander Shepard. If he weren’t so anxious, he might indulge that it felt good being the man with his arm around her waist.

“That’s hard to say. While you’ve provided all of the files we need to get the process moving, there isn’t a guaranteed turn-around on approval. Why don’t you both take a seat in our waiting area? I’ll send you an alert when your family is cleared to leave the docks.”

The woman gestured to the rows of metal seats behind them, Garrus’ haunches already hurting just looking at them, when Shepard leaned forward. That classic Shepard gleam crossed into her silver eyes as she stared down the woman.

“What exactly is needed to get approval?” she asked.

“Well after the applications enter our system, they are forwarded to the local Citadel Transportation Authority before being routed to C-Sec to complete the mandatory background checks. Once those checks have been run and come up clear, C-Port will either approve or deny the applications and let us know here so we can move the applicants out of holding. From there, we will have to take a full stock of their personal belongings and calculate their final residency fee. I hope I have been able to clear that up for you.”

“You have, thank you. That sounds like a lot of steps that could be done well after the Vakarians have been allowed to go home. You see, they haven’t eaten since leaving Earth – no dextro rations on the shuttle – and if you’re worried about getting in trouble, you can send your advisors my way,” Shepard said. If Castis knew a Spectre was pushing her weight around on his behalf, he’d stay in holding even after they released him on principle. He’d expressed already his disdain that Garrus was “off gallivanting with a lawless human” and Garrus was getting worried his father might not be so pleased that the gallivanting had escalated into an irrevocable attachment to the family.

“A-and who exactly… Excuse me for not being sure, it’s just that…” the woman stammered, fingers hovering over her keyboard.

“Commander Shepard, Spectre. If your system won’t allow me to be entered into the party receiving line, feel free to amend my status in the registry to ‘alive.’”

The woman stared a bit longer, eyes like saucers, before nodding and returning her hands to screen. Her cheeks were flushed bright red.

“I-It’s good to see you alive, commander. I… my wife isn’t going to believe this. She assured me the rumors that you were alive were false. Of course you don’t know me, but I was there the day you took the Citadel back from Cerberus. If you hadn’t gotten there, my wife and I would be dead. Thank you. Thank you for everything,” she effused. Shepard stood back, not knowing what to say despite her usual confidence with words. She had gotten used to the praise and admiration – she’d known for a while that she had fans and saved a lot of lives she’d never know about – but she hadn’t fully accepted that it was in fact her that was responsible for saving everything. That was more grace than she knew how to carry. She was glad Garrus stood next to her or she might not know how to step back and just accept the thanks without feeling like she still owed something to the woman.

It didn’t take long at all for the woman to lead them back to the holding area and direct them to the two turians shuffling from the shuttle with only a few bags in their arms. The steady stream of people on the shuttle coming behind them moved much faster, and Castis had his arm linked in Solana’s to steady her against a particularly gruff batarian pushing past her.

Electra had never seen Garrus’ family, but the resemblance was striking. Castis was tall like Garrus – taller than the average turian – and possessed the same dark grey coloration. His fringe was longer and the plates on his face were a bit duller, but it was clear where Garrus got his looks. His sister, on the other hand, was a much lighter color than the two men in her family, almost more of a dull white than a dark grey. She stood at least a few inches shorter than them, but had the same pattern of plates on her face as Garrus that made them both look so angular. Garrus and Solana shared identical tattoos, differing only slightly from Castis’, though they were all that same shade of turian-blood-blue.

Garrus rushed forward, taking Solana’s other side to help her out of the way of the disembarking passengers. Her leg was in a cast – Electra remembered that she had broken it. It must have been pretty bad that her mobility was still limited. She came forward as well and reached out to relieve them of their bags when Castis put out a hand to stop her.

“I’m…” she began to introduce herself.

“Commander Shepard. Not a soul who doesn’t know who you are. It is an honor to finally meet you,” Castis said, holding out his hand to shake hers. She took it gladly, almost surprised by the strict formality. Garrus certainly hadn’t exaggerated. He shot her a look that seemed to imply this was a sign that he liked her.

“So my brother wasn’t lying, after all,” Solana said with a laugh that reminded her of the one Garrus punctuated so many of his sentences with. “You’re even more attractive in person, which only makes it harder to believe you’re letting Garrus strut around with you.”

“Hey, let’s not forget who’s making sure you don’t fall down right now. I can change my mind at any minute,” Garrus threatened.

The group shuffled back into the office just as eyes began to snare and linger on the commander’s face. As the door closed behind them, she heard some people asking each other if that was who they thought it was.

“Now hold on,” Castis said, stopping before they left the office. “What about processing. Nobody has even checked our luggage, and I’ve paid no fees. We can’t just leave.”

Garrus opened his mouth to explain, but Shepard stepped in and said,

“Your son is better at getting things done than you probably expected. He took care of everything before your shuttle arrived.”

It was a good day to not have subvocals exposing her lie.

Castis didn’t look entirely convinced, but when no one stopped them as they left, he figured he’d let his growing hunger win this battle.

They hurried into the Kodiak as more and more people arrived to the docks and took off, back through the tunnels to skirt around the traffic that was beginning to back up. Castis stood behind Cortez and looked out through the front windows, his arms pinned behind his back and his shoulders tall.

“I haven’t been through the low lanes in years. Yet another trick up your sleeve, commander?” he asked, turning to regard her with a growing curiosity. He hadn’t missed the confused and incredulous stares she’d been receiving the whole time they walked to the car port. She sat beside Garrus, who had his arm around her waist in a way that seemed more intimate than Castis expected. It wasn’t like his son had told him anything more than that he and the commander had grown fond of each other. However, the smell radiating from the both of them and the way Garrus’ subvocals didn’t stop churning around the woman painted a much different story than the one he’d received. He narrowed his icy blue eyes at his son before turning back to look through the windows. In his subvocals, he made sure Garrus heard him say,

You have a lot of explaining to do.

Chapter 8: Legacy of Fire

Chapter Text

Castis and Solana settled into their respective rooms while Garrus began preparing the cheap steaks – the best he could find on the entire Citadel – for their early lunch. He seemed lost in thought, his brow scrunched up the way it was whenever he turned Electra away to focus on calibrations, so she left him to churn with his thoughts as she went upstairs to change. The armor had grown increasingly uncomfortable against the new shape her body had taken on and it did nothing to help the soreness in her joints. In her room, she flung away the pieces of armor, letting out a sigh when she peeled her chest plate away and shirked the undersuit. Sitting back in one of the recliners, she opened her omni-tool to call Liara.

“Shepard? Is everything alright?” her worried voice came through.

“I don’t know Liara, you tell me. You’re the one monitoring my vitals,” Electra said, kicking off her boots and massaging her feet. They looked puffier than usual. “Are you out of breath, Liara? Should I be asking if you’re okay?”

“What? Oh, it’s nothing. Hang on, let me check your readings,” Liara dismissed, which meant Electra would have to ask about it later. “Your reading look fine, but that’s no surprise. You’ll probably be even less surprised that there are already pictures of you circulating the extranet. Expect a call from Hackett any minute. I can ask Chakwas to bring you some pain killers for the headache you’re probably about to have.”

“Between that and the tension with Garrus’ family, that might be necessary. I’m considering not coming back out of my room at this rate. Remember that look Garrus got on his face every time he said he had to focus on calibrations? It’s made a return.”

“Oh, you mean the face he had when he couldn’t stop worrying over what he should say to you? Goddess, the way your nerves had him acting I’m surprised all of the Alliance’s firing systems weren’t calibrated in a week. If you can, try to send a picture to Tali. That should give her a good laugh.”

“Wait, that’s what that was? How am I just hearing about this?” Electra laughed, though she wasn’t surprised by the new information. Things had turned around quickly after the first moment he felt her tongue on his dick, but she could never forget how unsure of himself he’d been all those times before, even if he played it off now.

“Everyone knew. For a while, we were sending Joker credits every time he sent you away from the battery. Remember that entertainment system he had EDI install on the bridge? That’s where he got the money to afford that,” Liara said.

“Remind me to ask him for more details about that betting pool,” Shepard responded, recalling Miranda’s comment about it last night. She heard voices coming from the kitchen below her. “Liara, I don’t think Garrus has told his father anything about us. They’ve been subvocalizing like crazy since before we even got here. I’m not sure, but I may have even felt the baby move with all the vibrational activity passing between them.”

“Well the baby is big enough now that you’re going to start feeling flutters every now and then, so that’s only a reassuring sign and a sign that you’re possibly a few weeks ahead of where we’re currently placing you. As for Garrus and his father, you’ve never lacked for a certain diplomatic gift. People like you Shepard. Try not to worry too much,” Liara assured her. “Considering your name has begun trending in popularity on the extranet, I’d say you’ve got a lot more to worry about that his familial disputes. You should eat something and consider a nap. I have to go, but if you’d like, I can be by later to see how you’re doing.”

They ended the call and Electra sent a message to Joker that he needed to send her the betting pool records from all the way back to the SR-1, to which the chat exploded as everyone began throwing him under the bus. She almost felt bad for him except she had the feeling they were all about to be exposed. She pulled on some soft, loose clothing – nothing that would give away her shape – and made her way back to Garrus and his family. In the kitchen, she heard Garrus and Castis conversing in low tones, a rapid back and forth. Sniping. She hesitated in time to see Solana sitting at the bar in the front lounge, beckoning her over.

She sat beside her, trying not to stare at the steak that she was carefully cutting into. Electra had never wanted to eat something more in her life.

“What’s going on in there?” Electra asked, to which Solana shot her a devilish smirk that reminded her a lot of Garrus.

“Shepard, how much has Garrus told you about our father?”

“He plays by the rules. C-Sec royalty. I know they haven’t always gotten along, but I was under the impression things had gotten better since Garrus returned to Palaven.”

“Oh they did. The problem is, Garrus spoke very little about you. I swear he must have rehearsed his subvocals, if that’s even possible, to get nothing by. He wouldn’t even tell me about you. I think my father is just more shocked that you’re pregnant and Garrus hasn’t even officially bonded to you. Oh, here he goes again.”

Through the walls, Electra heard Castis raise his voice and say, “What would your mother think? What about your ancestors? It seems no matter how much I think you’ve learned about personal responsibility, you continue to find new ways to disgrace the Vakarian name.”

Electra was more shocked that they knew about her pregnancy. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to rescue Garrus or slink back to the room before the two men in the kitchen noticed she’d ever come out.

“He cracked pretty quick, huh?” she asked Solana, who appeared unphased by the whole event.

“He didn’t need to. You smell like a turian, and not in the sense that you’ve just been sharing your bed with one. And Garrus. Well. You can’t detect pheromones the way we can, but male turians take on a certain aroma when they become fathers. He smells like a bed of coals. You’ve really done a number on my brother. You should be proud. I’ve never seen him feel this strongly about anything in his life.”

Electra blushed. She should have known. Garrus had talked about pheromones before when he teased her about her “blind” nose. She had only hoped they might be able to let the illusion play out until after they’d all eaten at least. The smell of the steak wafted back into her nose and she salivated. She really needed to eat, their argument be damned. She felt herself waver slightly as she got to her feet.

She took the path through the office into the kitchen, hoping to not get caught in the cross fires of their heated discussion. She was feeling weaker than she had this morning, and on top of the calls she was still expecting from Hackett and the various members of the council, she didn’t need to be lectured by Chakwas as well. To her surprise, her appearance in the kitchen stopped Castis mid-sentence and Garrus immediately crossed over to her in two, rapid strides. He brought his finger under her chin to look up into his face.

“You don’t look well. Let me make you something. Off your feet, now,” he commanded, steering her to the long table. The act made her feel like a child, but she didn’t complain when he started putting food in front of her. She opened one of the protein bars and started eating, but just like this morning, she felt like each bite fell into a void when she swallowed. The smell of meat swirled in her senses.

Garrus came back over with a glass of water and she stopped him from retreating to get anything else by grabbing his wrist and staring up at him with a quiet desperation.

“Whatever you’re eating, I need it.”

“There you go again with your jokes, woman. I’m not giving you dextro steaks, no matter how badly you think you want them. I’ll have my plates pulled from me one by one before being flayed and roasted on the surface of the sun if I kill you. And I wouldn’t even fight back,” he said. There was a bite to his voice she didn’t hear often – only when he was wrestling with something he didn’t have the tools to solve. Castis regarded them from across the kitchen.

“I think you should listen to your mate, Garrus,” Castis said. Electra had never been so glad to hear him speak. “I sense she isn’t well and the food she’s eating isn’t doing much to help that. Can you not hear it? Your child is hungry.”

Garrus snapped around. He looked like he could kill his father, but Electra hadn’t released her hold on his wrist. She gave it a soft squeeze, her own way of trying to tell him she was sorry for not coming to him sooner. She heard him take a breath and move away to fetch her a plate of what they had been eating, avoiding the oppressive gaze of his father. He came back with one of the steaks and hesitated before setting in front of Electra. He kneeled down so he was on eye level with her, his eyes pleading.

“Don’t you think we should call Karin first? We don’t know what we’re doing. If you get sick… I don’t know if I can handle that. Not today.”

Shepard touched her forehead to his and ran her hand across his mandible.

“Trust me. If at any point it seems like I can’t breathe, there’s an epi pen in the top drawer of the desk. It will be fine,” she assured. She didn’t know how she herself felt so sure of it – it was like a voice other than her own and different from the whispers spoke through every cell of her body.

She took a tentative first bite, chewing slowly and paying attention to her body for any type of reaction. However, shortly after swallowing, she was overcome with a wave of relief and strength she hadn’t felt before and she began devouring the meat. She swore she could feel tears in her eyes as she ate – it felt like a part of her she didn’t realize was missing had been found and locked back into place. Some of the fuzzy edges in her mind began to waver. Even the pain in her joints felt less sharp. She flashed a look at Garrus, his face turning from concern to understanding, and he went back to the fridge to search for any more meat he had available.

“Turian women eat a diet that consists almost entirely of the richest raw meats on Palaven when they are expecting. These meats are called dravesh. There are entire markets that are protected to ensure that dravesh is kept in high enough stock so that each woman can receive the nutrients needed to sustain her through her pregnancy. Demanding things, turian fetuses. Were there no turian specialists in your hospital?”

“Huerta is renowned for alien medicine. The problem was that Shepard is a human, not a turian. I think it’s also safe to say no turian has ever managed to get a human woman pregnant. Our Shepard has had a way of breaking down interspecies barriers, though this is a new approach,” Garrus said, some of the tension lifting from his voice as he watched strength return to his beloved. He set another steak in front of her, this one uncooked. It didn’t seem to make a difference as she cut into it. The moan that escaped her throat when the bloody meat touched her tongue would have made Garrus blush if that were possible. He took the seat beside her, brushing his talons through her hair and away from her face.

“I can’t say I disagree with all the things I’ve heard about you, commander. You really are amazing,” Castis said with admiration, walking over to join them at the table. For now it seemed they’d set aside their differences. “As soon as the relay has been repaired, I’ll see to it that a regular supply of dravesh is sent your way. You’ll find it’s much better than these cheap cuts.”

“If you’re telling me what I’m feeling right now can get better, and that you can make that happen for me, I’ll personally cut you a blank check for the repair effort on Palaven,” Electra said once her plate was empty. She set down her utensils and sat back, her hand finding her belly before even thinking about it and wishing there was some way Garrus could feel the way it lit up with spins and flutters as she digested.

“There is no need for all of that. I am simply doing my duty to my grandchild,” he said. Electra swore his hardened tone softened when he said the word. “But before I can think about asking about dravesh, we need to plan for you two to be bonded as soon as possible. It isn’t traditional that a bonding ceremony take place with such haste and none of the formalities, but this is a special case and I’ll allow for some exceptions to be made. I won’t have anyone thinking my son left Menae with the sole intent of breaking one of the oldest turian social mores.”

“Again, I can’t stress enough that I didn’t intend for this to happen,” Garrus protested.

“I think the evidence speaks against that notion. It doesn’t matter now. This is what we’re faced with. Commander, do you have kin that you can contact? Do you have any idea what their bond price might be?”

“Forgive me for not being familiar with your customs, but if it helps, I have no living relatives that I know of. My family has been my crew. The man that was like a father to me was declared missing in action following the events on the Citadel,” she explained, trying to hide the way her voice cracked at the mention of Anderson. Garrus sought her hand under the table and she brought it to rest on her belly like she had done in the hospital. Upon resting his hand on her skin, he felt a warmth tingling in his core and he began to purr.

“I do not fault you for not knowing our customs, or the gravity of their being ignored. That fault lies with my son alone,” he growled. Garrus angled his gaze to the spot on the table between them. “With no immediate family, this does make the process a bit easier, though I’m sorry they can only watch from the realm of the Spirits. I will take care of the rest and will contact Primarch Victus to have your bond officiated. Remotely, of course, but I don’t see any other option. I should have everything ready in two days. If there is anyone you would like to bear witness, they should know now. Again, in light of our limitations, they should also know that no special attire will be required, and they will need to depart immediately following the ceremony.”

Electra glanced at Garrus, pulling his piercing blue gaze from the table. She offered him a small smile, hoping that despite his father they might find some way to make the ceremony about more than tradition and honor. She still had so many questions about the process that she didn’t want to hear from Castis. She wanted to know from her handsome turian, the father of their future children. The way he cringed under his father’s gaze broke her heart since she knew in hers that he’d never look at their child that way. As if he could hear her thoughts and she could hear his, the shared eye contact between them conveyed only the joy they felt to be in this together, like no one else in the world mattered to them now. The words seemed to refract through their retinas in an eternal return,

I love you more than anything in the world. You are mine.

>>>>>>>>

Garrus had left Electra with Chakwas that evening. When Karin saw the marked improvement in Electra’s appearance and demeanor, she nearly choked when she learned that it was a result of Electra essentially swallowing two dextro-amino steaks, one of them raw. As much as he wanted to stay and listen to the things they covered regarding her health, the events of the day had taken all the energy out of him, so he walked out to the balcony in the hallway outside the apartment with his gun and began training the scope on various distant points. Some rubble here, a crashed car there. Only a few of the lights had returned to the Silversun Strip. It was a miracle that the damage the area had taken seemed to skip Tiberius Towers entirely, leaving not one window on the building cracked.

He focused in on a tatter of fabric waving from beneath a fallen pillar.

Patient has presented with 3^rd degree burns covering 90% of her body. Armor has completely disintegrated. Immediate blood transfusion and emergency grafts necessary to assess further.

The bullet flew from the end of his rifle, shredding the fabric into a mist of threads that disappeared into the thick air.

He set his sights again, this time on glass of some liquid that had somehow remained upright in one of the windows of the Jade Hotel. After their night at the bar, their bodies hot from the contact sustained during their dance, he’d taken her there – rented the penthouse suite for the night – and they hadn’t for a moment been able to keep their hands and mouths off of each other until they had to part ways the next morning.

Her heart is in arrest and both lungs have collapsed. Because she is struggling, we have no other option than to attempt to prevent her from inflicting more damage by putting her into a chemically induced coma until her heart can beat on its own and her lungs can be repaired to breathe on their own. Internal injuries worse than initially suspected. Major hemorrhaging in all sections of the body consistent with punctures and blunt force trauma. Will attempt to preserve the pregnancy but the commander’s life takes precedence.

Garrus loosed another shot, watching the glass explode in a brief white flash.

Fetal life signs undetectable. Efforts to stabilize patient ongoing.

“Target practice? I remember as a boy you hated when I forced you to practice. You weren’t very good,” Castis’ voice came from beside him. He hadn’t heard him approach and pulled his face away from the scope briefly to look at him. He stood there like he always did, eyes cast down at him and hands crossed behind his back. Garrus looked back through the scope but found it much harder to find something to shoot.

“I was a child. You seem to forget that,” Garrus muttered.

Castis made a sound Garrus couldn’t quite read before he turned to look out over the devastation of the strip, leaning his elbows on the railing of the balcony.

“I wasn’t a perfect father. I was like my father in ways I swore I never would be. I can only hope you will break that cycle,” he said quietly. His subvocals were pained in a way Garrus had never heard before. Regret, so much regret. I should have been there. I should have called.

Garrus put down his rifle, leaning it against the balcony between him and his father as he joined his father in looking out upon the strip. He couldn’t ever find the words to say to him. They had that in common.

“You’ve felt it. A fire in you, and a rage. There is pain and anger that you don’t know how to deal with, and desire that overwhelms you. You reek of it. I suppose I never told you what happens to male turians when they sire offspring. To be honest, I didn’t believe I’d ever live to see you become a father. You rejected every bond proposal you were offered back on Palaven, and there were many. Good clans and good mates, too. I knew you had grown close with your commander, but I had no idea that you intended to break the laws of science to make her the mother of your children.”

“What can I say, I’ve always been a bad turian,” Garrus chuckled. Bittersweet, but Shepard always seemed to find it funny that he described himself that way.

Attempts to restart patient's heart have resulted in failure. Injuries incompatible with life. Time of death recorded at 0114 hours, September 4^th 2187.

“No, Garrus, you are not a bad turian. Unconventional maybe, but the way you are with your mate and the way you threw yourself into the gravest line of duty and followed it through to the end is evidence that you are among the best. No turian stood up to Saren when you did, throwing away your chances of making an honorable name for yourself in pursuit of what’s just. No turian stood against the Reapers when the galaxy turned its eye from the threat. No turian except for you. You did what I could never do, and you have made me proud, Garrus. I only wish I knew how to say it.”

“You just did,” Garrus pointed out, but his father shook his head.

“I’ve only said the words. Today, I let my own anger get the best of me with regards to your… unique situation. My father told me when your mother and I were expecting you that the blood-fire can be felt by the entire family. I didn’t believe him until now. The commander is a powerful woman.”

“You don’t need to tell me. Death must really have it out for her now that she’s escaped it twice. You should see her on the battlefield.”

Unexpected resurgence of life signs recorded at 1900 hours, September 4^th 2187. Condition appears stable. Fetal life signs appear stable. Brainwave activity returning. Initial signs of decay have begun to reverse. The rigor mortis that began to set in appears to be reversing. Cannot asses cause of this phenomenon at this time.

“The child is strong, and not just physically. I can sense it. The world can sense it. There’s something in the air, but I don’t know what it is. I fear for what may happen when she can longer hide it from the world. You must protect her Garrus. That is why this bond is so crucial. Without it, you have no way to focus the power of your blood-fire. You are filled with chaos when you need order. They will come for her. They will come for your child. You know this. You need to be prepared for when they do,” Castis warned, his voice dark. Garrus didn’t need to be told.

“I hate that she never seems scared. Of anything. She looks everything right down the barrel and says, ‘so what.’ It’s what makes me love her the most, and it’s the one thing I wish I could change. Even if it meant not loving her anymore. I just want her to be safe,” Garrus confessed, his voice quiet. If anyone listened to them who wasn’t a turian, they wouldn’t have been able to hear his words over the sound of traffic in the distance.

“You know better than I do that she is terrified. She just knows that there is no other way out except through. Your mother would be proud that this is the mate you’ve chosen. If I didn’t know better, I would think Commander Shepard was a turian,” Castis mused. At this, Garrus laughed. His time around humans had taught him one thing, and it was that they were more fierce and tenacious than any other race in the galaxy gave them credit.

Garrus turned around, leaning back on his elbows and looking up at the sky. The Citadel and all its scattered pieces turned slowly in space above Earth.

“I’m glad you’re here, dad,” he said.

The two men stood the way in silence for some time, eyes locked into the abundance of darkness between the stars above them. Watching. Listening.

Chapter 9: The Grip of the Storm

Chapter Text

Stretched out infinitely beyond her in every distance was the cold, grey expanse. Mist haunted around her ankles. She moved forward, limping, her arms wrapped around her extended belly. The weight of the baby she carried pulled at her spine. Her skin was slick with blood and with every step she took, she felt blood surge from between her legs. Something was broken. She tried to call out for help, but the sound of her voice was swallowed up by the vacuum.

As if pulling from the mist, whispers began to circulate around her, the words hard to make out against the deafening silence. She thought she felt a rumble in her body, settling beneath her ribs. It was a safe feeling – it reminded her of home. She tried again to call out, but the effort sent a barb of pain through her core. Her steps faltered as the pain gripped her entire body and she fell to her knees. Spools of crimson spilled down her thighs, coating her skin.

As soon as she resigned herself to giving up, a hand grabbed her shoulder from out of sight and pulled her back into the strong arms of her beloved. She surrendered her weak body to rest against his hard chest and opened her eyes, finding peace in his blue gaze. Those eyes were always the last thing she thought of before walking into hell so naturally they would be here now. He told her not to speak.

His hand touched her mouth and she watched as it came away red and trembling. She could feel her atoms pulling apart, like the thread holding the fabric of her existence together had been tugged loose. A tear in her matter, a slow stretch of all those spaces that lie between. Garrus’ mouth moved – he was saying something – and his hands began to move frantically across her body but the only thing that ushered from his mandibles was the dreadful bellowing horn of an old enemy. If only she could speak to comfort him, tell him it wouldn’t be long now.

This shook her back into action, if only for a while, as she began to feel Garrus’ panic spread into her own body. She looked down, the skin of her belly moving and twisting as something writhed within. Her mouth opened into a scream and again the Reaper horn sounded. Garrus began to rock her in his arms, his face tucked against her neck while his rare tears dropped onto her skin. They were hot, like drops of starlight. She wished she could close her eyes like he did, his arms cradling her as white-hot pain ripped through her abdomen down to her pelvis. She felt her body seize, her back arch up, but she couldn’t look away. It was time to push.

With a crash of red and with a sickening ripping sound rending the air, she watched as a long, taloned arm twisted its way from between her legs and hooked three razor-sharp claws into her knee. She felt herself screaming but heard no sound. She needed to keep pushing. The arm gripped against her, pulling and tearing through her leg as she convulsed. Her body was jerked around like a doll as the other arm broke out of her. She tried to focus on the feeling of Garrus’ arms wrapped around her, but there was no other feeling than the pain surging through every nerve and every cell as she was split open. Her eyes were finally closing, so heavy now as every tear and push brought another wave of release. She felt a prayer leave her, one of her last breaths, and she opened her eyes a final time as a Marauder covered in her blood stood over the mangled shell Electra’s body had become.

She did it. Her son, her beautiful son –

It opened its mouth and the grey space shook with the horn of Their dark arrival –

Electra bolted up in bed, hyperventilating and wracked with sobs. Her brain hurt like someone had scattered it across the floor with a hammer before putting it back in her skull. Outside, a solar storm rattled the windows, causing a low hum to vibrate throughout the walls. The hands that quickly found her body caused her to jolt back before she realized they belonged to Garrus. He stroked her hair and rocked her as she sobbed in the darkness, his soothing words working their way through the panic and pain knotted up in her body and slowly detangling the fear that twisted in her blood. Her hands touched her belly and when she felt brave enough, she looked down and saw that her body was her own. Her skin, her hands, her legs. No blood covered her, and the pain she'd felt tearing at every fiber of her body was now only the pounding in her head. Her stomach wasn’t the heavy distended one from before – the one beneath her hands was still so small in comparison. A crackle of solar lightning rocked the building again, and she winced, curling closer into Garrus’ body at the sound. Her hands grasped at whatever part of him they could reach, touching his face, lingering over his scars and mandibles, just so she could be sure it was really him holding her.

They were safe. He was safe. The Reapers were gone.

In the darkness, she let her fingers guide her to press her tear moistened lips to Garrus’ scarred mandible, then to his mouth, desperate to fill the grey void she felt beneath her skin with any other feeling. Garrus kissed her back but pulled away and turned the lights on their lowest setting to stare at her. She looked so fragile, shaking naked in the dim light, as she tried to pull closer to him again, her mouth planting urgent kisses down his sensitive neck. His body wanted to respond but his concern took over.

“Electra, wait. Not like this. Talk to me.”

Electra pulled back, scared to open her mouth out of fear that the sound that would come out would not be her own voice. She felt that if she opened herself now, the grey would leak out and envelop him, taking her away once and for all and erasing the concrete stability of the room around her.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re awake. Nothing can hurt you, not while I’m around,” he soothed, pulling her back into his arms and back down to the bed. He pulled the blanket up around their bodies, tucking it over her and squeezing her tight against his chest, seeking to close every gap between them. He knew she had nightmares, but he’d never seen her wake from one quite like this. He found the hand she gripped to her stomach and entwined his fingers in hers to loosen the grip she enforced on her body. Should he call Chakwas? The clock read 0430 hours; Chakwas was usually doing rounds in the clinics at this hour. His omni-tool buzzed with a shelter-in-place advisory for the category 4 solar storm rocking the station. They might be stranded for this one. He hoped the fleets were faring better in the gales of wind and lightning – better at least than his mate, who quivered in his arms, her skin cold and clammy to the touch.

After some time, Shepard’s tears subsided and her breathing evened out. Garrus nuzzled her neck and hair, trying to purr since he knew it brought her comfort, but his own worry made it hard to keep it consistent. Her body was mostly still now, but he knew she hadn’t gone back to sleep; when the wind hummed through the walls, he felt her flinch.

“Do you want me to make you something to eat?” he offered. She had to be hungry by now and he needed something to do so he didn’t feel so powerless.

“Did I ever tell you what happened when I met the leviathan?” she asked, ignoring his question. Her voice sounded soft and strikingly calm.

“A bit. Is that what woke you up?” he asked. He remembered all too well how shaken she was after 2181 Despoina. He hated to think she ever had to relive that horror, but he was no stranger to the way images could grip and assault even the strongest soldiers.

Electra was quiet for a while longer; maybe she would finally be able to sleep. Instead, she maneuvered around so Garrus could see her face and the thin line of blood that trickled down from her nostril.

>>>>>>>>

Tali had missed feeling a ship rock beneath her. The sensation made her bed feel softer, warmer. Despite the way the Alarei dipped against the solar winds outside the Citadel, she knew she had to get up. Every night, she fell asleep to lines of code zipping across her HUD, and every morning, she made her way into the labs, hoping she would find the piece of the puzzle that prevented the mass relays from coming back to life. The physical damage from the blast had been easy. The programming was a different matter. Entering her workstation, she almost jumped (as she did every time she entered) at the body of a defunct geth propped in a repair frame. Laughing to herself and flicking on the lights, she said,

“Good morning Jor’Tal. You should really stop scaring me like that.”

She always hoped that in her sleep, the way to bring all of the systems back online would come to her in a dream. Her people could finally return home and the geth in her lab would finally respond. This morning, it was silent, but the way the lightning flashed outside the window gave the illusion that the geth’s light glowed to life. If she just worked a little harder, it didn’t have to be an illusion. She pulled up the source code she’d extracted from Jor’Tal and folded her hands in front of her face.

She didn’t know how long she had been working when a red-gloved hand set a coffee and a pack of immune boosters beside her. She looked up from her screen and found Kal’Reegar’s eyes glowing down at her. Every morning since she was assigned to working on the mass relays, Kal had been finding ways to take care of her. He said he felt useless without something to shoot. She’d found herself picturing more and more what his bare face looked like but couldn’t bring herself to express that interest. They were colleagues. After Haestrom – after those moments they were boarded up in the ruins together, occasionally bumping together in the safe shadows – she found it harder and harder to get him out of her head. There was no time for a relationship now, not with everything she had to do. Even with the one child policy being lifted, the most important thing she could be doing was in a lab.

Kal’Reegar is technically in the lab right now.

She needed a stronger drink than coffee.

“How are your symptoms today?” he asked, leaning back against one of the desks and sipping his own coffee through a straw.

“I think I’m just about over it. Keelah, it’s about time. I can’t wait to get back to Rannoch. We can’t know how well the geth inoculations worked until we’re on land,” she lilted, plugging the boosters into her suit. Within seconds, she felt her fever diminishing, even if just temporarily. “I also want to make sure no one back home has taken the spot I claimed for my house.”

“Did you hear that the Chayym has stored enough fuel to make the trip back without the relays?” Kal asked, his tone casual. “If you’re so desperate to get back, you could request passage.”

Tali whipped around with a gasp.

“What? Why would they do that? That trip could take a year. The relays will be fixed before then. Who made that call?” she demanded.

“Zal’Koris. Who else? If you want to stop them, you’ve got a week to get those relays working, Tali. They’re going with some ships from the turian 5^th fleet. They want to reestablish comm buoys so we can communicate more effectively outside of the Local Cluster. I’d think it’s brave if not horribly stupid.”

Tali cursed again. Had Garrus heard of this? He had been so caught up with Shepard these days that she doubted it, though Tali knew he’d want to know. Maybe he could do something about it. Hopefully, it would at least give him something else to worry about. Tali had never seen him put so little faith in Electra’s ability to take care of herself. She tapped out a brief message to him and sent it, hoping the electrical interference from the storm didn’t cause too much delay.

She missed her friends dearly, missed not being able to talk to them whenever she wanted. She had meant it when she said she wanted them to get married on Rannoch. Quarian weddings were beautiful. Her mind flickered back to Kal, whose attention had shifted to something on one of the terminals. What would he look like in the formal robes? Gold filigree against the bold red. She took a long sip of her coffee.

“I swear our people can be the most frustrating bosh’tets in the galaxy. I’d say the most stubborn, but I’ve met Shepard,” she grumbled, her fingers flying across her screen.

“Are the rumors true then? That she is alive?”

Tali squeaked, wishing she was better at keeping her mouth shut. She fidgeted and peeked over her shoulder to look at Kal’Reegar; he didn’t seem particularly interested in anything outside of his screen. She ran back over her words. She had only said that she’d met Shepard, which was true whether or not she was dead.

“What rumors?” Tali asked, trying to not give away any information in her tone.

“Supposedly she was seen in public yesterday, but I only heard this morning. There are articles about it in just about every Citadel publication.”

Kal tapped at his screen and Tali’s omni-tool pinged. He’d forwarded her an article from Zakera Daily.

Commander Shepard Photographed in Lower Wards: Ghost, Clone, or Machine?

Witnesses near the Sector M Docks reported seeing a woman many claim is Commander Shepard, who is widely believed to be dead. Seen wearing in the commander’s trademark N7 armor, the woman in the photographs bears a striking resemblance to be the legendary Spectre, MIA since early September. The turian accompanying the mysterious woman has been identified as chief Reaper advisor to the Hierarchy Garrus Vakarian. It is known that Vakarian served aboard the SSV Normandy with the commander, and it has been confirmed that he is currently residing on the Citadel. Reports of a clone of the Spectre who killed Saren and stopped the Reapers have led some to question if the woman in the pictures is not just another clone. Others are not so quick to agree. Organic rights group Progenitor believes this is the sighting of an advanced AI that somehow survived the blast that decimated much of the technology in the galaxy –

Tali scrolled past the rest of the text and stared at the picture, blowing it up so she could be sure that she was in fact seeing Shepard. There was no mistaking her, not with Garrus’ arm around her waist and his face twisted up. The expression almost made her giggle if she weren’t so confused as to why they would be out in public like this. What had she missed? She’d only been back on the Alarei for two days.

“I can say for sure that the turian is my friend Garrus. You met him on Haestrom and again on the Rayya at my trial.”

Tali chose her words carefully. She didn’t know yet if she could confirm nor deny the truth and she opened the chat she had been ignoring to focus on work for the past day. She was about to forward the article when she realized she’d missed a mass of messages about it already. Did these people never sleep? Keelah, poor Shepard. She must hate this.

Kal’Reegar recognized the imposing turian immediately. He knew that Garrus was a very close friend of Tali’s since Tali mentioned him so frequently after returning from her Pilgrimage; according to her, they’d kept up fairly regular correspondence over the past few years. It was no secret that Tali had a crush on him once – most quarrian women who watched Fleet and Flotilla pined after a turian at some point – but he never knew how to ask the question without being obvious. He didn’t want to appear presumptuous, either. It wasn’t his place. He did know when she was lying, however, as she was currently. He could ask if she’d ever been involved with Garrus and he’d get his answer immediately. The turian’s hand around Shepard’s waist implied he was at least no longer an option to Tali, but Kal still didn’t want to be presumptuous.

Was he jealous? Keelah, he needed to clear his head. It was so hard to focus with the swaying of the ship. The sounds of the storm just made him want to go back to bed, preferably not alone, but the only person he could think of wanting in bed with him was Tali. He wondered how her hips would feel against his body; her suit hugged her curves in all the right places, and she didn’t lack for curves. Had he renewed his purchase of the Nerve Stim Pro Deluxe? He suppressed a groan and shifted to dispel the tension building under his suit. It was far too early to be feeling like.

>>>>>>>>

Joker hadn’t really done much dating in his life. Not that it bothered him – he understood that his limitations made it hard for women to want to be with him. He couldn’t exactly take them dancing, or sweep them off their feet, or blow their backs out the way he wished he could. The luck he’d had was always because he had a magic for making people laugh. Even then, he still felt the limitations in the physical department were always straining against what could be something great. They’d always want what he couldn’t give. After a while, he gave up on love entirely and devoted himself to something he was actually good at – being the best goddamn pilot the galaxy had ever seen. Everything changed with EDI. Of course he’d be the one to end up dating his ship – he could never get far from being the butt of some joke – but she was more than just an AI. Towards the end, he saw in her the spark that truly set her apart. He saw her soul and she saw his.

Weirdly enough, the one thing that usually got him the girls was something EDI barely understood, while the thing that made the girls move on from him without a second glance back was something she didn’t care about at all. With EDI, Joker didn’t have to hide behind jokes or false bravado. He was simply seen. He finally got the chance to care for someone else and that love was enough. She didn’t get tired of him or frustrated with the way he struggled to walk across a room without injuring himself. She was patient, curious, kind, compassionate. It also didn’t hurt that she was the first person to know more than he did about drive cores and flight mechanics.

He didn’t realize until after the Normandy went down on that miserable planet that EDI had gone silent. He was reeling from the crash and trying to wrap his head around what went wrong – and what was probably now really wrong with his ship. He’d tried getting her attention to run a damage analysis, but when he looked over to see her slumped and unresponsive in her seat, his heart nearly stopped. That’s okay, he’d thought desperately, she can be brought back. That’s the beauty of something manmade – it can be remade. He’d taken her to Tali – the only member of the crew who might know where to begin repairing an AI – but Tali had no luck. She herself wasn’t doing so well after her suit took damage in the crash and he didn’t want to push it. He tried to not blame anyone for what happened, most of all not Shepard. That was easier said than done, especially when her lover could still have hope that she wasn’t dead when it was time to put her name on the memorial wall. When Joker had to add EDI’s name to the long list of the dead, it felt like he was balling up his insides and throwing them in the trash.

It was only human to blame Shepard for EDI’s death. At least, that’s what his therapist told him. She told him it’s okay to be angry. And when he saw Garrus run to Shepard’s bedside and see that the love of his life was still breathing, it took everything in him to not leave the room. The tears he shed in that room were for them – for the only other woman he’d gladly follow into hell – but most of all they were for EDI. They were for himself. He didn’t get to have hope. His therapist told him it was time to move on. So did everyone else. Everyone except for Shepard. He didn’t want to hear it when she told him she’d find a way to bring EDI back – especially not after he’d spent all those months trying his best to come to terms with her being gone – but Shepard wasn’t the type to say something and not make good on her promises. He wanted to believe, and he wanted to get started right away. Their first problem was that EDI was still on the Normandy, and the Normandy was locked for the many repairs she still needed. They hadn’t let anyone back on since docking.

Joker had just been turned away from Docking Bay D24 after spending long hours trying to argue with the bureaucracy when he got the notice to shelter in place for the solar storm. He never remembered them being so bad in previous months – hadn’t the Citadel shields been repaired a month ago? Must be a polarity shift. It was just their luck that they happened to be stranded in Sol System’s space for this one. He hobbled over to one of the benches and sent a message to the chat to see if anyone could tell him his odds of being struck by lightning if he tried walking back home.

LT: I don’t know why you people are always getting in trouble at Citadel Docks. You realize how far you are from Tiberius Towers? Also, what are you doing at the docks at this hour?

JOK: I know, I know. It’s not like I can use the rapid transit right now. I’m trying to get back on the Normandy. Hey Shep, now that you’re no longer playing dead, do you think you can do something?

He didn’t expect a response, at least not until 0700. He hated thinking he’d be trapped here that long. He looked around, alone except for the C-Sec officer he’d been pleading with all morning. He couldn’t believe that only a door and one lone, disgruntled employee stood between him and his ship. Joker needed to think. Why had he come here alone? And what exactly did he think he was going to do once he got EDI’s body? Did he really think he could carry her all the way back to the apartments? He hadn’t been thinking, although it’s not like he could sleep either. What would Shepard do? After a while, he limped back up to the desk and slammed his hands down to get the officer’s attention.

“You know, earlier I forgot to ask if you know who the Normandy belongs to. Well, do you?”

The turian looked up, unamused.

“The Alliance. That’s why its here. I’m sorry, is there something I can do for you?”

“No, but there’s something you can do for yourself. If you don’t let me back on that ship, Commander Shepard will come here and person and wipe that look of your face with her fists. Yeah, you heard me. Commander Shepard, the one who killed the Reapers. Maybe you’ve heard of her? I’m her pilot, and you’re holding her ship hostage. Is that really how you want to go out?”

The turian looked confused for a moment before saying,

“Commander Shepard is MIA, sir. Until you have proper documentation, that ship is locked for repairs. No one allowed back there. How many times do I have to say that? Please sit down.”

“Oh? MIA? Apparently you don’t read the news,” Joker scoffed, opening the Zakera Daily article on his omni-tool and showing the pictures to the officer. “Does she look MIA here? I can call her myself, but that would only make her angry. And you don’t want to see the commander get angry.”

The officer squinted at the picture for a moment, considering his options. Joker was hoping he just didn’t get paid enough to care at this point, though that was what he was riding on before. Now he was just hoping this stunt never made it back to Shepard. The turian turned back to his screen and searched her name in the database. His eyes went wide when he realized her official status had been changed from MIA to alive (approval pending). He really didn’t get paid enough to deal with this, and if the stubborn man told the truth at all, he didn’t want to be on the bad side of a Spectre. Sighing, he entered the code that unlocked the elevator to the docks.

“Take the elevator down two levels. If anyone asks why you’re there, that’s on you. Now please leave me alone,” the officer sighed, waving him away.

Joker had to remind himself to not look too surprised that his stunt worked as he made his way to the elevator and down to see the Normandy.

I’m coming EDI.

Chapter 10: Fate Against Splendor

Chapter Text

Liara was at the door almost as soon as Garrus sent her a message, her face bent with worry. Garrus led her to the kitchen where Electra steadily worked her way through the array of food she’d laid out on the table in front of her. Her expression looked unaffected – satisfied, even – as she ate.

“Chakwas?” Liara asked, but Garrus shook his head. Liara sighed and joined Electra at the table.

Garrus heard his father moving around in the back room and left to go explain what all the noise was for so early, but his father nodded a sleepy understanding and returned into the room before Garrus had to say much at all. He hoped Solana’s talent for sleeping through airstrikes hadn’t changed. He didn’t hear any sound coming from upstairs, so hopefully the sound of the storm was louder than anything happening in the kitchen. He rejoined his mate and friend at the table in time to catch the exact words he hoped he’d never hear Electra say.

“I’m telling you that I have to go back. I have to speak to the Leviathans again. I think they’re calling me, trying to tell me something. Maybe they know what’s happening to me,” Electra pleaded. Liara had been there on 2181 Despoina – she’d witnessed with similar horror to Garrus the way Electra fell from the Triton when she resurfaced, barely able to breathe or move, blood trickling from her nose. There was no way either of them would let her go back down there.

“Very funny, Electra. No,” Garrus growled, earning him Shepard’s famous scowl.

“I came back alive before, I can do it again. We can bring our own diving mech if that’s a concern. I’m sure I can requisition one on Earth.”

“Everything you’re saying is a concern. If you’re having nightmares that intense, maybe you should consider talking with a professional. I know you’ve spoken to psychologists before. I think it might be time for you to do that again,” Liara insisted. At least Garrus wasn’t the only one who detested the idea of ever going near that watery hellhole again.

“I don’t disagree with you, Liara. God knows I’ve put off therapy for long enough. But I’m telling you this wasn’t just a dream. I don’t know how they’re reaching me without one of their artifacts, but I know they are. It feels the same as when they entered my mind before, down to waking up with a bloody nose. I have to go back.”

“And what exactly happened in this dream? Don’t you think you might just be having nightmares that feel the same because what the Leviathan did to you was traumatic?” Liara pressed.

Electra paused. She felt like she was being gaslit. She knew what she felt, what she saw – she’d never had dreams like this before and she’d been having nightmares since Mindoir. They were even worse after Akuze. Even then, she was always able to wake from those nightmares and feel sure that they were behind her, separated from waking by the firm boundary of sleep. Here, she could still feel the cold emptiness echoing in her mind, like she was still tethered to that world despite the realness of her surroundings. It made her uncertain that everything might not suddenly evaporate into that unforgiving grey landscape.

Both Garrus and Liara had her locked in their sights, their eyes like particle beams as they bore into her. She had never told anyone but her therapists about her dreams before, not even Garrus. He only knew she had them. She didn’t like letting them out where she could no longer control them. But she needed them to believe her.

“There was grey. Everywhere was grey. No edges, no end. It was the same when I spoke to the Leviathans, and… I think I experienced something similar before I woke up at Huerta. It’s fuzzy now so I can’t say for sure,” Electra began, her forehead knotting as she tried to remember something that wasn’t there any longer. Or maybe it was there, just locked in mist and shadow like everything else that happened after the confrontation with the Illusive Man on the Citadel. If she tried to think too hard about it, a pain like a needle drove through her brain and her headache had only just started to diminish. She shook her head and continued.

“I was in labor. Every part of my body hurt and I could barely walk and there was so much blood, so much. It covered all the skin I could see, but it was the worst between my legs. Something was wrong. I was alone until Garrus came to me. He held me, but when he tried to speak – when either of us tried to say anything – we just made the same sound the Reapers made. You know the one,” she explained, shuddering. She reached for Garrus’ hand and he grasped at hers. She never wanted him to hear this, never wanted him to have to share that all-too-real horror that at any point, her pregnancy could become dangerous. “The birth was painful, a pain unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Traumatic. I just had to watch as it ripped me open, as it killed me. And what came out of me… I gave birth to a Marauder. It was the last thing I remember before I woke up – the Marauder standing over me, making that same awful sound.”

Garrus and Liara were silent after she spoke. Only the sound of the storm rattling the windows filled the space. She wished they’d say something, anything. The sound thrumming through the walls still reminded her of the way the Reaper’s screams tore through her brain. She closed her eyes to hold back the tears welling in her eyes. Nausea clutched at her gut and she just wanted to go back to bed and make a few bad jokes with Garrus and f*ck until all she felt was him.

“That… sounds terrible, Shepard. I’m sorry,” was all Liara could say. She didn’t have to say it, but Electra knew she still believed it was only a dream. There would be no convincing her otherwise. At least Shepard was no stranger to her words falling on deaf ears. She excelled at walking a lonely road, though the people sitting with her now usually joined her.

“It was. Terrible. And I think the Leviathans are trying to tell me something with it. If what they’re telling me has anything to do with my baby, I need to hear it,” Electra stated, hardening her voice.

“Shepard… Electra… It is only natural you would have nightmares about the baby. Pregnancy and motherhood can be quite daunting, even when it is planned. It is likely that all the anxiety and old trauma is coming to you now. Your health is still compromised. The elevated and shifting hormones you are experiencing may also be opening your mind to feeling things more intensely than you’re used to. I’m sure Dr. Chakwas can get you some medications to help you sleep if you’d like…”

Liara was cut off by Electra grabbing her hands, shaking them slightly as she spoke.

“And what if I’m right? Consider that I am. I would show you myself if I wasn’t so scared that if you see and felt what I did, you won’t come back from my mind the same person,” she said, releasing Liara’s hands and turning to Garrus.

“And what about you? You usually have a lot to say about what I should and shouldn’t do. Are you really so scared for me that you’re willing to forget what it’s like to be brave? We faced down the worst things this galaxy has to offer together. No Shepard without Vakarian. Well I still need you, Garrus. I need your support. Can you give me that even if it means trusting me over your own fear?”

Garrus’ mandibles twitched and he opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t find the words, He fixed his gaze on the table, wishing he could tell her what she wanted to hear but being unable to bring himself to lie. Electra didn’t want to hear anything else from either of them. She stood up abruptly and turned away. As she walked back up the stairs, she realized the food she’d eaten wasn’t going to stay down much longer and hurried the rest of the way, barely making it to see her breakfast spill into the toilet.

Garrus held his head in his talons and massaged around his brow plates, trying to relieve some of the tension that had built up behind them.

“I guess that means I’m on the couch until further notice. And to think our bonding ceremony is tomorrow. What was I supposed to say? Oh yeah, sweetie, going to the bottom of the ocean to talk to the ancient mind-controlling monsters who created the Reapers sounds like a great idea. In fact, I’d already considered it for our honeymoon,” Garrus muttered, pitching up his voice in mock enthusiasm. “Of course I support her. I just think she takes things a little far sometimes. In this case, too far doesn’t even scratch the surface – it borders on insanity. This was the part where we were supposed to start talking about retirement.”

“That’s our Shepard. In a coma one week and throwing herself in the face of danger the next. If she wasn’t hatching some crazy plan, I’d almost be worried she wasn’t the real thing,” Liara sighed. They both knew it was true. No amount of concern or better judgement would change that. “What’s this about a bonding ceremony? I was beginning to wonder when you two would make things official. I’m very happy for the both of you.”

“Hah, yeah. I was going to let everyone know about that sometime today. It’ll be held here tomorrow evening, though I don’t know when yet. I’m not exactly in charge. Don’t worry about wearing anything special, it’s casual.”

“Casual? Bonding ceremonies are generally big events. Your people aren’t the type to cut corners on tradition.”

“You don’t have to tell me. I suppose it’s only fitting a turian like me finds a way to shirk convention. I just hope she doesn’t change her mind last minute.”

“Give her some time, then go talk to her. It will take more than one argument to dissuade her from you,” Liara reassured.

Garrus chuckled, recalling how many times she had to reassure him that she wanted him. If battling his nerves and suffering through Mordin’s pamphlets didn’t give her pause, maybe Liara had a point. She did love him, a fact that continued to astound him every day. He trusted that. He only hoped she loved him enough to understand why he would never be able to support her putting herself and their child in harm’s way where he couldn’t even back her with his rifle.

>>>>>>>>

Garrus only went up to the room to get dressed for the day and bring her water before Castis and Solana swept him out to the Zakera shopping district for the entire afternoon. They didn’t find everything Castis was looking for until 1400 hours and even after that, Solana wouldn’t stop talking about how she’d always wanted to eat on the Presidium. They were all hungry and at the rate Electra was moving through the food in the apartment, levo and dextro alike, they all agreed getting something to eat while they were out and about was optimal. Garrus was glad his sister came along. He hadn’t had the chance to talk to her this much since he’d been back on Palaven. She understood him in a way few others did. She also had more to offer conversation-wise than their father who kept trying to rehash the same C-Sec stories he’d told them many times over. By the time they finished eating and made it back to the apartment, it was already half past 1600 hours. It was eerily quiet in the apartment and Electra didn’t come out to greet them.

Garrus found her in their bedroom. She stood in front of the mirror unbuttoning her dark navy Alliance uniform. Garrus noticed that the large screen across their bed was on, though the screen was blank. Electra snagged his eyes in the mirror and immediately felt her heart sink at the pleading apology painted in them. Puppy-dog eyes. It probably wouldn’t hurt to let him feel sorry a little longer. He sat in anxious reflection as she removed her uniform and hung it carefully back in the closet. She slipped on something more casual before joining Garrus on the bed. When he opened his mouth to speak, she put her finger on his lips to silence him.

“You’re not in trouble, Vakarian. I shouldn’t have yelled at you this morning. I’m sorry. You have every right to be worried about me, and I haven’t been fair to you by dismissing it. I have no idea what it was like for you to have me die twice. I don’t want you to think I’m walking around with a death wish when I’m really just finding it hard to accept that after everything we’ve been through, I get to have the life with you I always dreamed about. I’m sorry for scaring you. I’m sorry for doubting you,” she said. Her eyes searched his, hoping she’d said enough. She smiled when she saw a wave of relief wash over Garrus’ features. Good. It killed her to see him so exhausted and wracked with worry as he had been the entire past week. She couldn’t imagine how he looked before she woke – Karin had told her he hardly ever left the room, much less got a solid 8 hours of sleep.

“Me? Worried? You make me sound like a wimp,” he laughed, tapping her jaw with a soft mock punch. “There’s no Vakarian without Shepard.”

“And no Shepard without Vakarian,” she echoed. “How was shopping?”

“Long and boring. You wouldn’t believe it by looking at him, but my father finds great joy in the whole experience. I never thought he’d stop asking me if I preferred cerulean or cyan. They’re both blue,” Garrus lamented. “What have you been up to? Don’t tell me you’re heading back into active duty for the Alliance, too.”

“No, I just wanted to look presentable to get lectured by Hackett. As you can imagine, he had some very choice words for me about finding out from his morning news briefing that I’d decided to reenter the spotlight. I probably should have told him myself, but I have a feeling if I tried to convince him beforehand, he’d have me walking around with a military escort. I told him if he kept allocating this many Alliance resources my way, people might start thinking he’s the one who knocked me up. I wish you could’ve seen the look on his face when I said that. I actually started to worry he’d have me officially censured for insubordination, but I think the I-almost-died-and-I’m-pregnant-with-an-alien act might be a useful approach to more of my problem. Maybe Hackett’s just got a soft spot for me,” she laughed. “I can’t say Joker has the same appeal.”

“Oh, he absolutely has a soft spot for you. With scars like his, I’ll have to keep my eye on him,” Garrus growled as he wrapped his arms around her possessively. He pulled her down to cuddle against his side, scooping her leg up to cross his and bringing her hand up to his mouth. He ran her fingers over his lips and mandibles, basking in the smell of her skin. Leather and lavender and a hint of salt. Beneath that was the smell that had no name but that made the fire in him crackle. “What the hell did Joker do?”

“He managed to break into the Normandy by telling some low-level C-Sec officer I’d beat him up if he didn’t let him through. Last I heard he’s busy backtalking Alliance brass for making him leave, so I told Hackett that everyone’s life will be easier if they just push Normandy repairs into priority and let the poor man have his ship back.”

“To be fair, it does sound like you to beat someone up for just doing their job,” Garrus laughed. Electra shoved him, causing him to grip her tighter and roll on top of her. With one swift motion, he pinned her hands to the bed above her head. He nipped at the soft skin of her throat and her hips bucked against his, both in protest and desire. “Look at you. You’re feral, violent. A loose cannon. It’s a good thing I’m something of an expert when it comes to heavy weaponry and getting it to behave.”

“Garrus your family is downstairs. Awake,” she hissed, but she couldn’t help but kiss him back when he silenced her with his mouth, his tongue flicking to tangle with hers. His free hand lifted her shirt so he could roll her nipple between his fingers, eliciting a sharp gasp from Electra.

“I guess that just means you’ll have to be quiet,” Garrus teased.

Electra struggled against the vice grip he had on her hands, desperate to touch him and get them both undressed, but he simply used his free hand to tug both of their pants down low enough so he could sink himself into her. The feeling of his thick co*ck sliding into her made her bite down on her lip to suppress the moan that wanted to escape. His thrusts were slow as he got her used to his length, the ribbing on his penis creating friction in all the right places. Electra’s walls tightened around him as he drove deeper and deeper inside of her with each stroke and she pushed back to meet his thrusts, arching her back up to take every inch of him inside of her. She captured his mouth again, his own muffled moan vibrating against her teeth as she moved her hips against his.

Electra struggled to keep herself from crying out his name as he picked up the pace, her nipples hard as they bounced against his chest. He lowered himself to run his long, dexterous tongue over each of the sensitive mounds, delighting in the fullness of her breasts against his face. Before sleeping with Electra, he’d never given a second thought about the soft, curvy bodies of humans, but after learning how excellent that softness felt to explore with his mouth and seeing how everything bounced as he thrust into her, the physiques of turian women no longer excited him like they used to. From the first time ran his tongue across her skin, he’d become obsessed with the way Shepard’s body felt against his.

Electra felt the pressure of her org*sm building as he thrust into her. She let out a gasp, the quietest sound she could make in a desperate effort to keep herself from making too much noise as he pounded into her. His name was on her lips and she had to bite down to keep from letting it slip. His hand came under her to grip her ass so he could pull her up to meet his heavy thrusting. Electra lifted her legs to wrap around his waist, squeezing him against her body. The sensation of her skin rubbing against the sensitive skin on his sides made him hiss and he drew his attention away from her breasts to reclaim her mouth, a release they both needed to keep from making the sounds they both wanted to make. They didn’t need words to know what their bodies needed right now – that animal desire to breed. Her body called for him to release, waiting to feel the throbbing pulse of his cum rush into her.

Garrus org*smed with a shuddering thrust, his teeth involuntarily sinking into her shoulder. Feeling his seed fill her around his pulsing co*ck drove Electra over the edge, her back arching both against the explosion of pleasure gripping her body and the sting of Garrus’ teeth in her shoulder as her walls tightened rhythmically against the slick girth lodged inside of her. Garrus released his bite and collapsed on top of her, relinquishing her hands to support his weight so he didn’t crush her. Panting, they found each other’s mouths again and Electra brought her hands to caress his face and fringe. The low growl that had rumbled and vibrated through her body began to drop back into Garrus’ throat as he sunk into the more tender kissing, his primal desire quenched by the feeling of his cum dripping out of her beneath him. His thoughts began to clear again and he pulled back to take in the perfect, flushed face of his mate. She looked radiant against the white sheets, her silver eyes half-hooded and glimmering.

To think there had been a time when he thought he’d never see her shining like this again made him want to lock her in this room with him and never leave. The thought after that was that they’d need to find out how birth control would work for them if they didn’t want to accidentally make an entire litter of hybrid babies. They’d worry about that later. In this moment, he had her, and everything was splendor.

Chapter 11: The Ceremony Part I

Chapter Text

The couple never stood a chance sleeping in. The sound of Castis banging around the apartment and jumping between calls with various people started at 0530 hours sharp and showed no sign of letting up. Shepard groaned when the racket forced her from the dark, dreamless slumber she'd be enjoying. It didn’t feel like she’d had much time to sleep having stayed up so late getting lost in Garrus' body and he in hers. The ache that had finally begun to fade from Shepard’s joints had been replaced with a more familiar soreness between her legs and in her hamstrings. She hoped their activities could still be categorized as “light,” though she knew without checking that it hadn't caused any serious damage. Her body sung with life. She'd begun to notice the movements, like butterflies fluttering between her hip bones, always stirred when Garrus rested his hand on her belly and purred as he slept. Chakwas assured her that until the fetus was much bigger, those movements couldn't be felt on the surface, but she so badly wished Garrus could feel what she did, sense the life moving in response to him.

“How long do you think we have until we have to go out there?” Electra asked, her face still sunk into her pillow.

“Don’t talk. If we stay silent, we can pretend we’re still sleeping,” Garrus responded. His heavy body turned over and he curled up into himself. She’d never gotten over the knowledge that the big, bad turian balled himself up like a cat when he slept, but when she’d called it “precious,” he’d felt the need to pin her down and prove just how big and bad he was. She still needed at least the rest of the day before she was ready to have him back between her legs.

“f*ck I’m hungry,” Electra cursed, her stomach gargling. To her surprise, Garrus didn’t move. He lay there for a minute, probably trying to pretend to himself that he wasn’t awake yet, before saying,

“Yeah, me too. I just know that the second I walk out that door, the old man will have a million and one things for me to do. Maybe I can get Solana to sneak us something.”

Garrus opened his omni-tool and sent a message to his sister.

GV: I need you to do me a favor. A big one. Please.

SV: No. No way. I don’t even care what it is. You don’t have the credits to pay me to be the first one out there. You’re on your own.

“Dammit,” he hissed, his arms falling back to the bed. The smell of cooking meat wafted up from the kitchen.

“Is… is he baiting us?” Electra asked. The aroma made her salivate.

“Classic hunting technique. Draw the klixen from their dens into concrete barrels by burning rokias scenting glands at the far end. Once they're all in, you drop a hatch behind them and riddle them with bullets. It’s genius.”

“It’s unusually cruel,” Shepard complained. Her body moved her out of bed before she could protest, throwing on the first article of clothing that met her foot.

Garrus flicked on the light to see Shepard drowning in his shirt. He’d never seen a human in turian clothing before but it looked about as odd as one could imagine. There was an idiom there just waiting to get hammered into the general lexicon. If he put on one of Shepard’s shirts, his carapace would probably tear it. He was about to ask for his shirt back when she looked up at him, eyes sparkling, and remarked at how warm it was. He’d be a monster to take it away from her now so he got his own from the closet.

They hadn’t even made it the entire way down the stairs – Garrus walking behind Electra in case he needed to bolt – before Castis swung his head out from the kitchen. The smell of spiced meat was overpowering and intoxicating. Electra had never smelled anything quite like it.

“Good God, what are you making?” she murmured as the aroma compelled her body to take a seat at the table. Datapads were stacked on one end and it appeared that he had coopted the entirety of the office. As she sat, Castis set a full bowl of some kind of meat stew in front of her. Even Garrus looked transfixed.

“Dad, where did you find dravesh? I couldn’t find anything like this when I tried looking,” Garrus asked. Castis set a bowl in front of him too, though the serving was much smaller. Electra had already begun to gorge herself on the dish, unable to hold back moans as the savory and tangy flavor swirled in her senses.

“There has been a change of plans today so I’m glad you are both up early. I ran into an old colleague of mine yesterday, someone with whom I’m sure you’re both quite familiar. Councilor Laiel Sparatus and I go way back. Apart from being old colleagues, he is an old friend of mine. We trained together on Palaven before either of us made our way through the ranks. When he learned I was on the Citadel, he was the one to reach out. In catching up, he learned that you were being bonded – rather quickly I might add – and he assumed before I did that it was to you, commander. Your relationship with my son is probably the worst kept secret on this entire station. The thing that shocked him was the haste, the lack of decorum; he was in fact rather insistent that we follow some of the stricter traditions considering the high rank of both parties. Who was I to disagree? He isn’t wrong. The plans… spiraled from there. I had no intention of telling him anything about your condition, commander – he assumed on his own due to the hasty and secretive nature of it all. It is, how do you humans put it, a shotgun wedding? He had his suspicions that something wasn’t right and considering you already planned to meet with the council tomorrow, it was only a matter of hours until they found out anyway. Well, it was that discovery that led to his relinquishing his source for dravesh. He insisted that a mating of your caliber deserved the best that could be spared,” Castis prattled. As more and more words tumbled out of him, both Garrus and Electra found themselves looking into their servings of godly food with increasing levels of horror.

Like klixen in a barrel.

Electra didn’t have the words to respond to everything he’d said. She wondered how much of this planning was about to fall on her. She wondered how she could explain to everyone that she’d jumped straight from brief sighting in civilian docking bay to high-profile bond ceremony in a matter of hours. She found that every bite of the stew kept her thoughts from completely spiraling. Her head spun regardless. Garrus leaned his face into his hand.

Klixen in a damn barrel.

“I… thank you, Castis. The food really is better than I imagined,” Electra managed to say. What else could she say? She hadn’t been awake for even an hour before having any hope that her day might be short and possibly even sweet dashed against the rubble. She couldn’t look at Garrus either – she hadn’t told him that she was meeting with the Council, her plan being to distract him with some errand and sneak away to avoid the inevitable protest. Her eyes were wide and her mouth hung slightly open as she stared into the dravesh. Castis sat at the table with an even smaller portion of the utterly heavenly food than he gave Garrus. His mandibles remained open and eyes bright as he looked between them.

“I understand this is probably a lot, but I don’t want you to think I went about this like a fool. All of the proper channels have been informed and extended an invitation. The ceremony will still be brief and small, though I hope your friends have attire that is slightly more formal than their daily garb. The councilor has insisted that it be held at his residence on the Presidium. I know that safety has been a concern so there will be C-Sec and Alliance presence to ensure that there are no unexpected disturbances. Rest assured that I have taken most of this planning on myself. I have already compiled the lists of things you are both responsible for, individually and jointly. I think you’ll find that with such an early morning, you’ll have no problem getting everything done in time.”

When neither of them were able to speak, Castis dug a few datapads out from the pile and slid them over to them. The juxtaposition of the bulleted list looking up at her from the table beside her breakfast was a dirty betrayal she'd never experienced before. She understood why Solana had stayed safely locked behind a door. Shepard was sure one of those datapads was for Garrus’ sister.

Garrus, while disappointed, was at least not as shocked as his mate looked. He didn’t believe it when his father initially relented to the ceremony being a small and casual affair and he had been right to doubt. Castis' account of how it blew up to this proportion came across true enough, though Garrus had a feeling his father saw the correspondence with Sparatus as the means to bringing up the ceremony, knowing that a standard turian overreaction to traditions being ignored would follow. For the time being, he ignored the comment about Electra meeting with the Council – yet another unsurprising crumb of information – realizing she had to be reeling from this much harder than he was. She caught his gaze, her expression of shock wavering up into a small smile only he could catch, though the smile was one of pure incredulity with a hint of “don’t you dare tell me ‘I told you so’.” The duality in her expression when Castis refilled her bowl before she even finished the last few bites equated into something north of a grimace but no where close to genuine happiness.

“So can you just run me through who all is expected to attend the ceremony?” she finally asked after taking in more of the food. She couldn’t deny that it had her feeling better than she’d felt in years despite how terrible she’d been feeling for the months prior and following the beam. She felt like her skin glowed. She wished she felt nauseous so she had an excuse to go throw up, but the meal had her feeling entirely and wholly nourished. The betrayal ran bone deep.

“Sparatus and his wife naturally as it is their home. Councilor Tevos and Councilor Valern are also expected to attend. Believe it or not, Primarch Victus was already on his way to the Citadel to deal with some matters with the 5^th Fleet and he enthusiastically agreed to come as he was already planning to preside remotely. He expressed wanting to extend his greatest gratitude for your combined service over the past year. Admiral Hackett seemed disgruntled by the affair but will also be in attendance. Garrus, many of your old C-Sec colleagues have expressed interest in coming and I extended the invitation. Without their help, I wouldn’t have been able to get senior officers on the security detail, so it only seemed fitting. Then, of course, your own personal guests will be in attendance. It is still a very small and private event.”

Shepard had to keep herself from laughing when the words "small and private event" left his mouth with the intonation that he meant it. To her, small and private was her friends gathered around her in her apartment swapping stories in sweatpants. Was this penance for wanting so badly to be free from hiding? Being thrust onto the Citadel's political center stage? There was no way Castis didn't know that the event would be headlining every culture-heavy publication within a day. Perhaps the publicity was his intention so he could flesh out the image he had of his son - a high-ranking official and decorated advisor being bonded to one of the most recognizable war heroes in the Milky Way. She suddenly felt very stupid for her impatience - had she just stayed home that morning, it was unlikely any of this would have happened.

“Dad I apologize if we don’t know what to say, but this is just… not at all what we had in mind,” Garrus said. The food didn’t seem to have the same numbing hold over him. Shepard heard the pinprick in his subvocals, a flanging depression in tone she didn’t need to understand subvocals to understand as deep-set exasperation.

Castis heard the message loud and clear. This is a terrible idea. You're forcing Shepard into something she didn't ask for.

Castis sat back in his chair, the brightness in his icy blue eyes dimming as his lids tightened around his pupil.

“Of course it isn’t seeing as you had nothing in mind,” he admonished. Try not to let it slip that you never officially proposed. It’s already bad enough that she’s pregnant.

Electra sighed, turning her attention to the datapad. She’d hoped they’d gotten past this after their shouting match just days before, but it was naïve to think years of tension and poor communication could evaporate behind one conversation. She didn’t want to get in the middle of it again, that she knew. As long as someone kept the dravesh coming, she had a feeling she’d make it through the day. Garrus, on the other hand, looked positively miserable. Her nether might be out of commission for the time being, but she did have a perfectly capable mouth. All she needed was a brief pause with him, alone.

Shepard’s Tasks:

• Inform and update your private guests on the expected attire and credentials required
  • Attire must be either a) full dress uniform or b) black tie, though white tie is preferred if it is available
  • The new location is The Presidium Whitestar, level F. Arrive at 1600 hours SHARP for pre-ceremony reception. Food and drinks will be provided. The ceremony begins at 1900 hours and will conclude shortly thereafter. All guests are expected to return to their respective homes immediately.
• Meet my contact Poltoria Vicdos at your apartment at 1200 hours SHARP to be fitted for your xalque
  • Solana will be with you for this process.
• I was informed you are to meet with Dr. Chakwas for a routine check-up today, which I have rescheduled to 1400 hours. She will meet you at the apartment.
• Study and understand the attachment sent to your inbox that details the Ceremony proceedings and the meaning behind each process
  • Note that your translators will be turned off for a portion of the Ceremony. I do not expect you to learn turian seeing as you cannot physically produce or understand the sounds of the language. Just try to follow along.

PS: I hope I was able to keep your responsibilities simple enough and if you don’t get to everything, I will not be disappointed. My understanding and patience lies with you at all times and I’m honored to accept you into the clan.

Well after reading the postscript, she certainly couldn’t make a face now. Compared to the turian shirt hung awkwardly over her shoulders and her blonde hair still knotted and tangled from the last night’s romp, she was curious to see how she could be transformed by the evening. She looked over and saw Garrus scrolling through his own list with a look of deepening enervation. Castis had wandered off to the back office, his tones bright and words rapid-fire as he talked to someone over his omni-tool.

“How are you holding up, big guy?” Electra asked, scooting her chair over to loop her arms around his.

“I’m feeling sublime,” he bristled, closing the list and leaning back in the chair. He tilted his head to peek at her through the eyelids he struggled to hold open. “Don’t suppose we’ll be seeing each other until tonight, will we?”

“I was thinking I might pencil you in for a shower at,” Electra glanced at the clock on the wall, “0559 hours sharp. I’ll have my secretary call your dad to get permission if I must.”

Garrus bared his sharp teeth in his ruggedly handsome grin.

“Can’t get enough of me, Shepard? And on the day of the wedding? You’re going to have to give me up eventually. If Kaidan finds out…” Electra cut him off with a push as she rose to her feet.

Electra sauntered off to the stairs, swaying her hips in a way that drew a growl right out from between Garrus’ gleaming teeth. He got up to follow her, head tilted forward in that irresistibly predatory manner. At times she wished he wasn’t so miserable and awkward at roleplay – the alien invader/ colonist scenario that flickered into her mind would be exhilarating - but he'd made it clear before that he had no fetish for humans despite the way he devoured her with his eyes.

They’d rapidly stripped once they closed the door and rushed into the shower, but when Garrus moved to push her against the wall, she turned him around and led a trail of kisses and nips down the front of his body, running her tongue along his slit to encourage his thick blue member to slide out against her mouth. Her tongue swirling on Garrus’ co*ck and licking the drop of precum from his tip, she looked up and saw that the weariness had melted into ravenous ardor as he looked down at her. Though not on her official list, she’d consider this her first task of the day checked off as she took him into her mouth and transported him outside of time for a while.

Chapter 12: The Ceremony Part II: Little Bits of Peace

Chapter Text

WREX: You don’t expect me to dress nice, do you? When have you ever seen a krogan in black tie. What the hell is black tie?

SHEP: Don’t worry about it. I doubt anyone is expecting two krogans on the guest list. Or a Prothean for that matter. That being said, if you can find some way to wear a suit, Joker owes me a lot of credits. No pressure.

JAV: You speak as if I am not already dressed for any occasion. My presence is enough. Your silly social expectations are beneath me.

GRU: I will do my best for my krantt.

VMAN: Do those rules apply to everyone? I think all my nice suits got blasted by Reapers back on Earth.

CORT: You’ll be in full dress. It’s in the memo. You must not be familiar with the ancient technique known as reading comprehension.

VMAN: How about I show you the other ancient technique of my fist to your face, chingado

TZ: What’s the policy on plus ones?

SHEP: I can’t stress enough that I have no control over any of this. If you want to bring someone, you’ll have to forward the ID to me directly so I can get it approved. I guess. I’m not sure.

SHEP: Did I mention the open bar? I’m going to need everyone to work hard clearing that out tonight

JACK: I’ll pour one out, Shep. Your wedding better not be this lame.

GV: Whatever wedding we have after this, expect it to be little more than lounging on a beach somewhere and exchanging few words. BYOB.

JOK: BYOB? To you and Shep’s wedding? Now you’re just holding out on us. You can’t pretend like you’re not loaded based on this guest list.

ZED: He makes a point. No being stingy now.

KAS: Yeah if you spare any expenses, I’ll just have to find out how much you’re worth myself. Your ship model collection alone is worth 53,000 credits.

SHEP: Don’t even think about it

Shepard closed her omni-tool to the sound of Solana welcoming the woman who must be Poltoria Vicdos into the apartment. Having given up on paying attention to vids explaining bonding ceremonies, Shepard entered the living room to greet the woman and was surprised to see an entire entourage of assistants carrying racks and crates into her living room. Solana caught Shepard’s eye and gave an indifferent shrug. A tall turian woman stood up on the fireplace and directed the assistants around the room, having them move furniture to the side to make space for the entire wardrobe being carted in. Shepard had given up thinking anything about this would be a small affair, but the scale kept bumping up with each new layer. She was mostly just impressed at this point.

Eventually, Poltoria stepped down, nodded to one of her assistants, and all but two of the extra helpers hurried from the apartment. Poltoria snapped her sharp gaze to Shepard, her eyes a striking heliotrope against the rich reddish brown of her plates. Her clan markings were pale yellow and framed her delicate fringe. There was a poised and polished elegance to her entire aura that left Shepard feeling unusually bashful.

“Commander Shepard, a woman of many firsts. When Castis called me this morning, I wasn’t sure how I would be able to get something made in time for tonight, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to fit a xalque for the woman who saved the galaxy. My name is Poltoria. Come, stand in the light and remove your clothing. I need to see what I’m working with,” she instructed.

The steadiness in her surprisingly warm voice had a soothing effect on the tension built up in Shepard’s body, compelling her to drop her arms and approach from the sidelines. She delivered a helpless frown at Solana, who leaned her back against a wall nearby and stared in another direction. There was that smirk again; it must be a feature both Vakarian siblings got from their mother as Castis seemed more business and formality than man.

Electra stripped down to her underwear, feeling particularly exposed in the sunlight streaming through the shutters. She wished she’d been able to put on more muscle working with Samara, but the few sessions she’d had with her were focused on mobility. She was still rail-thin aside from the developing curves overtaking certain parts of her body.

Poltoria ran a digital measure over every stretch of Electra’s body, one of the assistants intuiting from just the soft “hmms” and “mmhmms” to start digging through various crates and retrieving various fabrics and threads. Poltoria glanced at Solana and, while Electra didn’t hear any words pass between them, the silent communication prompted Solana to speak.

“So Shepard, how much do you know about the xalque? Did my brother tell you anything?”

“Uhh, he didn’t exactly have time. Am I right to assume it’s like a wedding dress?”

“In practice, sure, except the xalque is worn by both partners. It fits men and women differently, but they both originate from a really, intensely ancient legend. In the legend, one turian embodied the spirit of the blade and the other the spirit of honor. They fought, but they were both the same strength, yadda yadda. Because neither could get the upper hand, their forces joined together to make the spirit of duty. Bam, that’s where bonding comes from. Blade and honor begets duty. It’s all pretty religious so not a lot of turians actually care about the details, but our dad is pretty serious about that kind of stuff. A lot of older turians are. You don’t strike me as the religious type,” Solana drabbled, her voice picking up with curiosity. Her gaze flashed to Shepard, who stared at her in her own intrigue. She hadn’t had much of a chance to talk to Solana, as she mostly kept to herself since arriving, or at least tried to keep away from the tension permanently clouding the airspace between the men of her family.

“You remind me of Garrus,” Electra remarked.

Solana pressed her hand to her chest and gasped in mock pain, her cat-like eyes smiling.

“Say it isn’t so. And to think, I was just starting to like you,” she laughed.

“Believe it or not, I’m actually quite fond of your brother,” Shepard teased. “You’re both so sure of yourselves. Headstrong. You know what you want and what you stand for. If I met you back in 2183, I’d probably have tried to get you on my crew.”

“It’s funny you should say that; I always wanted to serve on a ship. Travel to strange places and shoot at bad people. I was a little jealous of Garrus when he told me about it, but I needed to stay planet side to take care of our mom. By the time she passed, the Reapers showed up and I didn’t get the chance to transfer to the navy. It is what it is,” Solana sighed. She had a faraway look in her eyes and her hand picked at the top of her cast.

“You’re still young and there’s still a galaxy full of bad people. You have time,” Electra assured her.

“Yeah, thanks for that by the way,” she responded with a wink. “Next time you need a sharp-shooter, you know how to reach me. I’d hate for Garrus to get all the fun.”

Poltoria put a gloved talon to Shepard’s jaw, drawing her face back to center so she could slide a metal frame back against her hairline. While she had been talking to Solana, Poltoria and her assistants had secured a number of fabric panels to Electra’s body, working quickly and quietly like trained assassins, their weapons of choice pins and rulers.

“I’ve designed a modified headdress to mimic more turian features. Once I’m complete, it will look quite striking. I have a feeling your bonding to a turian might inspire more human/turian relationships, and I look forward to adding human xalque design to my portfolio,” she explained, her fingers briefly running through Electra’s hair with a hum of admiration. Did all turians like human hair so much? Garrus couldn’t seem to keep his talons out of it. She wondered how he was holding up right now, but the thought was cut short by the smell of dravesh warming on the stove.

>>>>>>>>

Liara spent more time arguing with Javik than writing these days, but today she noticed a startling stillness had come over the Prothean. Maybe it was just that she’d spent most of the past two days trying to organize the avalanche of information about Shepard’s return with Feron – all while their communication was shoddy at best and most of her data feeds were still dark. There wasn’t time in her schedule to manage that and Javiks’s bad attitude at the same time. It helped the collaborative process that Javik was always in better spirits when she spent time away from the apartment, a fact she tried to not take so personally. Today was different. Javik sat in front of the work they had compiled so far, utterly silent and unmoving. He didn’t even stir or offer some offensive comment when she greeted him. She didn’t pretend to enjoy his personality, but she did worry that he’d eventually decide writing a book offered too little violence and leave.

“Is something on your mind?” she asked after a while, glancing at him from her terminal. She was growing weary filtering through the myriad Shepard conspiracy theories.

“Why does the commander waste time with traditional frivolities? I do not understand the need for such an event. She should be more concerned that there are still enemies that wish her dead. In my time, we did not throw parties with weapons pointed at us,” Javik sneered. Predictable. They were just getting to the section about Prothean celebrations; the section was, so far, sparse.

“If you’d take the time to speak to her, you would discover that she shares your opinion. It is perhaps a good thing you keep to yourself. I don’t need anyone encouraging her,” Liara huffed. She had the feeling he wasn’t saying what he was really feeling, but she didn’t want to push it. She would be enjoying the evening despite his best effort to remind her that there was a growing faction of the population that did want her best friend dead.

She focused on her terminal. They had a few more hours until the reception began. Surely they could hold off on arguing for that long. Javik rubbed his long fingers together – Liara noticed he always did that when he was lost in memory.

“Is that all, asari? You are usually more talkative than this. I find it hard to focus without your incessant chatter filling up the background,” Javik said after a while. Liara was surprised to hear him initiate any kind of conversation and looked at him with honest shock. Was that a smile? Had she ever seen him smile before?

“I’m sorry if I’m trying to keep myself from strangling you before my friend’s bonding ceremony. Are you saying you’d prefer it if I ask you more questions? You weren’t particularly forthcoming the last time we spoke.”

“That is not what I’m saying, but if you have questions, ask them. Just don’t be upset if I ignore them.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What is really on your mind, Javik?” she asked.

“I am remembering the courtship rituals of my kind, as passed down to me through a memory shard. In my time, courtship consisted of procreation in the hope of extending our race and nothing more. Before the Reapers came, however, they were beautiful events, each one a celebration of the continuing supremacy of the Prothean people. The mating pair would create a new memory shard with every detail of their lineage to be passed to their offspring. They served the best food as well; salarian liver, krogan testicl*s – a feast to be remembered. Asari dancers were brought in for entertainment. In my time, many soldiers would rest on Thessia to enjoy the blue delight of the primitives,” Javik recounted. He gave Liara a smirk that made her skin crawl.

Trying to hold back her own disgust at his mention of her ancestors, she said, “I’m sorry you never got to know these ceremonies in person. Maybe you can use the event tonight to experience a part of something you missed. Life in our time isn’t just about warfare, even when things are at their most dire. Life is about love and companionship and finding hope through our connections to others.”

“Perhaps. Before the Reapers were destroyed, I believed your primitive inclination to intangible things like love and hope would be your downfall. It angered me to see time being spent anywhere but in the war room. When I discovered that the commander was with child, I assumed the war was lost. I was proven wrong. Your cycle’s obsession with equality and connectivity is an unexpected strength. I wonder if had my people known such things, we might have held the line,” Javik reflected. “I am curious now to see how this pairing I believed to be useless turns out, as it has proven fruitful with an offspring. The first of a new type of existence, maybe? My people believed interspecies mating to be wasteful with the exception of asari.”

“Wait, Javik, you knew about Shepard? When did you know? How? Why didn’t you say something?” Liara stammered.

“Could you not smell it? Their pheromones filled any room they were in. Primitive of you, yet again. It is an advantage to know these things. I did not tell the commander for fear that it would influence the outcome of the war more than it already had. I feared that one life – a marvelous and strange one at that – would be prioritized over the lives of many. It could not be risked. The commander needed to be able to welcome and invite death with comfort and ease,” Javik explained, tone cool and indifferent.

Liara understood clearly, but she had gotten extremely comfortable being the one with the most information in any given room. Javik repeatedly disturbed that comfort. More than that, she suspected that he dripped information to her through a thin funnel just to get her worked up, and with less than a quarter of the book written, she was getting closer and closer to blasting him with a singularity that could crumple a dreadnought.

“What else did you know? Any other revelations I should know about?”

“Nothing comes to mind,” he said simply.

Liara held in a scream and turned back to her terminal, seething. She couldn’t focus on the words in front of her through the storm crashing between her ears. She hated that his reasoning was sound for not telling anyone about Shepard’s pregnancy, but had she died, one of the biggest marvels in recent scientific study would have died with her. She checked the time, frustrated that it hadn’t even been an hour. Maybe she could get ready now and blow off steam on the Presidium. She shut off her terminal and stalked towards the door.

>>>>>>>>

Tali waved Garrus down from across the commons. He was leaning against a wall, engrossed in something on his omni-tool. He looked up when she waved but beckoned her to come to him. She scooped her bags from where she’d set them on a bench and approached. He began to say something but she cut him off by crushing him in a hug. It took some getting used to not seeing her best friend every day like she did on the Normandy. She missed them dearly.

“Well don’t you look miserable,” she giggled when she pulled back, crossing her arms and co*cking her hip. “I thought you’d be a little happier considering you’re getting hitched. Don’t make me tell Shepard.”

“Ignore the face, I just got back from having to try on a bunch of clothing that makes me look like a damn priest. Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to get pictures tonight. Spirits willing, you’ll pull a Tali and get too drunk to remember.”

“Oh don’t be such a bosh’tet. I remember everything, and I can name at least five women who would lose their panties to see those pictures. Dr. Michel might just cry, though. You and Shepard are breaking a lot of hearts tonight,” Tali ribbed, bumping against the wall of grumpy turian.

“Come now, Tali, we both know it would have never worked out between you and Shepard. Don’t ruin my steady supply of chocolate and expensive wine over an old grudge.”

Tali laughed and leaned against the wall next to him. Castis was still wrapped up in a conversation with the salesclerk in Palaven Exchange – they’d been negotiating for close to half an hour. At this rate, Garrus might as well find a secluded bench somewhere and try to get a few minutes of shut eye before his father dragged him off for some other venture. What came next? Was it sampling hors d’oeurves or registering with the census office? He hoped it was the former.

“How are you really doing, Garrus? You look tired,” Tali voiced. While he looked better than he did while Shepard was still in the coma, the improvement was marginal.

“I expected we’d be doing a lot more nothing when we left Huerta. With everything that’s been going on, it feels like it’s been a lot longer than just a week and some change since she’s been back. I struggle to believe she went from being in a coma to taking on the world again basically overnight. I mean, I still have to remind myself that she’s even alive. It’s complicated, but I prefer it to the alternative of her being unwell, so overall, I’m doing fine. I just wish the world could wait a little longer,” he sighed. “How’s the fleet?”

“Frustrating. Stubborn. But for the first time in a long time, hopeful. This probably won’t help the world slow down, but I think we’re getting close to figuring out the relays. I’m actually glad to have an excuse to get out of the lab for a day – I’ve started seeing mass effect matrices and eezo decay charts in my dreams,” Tali extolled. “Are you and Shepard staying on the Citadel?”

“I thought we might, at least until the little one is born, but I have a feeling we’ll be hit with a million calls to action as soon as the relay opens. I’ve made peace with it. Honestly, I’m starting to think part of my problem is I haven’t had anything to do but worry about Shepard when there are big guns somewhere that need fine-tuning. We’re both agents of action at the end of the day,” he confessed. “Don’t tell Shepard I told you all of that. She’ll get smug.”

“Tell her yourself. I can’t imagine how helpless she must be feeling. She missed three months and woke up to a broken galaxy, a crazy love-sick turian, and an unplanned pregnancy. It sounds like a bad quarian soap opera.”

Garrus rolled her words in his head. Electra made it so easy for him to believe she had all her baggage packed and stowed neatly away to the point that he often didn’t think to question the foundation of stone upon which she walked. She didn’t stumble, rarely ever cracked. She didn’t just live – Shepard bulldozed through every moment. Even her fighting style was hit them hard, fast, and in their face. Don’t give them a chance to get close by getting close first, and the moment shields went down, slam repeatedly against the enemy rather than just wait for a moment behind a barrier for them to recharge. Garrus had a mechanical understanding of how she danced on the field and who to shoot to give her time to gather her surroundings when she stepped out of warp-speed, but he couldn’t shoot the enemies she wouldn’t let him see. Ghosts and shadows cornered in her mind where Garrus couldn’t target them. Safe from him but haunting her. Had he done enough? Could he ever do enough? He’d eliminate an entire mercenary group if it meant she might get some good sleep.

Maybe this was the wrong metaphor, not that he had any other. His life was concussive shots and crosshairs, presentations on tactical command structure delivered to a platoon of practical soldiers. He’d modeled loving someone else according to that rubric, and what did that amount to? She was bonding herself to him, not only willingly but enthusiastically, but it didn’t mean he’d been all that she deserved. She deserved nothing short of the sky and all the stars. Devotion, attention, loyalty, honesty. Had he not given those things? The rubric was exact, but it didn’t escape him now that he thought about it that when Shepard just needed someone to hear her, Garrus had been giving her bullets.

Chapter 13: The Ceremony Part III: Blade and Honor

Chapter Text

Liara lent her the gown she was to wear during the reception, a floor-length silver number with bold cut outs beneath her breasts. A few months ago, it would have provided the coverage she wanted walking into a room like the one she was about to enter, but the new fullness of her breasts caused them to spill out. She silken fabric clung to her body suggestively, almost accentuating the curve of her stomach. Why didn’t she ask for some kind of cover-up? Why was she so nervous? Walking into a battle with dreadful odds? Cakewalk. This felt like walking into the mouth of a thresher maw.

The Presidium Whitestar hovered above the presidium, tucked back behind a pristine fountain. It was funny how the wealthy always managed to hold onto their precious aesthetics in the midst of such wide destruction. As she thought it, a twinge of guilt reminded her that she was one of those wealthy individuals and had been since the Normandy SR-1. She occasionally wondered what happened to the millions of credits she’d accumulated in that time, but for being dead for two years and coming back with upgrades, it seemed a small price to pay.

“Come here often?” a voice purred beside her. She jumped at the sudden incursion but the surprise was quickly overtaken by a wave of relief at seeing Garrus standing beside her. She’d asked him to go in with her, needing the moral support of the only other person who might understand how uniquely daunting the event was.

Garrus took her hand and pressed it to his mouth, mandibles fluttering over her skin, before drinking her in with a lingering look.

“The dress matches your eyes. You look ravishing.”

“Keep it in your plates, Vakarian. We haven’t even gotten inside yet,” she warned.

Garrus looked the image of tall, dark, and handsome. His suit was all carefully tailored lines and silver edges and a long black cape was pinned to one shoulder. She’d never seen him in something so nice and though she knew he probably hated it, she hoped he kept it for special occasions.

They walked forward together, ignoring the bundles of people who stopped to stare at them. Alliance guards posted at the Whitestar’s door saluted her fiercely as they entered. They were ushered to the elevator and it slowly ascended, the windows looking out over the glittering presidium. Garrus traced a circle on Electra’s lower back.

“It’s not too late to blow this joint. We can elope on Tuchanka. I hear it’s lovely this time of year, what with all the thresher maws and toxic dust storms. Radioactive isotopes for miles,” Garrus mumbled in her ear. She would’ve considered it if the elevator didn’t ding open behind them.

The apartment they stepped into felt less like someone’s home and more like a ballroom. The ivory-tiled space had been filled with tables, and overhead, long chandeliers cast everything in a warm glow. The large space was filled with the sound of voices swept in lively conversation and the dulcet tones of soft jazz. Neither of them recognized even half of the many finely dressed people dotting the area. To the right, people grazed from a table lined with food, and a bar had been assembled on either side. Many of the guests congregated there, and at the bar on the left, an asari polished glasses between taking orders with a gracious smile.

In. One, two, three, four.

And out, two, three, four.

Electra’s heart was in her throat. This place reminded her of a place she’d visited not long before, though she couldn’t exactly gather when that was. What was the name? Garrus squeezed her hand, sensing her breathing had become manual. How could she forget the name? She didn’t forget anything. She scanned the crowd, expecting a flash of nauseating blue darting among the legs. Her ears prickled, trying to hear whispers where whispers weren’t present. She couldn’t bring herself to look over at the bar again, not now. The tinkling of ice in a glass nearby – like the chime of a bell – sucked her back into her body, though she hadn’t realized she’d left it. She looked up at Garrus to find his eyes trained on her.

“Who are all these people? What did your father do?”

“Hell if I know. We didn’t go over this part. Are you okay? I don’t think anyone’s noticed yet if you want to…”

“Commander Shepard! About time you show up to your own party.”

Admiral Hackett strode up from her right, Karin Chakwas behind him. She wore a black dress that hugged her body. Electra hastily threw her arm up in salute (it felt odd saluting the leader of the Alliance with the lower portion of her boob hanging out) but Hackett waved it away, his right hand occupied by a glass of whiskey.

“At ease, Shepard. You didn’t forget that you’re the woman of the evening did you? Garrus, you’re looking sharp. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Same to you Admiral. And no, thank you. I’ll need to keep my wits about me to scope out any other boobytraps my father has laid out,” Garrus gave a clipped laugh.

Chakwas stepped around Hackett and placed her hand on Electra’s back, her touch a saving grace of familiarity in the sea of strangers whose eyes had begun to notice her arrival.

“This is quite the party. You know, as your physician I have the authority to make it medically inadvisable to make small talk. That or we’ll just have to give Stephen the job of snarling at anyone who tries. Pity the man, Shepard. He looks right out of sorts with a drink in his hands,” Karin said, her eyes scintillating with mischief. The look she shared with Hackett – and the use of his first name, something Electra heard so infrequently she had to remind herself that Stephen was in fact Hackett’s first name – brought all kinds of questions to mind, but she’d have to ask later. She was still channeling her energy into ignoring the way the mingling crowd all around her kept staring at her, tipping their glasses in her direction, nodding low so their chins reached their chests in earnest deference.

“No, I’ll be fine. But you’re right about the Admiral. Are you sure you’re not lost, sir? You’re a long way from HQ. Need me to call you a car?” she joked, forcing herself to slip more into the atmosphere. Garrus’ hand in hers and Chakwas reassuring touch kept her grounded, let her know her feet still touched the ground.

“What is it with everyone and thinking I don’t know how to have a good time every once and a while? I’m 53 years old, dammit. I didn’t get here without an appreciation for some R&R. All in all, I’d say we’ve earned it. The rebuild effort on Earth and on the Citadel is commencing beautifully. We’ve finally got comm buoys transmitting signal outside of the Local Cluster. Yesterday, our technical specialist group pinged Tuchanka…”

“What did we say about shop talk, Admiral?” Chakwas clipped, cutting him off. Electra had never seen someone interrupt the Admiral before and had to bite back the grin that tempted her mouth at the sight of his stunned, wordless blinking.

“It’s fine, Karin. I actually missed it. I expected nothing less from a room full of politicians and diplomats. I just wish I knew who half these people are,” Electra said. Talk about the ongoing rebuilding efforts soothed her like a tender mother’s kisses. The snippets of it she’d gotten over the past few days had left her invigorated. On top of that, she didn’t know if she had it in her to engage in any other kind of conversation at the moment, much less anything about her.

“Oh, you know how these things go. Word travels fast and these people have nothing better to do than turn a perfectly nice ceremony into their personal funding proposal. See that woman over there? That’s Eviana Morris, acting CFO of Citadel Medical Group. If you’ve been wondering who has been cosigning the cost of your medical care, you’re looking at her,” Karin described. As they looked over at her, the vulpine woman tipped her the wine balanced in her spider-like finger towards Shepard, the image sending a bolt of ice through her feet.

“I recognize a lot of these men and women from C-Sec. Looks like a lot of them have been promoted. Ah, sh*t. I’ve been spotted,” Garrus said with defeat. He looked down at Electra, his eyes communicating his willingness to stay, but Electra nodded him off. With a touch on her waist, he strode over to a group with a boisterous greeting. The black cape billowing behind him made him look nothing short of regal.

“And then there was one. I’ll hand it to Castis, he has a tasteful flair for being such a practical C-Sec man. How are you doing, dear? Would you like to find somewhere to sit?” Chakwas asked.

“I’ll be fine, really. I’m tougher than I look,” Electra assured, though she didn’t have a mirror to check if the color had returned to her face.

Karin frowned and rubbed her shoulder, her mouth hovering over wanting to say something, when a gruff voice sounded from their right.

“Mind if I steal the bride?”

Wrex’s imposing figure stood out against the elegance of the crowd in his scuffed armor. It looked like he had at least polished away the worst of the grime that had built up. To top off his look, he wore a simple bowtie at his neck.

Electra squeaked and Karin stepped aside so she they could grasp each other’s forearms in a vigorous shake, the force exerted by the krogan shaking her whole body. It was better than a headbutt – Electra wasn’t sure this crowd would appreciate seeing her get knocked to the ground not even ten minutes after arriving. Karin and Hackett took this as their cue to leave, and Karin mumbled to her that she would be close-by if she was needed.

“You look dapper, Wrex. Too bad the females aren’t here to see you. You might finally catch a break,” Electra laughed.

“Get a picture while it lasts. Joker said this doesn’t count, so you better make it worth it. I worked hard for that stench.”

Wrex led her off from the prying eyes and people stepping out of the crowd to get her attention. They walked faster, slipping out onto the broad balcony that overlooked the Presidium. The faces on the balcony were all familiar to Electra’s relief, and the smiles that welcomed her helped the tightness in her throat relax. Joker, Samantha, Grunt, Wrex, Jack, Miranda, Vega, and Cortez. She felt like she’d walked into her home.

“You all clean up so nicely. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this couldn’t be the same set of miscreants from the Normandy. Joker, you look great,” Electra said. She wished Garrus were here.

Joker rubbed his hand across the beard he’d trimmed with a grin. “See Cortez? I told you I shouldn’t shave. If Garrus see’s Shepard making those eyes at me, he’ll break my arm or something.”

“Commander, you look…. gorgeous. I mean, you were always beautiful, but…” Traynor’s eyes roamed Electra’s body and she swallowed hard. From the way she leaned on the balcony railing, it looked like she’d already made a few trips to the bar.

“You look hot. And you’re letting the turian hit that? Damn, Garrus. Way to go,” Jack cawed.

“And you’re wearing a dress? I didn’t know you owned any,” Electra retorted. The dress was a low-cut burgundy number, Jack’s tattoos blending with the skin-tight gown like an extension of the fabric. She still wore her iconic boots, and it looked so natural that Electra thought it’d look silly any other way.

“She doesn’t. And I still want that back. Shepard, you do look good. And it’s good to see you out of hiding. Being at the center of it all suits you,” Miranda said, her head tilted back and her signature secretive half-smile co*cked.

“Where’s everyone else? Oh god, where’s Kasumi?” Electra asked. She didn’t need a C-Sec case opened for missing valuables on top of everything else.

“They’re somewhere inside. We haven’t been here long, but it seems like every time someone heads inside, they don’t return. We’re the survivors, and dammit, we’re going to hold this fort until we need more alcohol. Or food. I saw Kasumi when I showed up, but not since then. By the way Shepard, way to show up late for your own party. Real stylish. People were starting to think this was all some elaborate gotcha,” Joker explained.

“I need to find Liara. Did any of you catch the stuff going on between Hackett and Karin? Am I imagining things?”

“You’re not, but I wish I could stop. That’s a mental image I can’t get out of my head. The Admiral? Ay guey,” Vega shuddered as he spoke. At the same time that he did, both Cortez and Miranda nodded in a way that implied they didn’t share Vega’s distress.

“Oh, I need to see those chat logs. I wonder how long that’s been going on for?” Electra pondered, looking back through the windows into the hall. Knowing Liara, she was probably off sparkling in her element. If there was one thing this ceremony would have no shortage of, it would be valuable information. Just as she peeked through the crowd, she thought she caught a glimpse of Javik – wearing what he always wore – surrounded by a gaggle of fascinated people.

“You’re not leaving us so soon, are you? Once you go in there, you won’t be able to come back. You know that,” Cortez warned.

He spoke the truth. She could feel the interest in her buzzing on the other side of the door like an overcharged generator, and she’d be the bullet that makes it explode. She turned back to her friends. Grunt and Wrex were back to their regularly scheduled antics, discussing if they should test each other’s strength inside or out on the courtyard. If she needed a distraction, she knew they could make one.

“Don’t be antisocial on our behalf. We’re neighbors, after all. You can see us whenever you feel like it. You’d better go back in and give the good people of the Citadel what they want,” Miranda urged, twirling the wine in her glass.

“I’ll send Garrus out when I get the chance. And pick up the drinking. I’m talking scenes, yelling, hit on some diplomats. Look alive, people. I’ll see you all on the other side,” Electra bid them farewell and steeled herself before reentering the reception. Now that she was standing alone, she felt incredibly puny against the opulent excess all around her.

As soon as she closed the balcony door behind her, she came face to face with Kaidan, two drinks in his hands. An entire feature-length vid of emotions played out over his face: surprise, curiosity, lust, shame, relief, happiness, defeat. It’s like he didn’t even try to hide the way his eyes traveled over her body, lingering notably on her belly, then briefly but not inconspicuously on her cleavage, and then onto the faint bite marks still dotting her shoulder with a mixture of understanding and disgust. In his full dress – ranks and awards glistening all over – he looked quite handsome, a bit like the man she’d once come to care for. Bitterness had aged him, at least in her eyes.

“Shep, you look outstanding. Look, I’d stay and talk more but I’ve already gotten caught in two conversations. This sure is a helluva lot bigger than I was expecting. Why don’t you come out, we can talk more once I get these drinks where they’re going? I feel like we’ve barely talked since you got back. I know I said I’d make you dinner, but the Council has me…”

“Kaidan, take a breath. It’s okay. I’ve gotta go mingle, as much as I’d like to come outside with you and catch up. I’m meeting the Council tomorrow, so I’ll probably catch you at the Spectre Office if we don’t get a chance to talk tonight. It was nice seeing you, anyway. You look nice, too. You’ve got more medals than I remember,” Electra said, crossing her arms over her chest. Kaidan looked like his program was glitching, so she stepped to the side so he could pass. He nodded her a jilted goodbye and disappeared into the balcony.

No matter how much they talked, it seemed like she could never clear the air with him.

She walked out into the room with a seamless glide, trying to channel whatever few feminine graces she had left. The dress helped, but it could only take her so far. Unless she tried, she would always walk like an N7. Her eyes scanned the multitude of faces and locked on Liara’s on the far side of the room. She was speaking to someone who looked like Tevos from behind, but Electra had no way of knowing from this distance. As soon as she took a step in that direction, she felt a strong arm hook into hers and turn her around. As if peeling from thin air, Garrus muttered “found you” and began steering her over to a group of turians hovering around a table near the center of the room. Sparatus, Castis, and Victus were engaged in some raucus retelling of a story, their thundering laughs louder than any of the words they were saying, while Solana struggled to look interested in whatever an unfamiliar turian woman was telling her. As soon as she was facing the group, however, all attention locked onto her.

“Commander Shepard! It is excellent to see you back from your sojourn. I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow, but this is a much more fitting reunion, is it not? We’ve always met in times of war. The era of peace is upon us, so now we meet in celebration. Can’t say I pinned you for the type to fall for a turian,” Councilor Sparatus greeted, his quintessential stoicism eroding under the clutches of whatever drink he took regular swigs from. “Shepard, this is my wife Antana.”

The woman who had been speaking to Solana offered her hand in a shake that Shepard accepted. Antana herself was quite attractive, her plates a light reddish color behind the intricate white markings similar to Sparatus’. She looked to be quite a bit younger than her husband, her plates still gleaming with youth, and her hooded gaze regarded Shepard with inquisitive depth.

“It’s nice to meet you, Antana.”

“No, the pleasure is mine, Commander. I hope you like the dravesh. The recipe is my own. I’ve had a wealth of time to experiment since Sparatus keeps me cooped up here all day,” she said, her voice low and sultry.

Electra folded her brows and flashed a glance at Antana’s midsection, not wanting to presume anything since Garrus had mentioned turian women tended to not show nearly as much as human women.

“It’s exceptional. Thank you. Are you also…?”

“Yes, due in February, though I know it’s hard to tell. Harder bodies, tiny babies. It’s always astounded me that human fetuses are so large,” she tittered, eyes lingering on Electra’s stomach. Electra felt very seen by that comment and wanted to shrink back behind Garrus. She was contemplating risking it all for a round of shots. Antana continued, “I wonder if maybe our children will go to school together. The Citadel is home to a very prestigious academy for turian children. The program puts them at least two years ahead of their peers. I myself used to run the early civil service department, but I’ve since moved on to the executive panel. It’s a bit more hands off so I can focus on being a mother. Doesn’t help that the school was destroyed in the blast. Regardless, they can’t be enrolled until they’re three so there’s plenty of time to rebuild. I assure you that there will be a spot for your precious one. You’ll want the best.”

For being so reserved, Sparatus had bonded with quite a talker. At least her low voice had a calming property to it, though her words counteracted it in equal parts. Electra hadn’t thought anywhere close to that far ahead considering she didn’t even know just how turian or human her baby would be, much less what kind of education was in her child’s best interest. Was she supposed to know that? She desperately wished she had a mother; she didn’t even have any friends with kids.

How much could one drink hurt? Anything to take the edge off. Garrus had already found the bar, giving up on his word of not drinking quickly. She didn’t blame him. At least he could numb out some of the sensory overload.

“Well, glad to hear the babies are small. I mean, look at the size of this guy,” Electra chuckled weakly, patting Garrus on the back. The look he gave her was similar to one Solana had been sending her the whole time Antana spoke – a sincere and apologetic sympathy. “I was a little more than worried about that.”

She needed someone to say something else immediately. She couldn’t handle another minute of conversation with Antana, and desperately wanted the topic to shift from anything having to do with her body. Antana opened her mouth, but Electra was fortunately saved by Victus, who had as of yet been quiet. He’d been watching the exchange, his calm demeanor even a little amused.

“You have no idea how glad I am to see you alive and well, Commander. And then to be able to be here in person for your bonding ceremony – it’s a privilege I didn’t think any of us would live to see. Until recently, I numbered in the many who believed you were dead. After everything you’ve done putting this galaxy right, I couldn’t imagine the reality of you not seeing your hard work and sacrifice finally pay off. There doesn’t exist a more exceptional paragon of bravery, grit, and compassion. Cheers to you, Commander. Cheers to your sacrifice, and cheers to your life and health. This world is your world. Without you, none of us would be here,” Victus rallied, his voice rising above the low chatter of the room. As he spoke, those voices went quiet and Electra felt all of the eyes in the room turn to her.

She ducked her head, a humble smile spreading across her lips, as a resounding cheer spread throughout the hall, echoing against the high ceilings. If anyone tried to call on her to give a speech, she’d simply cease to exist. She hadn’t had trouble in front of crowds before, but without her armor and an immediate threat keeping her adrenaline high, she just felt small. She leaned into Garrus to remind herself that her feet were in full contact with the tile as an image of an N7 perched in a stool flickered through her mind. Did she recognize any faces from that place? That place… she still couldn’t quite get her slippery grasp around it…

She looked up at Garrus who had his chest puffed out as he beamed at her. He too raised the glass he held, the blue of his eyes trembling with the intensity of his admiration.

“You know,” Victus continued in a lower voice once the cheer settled back into a drone, “I sensed there was something more between you two when I came aboard the Normandy. You hid it well, Vakarian, up until I asked you to brief me on the commander. How did you describe her? ‘A bull-headed, goal-oriented weapon of mass destruction with opinions louder than an s-class thannix’? That’s a turian in love if I’ve ever heard one. Shepard, you held it together much better. I had no idea until your display in London that the love wasn’t unrequited. Now your relationship is healing human/ turian relations more in one day than thirty years of diplomacy and reparations. Do you make it a habit of playing the diplomat, or does it just come naturally?”

“I do what I think is right, Primarch. I lead with my heart. The Reapers were bigger than any cross-species conflict. The way I see it, if we don’t come together and treat every member of every race with fairness and understanding, we’ll be proving the Reapers right. We defeated them because they were wrong about us. We should honor the dead by standing for justice and equity. It’s what sets us apart from every cycle that came before ours, and it should be the model of our reconstruction. At least as long as I have any say in it,” Electra responded to the collected hums of approval from the turians around her. She didn’t raise her volume above conversation level, but many of the voices around her had resumed silent reverence as she spoke. She hoped one of those who stopped to listen to her was whatever reporter would be spearheading the story on the ceremony – if there was anything she wanted broadcasted, it was what she believed in. She caught a swell of pride in Castis’ expression, his mandibles twitching a bit wider, as he looked upon her and his son.

“You know, Commander, Udina’s spot on the council was never filled,” Sparatus said, his tone humorous but the intensity in his eyes giving away the veracity of the offer. She didn’t have to look to see Garrus narrow his gaze at Sparatus and something unspoken thrum in his subvocals. She had no interest in the council, not any time soon anyway. She couldn’t imagine sitting up in the tower and getting trapped in the same spell of legislative neutrality that held the council hostage. She wouldn’t forget how often they ignored her so easily.

“When I’m dead, Councilor,” she laughed.

“I wouldn’t shake on that if I were you. You have a penchant for dying. The day might come sooner than you expect,” Sparatus joked. If Shepard hadn’t genuinely laughed, the looks the others gave Sparatus would’ve cut clean through him.

They talked for a while, much of it Victus trying to tease more details out of the couple about their relationship and Sparatus egging him on with increasingly inappropriate questions as he continued to drink. Even Castis’ formality diminished, though his inebriation took the form of long-winded, heart-felt stories from his time in C-Sec. Judging from the looks on Garrus’ and Solana’s faces, these were stories they had heard often. As others flitted in and out of the circle of conversation – every person in the room transfixed by the couple, especially Shepard – Electra kept trying to search out her friends in the crowd. At one point she almost left to join Tali when Garrus caught her arm. She paused and saw Tali was joined by Kal’Reegar; the pair swayed close to each other, both clutching drinks next to a table littered with empty glasses and bottles. Were all quarians such avid drinkers? She exchanged an amused look with Garrus when the couple was suddenly pulled away by unseen forces.

Solana, who had disappeared in an attempt to escape Antana, reappeared to drag them through the lively crowd by their arms. She stumbled drunkenly and still walked with a limp, but her grip and pull were surprisingly strong. They were being pulled up the regal, sweeping staircase at the far side of the room, up to where they would be changing into their ceremonial xalques and proceeding with the rest of the night. Oddly enough, Shepard found she wasn’t ready for it to end. She’d been overcome with a tingling warmth that spread from her cheeks to her fingertips as she relaxed into the idea that she was finally safe. Though every word and passing body in Alliance uniform brought Anderson into her mind with a searing ache, she, for the first time in her life since she was a young girl, had a family. She had forgotten the feeling so much that she didn’t quite know what to do with it. She just knew she never wanted to be without it again.

As Castis caught up to them to take Garrus to get changed, Solana pulling Electra in the opposite direction, Electra latched on to Garrus’ arm with a fierceness that made everyone pause.

“Wait, wait, wait. Before we continue on with the night, I want to show you something. I was going to show you this later – I thought I’d surprise you as a gift – but now seems right. With all of us here. Garrus, I want you to see this first. Come here, look,” Electra urged.

She opened her omni-tool and pulled up the file she’d received earlier that day. Chawkwas had taken the new sonograms, placing her somewhere a little over four months with the new information from both of them. They estimated the conception occurred sometime between Despoina 2181 and the start of shore leave. They’d spent every night together since returning from the ocean planet, so it was impossible to get the exact day as it couldn’t be measured like a normal human fetus. The growth and hormonal markers were all completely new, especially with her body producing dextro-amino acids.

Garrus tucked her under his arm, clutching hers to get a better look at the sonograms, his eyes widening. It had been three weeks since the last sonogram pictures, the ones he showed Electra when she woke. Now, it was her turn to set the stars in his eyes. His mandibles went limp as he gazed on the new images, the image of their child coming through with even more clarity. The face looked so soft and tender, a lot like Electra’s human features, but the more human features pulled back into the makings of a developing crest, so small, so small. A boy. Spirits, we are going to have a son. I’m going to have a son. Garrus could hardly breathe at the startling realness of what he saw. His hand moved to Electra’s belly, a resonating hum vibrating his body against hers. Electra just watched him, tears in her bright eyes. Awake. Alive. His for as long as she’d have him.

Spirits I’m going to have a son!

Garrus pulled back and beckoned his father and sister and look at the pictures, realizing they had never seen the sonograms before. Both of their eyes widened with surprise at the mixed features – at the miraculous, tiny creature. Solana gasped, an unusual softness spreading across her hardened demeanor. Castis, however, showed the most change. He stared for a while, processing what he saw, before gathering his son in the first hug he’d given him in years. A low keen pulled from his throat against his son’s shoulder as Castis pounded his palm against Garrus’ back. Maybe it was just that the alcohol had softened him, but Castis couldn’t remember a time in recent years he felt so complete. He didn’t think he’d live to see the day. He didn’t think he’d ever hold a baby against his cowl again.

Garrus, my son! I’m going to be a grandfather! You will be a father, my son. My boy. All my life, spirits. You have made me happy. I haven’t known happiness like this in my life. A grandfather!

Garrus wrapped his arms around his father and swore he’d never let his own son forget what it felt like to know his love.

>>>>>>>>

Electra looked at herself in the mirror in awe. More than anything, she was impressed it had come together in only a matter of hours. The xalque consisted of a thick royal blue fabric cut into gold trimmed panels that went from her collarbone to the floor and draped from her arms. The lines were sharp and crisp, tucking in at her waist to accentuate her figure in a way she imagined looked much more pronounced on a turian body. Most impressive of all was the heavy headdress framing her head. Similar panels draped down the sides of her head, linked together by two sturdy golden chains that dropped down over her chest and back. Gold plates were shaped across her brow and down her jaw to imitate the appearance of turian facial plates, only the thin metal of her headdress had a much sharper and more delicate appearance that matched Electra’s own angular gaunt. Poltoria stood back, admiring her own work as Electra stood mystified in the mirror. She suddenly wished she’d asked Solana to actually explain the significance, but it didn’t matter now. There was no time, no matter how badly she wished she could get the day back. She had hardly even interacted with her own friends against the steady stream of strangers tearing at her attention the entire reception.

Electra was led from the room to the top of the staircase. At the bottom, a stage had been crafted, and Victus stood on top of it, looking up at her. The guests – which Electra realized had to number at least a hundred standing all together to watch – were almost entirely silent once Electra came to the top of the stairs, their eyes trained on her. Movement to her left grabbed her attention as Garrus emerged, his father following. His xalque looked similar to hers, though the lines were even sharper and the fabric formed pants around his legs, tight at the waist and bound with gold chains. Instead of fabric hanging from his head, his fringe had been draped with more chains that came around to rest in his cowl. A cape was pinned to his right shoulder; it looked older than the other pieces, the blue faded a from bright royal to a dull navy. The inside of it was all a glimmering golden fabric and words in a language Electra couldn’t read but thought looked similar to written turian were embroidered across the entire interior.

Shepard thought Garrus looked regal before, but this transcended that; he looked like an ancient deity or some mythological figure described in nearly forgotten lore. The sight of him brought a toothy smile from her as he approached her side, one he returned in his turian equivalent, mandibles spread wide. He took her arm and they began to descend the steps.

“I feel like an idiot. I would never wear something this bold on my own. But you… you look unreal, Electra. I am utterly taken with you. If you’re still planning on running, this is your last chance. After this, you’re stuck with me. You know too much. I’d have to kill you if you got away,” he mumbled. Electra had to swallow a laugh.

“I’m still on the fence. Is now a bad time to tell you I’m still in love with Alenko? I thought we might be able to work out some kind of rotation,” Electra shot back. This time it was Garrus’ turn to not laugh. For both of them, the overwhelming solemnity of the room was enough to make them want to crack up.

“Deal, but only because I’ve got an old bet with Joker. If Kaidan goes for it, I’ll pocket enough to buy the latest upgrade for the Black Widow. I’ll need something to keep the bed warm on nights you’re away.”

“Shhhh. We’re getting close enough that they might hear us.”

“Oh, I haven’t even gotten to the alien cum dumpster bit. I actually worked it into a song. Thought it might inspire a certain mood.”

Victus shot them a look, making it clear their voices were being heard, at least by him. Electra and Garrus bit down on their tongues again to keep from losing it, both frazzled with a mix of elation and nerves. Electra felt like a school-girl, and she hadn’t ever known that feeling in a traditional sense. She gave one last squeeze to Garrus’ arm before they moved to sit facing each other in the center of the stage, hands together between them and gazes entangled. Electra sat with her legs crossed, but Garrus had his bent in front of him, moving in so that they stretched on either side of her, closing them in a bubble together. They both studied every detail, every micro-expression, with diligent intent, committed to enshrining this moment in their memories. The morning felt so far away, and the hospital even further than that. Time tiptoed past them, pausing to look in on the rapture encircling the pair. They were the only two souls left in the galaxy – stars among stars, burning hotter and brighter than any other – and everyone in the room felt it. A ripple of luminescence shimmered in the air around them.

“Today, let us witness the eternal binding of these souls through material bond. Spirits of the first, give up your blessing and lay down your truth to the metal as we observe the forging of a new blade. The blade is the same as the first and will be the same as the last. Spirits of the first, through your infinity let these bodies be bound. Electra Shepard. Garrus Vakarian. As this is the first bonding of human to turian according to these ancient traditions, take out your dye and give the markings of your clan.”

Garrus reached over and grabbed a metal palette and a brush. Opening the compact, he dipped the brush into the blue dye – turian-blood-blue – and began carefully tracing it onto Electra’s skin. Victus resumed speaking.

“Before we knew the stars, when titans walked Palaven and the spirits lived among us, we only knew violence to others and responsibility to our clans-people. The spirits that live in all things gave the framework – gave us the metal in our skin, and the mettle of our souls – and revealed to us the essence of all things. But there was no balance. Our people were divided. The Spirit of Blade Aquilia embodied the fight of our people. Against the elements, against fellow turian, against the self. The Spirit of Honor Cato embodied the will of our people. The call to knowledge, to truth, and to order, but also to pride and selfishness. Blade and Honor were locked in battle, our people subject to those spirits in eternal conflict. There was no balance to Palaven, and the titans ruled.

“But even the most bitter battles don’t always end in death. When just as the two spirits nearly swallowed each other whole – and with it the turian – they instead became conjoined, creating something new entirely. Pietas, Spirit of Duty, presided over the turians, striking balance between Honor and Blade with the responsibility to understand and accept both as equal parts to a whole. From the first bonding, all other bondings are formed with Pietas, the Spirit of Duty within all things. As above, so below. More than just the joining of two individuals, it is the joining of two struggles that will always be at odds, within the solitary soul, within the collective. Pietas – Duty – to the self and to others. In all things, this balance continues. To remember to temper the blade and whittle honor, to be willing to die for the cause as a duty to the gift of life, is to be bound. Turn off your translators to hear the song of the Spirits as it was originally sung.”

Garrus had finished marking Electra’s face, looking like he could start keening at any moment at the sight, the blue playing against the piercing pale silver of Electra’s eyes. Both reached for their omni-tools, switching off their translators to hear the next part. A few others in the crowd did as well, though they were mostly turian.

What followed was a chorus of tones interacting across the range of hearing as Victus recited words in untranslated turian. Electra was used to hearing and feeling the subvocals in Garrus’ dual toned voice, but she had never experienced the full range of their voices. It felt both within her and all around her, a sensation as much as it was a sound. After some time of just Victus speaking, Garrus retook Electra’s hands, pressing them to his chest, and continued the words. Electra was enthralled. His mandibles had always been one of the most dynamic features of his face but watching them with the full intended intonation – though she understood nothing – brought her a new understanding of how they functioned in their language. She wished she could understand, but knew it was beyond the realm of possibility. For what it was worth, she felt the baby quickening at the richness of tone undulating through the air, a wind passing through her body.

After Garrus finished and Victus said a few more things, Garrus motioned for her to turn her translator back on. Hearing the voices come through intelligibly again was a comfort.

“As the Primarch standing of the Hierarchy, I recognize these two as officially bonded to one another by Hierarchal law. Where one goes, the other will follow, and when they pass from their material bodies, their souls will join with the Spirits in eternal recurrence. May their lives be long and balanced as the spirits walk with them.”

Garrus smiled and reached around Electra’s head to pull her forehead against his. She held him back, her fingers finding the soft spot under his crest. They sat like that for a while before Garrus brought his mouth to hers, extending their kiss before the crowd. Cheers broke out and their kisses broke open into wide smiles, their hearts racing as they touched one another. Garrus felt a change come over him – a presiding presence of peace – that he hadn’t felt in many months; directly following it was a carnal hunger for his mate that he’d never felt with such rapid intensity. He still didn’t give much credence to the spirits like his father did – he’d been failed too many times to believe now – but the way the new feelings swept over him were exactly as his father described they would be. And he needed her. Now.

“I get why he said everyone would need to leave immediately,” Electra breathed, stealing the words from Garrus’ mouth. While they were still sitting, she went in for another kiss, this time flicking her tongue against one of his sharp teeth. Garrus sucked in a breath and rose to his feet, pulling Electra up after him.

With ease, he scooped her into his arms and jumped down from the stage, clearing a path through the whooping crowd. Ordinarily, Electra didn’t like to be carried if she didn’t need to be, but the heat burning through her like an ember through dry grass left her feeling beholden to anything Garrus wanted to do to her body at that moment.

They made it outside where a car waited and were surprised when Cortez ran up behind them, hopping in the driver’s seat.

“Cortez, what are you doing here? I thought you were designated driver? I’m pretty sure none of the others can be trusted to get home,” Electra said, recalling seeing Tali stumbling over herself as she hollered at them from the crowd.

“Their rides have been arranged. I have a surprise for you – from all of us. Or at least a lot of us. Hop in. It’s not far.”

They got in, taking their seats and only holding themselves back from ripping their xalques to shreds because they couldn’t traumatize Cortez like that. He had blocked the windows of the car, leaving them blind to their destination. He was right in that it wasn’t too long until the car cam to a stop. The door hissed open.

They were at the D24 docking bay – Electra would recognize it anywhere – and all along the metal walkway were flickering blue biotic orbs illuminating the path up to the Normandy. The hull gleamed in the dim lights of the station. Electra looked at her ship with close to the same level of adoration as she had been looking at Garrus the entire night.

“Cortez, how the hell did you make this happen?” Garrus asked, the excitement in his voice making him sound at least a decade younger.

“Well, we all pushed for it, but you can mostly thank Admiral Hackett. It’s all yours for the night and under strict orders to not be disturbed. She still needs some maintenance, but everything should be suited for your needs. Just don’t go taking it anywhere and it should be fine.”

Electra threw a bear hug around Cortez’s shoulders and he had to brace himself against the unexpected force. She might look tiny now, but she hadn’t lost all of her strength. He thought he heard her crying but she turned away to look at her ship before he could tell if she was or not.

“You pass that hug along to everyone, and I mean everyone. I don’t care how you get it to Hackett – you find a way and that’s an order,” Shepard commanded through a strained voice, trying not to sob from the joy threatening the integrity of her heart.

“Aye, aye. I’ll be back at 0900 hours to pick you up. Goodnight, you two. Don’t break anything.”

Cortez disappeared back to the car, and as soon as he was out of sight, Garrus swept Electra back into his arms and marched her up into the Normandy. Their first order of business was in the Main Battery. Anything after that was subject to their whims, but it wouldn’t feel right stripping her and losing himself into her anywhere other than the place they first started to fall in love. They didn’t know what the next day held – or any day after that – but for tonight, they had each other. They had their family. They even had their ship, the only place they ever really called home. There was nothing more important than that now and nothing would ever be able to break that bond.

They were home and everything stopped for a while.

Chapter 14: The Breach

Chapter Text

0455 hours December 23^rd, 2187

Charon Relay, edge of the Sol System

Wul’Shirrel vas Calliope was supposed to be awake at the ship’s monitoring terminal when the Charon Relay blasted to life that morning. In fact, it was the massive explosion of blue light through the interior of the ship, accompanied by the wave of gravitational rocking, that stirred him from his sleep. He jumped and braced himself against the control panel, a wave of blinking lights coming to life beneath him as he stared in disbelief at the mass relay glowing in the dark grips of the Sol System. Almost as soon as the rocking stopped and the gravity around the relay stabilized, he heard the call coming in from the Alliance. He looked around – still alone in the ship since the next shift wasn’t due for another hour – and cursed himself for falling asleep.

What would he say? He couldn’t explain this, and the fear General Paxton instilled in him had him banging his fist against his visor as he switched between staring at the mass relay and the button that would patch him through. Had he accidentally pressed something when he was sleeping to make this happen? All their predictions and calculations put reactivation so far out of reach – surely it wasn’t, couldn’t have been, something he did. He shouldn’t have stayed up so late playing Skyllian-Five. Did he have a gambling problem? He accepted the call.

“Shirrel, I need confirmation that Charon just woke up. Do you have a visual?” Paxton barked.

“I-I do, sir. The Charon Relay is active. Running the communication diagnostic now.”

“Can you tell me how this is possible?”

“I… no. I didn’t do anything. The reports show a massive spike in electrical activity at 0453 followed by the spontaneous reactivation at 0455. Communication is confirmed with other relays – it appears the network is open and transmitting signal. Now receiving confirmation from relays: Harsa, Kappa Iota, 202, 78C2, 78B2…”

“I have the reports, nimrod. I need to know what happened? What did you see?”

Wul’Shirrel gritted his teeth against Paxton’s tone. He’d been working for him long enough now to know Paxton didn’t respect him – or any race that wasn’t human, for that matter – but he struggled when it came to brushing it off. His girlfriend told him to stick it out, that this posting would look good for the fleet and maybe give him some idea of what he wanted to do after his Pilgrimage ended, but all Wul had learned was that he hated being called names. And he hated waking up before 0700.

“It wasn’t working, and then it was. That’s it. There was some rocking, and the initial reactivation was bright, sudden, but no sign leading up to it aside from the spike in electrical activity,” he lied. Regardless, he was almost positive his false report wasn’t far from the truth. “I don’t have a visual on repair team 906.”

“Try to establish communication. Report back to me when you have it,” Paxton clipped, ending the call.

Wul’Shirrel exhaled a shaky breath as soon as he was sure the general could no longer hear him. Whether or not he believed his lie was irrelevant now. Wul was concerned, however, that the small repair ship teetering around the relay’s gyroscopic arms when he fell asleep had now vanished. There wasn’t even any debris signaling its destruction. He configured the communication channel to reach through the relay; perhaps it had been launched through at reactivation? It didn’t seem possible, but neither did any of this. Even now, he could see parts of the large structure flickering in ways they weren’t supposed to.

“Charter 906, this is Wul’Shirrel vas Calliope reporting in from the Huldy. Do you read me?” he spoke. Static responded. He expanded the range of his call and repeated his query.

After some time to no response, he considered reaching out to check in with Arcturus Station, or maybe even just calling Paxton back to tell him he was quitting now that the fleet would be able to return back home, when the line crackled and a muffled voice came through the line.

“…. is Charter 9…. lliope….. you copy? This is….”

Wul’Shirrel’s fingers flew across the control panel as he tried to clear up the signal.

“Yes, Charter 906, I copy. What’s your status? Do you read me?”

“I read you. Connection is bad. Don’t know how long we have. We were stabilizing the gyroscope, routine calibrations, when the relay went active. We… don’t know where we are. We didn’t have any coordinates… our navigation system is scrambled. Can you locate us?”

“Triangulating now, hang tight… Charter 906, are you still there? I need you to tell me what you’re looking at,” Wul said, squinting at the results scrolling across the screen in front of him. “Are you near a relay?”

“No, no relays here. We’re in orbit around an unfamiliar planet. Looks to me like it’s mostly ocean. No clue how we ended up here. Do you know where we are?”

“Yeah… I guess that sounds right. My system places you in the Psi Tophet system in Sigurd’s Cradle. It doesn’t make sense… you say you just landed there? 906…? Do you read me?”

The line filled with static again that no amount of configuration seemed to clear. Wul almost heard voices, but almost as soon as he made out some words, the line went dead. His fingers felt cold on the control panel as he watched the location signal shift from searching to undetermined.

As he tried to reestablish connection, considering it could just be connection error on his end, he heard a voice tear through his brain that caused him to double over, slamming his head down against the control panel.

The darkness has been breached. Your will belongs to us.

>>>>>>>

Tali’s eyes cracked open to the sound of her internal monitoring system beeping out a white alert. Environmental filters at critical capacity. Seek new filters as soon as possible. She waved off the alarm and pressed her head into the pillow, groaning at the pounding pain that gripped her brain. Her body felt like a frag grenade had gone off inside of her. She curled into herself under the blanket but jumped when she felt a body moving next to her. Despite her pain, she sat up and recognized the red of Kal’Reegar’s suit in the bed beside her. She quickly scanned the room – one of the rooms in the suite they’d rented out on the Presidium – and saw the door closed, the lights dimmed. She was alone. In bed. With Kal’Reegar. Keelah, how much did she drink? She flipped back through the events of the night. After the ceremony concluded, she remembered making her way over to the bar as the bartenders packed up and snagged a case of dextro-friendly wine, then she found her way into a cab – was it Liara pulling her into the seat? Traynor? – and then…. She didn’t remember anything after that. Maybe she just went to sleep?

She hoped she just went to sleep.

Maybe she did drink a bit too much sometimes.

Her visor read that it was 0816. She was supposed to be reporting to the Alliance for relay simulation runs in less than an hour and she still needed to stop by the flotilla for some new filters. If she left now, she’d probably make it to the lab before 1000. She might also be able to sneak away before Kal awoke and started asking questions. She at least recalled that he had gotten as drunk if not more drunk than she had. He wasn’t even making sentences by the end of the ceremony. Or was that her? The whole night was a blur at this point and her head was throbbing too much to try and focus on any one image.

She dragged her body from the bed, moving slowly so as to not make too much sound or movement. She’d pick up some stim packs at the fleet while she was at it – her head was currently in no state to think about relay mechanics. She almost made it to the door when she heard the sheets rustling followed by a low, guttural groan.

“Tali? That you?”

Keelah. sh*t.

“Er, yeah. Yeah, it’s me. How are you feeling?”

“I feel like death. How much did we drink? Wait… Tali, did we…?”

“I have to go, Kal. Uhhh… talk to you later? I’m going to be late,” she hastily replied, wishing she could dissolve.

“Tali, wait. I didn’t… Please don’t tell me I… Oh Keelah I’m so sorry if I…”

Tali wrung her hands together, briefly contemplating the freedom from this conversation just beyond the door, before retreating back to the bed. She dropped onto the edge stared at her lap while Kal sat up. Her omni-tool was pinging like crazy with a swarm of unread messages streaming in, but they would have to wait. Afterall, she was the one who invited Kal to the wedding. She might have even been the one who invited him to share the bed with her; that seemed more likely than the offender being him.

“I don’t think anything happened and I’m not mad. We were just really drunk. Like, really drunk. I can’t remember anything after we left. And if anything happened… well we were at least coherent enough to leave our suits on. My filters are done for, though,” she said, peeking at the dashing quarian in the bed with her. The muscle in his biceps pressed against his suit’s material as he stretched his arms behind his neck. She was glad her face shield hid the blush warming her cheeks.

“Mine are too. I have at least 3 alarms going off right now. If you aren’t mad, then maybe we can return to the flotilla together seeing as we’ll both be going to the same place,” he offered. He sounded like a nervous little boy – Tali wasn’t used to hearing him be anything but absolutely sure of everything. It diminished some of a mystique he'd taken on as one of the flotilla's bravest generals, but did nothing to quell the feelings Tali had been trying to suppress. “Are we the only ones here?”

“We’ll have to see. I’m not hearing anyone else, yet. Also Kal? If we could just keep this between us… we were drunk,” Tali prodded. She wasn’t blind to the way he circled around her all night, but she had more pressing issues on her mind, like the tidal wave of messages she still hadn’t opened and the fact that with each passing minute, her projected arrival at the lab got later and later.

Kal looked a little shocked at her words, but it quickly dissolved into a rapid nod. They were both practically elites by Quarian standards – any information about their escapades would cause more talk than either of them had time to deal with. Still, Kal couldn’t help wondering what happened between them last night that placed them in a room by themselves. In bed. It wasn’t like he thought Tali inviting him to Shepard’s wedding was a simple friendly gesture, but Tali also hadn’t given him any explicit reason that it was a date. At least, not that he could remember. The night was a blur – the last thing he remembered was putting his hand around Tali’s lithe waist to keep her from falling over while the crowd moved around Garrus and Shepard as they left the venue.

Tali and Kal stepped into the living area of the suite where the blinding light of day pushed in through the windows. Bodies were strewn about the furniture in a way that looked like the aftermath of a major battle – Jack, Vega, and Cortez were draped over one of the plush sofas; Grunt was splayed on the floor by the bar; Traynor was slowly beginning to move from the pile of couch cushions and blankets balled up by the door. Bottles, half-full glasses, and random articles of clothing were littered across every surface. At least Tali knew she wasn’t the only one who had made some questionable decisions.

“You’re up. Good. Have you checked your messages?”

Tali jumped at the sound of Liara’s voice behind her. She stepped from one of the suite’s rooms, a datapad in each hand, How she always managed to look so collected after a night of drinking astounded Tali.

“No, of course I haven’t. You’re the weird one for being up and working already.”

“You’ll want to. I’ve procured stim packs for you at the bar and arranged for transport to the fleet. Your shuttle should be here any minute.”

Tali and Kal moved to the bar where Liara had in fact prepared the stim packs. They plugged them into their suits, feeling an immediate relief take over some of the pain and discomfort of their hangovers. Tali opened the first message and her eyes immediately went wide. She looked up at Liara, then over to Kal who was staring intently at her, waiting.

“We need to get to the flotilla immediately. The mass relays are online.”

>>>>>>>

Bitter, biting water lapped at Electra’s shins, brittle sea foam spitting through the whipping wind around her. She wrapped her arms around her, trying to squint through the elements, but the salt in the air burned her eyes. Like being caught in a pool of tears, she was stranded, drowning, her own internal numbed and muted by the ravages of the world around her. Moisture like a chain, chill like shackles restricting her movements to mere shivering. She had only felt so cold once before. She recalled the feeling of her breath being sucked out of her by the unforgiving, unfeeling vacuum of black space and tried to sink back into it. Had it really been so cold? Not as cold as this, or perhaps a cold of a different, deeper variety.

A wave picked up from the roiling ocean all around her – at first, she thought the wall of water in the distance could be land, but as she trudged closer, fighting the grip of murky water pulling at her feet, she realized that she only struggled closer to danger. The wave was coming at her, fast. In fact, she hadn’t been moving forward at all, her movement an illusion of the inevitability of her being consumed by the water. She tried to scream, calling out a name that felt familiar to her lips, but the sound of her voice was lost in the crashing roar of the sea. As the wave neared, she huddled down, curling her body inward to protect the life inside, but found her belly was flat and empty – her son was no longer inside of her where she could shield him.

As soon as she realized this, the water took her under. Her body was tossed about, all control seized by the violent power of the wave that threatened to tear her limbs from her body, her skin from her bones, and she could only hold her eyes and mouth shut as her soul cried out for her child. Her lungs burned for oxygen.

I won’t leave you, I won’t leave you. I love you, my sweet baby. I would never leave you.

Almost as soon as it began, the spinning and twisting stopped and she felt herself standing again. She opened her eyes and gasped for breath, but just as she did, the feeling that she was depleted of air faded as if it had never existed in the first place. Her hands shot to her belly and her heart sunk as she realized it was still flat and the ocean still twisted around her feet in every direction.

She’d been here before. She knew this place. It called to her – had called to her – every day since she left. 2181 Despoina.

She continued calling out – for Garrus, for her son, for anyone at this point that might get her out of this watery prison – but her voice was dampened by the cold and the wet and, after some time spent wasting her energy into the unresponsive emptiness, she sunk down to the water and finally let the depths have her body. Lower and lower into them she sunk, staring up at the surface at first before turning her eyes to the infinite darkness below. As the pressure built in her body, her eyes struggled to stay open, until deeper, deeper, deeper, they couldn’t help but close lest her eyes burst from their sockets and her brain squeeze out from her ears.

Let them have her. She failed the ones who needed her. Let her be consumed by the weight of the water, the weight of her failure.

Just as she felt her innards being crushed under the force of the ocean above her, she felt herself settle in the silt of the alien seabed and opened her eyes. Her body had come to rest on a rock that was alight with the bioluminescent glow of strange plants. Sea vents pushed long lines of bubbles up through the many meters of water entombing her in the freezing depths. Is this how it felt to be buried? Is this what a grave felt like? No matter how many times she had died, she still didn’t really know or remember how it felt to be dead. She tried to not let the genuine curiosity of that elusive cold creep into her thoughts too often – it was a cruel thing to dream of when so many needed her to be alive.

She was so tired, though. So, so tired. Sleep wasn’t sleep, anymore. She awoke every morning to the thought of that unfeeling nothing of cold, open space. How, in that moment before it all went dark, she closed her eyes and stopped struggling against the dying light and felt for once in her life a feeling close to absolute rest.

Yes, Electra. Sleep now. Let them find you many years from now when their lights go out and their flesh falls from their bones and their eyes rot out and their brains are eaten by worms and dirt – let them be angry then. You know they won’t, because then they too will know what it means to dream.

She let her eyelids drift back down over her eyes. She would rest here – it’s what she really wanted – but as she gave herself over to the heaviness of sleep, a hand lashed out and grabbed her wrist, yanking her up, up, up, and reintroducing the blinding pain of existence into her body as she got closer and closer to the surface. She broke through the water, screaming and fighting against the grip that brought her here, but the strong arms only brought her closer in to the smooth skin of a warm chest.

Siha, it isn’t your time. Don’t listen to them. You have to fight.

Electra opened her eyes, surprised to see - of all people she never thought to see again - Thane. He rocked her against his body as he walked her across the water. As they moved further, she realized they rode atop an enormous wave that guided them through the wind and towards an unfamiliar shore. She tried to crane her head to look back, but Thane’s gentle hand guided her head into the crook of his neck.

My son. I’ve failed him. Please take me back. I told him I wouldn’t leave him, she begged. Her voice was weak now.

Thane set her down on the shore and sat beside her. His breathing didn’t sound labored and broken like it had the last time she sat with him. Sunlight broke through the roiling gray sky overhead, warming her skin, and the feeling the blood rushing back into her extremities filled her with anguish.

You haven’t failed him, Siha, Thane responded, placing her hand on her stomach which had taken on its familiar swell.

Her breath caught in her throat at the sensation and she couldn’t decide whether she should be elated or horrified. Her body was still gripped with fear and her mind still called for the heavy depth of the sea. Had her internal emptiness been a trick? Had she almost taken her son down with her? Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad. After all, if she couldn't promise that he'd feel no pain once her body could no longer hold him in the shelter of her flesh and blood, was it worth it to subject him to that possibility? Was it not better to take him back, down, down, down to the unfeeling expanse of endless sleep? He could sleep forever inside of her, never knowing the harshness of drawing breath or the irrevocable pain of knowing.

Why are you here?

I should be asking you that question, Siha. I'm supposed to be here because I never stopped being dead. So now I'm asking - did you?

From the moment she jolted awake tangled in Garrus’ arms amid the blue glow of her fish tank, Electra knew something had changed. She felt it flexing in the air, and both of their omni-tools were going off with an unending stream of messages and alerts. Garrus started moving as soon as she did, grumbling as he silenced his omni-tool and pulled Electra closer to his body, but she just couldn’t bring herself to keep her eyes closed. The feeling that she was needed vibrated her to her core. Feeling that ringing urgency while waking in her bed on the Normandy was such a familiar feeling that she almost felt like all the events following her landing in London were part of some cruel dream. No, she needed to get up. She propped herself up on her elbow and ignored Garrus’ groan of dissatisfaction as her skin peeled away from his – she even ignored how her stomach screamed for something to eat. Somewhere outside the safety of the ship, she heard movement – the sound of ships firing up and muddled announcements reaching across the docking bay. When she opened her inbox and saw not only multiple messages signaling the reactivation of the relays but also a few from the council asking that she come earlier than she’d planned, any and all delusions about having a calm, quiet morning with her beloved were extinguished.

“Garrus, get up. They got the mass relays working again,” she prompted as she swung her legs out of bed and began searching for something to wear.

They’d lost their xalques somewhere between the CIC and the main battery – not that those would be appropriate things to wear anyway – but internally thanked Cortez when she found clothing for them both in her wardrobe. The mention of the relays had Garrus fully awake; without missing a beat, he caught the clothing she threw at him as he checked his own messages.

“Looks like that got all the comm channels up, as well. What time was your meeting with the council? Looks like Sparatus wants me to come up to discuss the news from Palaven.”

“They’ve asked me to come ASAP, so we can go together. What’s the news from Palaven?” Electra asked as she alerted the council that she was on her way. Her mind was going a million places – would traffic be bad? Had she even decided if she was ready to take on her Spectre duties?

“There’s a lot, none of it looks good,” Garrus responded. Electra watched him get dressed, sad to see his glistening skin and plates covered up. His own expression reflected hers as she buttoned her shirt, covering her breasts. “As disappointing as it is that we can’t spend more time here, it does seem fitting that the world sets into motion the moment we get a chance to be alone together, doesn’t it?”

“I was just thinking how much this felt like old times. When in Normandy history have we ever had a great night in bed together and the luxury of afterglow the next morning? The last time we did this, we took down Cerberus the next day.”

“The last time I woke up in this bed, I woke up alone and thinking you were dead. I’d take this over that any day,” Garrus sighed, closing his inbox and crossing the room to stroke Electra’s cheek. Her eyes shone in the wavering blue light as she looked up into his. She looked like a dream, but the warmth of her skin on his hand confirming that she wasn’t – that she was now his bonded mate and the mother of their son – sent elation roaring through him. He’d never let her go. Not now or ever. To have her fade back into the realm of dreams… he pulled her into his body and squeezed her against him, relishing in the hum of pleasure she made into his chest.

The pair left the Normandy and were immediately thrown into the chaos that had overtaken D24. Travel codes sounded over the intercom and people rushed around them, blind to their existence as they wheeled shipping containers in every direction and yammered into their omni-tools. All around them, Citadel space was alive with a swirl of flickering lights as ships left their ports. The queue to get through the relay must already stretch miles into space; people on the Citadel had been waiting many silent months to get back home and would waste no time leaving. The people of the Milky Way weren't known for staying in one place for too long.

Before they could even call for a shuttle, they found a C-Sec escort waiting for them outside the docking bay. The officer told them Tevos sent him to bring them through the low lanes as travel everywhere else was at a near stand-still due to the influx of movement across the station. However, even the low lanes were busier than usual. A surge of life not unlike lightning hitting primordial soup gripped the Citadel – with everything and everyone in motion, the already elevated security measures were being pushed to their limits. The officer escorting them let them know that they should get comfortable.

Electra sighed, partially grateful for the inevitability of some down-time (though her hunger was mounting), and cast the news up to one of the shuttle’s screens. As the words began to pour out into the car, she leaned her head on Garrus’ shoulder.

“… in from across the galaxy has many citizens concerned about the already limited resources, but we urge all citizens to remain calm and stay home if possible while the Council assesses the galactic situation. The council has not released any official statements regarding the mass relays though the Alliance has issued a travel advisory to help limit the surge of activity in Sol space. Now back to Regis Tractus on more Citadel news. Regis?”

“Thank you, Thera. Perhaps just as exciting as the news that the mass relays have been reopened, the news of Spectre Electra Shepard’s return has swept the Citadel. In her first public appearance since she was listed as M.I.A., Commander Shepard was bonded to General Garrus Vakarian last night. Footage from the Ceremony, which took place at Councilor Sparatus’ private home in the presidium, has now officially confirmed the rumors that the Commander is alive and well with many speculating that she will be taking over the position of human councilor.”

Electra and Garrus watched in silent horror as footage from the ceremony was spread across the screen. She didn’t remember any cameras or drones at the reception – not that she was paying particularly close attention – but sure enough, there she was at Garrus’ side as she entered, the frame zooming into her face that replayed her slowly registering panic as she surveyed the crowd.

“Didn’t your dad say no cameras?”

“I guess not. It would be futile regardless. I’m sure Liara already knows who sent this footage in if you’d like to press the issue,” Garrus grumbled. His tightening grip on his knee made Electra reach over to take his hand in hers. She rubbed a slow circle into his palm before placing it on her thigh.

“It’s fine, love. I expected it. I don’t like it, but my life hasn’t been private for the past few years and that isn’t going to change now,” she reassured.

She didn’t have to like that she was a celebrity; she only had to accept it. What good would it do to track down the person who got the footage, anyway? She could probably flip to any major or minor news channel at this exact moment and find a few different angles and scenes from the night sent in by a number of different people. If anything, now she had footage of what would be probably one of the most meaningful nights of her life to look back on whenever she wanted to escape back to it for a while. It would be nice to remember the last somewhat slow and undramatic night she’d probably experience for the next few years at least.

“I’m just worried that you’re now an even bigger target. I can’t protect you from everyone. What happens when you start showing more than you already are? We’re lucky that these gossip jockeys didn’t catch on to that,” he said into her ear, careful to keep his voice low enough that the C-Sec officer couldn’t hear them.

“We’ll hide it for as long as we can, and when we can’t, then we deal with it. Or let Liara deal with it. Surely you’re not forgetting who our friends are. We aren’t alone. If we made it through the Omega 4 relay, Cerberus, and the Reapers, we can make it out of the sights of the press.”

Electra turned Garrus’ head away from the screen to look at her. Her words wouldn’t mean anything to him until she could prove it, but she always proved it one way or another. She always came back alive. She always found a way. Something about dying twice had a profoundly calming effect on the nerves when it came to facing any other threat, though now that she was pregnant, she couldn’t help but feel some of his fear scratching at her bones. She didn’t care if her life wasn’t guaranteed, but her son – that precious and small life encased in her body – made every threat to her life that much more real and dire.

They were dropped back on the presidium, the busiest they’d ever seen it, and escorted directly to the Citadel tower. Reporters flocked around the entrance, held back by a line of particularly sturdy C-Sec officers that maneuvered the passage of Electra and Garrus deftly and carefully so that no one else could pass into the elevator. While in the elevator, watching through the glass as more and more ships took off into space, the automated announcement reel droned on about news coming in from the galaxy. Starvation, ruin, decay. All of it would sit better if Electra could just have something to eat first.

To Electra’s surprise, she found that her and Garrus weren’t the only ones present to meet with the council at this moment. In fact, the meeting was already in session; Admiral Hackett and multiple Spectres, including Kaidan, were all present as Garrus and Electra stepped into the meeting. Kaidan and Hackett both looked to fighting hangovers, and though she wanted to drink last night, she was glad her condition prohibited it; they looked like zombies as they nodded to her.

“Commander, General, glad you could make it. We apologize for such short notice, but we’ve been scrambling with the influx of information following the reactivation of the mass relays. Everyone else is dismissed except for Admiral Hackett,” Valern instructed. The other Spectres stepped out of the call, scattering behind them in a rapid flurry like a handful of marbles tossed into a bowl.

“What have I missed?” Electra asked.

“Much, Commander, but not anything directly related to you. Seeing as you haven’t been awake long enough to hear all of the news, the best summary I can provide is that devastation has spread far and wide. Populations across the galaxy are all dealing with shortages of food, fuel, medicine – if it is a necessary resource, it is needed somewhere. Conflict has surged across all sectors as resources have thinned. Though we are now sending out immediate relief to those places most affected, direct intervention is necessary.”

“What do you mean by direct intervention?”

“They mean that we are sending military forces into populations already dealing with hunger and disease, and they’re asking me to send Alliance forces to shoot innocent civilians,” Hackett growled in response.

“Is this true? After everything, your solution is to use force?” Electra asked.

“We see no better alternative. Many of these conflicts have escalated past diplomacy. Mercenary groups have stationed themselves at the head of most populations in the absence of unified government bodies and, seeing as much of the official military forces were scattered and isolated by the final conflict, these groups were the best option for immediate relief and guidance. We’ve determined that they have too much power and need to be put down so we can reinstate order and control of resources across the galaxy,” Tevos explained, though her words felt empty. Calculating a response so cold and devoid of empathy was the exact reason why Electra knew she could never serve on the council.

“Let me go, then. Let me find a way to make peace. These mercenary groups can’t be very well established – they’re probably just desperate people who desperately need order. Not more bloodshed,” Electra offered. She felt Garrus’ eyes snap in her direction but she didn’t dare look now.

“Then you’ve answered what we brought you here to ask you. Seeing as you’ve now officially gone public, we took the liberty of reinstating your Spectre status. However, the terms of your reinstatement are up to you. We would have you return to full service, but considering your condition, we are beholden to your discretion regarding your ability,” Tevos said, picking her words carefully. “You seem to have already made up your mind that you are fit to travel.”

“I am,” Electra confirmed, though she hesitated. She could feel Chakwas’ disapproval from here. “But things will be different. I would like to stay out of conflict as much as possible. It is no longer just my life on the line. The safety of my child and the preservation of my health takes precedence, and as such I will have to use my better judgement.”

“Of course, Commander. We expected nothing less, and we are prepared to make even more accommodations to ensure your safety and comfort. It’s the least we can do for you.”

“And you still have the full support of the Alliance behind you. The Normandy is yours to command; her retrofits will be expedited to have her ready before the end of the week. Shepard, are you sure you want to do this? We’re glad to have you back – God knows we need it – but are you sure this is what’s best for you?” Hackett added, reaching over to put a hand on her shoulder in an uncommon display of tenderness. She didn’t know how to respond to the unexpected softness in his eyes. She also didn’t know how to respond to the unfamiliarity of the option to say no.

“I want to help how I can. As soon as I knew I wasn’t dead, I knew that my job wasn’t finished. I’m prepared to do what it takes.”

“Hold on. What exactly are you offering to ensure her safety? Old measures won’t cut it,” Garrus cut in. Electra dared glance at him, but he’d fixed his attention on the council. He looked positively formidable; even Sparatus ducked his gaze.

“Ground forces on site for every assignment. If you don’t want to see armed conflict up close, we’ll arrange for a strike team at your disposal. You can command entirely remotely from the Normandy if that’s what you’d prefer. Alliance and Spectre resources will be made available to the entire crew of the Normandy as well. Among the retrofits, an upgraded med-bay has been included, as well as an advanced defense system for the ship itself. We will have a constant line of communication to your ship and are surrendering any and all matters of safety to your judgement,” Tevos detailed. She looked like she could go on, but Electra held up her hand.

“Thank you, councilor. If I have any more requests, I’ll let you know as they come up. There is another issue of armor,” she said, turning to Hackett. “Most armor made for humans doesn’t accommodate maternity, but I won’t be going groundside without it. What are my options?”

“Don’t worry about that, Shepard. While it’s the first of its kind, the Alliance armory has been working on something to specifically fit your needs. When it’s ready, we’ll have it sent over to the Normandy,” Hackett said with an almost imperceptible wink, something Electra had never seen him do before. He’d gotten a bit looser since the Reapers were destroyed.

“You know, Commander, if you are concerned with safety in the field, Udina’s spot is still empty and now more than ever needing to be filled. Your skills in diplomacy and experience in the field recommend you for the position,” Valern prodded.

“I have already told Sparatus I won’t be joining the council, and I meant it. However, if you are looking to fill the role, you should defer to Admiral Hackett for final approval. I trust that he will be a good judge of humanity’s representative,” she replied firmly. She had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last time she was offered the position, though the thought of it filled her with nauseating dread. That mixed with her overwhelming hunger made her grip her rumbling stomach. “I apologize if I’m cutting our meeting short, but I need to get home. Before I leave, can you tell me where I’ll be heading first?”

“We called General Vakarian here to discuss that exactly. We believe you should make Palaven your top priority. A mercenary group calling themselves The Steel Fist has overpowered the Hierarchy in terms of organizational influence; they have completely taken over the allocation of resources. We ask that you both accompany Primarch Victus to oversee the dispersal of this group. I believe your unique union will inspire turians to accept Alliance assistance and undermine the hold The Steel Fist has over the populace,” Sparatus explained.

“What exactly are you asking me to do?” Garrus asked.

“I can’t say. You will need to ask the Primarch for more details.”

“And what about other planets? As much as I care about Palaven, I don’t want to neglect populations that might be worse off in favor of helping council races first,” Electra asked.

“Securing Palaven and reinstating the Hierarchy is paramount to securing safety in other regions. As for those regions, we will send detailed assignments by the end of the week as we gather more information. Expect that Tuchanka is a probable next step. For now, focus on building your crew for Palaven. Commander, General, you are dismissed. Admiral, we ask that you remain,” Tevos instructed. Before Electra could step away, Tevos trained her eyes on her and added, “Take care, Commander. I am invested in the safety of your family; we all are, more than you may expect. We will take great care to ensure that your peculiar child comes into this strange, new world.”

Something in the darkness of her eyes as she spoke – a wavering in the air around her words – sent a shiver down Electra’s spine just as the vidcom disconnected.

Chapter 15: The Brightest Star

Chapter Text

Garrus paced back and forth through the apartment’s small office – he’d been doing so all morning as he juggled call after call. Docking officials, the Hierarchy, Alliance protocol officers, C-Sec, C-Port, C-Dec. Electra flitted around him – he hardly seemed to notice her comings and goings – and she was beginning to worry that his erratic and anxious movements would bore a tunnel straight down into the apartment beneath them. The lunch she’d brought him an hour ago had grown cold and she knew it might be one of the last good meals he’d have before being relegated to freeze-dried meals on the Normandy. Even with all the retrofits, they still only had a tiny kitchen to accommodate the entire – now expanded – crew of the Normandy. Shepard felt it would be too much at this point to ask that it be changed considering all of the other changes she’d asked for over the past week, especially since one of those was the expansion of her personal cabin.

“He knows we’re supposed to be at the docking bay in twenty doesn’t he? Like, you told him?” Solana asked as Shepard confirmed with Joker that the rest of the crew had boarded the Normandy and were just waiting for them.

The two women picked over some of the last food that had to get eaten before their departure – they had been ready to leave for over an hour. Originally, Solana was supposed to return to Palaven earlier in the week with Castis and Victus aboard the THS Condor, but after Solana expressed interest in traveling aboard an Alliance ship, Electra fought both Castis and her bond mate to bring her along, at least until Palaven. She figured that Solana could fulfill some of the gaps in tech combat strength missing among her current crew. Her leg was nearly healed and the med-bay upgrades on the Normandy were also better than anything she’d be able to get on Palaven considering the current state of the planet. It was an easy sell at the end of the day, and it was also her and Solana’s decision.

“Oh, he knows. But you know Garrus. He likes to talk like he doesn’t care about all the rules and regs, but it’s built into him. Itching to get on the Normandy?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. Don’t get me wrong, your apartment is great, but considering I’ve waited my whole life to get a taste of vigilante space travel, this domestic bliss doesn’t really cut it. So, what do you say? Should I go in there and get him myself? It’s my birthright to annoy him,” Solana offered. Electra was about to take her up on the offer when Garrus strode into the kitchen, scarfing down his cold leftovers as he walked to the sink.

“Welcome back to the real world, Garrus. Can we finally leave?”

“Cortez is in the garage with the Kodiak. I’ve armed the security system and routed the vid feed to the Normandy’s remote monitoring system, so we need to leave before we trigger the alarms. Try not to touch anything on your way out. Wouldn’t want Karin to get bogged down with picking glass out of someone’s face before we even took off, and it’s not like I can afford to get more handsome. I’m a married man, now,” he chuckled darkly as he ditched the dish. Electra smirked in contrast to Solana’s eye-roll.

“You remembered that Miranda will be staying here while we’re gone, right?” Electra asked as she gathered the remaining leftovers into a small bag before Garrus could usher her and Solana to the garage.

“Of course. Or did you forget that I used to have a bounty that could buy a planet on my head? Sometimes I think you mock me on purpose,” Garrus scoffed, reaching down to pinch Electra butt just fast enough that his sister couldn’t catch the motion. As he closed and armed the door behind him, he grinned as Electra leaned back to whisper in his ear,

“And what are you going to do about it?”

Despite the stress of preparing for another undetermined stay in space, the stacking bureaucratic pains of reinstatement, the strange changes and mood swings seizing her body, and the general state of despair and chaos gripping the galaxy, Shepard felt nothing short of breezy for the past week as they prepared to leave the Citadel. There was nowhere she felt more comfortable than on the Normandy, the almost silent hum of the Tantalus drive core propelling them between the long swaths of darkness between stars. While she’d spent the week saying goodbyes to her friends with no idea when she’d see many of them again, she’d also spent the week getting the confirmation from others that they would be returning to serve under her command. The familiarity of returning to the unknown surrounded by the best people she’d ever had the honor of meeting and fighting alongside minimized any other detail.

Over the last week, traffic had died down a considerable amount with just the vast departure of refugees and stranded travelers returning to their home planets. With confirmation that mass relay travel was stable and secure – and with restrictions still in place – the Citadel had made it a priority to unload some of the weight to prepare for a return to the Widow System. The move was still a huge risk considering how much damage still hadn’t been repaired; the Council had hoped the flotilla might stay behind long enough to assist in assessing some of the damage, but they were one of the first major groups to leave en masse through the Charon relay.

Of all the people Electra was sad to watch go, Tali was the hardest. Rannoch hadn’t been prioritized as a part of Electra’s immediate destinations and, considering how much work would need to go into stabilizing just one priority planet, Electra was worried she wouldn’t be able to see her friend until perhaps even after her son was born. Currently, their only tie to Rannoch was that Tali brought EDI with her, promising Joker that she would do whatever she could to bring her back. EDI wasn’t only important to Joker, though; Electra hadn’t once been able to shake that she was perhaps the only one who might be able to tell her how she was pregnant with a human-turian baby.

“Commander, Admiral Hackett is on the line if you’re ready to speak to him,” Cortez alerted her as they settled into their seats.

“Patch me through.”

The speakers crackled to life and Hackett’s flickering hologram stepped into the Kodiak. Electra saluted him curtly, though since her wedding, the motion had been feeling more and more arbitrary. Though she had to mentally curtail the urge, she couldn’t help but feel Hackett was filling some of the void Anderson left behind. She got the sense he knew that Anderson’s death was hard for her – now more than ever – and he’d been revealing a softer side she didn’t know he was capable of. The man was even joking with her now. Hackett. Joking. She might as well have woken up in an alternate timeline.

“Shepard, glad I could catch you before you made it off the Citadel. I trust the Council has fulfilled its promises to bring the Normandy up to your standards?”

“They’ve gone above and beyond. Thanks for giving them access to an Alliance ship – I know that couldn’t have been easy. The results are worth it. How’s Arcturus?”

“Better than when we arrived. We’ve done more in repairs in a week than in the three entire months before the relays opened. I would be there in person to see you off if I wasn’t up to my neck in paperwork. I thought I should let you know that your custom N7 armor has been sent over this morning – you’ll have to let me know how it works out for you. If at any point you’re considering getting it damaged, remind me to tell you how much it cost the Alliance so I can change your mind. Is that clear?”

“Since when have you been one to worry about budget? Come on, Admiral – I didn’t save the galaxy to worry about money. You still haven’t told me what happened to all of my savings between the years of 2183 and 2185.”

“Consider this your backpay, then. Anyway kid, how are you feeling?”

Kid? Electra saw Cortez almost look back in disbelief, choosing to shake his head instead while he waited to get screened into dock access. The line crept at a snail’s pace.

“I feel great. Relatively speaking. Karin has me cleared on all physical metrics and my PT has started paying off – I really put myself into it this week. I’m still shooting at a thirty-six to two platinum standard, not that I’m looking to test that outside of a sim chamber,” she clarified, resting her hand on Garrus’ thigh before he could look up from his omni-tool to frown at her. “I can’t say I’m not a little nervous to see how the rest of the galaxy has been coping for the past few months, but I’m also ready to get the hell off this station. I miss the action. I know you understand that.”

“There’s nothing like it. That’s what separates a regular soldier from command. Where some do this out of a sense of duty, those in command – who are built for command – do it because they love it. I feel sorry for the sad sack that eventually crosses your kid’s bad side. There’s no way the pair of you aren’t raising an absolute force to be reckoned with,” Hackett mused. Just off screen, Electra could hear a knock on a door that made Hackett drop his reverie in exchange for a weathered sigh.

“Duty calls?”

“Incessantly. Well, you know how to reach me. Don’t hesitate if you need anything. Hackett out.”

The call ended in time for the C-Port customs official to board the Kodiak, datapad in hand and expression of weary apprehension at the realization of who he was looking at equipped. Electra wasn’t even in armor – she couldn’t look that intimidating that just the mere sight of her could topple one of C-Port’s notoriously formidable bureaucrats.

“Commander Shepard, I’m required by Council authority to submit your transport to a routine and random search. You are legally required to tell me what type and how many weapons are currently aboard your vessel for logging before I can allow you into the docks,” he said.

Cortez turned around in his seat, the look of deepest apology set in his eyes. They were due to begin pre-flight checks in seven minutes – in seven minutes, they might be able to cover just the weapons in Garrus’ overhead compartment. She grinned at Solana – who had been dying to get a taste of Spectre power (though Electra theorized she only did this out of some desire to snub Castis’ sense of law and order) – before turning back to the beleaguered employee. It almost felt mean at this point.

“Do you even need to hear the whole spiel? You know what I’m going to say. I’m a Spectre. And under normal circ*mstances I’d be more than happy to show you all the weapons on this shuttle, but I’m running a bit behind schedule. If it makes your life easier, I can have my armory inventory sent over to C-Port directly and credit you for it. But right now, I’m in a bit of a hurry,” she reasoned. She could feel satisfaction practically rolling off Solana.

“I’m sorry, Commander, but the law is the law. You have been randomly selected for a routine weapon search and I’m compelled, by law, to complete said search immediately. If you’re expecting this to take a long time, your driver can pull off to the side to allow other vehicles to pass,” the official clipped.

Electra blinked, incredulous. Even if the Spectre card was often more a bit than a genuine threat, it had never not worked. In fact, the droll, rehearsed nature of the official’s words only struck Electra as something entirely out of the ordinary altogether. Suspicious, even, and not just because this was an inconvenience to her. Her Spectre status meant, by design, that she could move outside of legal boundaries.

“Look, I don’t know if you were born yesterday, but Commander Shepard is a Spectre, and this is the Citadel. I used to be C-Sec. You can’t tell me that C-Port authority overrides Spectre status,” Garrus argued. The look he flashed at Electra told her he also found the official’s behavior strange.

“The law is the law. I am compelled, by law, to complete the search. Please pull you vehicle to the side so the search can be completed. Any refusal to submit to this search will force me to place a travel restriction on all parties and have your ship grounded.”

The more the official spoke, the more his initial look of apprehension faded to a jarringly empty form of neutrality, like the human had left his body and only those words remained. Electra’s guard was officially up and with one motion, she signaled to Cortez to be ready to make a run for it. She only hoped that Joker’s impatience had gotten the best of him and he’d forged her voice signature to start the pre-flight check. She gave the officer a quick physical scan, noting that his only visible weapon was a simple M-6 Carnifex. It would take three well-aimed shots to get through her biotic shields – she could hit him with a warp faster than he could even have his weapon aimed.

In the second between her biotics ripping to life in her right hand and the officers hand moving to his gun, she saw his sleeve move back to reveal a peculiar marking along his wrist (a tattoo maybe?) that she swore she’d seen elsewhere but didn’t have time to place before she had his body immobilized in the air and pushed outside of the Kodiak. On cue, Cortez closed the doors and blasted forward, skirting around the backed-up traffic to escape the alarms that blared to life behind them. They couldn’t be sure exactly what happened – there wasn’t any time. They only knew they needed to get onto the Normandy and away from the Citadel fast.

>>>>>>>

Joker gripped the newly polished leather of his seat, trying not to relish too much in the upgrade. They don’t really think they can buy my happiness do they? Besides, it’s not like they even got my lumbar support set just how I like. EDI knew how he liked his lumbar support. The new Alliance VI – ABO or ABI, or whatever the disembodied feminine voice had called herself – didn’t even know to set the controls to left-hand dominant. That was just the most basic and standard configuration preference listed in his Alliance overview. It was stupid. All of it felt empty now – especially now that EDI was lightyears away from him, being tinkered with and prodded on a planet with barely any updated infrastructure. She’d be better off here, with him, in their ship. Joker had to replay his therapist’s words in his head as he felt some of the anger start to build. It’s normal to be angry. I should be angry. This is just a normal stage of grieving.

As if he hadn’t ever grieved before. This felt different, though, and he didn’t really understand why. He needed a better therapist.

Kasumi popped into the bridge suddenly, her grin playing beneath her hood. Joker jumped at her sudden appearance which caused her to giggle. He never got used to her popping in and out of random places; for how creeped out she made most of the crew feel, he didn’t understand why Shepard seemed so eager to keep her around.

“You really need to not do that. It’s weird. Can’t you just walk in like a normal person?”

“Sounds boring. Just like sitting around waiting for Shepard to show up is really, really boring. You don’t care for the rules, do you? Why don’t you just get all the paperwork stuff out of the way now? That sounds a lot less boring than just sitting here,” Kasumi hummed, leaning against the back of his seat. “Something tells me we’re going to need to make a quick escape.”

“Oh, I can show you a quick escape. But for a first run since the commander basically died, I think we might need to wait for her to get here to run all the checks. It’s a sentimental kind of thing. You wouldn’t really get it,” Joker waved her off.

It wouldn’t be an issue getting her vocal signature to sign off on the pre-flight check – it had almost become a standard practice over the years in case Shep needed to dip on the fly – but Joker felt like those days left when the Reapers did. It might be nice getting used to playing things a little slower. They were all getting older – a little bit sadder, a helluva lot more tired.

God, I sound like a f*cking loser. Who the hell am I?

“Are you feeling okay? Or are you just slow? Hello, Earth to Joker. I’m telling you that we’re going to need to make a quick escape,” Kasumi prodded. The playfulness in her voice melted away to reveal an annoyed urgency.

“What? What are you talking about?”

Just as Joker turned to ask more questions, he was alerted that the Kodiak was overriding his own docking authority to re-enter the Normandy just as he felt a whir of the small vehicle whiz in beneath the ship. Almost as fast as he heard the doors whiz open did he see a C-Port officer with a gun round a corner into the sight of the Normandy, pistol pointed.

“Jeff, the hull is taking fire. No damage reported, but I have activated the auto-targeting for close-range combat. As acting XO, you have comm… Commander Shepard has the deck,” the VI sounded. He heard a flurry of activity as Shepard made her way to the bridge just moments before she burst in. Her eyes looked absolutely wild with… excitement? Unbelievable.

“Shepard, what the hell is this? What happened to taking it slow?”

“Looks like I have enemies, after all. Please tell me you already did the pre-flight check. I’d like to not have to kill these people,” Shepard asked. As the C-Port officer neared the Normandy, more officers – C-Sec and C-Port alike – seemed to fall in line behind him, all drawing their guns as they surrounded the Normandy. The bustling port had all but frozen as the armed scene unfolded around them.

“What? It’s our first day back. I was kind of thinking we’d have, like, a tear-filled moment to share a drink and hug and reminisce about our memories before having to make a f*cking run for it. Don’t worry about it, I’ll get us out of here, but I’m going to need an explanation for this one,” Joker huffed, his hands flying across the control panel as he prepped the Normandy for take-off. Just as the drive core hummed to life, a voice came through the comm terminal.

“SSV Normandy, this is Officer Eliana Pesaala, port authority for Docking Bay D-24. We’ve confirmed your ship has begun to prep for space flight but I haven’t received your pre-flight check. I’ll have to ask you to power down until the pre-flight check has been confirmed,” the voice clipped.

From the sound of it over the intercom, Shepard couldn’t be sure if her voice had the same eerie robotic quality as the C-Port officer, but it wasn’t like she had time to find out. Over Jeff’s shoulder, she responded,

“This is Commander Shepard. If you have any concern over our departure, please refer to your colleagues currently pointing their firearms at my ship. Joker, get us the hell out of here.”

Joker grinned as the Normandy lifted up from the dock and Shepard turned off the intercom. It was in that moment that he realized he wasn’t a loser – Shepard just had all the edge. He couldn’t imagine piloting any other ship.

Electra let out a sigh as they ducked around the traffic of other ships and just beyond the reach of the Citadel’s arms. Her heart pounded in her throat. She tried to swallow it back down as she walked back into the CIC, oblivious to the prying curiosity and confusion of her crew. If they wanted more information, she was sure the rumor mill would provide whatever they wanted to hear within the hour. For now, she needed answers, like why it had taken less than an hour after attempting to leave the Citadel for her to be attacked by C-Port officials of all people.

“Commander, good to have you back at the helm. Wasn’t what I was expecting, but I suppose if I’ve learned anything on board the Normandy, it’s not to expect anything ordinary. Or calm,” Traynor laughed. Electra could sense that she wanted to ask questions, but instead Samantha alerted her to an incoming call from the council.

About damn time.

She hadn’t even had the chance to talk to the new crew members before she had to make her way back to the comm room. She made it halfway through the information research hub that used to be the war room when she was intercepted by a very concerned, very frazzled Kaidan. Initially, she was unsure if she should invite him along – their relationship, even at its best, had been strained – but he had come along under the insistence of the Council. Between his connection to the Alliance, his direct experience with the Normandy’s history, and his own elevated Spectre status, they had decided this would be the best use of his abilities. This was one of those decisions that, while the Council still gave her the option to say no, she knew the only real option was to just agree. She’d never really complain about having another biotic around, at least.

“Shepard, what the hell? What happened?”

“I don’t know, Kaidan. We were stopped in the low lanes for a weapons check. I tried to bypass it on Spectre authority and kept getting the same, weird response that it was the law and I would be grounded if I didn’t submit to the search. It would’ve taken hours that I didn’t have and he wanted us to pull over. We don’t and the next thing I know, the officer is pulling a gun. The Council is waiting for me in the comm room. I’m hoping they have some answers. We didn’t leave anyone behind did we?”

“Everyone was on deck by the time you arrived. You don’t think this is some kind of coup do you? Cerberus?”

“No way it could be Cerberus. No, it felt different. It was weird. In a way it felt like the officers were… I don’t know. I don’t want to say indoctrinated. It wasn’t like that. They looked normal, and they sounded mostly normal, too. I can understand one official not really understanding the whole Spectre thing, but to then pull a gun? And a bunch of others do the same? Something’s off,” Electra worried, chewing on the inside of her lip.

“Well, I can’t say this isn’t at least a regular day back on the Normandy. Is it wrong that I kind of missed it? I haven’t felt a genuine rush of adrenaline since London. It’s pretty good at keeping me feeling young. Not so good for the migraines.”

Electra laughed and continued to make her way to the comm room, signaling for Kaidan to come along. If the Council was calling, it was just as much his business as the other Spectre on board.

They were patched through to the Council immediately, both standing erect and silent as they waited for them to make the first move.

“We received word of the incident that took place at the docking bay just a little while ago. It’s good to see you’ve made it out unscathed. Even now, we’re gathering more intel on the attack – and it does appear to be premeditated – but we have reasons to suspect it is linked to a group called Progenitor. Perhaps you’ve heard of them?”

“Organic rights group, right? Don’t they think I’m some kind of AI?”

“Yes, that one. They’ve been elusive except for some scattered extranet presence, so we’re still compiling all our intel. This is the first time they have been linked to any kind of action beyond the spread of propaganda.”

“Okay, so what do you need from me?”

“For now, just be on high alert. We’re dealing with the fallout station side – you’ll be cleared at the relay. We have no reason to believe this group has spread any further than the Citadel, but we can’t know for sure if they have infiltrated C-Port. We have Spectres investigating the scene as we speak and we will update our databases to reflect their findings as soon as more information is available. Did you notice anything unusual?”

“Not… exactly. I don’t want to say anything that could give the wrong idea, but their behavior reminded me a bit of indoctrination. They just… didn’t seem like they were all there. Everything seemed rehearsed. It couldn’t be indoctrination – not like we’ve seen it – and the closest thing I’ve seen is the way the Leviathans controlled subjects, but even that was different. As of right now, I’m not saying for sure that it has anything to do with any external body aside from the probable link to Progenitor,” Electra said tentatively.

She was hesitant to mention the Leviathans in front of Kaidan in particular. Considering the push back she got from anyone else she brought them up to, and because she still felt called to seek them out for answers, she didn’t want to get them mixed up in any of this mess without being sure. She didn’t believe they were linked anyway; this really didn’t seem like their style and they could’ve made moves to kill her at a million and one other points that would’ve made more sense if they actually wanted her dead. If anything, she just had to worry now that Garrus had yet another reason to fear for her safety – poor man couldn’t catch a break, but at least he had his work cut out for him. Meanwhile, Electra was itching to try on the armor Hackett sent over.

“We’ll see what our own investigation yields. Until then, exercise caution and try to find any information about the group. If they have spread off-station, then there is a good chance you’ll be encountering them again. Like any other merc group, we’re looking to keep insurgencies from getting out of hand. We’re at a critical point of the rebuild in which a lot of things could go wrong if the power shifts too much in any one of these group’s directions.”

“Agreed. We’ll find out what I can. Still no word from Omega? Aria T’Loak might know something,” Kaidan asked.

His original assignment was to reach and survey the status on Omega, but the station had gone dark, all attempts at communication intercepted and rebounded, meaning someone was there to keep it from coming through. They just hoped it was Aria and not someone else. Even Liara was struggling to get any information out of there.

“We’d hope you’d know first, Alenko, Keep us updated at your discretion and don’t let this diversion distract you from the task at hand. Palaven is still your priority. We’ll be in touch.”

The call ended and Electra placed her hand on Kaidan’s shoulder briefly to assess some of the wound his ego received from their sharp rebuttal to his question. To be fair, it was his assignment, but she couldn’t blame him for being torn between a million different things and asking a simple question, hoping for a simple answer.

When Electra reentered the information hub – the place Liara had essentially turned into her much bigger, much more elaborate base of Shadow Broker operations – she found that a significant chunk of her crew had congregated among the glowing terminals, their eyes snapping to Shepard as she entered. Garrus had his arms crossed over his chest and turned away from his sister, trying to ignore the wry smile she shot at his mate. If there was anything to be gained from any of this, it was that Solana seemed genuinely elated to experience some of the Normandy’s famous random chaos.

Electra hoped she’d stick around after past Palaven; more than anything, she hoped Garrus might have a relationship with his family that extended beyond biannual phone calls before suicide missions.

“You all probably have a lot of questions, but I don’t have a lot of answers. Our only lead is an organics right group called Progenitor. They were the source of the theories that I am some kind of AI and, seeing as they’re motivated against any type of artificial intelligence, it would explain why they attacked. Right now, all we can do it be on high alert. Keep your eyes open. If we’re lucky, this was a one-off botched attempt on my life. Questions? Concerns?”

“Yeah, I have a question,” Vega stepped forward. He was struggling to keep himself from smirking. “Were you the one in charge of redesigning the bathrooms? Because the water pressure is still ass and Traynor said you’ve got some crazy hot water upstairs.”

Electra’s cheeks flared red – particularly in response to both Garrus’ and Solana’s brow plates hiking up their foreheads as they looked first at Traynor, who slunk back against a terminal, then at Electra, who glared at Vega with a deadly frost in her silver eyes.

“Okay, okay. Get it out now. Joker, if you’re listening, you better encrypt the sh*t out of your betting pool on this run. If I find it, I’m taking you for all your brittle ass is worth,” Electra laughed.

The pressure that had been mounting in her blood began to fall back as her crew fell into its also familiar rhythm of familial comfort. Away from the Normandy, it was easy to forget that her crew was also her family. It was easy to forget that if not for the Normandy, she wouldn’t have ever met Garrus. She wouldn’t be carrying their son, a dream she couldn’t have dreamed on her own. She would still be the lonely, broken soldier married to her work with no parents, no home, not even the notion of her first name. She felt so full, sucked into the laughter and ribbing and warmth – it made it so much easier to forget the gray rippling and tugging at the inner corners of her mind. That place didn’t exist here. Here, she was only alive.

Did she deserve this? Had she done enough?

>>>>>>>

It was late when Garrus brought a bowl of the dravesh back up to their quarters, knowing full well what he’d encounter when the elevator slid open. Electra’s back would be turned to him, hunched over her personal terminal as she filtered through the slew of messages she’d been hiding from for the past few weeks. Something he enjoyed about being at home was that she never hesitated to get into bed – maybe at home, she wasn’t trying to run from tomorrow by avoiding sleep. He didn’t know the extent of her nightmares. She wouldn’t tell him no matter how much he prodded, and he didn’t prod often for fear of bringing that pain into her waking world. He’d wipe out an entire galaxy of reapers on his own if it meant he could just make her happy – or maybe just guarantee she wouldn’t be leaving him. He didn’t share the same level of excitement upon returning to the Normandy. It was his home more than any apartment or planet had ever been, but he didn’t know if he would make it this time if something happened to her.

If something happened to his son.

He set the bowl of steaming meat on the desk beside her and she hardly looked away from the screen as she pulled it in front of her and began to eat. Garrus sighed and plodded into the room, taking in the new design of the place. It had much of the same sleek charm but off to the right of the bed, a small alcove had been added, just big enough to create a sheltered cave around a tiny cradle. He ran his talons across the star-spangled blanket, a gift from Samara before she set out for Omega, that had been tucked into it. Constellations and galaxies, planets ringing around bright suns – they knew setting out that their son would be born aboard the Normandy, a true child of space. It was a romantic idea to be born tied to nowhere in particular, but a ship adrift the stars, and particularly fitting for a child that belonged to no one species – the first of a kind. It was still hard to wrap his head around the concept that his baby could be any more incredible than just as his son – that the role he’d play on the cosmic stage would be more important than the only thing Garrus thought was important, which was that he was his own, and he would be so loved by him.

It filled him with as much awe as it did despair.

His son’s life might not ever be his own.

They hadn’t even discussed names, both still trying to wrap their heads around his existence, though neither would admit how afraid they were that they’d never meet him, for whatever reason. It wasn’t for a lack of trying on his dad and sister’s parts. No matter how much he pretended to ignore their comments of “oh, well that’s a nice sounding name” and leave their messages with name suggestions unanswered, it kept nagging him that Electra didn’t ever seem to be up to discussing it. She was the only one he wanted to talk to about anything anymore – especially their son – and she kept sinking further and further into the machinations of some higher powers. Further away from him. It didn’t matter how much they touched, and f*cked, and joked, and kissed – the distance existed in her eyes, and no matter how far he chased her into that depth, the breadth only crept deeper into his own core. A terrifying and mute expanse.

As a chill raced down his spine, he went over to sit beside her, wrapping his arms around her and caressing her growing bump. The memory of her unresponsive body laced with wires and draped in linen flashed through his memory and he gripped her tighter until she pulled from her screen and held him back. How could she want to go back to Despoina? How could she see him, know him, love him, and still want to go back to the one place he was sure she wouldn’t return from? He knew she never asked to be a mother – not like this, not now – but could she care so little? Did she not want to talk about names because she knew she wouldn’t return from the depths this time? Did she not want to burden him with losing not only her, but a son – at least the shadow of one – anchored in his chest by a name?

Spirits. I can’t lose them.

“Garrus, what’s wrong? You’re shaking,” Electra cooed. She rubbed her hand behind his fringe, holding his head tight against her chest. She didn’t see him like this often, if ever. It didn’t help that he only struggled to find the words when they mattered the most.

After some time, he seemed to collect himself and he brought his head up to meet her eyes. She searched his for an answer, meeting only the stony blue intensity she’d come to associate as her sole sanctuary from the blurring fringes of her reality. That she caused him so much anguish by being herself – as unapologetically as ever – made her want to fall back into that dreamless sleep that she might never disappoint him. Not consciously, at least. It might be easier for him to have accepted her coma as her final repose before death, especially since he believed she was marching carelessly back into it. It wasn’t like that, but he couldn’t understand. He hadn’t seen what she’d seen, been where she’d been. He’d never known true nothing, and the searing pain of being ripped from that into a mostly painful life. To serve, to fight, to shoot and rend and command. Then, after all of that, to be asked to lie down, give birth, keep quiet… open your legs, close your mouth, pull the trigger, Electra. What didn’t he get? That wasn’t her. She just happened to be pregnant with a mystery child – something far greater than either of them could begin to understand – and by her own metrics and rules, it was maybe the greatest puzzle she’d ever have to solve, greater even than the Reapers. And she’d go to greater depths to get those answers.

She would return. She just needed to prove it.

“Electra,” he began, his voice lower than usual to hide the emotionality of his subvocals. “I want our son to have a name before he’s born. If… if anything happens… I don’t want him to just be a nothing. He deserves to have a name. We don’t have to come up with anything yet. But I want… I don’t think it’s unreasonable.”

Electra was actually surprised. Was that all he wanted? Just a name? He wasn’t going to ask her stay inside and wear three layers of ablative plating and maintain a constant biotic barrier just to go planet-side for one full minute? She was exaggerating – she knew she wasn’t being fair – but she didn’t doubt that he’d wholeheartedly support the motion. She also knew this was about more than just a name – it was the principal behind acknowledging their son as more than a myth. If only he knew how much she felt and sensed him every moment of every day, felt how real and precious and pure he was, felt him moving even now in her velvet internal. He’d know this wasn’t about ignoring him. It was about protecting him from everything else that held them all in fixed orbit – names, places, destinies, expectations. From that intangible yet inescapable place they’d both encountered before she woke.

Fetal life signs undetectable. Efforts to stabilize patient ongoing.

Attempts to restart patient's heart have resulted in failure. Injuries incompatible with life. Time of death recorded at 0114 hours, September 4^th 2187.

They both knew. They also both knew better than to talk about it. What good would it do if not even the best doctors in the galaxy could make it make sense? No spirits nor spiritualities. Nothing accounted for the span of that space that she – that they – were gone.

“I’d love that. I’ve tossed around a few ideas, but none of them I’ve settled on. Did you have anything in mind?”

Garrus paused, his mandible flaring. Genuine light sparkled in Electra’s eyes, a rare and beautiful mythos.

“Sirius. The brightest star.”

Chapter 16: One More Time With Feeling

Chapter Text

Walking into the information hub in the early hours, Liara tried to hide her disappointment that Javik had beat her to the terminals. He’d been doing that a lot recently – showing up earlier and earlier, as if strategically ensuring Liara had no time to herself. At first, she thought he was maybe taking a more vested interest in their collaborative research, or maybe interest in her line of work (even though he had told her many times before, without prompting, that brokering information bored him), but ever since the bonding ceremony, she realized his omnipresence was less than innocent.

She tried putting that night out of her memory as best she could, but considering she was just about the only person he cared conversing with (if constantly undermining and criticizing and dismissing could be called conversation), she couldn’t avoid him or the events of that night. It’s not like she’d played the part of passive bystander. She slapped herself for not putting together all the signs. She really wasn’t so adept at social cues – no amount of expertise in her special fields could make up for that.

Javik had been making advances for months. The not-so-subtle comments about her figure. The special interest he had in talking about Prothean appreciation for “the blue primitives.” His insistence in joining her in her workout routine, complimenting her form and technique. Was this how Protheans flirted? Were they all this vulgar and indirect? Or was that only because he didn’t actually feel the need to flirt and simply regarded her as a primitive that was his to possess?

Don’t act like you didn’t like how he touched you that night.

Liara swallowed hard as she stationed herself at her terminal. Javik’s gaze devoured her from across the room – she was now very aware of what that particular look meant. She pretended it didn’t stir her blood and bring a heat rising from between her legs up through her throat. Come to think of it, the chapter she was devoting to Prothean physiology could stand to be a bit more fleshed out.

“What is on your mind, Liara?” he asked.

Liara blinked and looked over at him. He’d abandoned whatever he had open on his terminal to approach her. Had he used her name? It came out like a sneer – a filthy, difficult word – but he had used her name, nonetheless. She narrowed her eyes at him.

“How much I wish you’d stop bothering me so I can get some work done. I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but there’s a group of mindless fanatics trying to kill Shepard,” she retorted.

“I am not concerned with them. I will extinguish them with ease. In fact, I look forward to killing again; working with you has made me soft.”

No kidding, Liara thought. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to him – not right now. She had a job to do. Since reestablishing communication with Feron, she not only had to amend and update just about every dossier on file, but also feed more information on the rebuild process and resource allotment to the explosion of contact requests flying in from across the galaxy. Feron had done his best at taking care of file and client maintenance in those three months, but his ability to make executive decisions was extremely limited.

“It is very obvious when you’re biting your tongue, Liara. Tell me what you are really thinking,” Javik purred, moving closer until he stood just adjacent to Liara’s terminal. He leaned on his elbow to meet her eye-level, gaze persistent despite Liara’s refusal to look away from the screen.

Information about Progenitor was infuriatingly scattered. She needed to speak to Aria. She sent a message to Samara, requesting any update on the status of Omega, but wasn’t hopeful to hear back any time soon. She had only left a day earlier than the Normandy, and Zaeed only a day before that (not that Liara expected any useful information to come from him). Aside from simply taking a while to travel there, the increased risk of infiltration meant the flow of information would be limited. She needed to find a better source, and she was starting to think that one might not exist.

Liara needed room to think – find reasons for the incredibly suspicious lack of information about the group – and Javik’s presence only clouded her vision. Between his staring and the heat in her thighs, all her thoughts got tangled up, rerouting back to the sound of his low voice growling into the back of her neck while his iron grip on her waist pulled her ass into his hips. She bit down on her lip, trying desperately to push it away.

“I’m thinking that you should either find something to do to help me with my research or find the airlock,” Liara snapped, slamming her fist down on the terminal’s control panel. Javik smirked and Liara felt the heat between her legs turn into a heavy crackle in her fists as her biotics threatened to whip out of her control.

“Anger suits you. Let that guide you to find what you need so you can tell me who to kill. I suppose I’ll go find the airlock in the meantime,” Javik laughed, sauntering away. As he passed her, he brushed his hand against the back of Liara’s thigh, setting her nerves in a conflicted frenzy of lust and hate.

Liara suppressed a scream and turned back to the terminal with razor determination as she sent out a stream of queries into the elusive group. She needed to be distracted by anything, and she needed to be angry. Not for his sake. For hers. Though, as her own anger fueled itself in recursive rounds, she couldn’t ignore the moisture between her legs, and had to actively argue against her desire to storm after him and show him exactly how much she despised him.

>>>>>>>

“Javik’s looking awfully smug today, isn’t he?” Electra murmured to Garrus over the mug of tea she’d brought to her lips.

Garrus leaned over the kitchenette counter beside her, mixing water into one of his MRE meals with dull disinterest. After the many weeks of fresh food, he was trying to not be bitter that all the non-freeze-dried dextro rations were reserved exclusively for Electra. At least it was easy to find distractions from the blandness of his food with the rich developments in ship gossip. It never took long for rumors and bets to start flying once the ship left port.

The pair covertly watched Javik sparring rather jovially across the table with Kaidan and Vega while they explained the rules of Skyllian-Five. They’d never seen him take such lively interest in their games – and had never seen a rookie clean through two Skyllian veterans with such ease.

“Where’s your money, Shepard?”

“You didn’t hear this from me, but Trang in security said she heard Liara and Javik arguing in the info hub this morning. I put 100 credits on them banging it out by the end of the week,” Electra sniffed, taking a sip of the piping hot liquid.

“You really think they haven’t done it yet? Come on, Shep. Have you seen the way Liara looks at him? That’s the look of someone who knows exactly what she wants. As in she’s already had it and she wants some more,” Joker said with a low cough as he limped up to the fridge and started rifling through.

“Don’t you have a ship to pilot?” Electra raised one of her dark brows and peered around Garrus.

“We’re locked in relay traffic for the next day at least. And on New Year’s Eve? You wouldn’t really make me miss all the drunk action that’s about to unfold, would you?”

“I guess not, but just because it’s a holiday doesn’t mean we aren’t in the middle of a mission. I expect you to be sober and ready when it’s our turn for the relay,” Electra chided, raising her voice so any nearby crew might remember that this wasn’t vacation. She was beginning to worry that without the threat of some galaxy destroying mega-villain, both she and her crew would get too relaxed. Having their guards down put everyone at risk at a time when risk was incalculable. It was best to calculate for the worst in those scenarios and just hope for some light bruising.

“Oh come on, Commander. You really expect us to not throw down tonight? I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to have a full-blown fiesta. I’m talking drinks, arm-wrestling, actual wrestling, poker – 2187 deserves a big send-off,” Vega pouted from across the room.

Electra rolled her eyes but couldn’t disagree. The years had lost some of their meaning since she’d lost so many of them; however, the idea of turning over some imaginary leaf on perhaps one of her most insane years yet for something better – or at least something different – had a certain appeal. What had she done last new year’s? Had she really not noticed it happening? Considering everything going on, that was probably a reasonable oversight.

“How about this? You can all do whatever you want tonight, but I’m still running drills tomorrow morning at 0500 hours. We’re heading up unknown hostility on Palaven. Just because we can leave the Reapers in 2187 doesn’t mean danger isn’t following us into 2188,” Electra barked.

“Has she always been like this? I kind of thought Normandy life would be way more lax,” Solana remarked to Garrus, strolling up to the kitchen with a yawn. She’d taken over the main battery in Garrus’ absence, a change in the guard that struck Electra as fitting, though Garrus lamented that he preferred working alone.

“Hmmm, don’t let her fool you. She’s more bark than she is bite when it comes to regulations. Give her a few hours and she’ll forget. You should see how many fish she’s killed,” Garrus laughed, earning him a smack.

“You know, darling, the more you tease, the more you inspire me to follow through,” Electra threatened, getting up on her tip toes to plant a kiss on Garrus’ scarred mandible. “When you’re thirty demolition runs into a set of a hundred, you can tell me all about my bark.”

“Garrus, you better find a way to fix this. I got a case of cervezas begging to get finished before midnight,” Vega warned as Electra strolled away.

She didn’t want to show it, but she already knew she wouldn’t be able to put her crew through drills in the morning. It’s not that she wasn’t worried about the very real potential dangers facing them on Palaven; the reports all seemed to suggest they’d be met with at least some level of hostility. She just couldn’t bring herself to project onto them her own disillusionment with the passage of time. If they didn’t want to run, why should they? That was her battle, and she would be running her own drills – stranded in mandatory sobriety – in trying to ignore the reality that 2188 would make her a mother, a target, maybe even a martyr. Part of her wished she could freeze everything as it was right now; she couldn’t really wrap her mind around both how quickly these past few weeks had passed her by and how inevitable her own destruction felt. She didn’t remember a time that her life had felt any different, and even though being still drove her insane, she also didn’t want to move forward so fast. She just wanted a moment to catch her breath. Process. Sleep. She wanted more time with Garrus (they didn’t exactly get a honeymoon) before she had to remember how it felt to face the ruthless onslaught of entropy.

She feared becoming a mother most of all. She feared that in these next few months, Garrus might put himself in harm’s way trying to protect her and therefore make her face motherhood alone, and she didn’t think she could do that. She didn’t doubt for one second that he’d die for her, and she no longer had the safe bet of dying for him first – he’d never allow it. Not again.

Hearing his warm, deep laugh fill up the space behind her kept her from calling him back up to her cabin for another round of sex (though all she wanted right now was to touch him and be touched by him), so she instead took the elevator up to the CIC. Liara had to be getting lonely in the information hub and Electra could use the distraction of poring over an infinite number of words and pages in search of something concrete to cover up the cracks in her consciousness.

>>>>>>>

The first drink was poured sometime just after lunch. By the time 2000 rolled around, no one could remember who started it, though it would be easy to assume it had been either Vega or Joker. Without Tali around to reliably fill the role of most drunk at any given moment, the competition for that title proved fierce. The only certainty shared by everyone aboard the Normandy was that no one wanted to face the new year sober. There was far too much to celebrate, and much, much more everyone hoped to forget. By 2000 hours, it was clear to each person that they stood on that precipice – on that misty line between happiness and despair – where the elements of past and future comingle and render the air thick with reminiscence.

Solana tried to ignore the distance between her and her brother, for the most part. All her life, she just wanted him to see her – see who she had become, what she was capable of – and not just as his bitter kid sister. She hoped by joining up with the crew, a perfect audience for her to prove herself not only to everyone else but also to herself, that she might finally showcase her brilliance. She’d never exactly denied her own talents, but she’d also never really had an environment like this to display them in full. Until now, her accomplishments lived only in her collected exams and service reviews. Scattered top remarks and fragmented commendations. Especially after the years she lost making sure her mom didn’t die alone, the threads pulling everything together felt tenuous at best. Now, she swayed slightly on one of the couches in the lounge, wedged between Kasumi and Cortez while they were locked in some debate about the true value of Rembrandt’s lost collection. This isn’t how she imagined her first real night on the Normandy, though it made it easier to envision how her brother had so much time to fall in love with his commander.

Did she really want what he had so badly that now, even with the exact same opportunity he had, she still couldn’t do anything but think about his life? She felt like she was losing out on hers, at least right now. She regarded Garrus, himself looking quite intoxicated as he slurred his way across punchlines to bad turian jokes, and wondered how he was the guy that won the heart of the hero of the galaxy and rode to the ends of the earth to save everything from certain destruction. She loved him dearly, but she also saw clean through to the awkward, underperforming moron she’d grown up with. When had he changed so much? How much did she still not know about her own brother? Talking to him again after all these years, it struck Solana that she still had a lot to learn about him – particularly about what exactly he’d been up to all this time other than winning Shepard’s heart and becoming an expert on destroying Reapers.

“Ugh, you guys are so boring. Joker, I gotta know,” Samantha hiccuped, finally fed up with hearing Kasumi and Cortez argue about art. “What’s the dirtiest thing you’ve overheard on the Normandy in all of Normandy history?”

This question piqued the interest of the entire party. Solana watched with intrigue as various sets of eyes crossed the room to meet in panicked, silent knowledge as Joker turned from the game of poker with a devilish grin on his face. The intensity of Shepard’s silver eyes on the back of Joker’s head was not lost on Solana. Shepard herself was an enigma. Solana had always pictured her as a stern and just commander – serious, married to the cause – and was continuously shocked by her nonchalant and often playful demeanor. Solana had never seen a commanding officer fall so in line with her subordinates, more a friend than a leader. Truthfully, she was glad for this. When she learned she’d be staying with the famous Commander Shepard, Solana had been exceedingly anxious to put on her best display of tact and poise, almost to the point that Shepard’s contagious familiarity put Solana on a different type of edge. How had Solana gotten her so wrong? Did anyone really know Shepard? Her innate contradictions offered up only a maze of redundancy and futile conjecture, so Solana tried to be content that at least Shepard was agreeable. Her brother certainly seemed to know what made her tick, and had she not been so afraid to actually learn more about her sister-in-law, she’d just go right ahead and ask him.

But that would also mean talking to Garrus in a way that mattered, and she hadn’t figure out how to do that yet. Until then, she was content to examine, quietly, the types of exchanges and interactions no one would believe if she told them.

“Oh, now that is a good question. And if I wasn’t positive that no one else could pilot this ship, I don’t think I’d have the balls to tell it,” Joker prefaced, not daring to look back at Shepard. He felt her eyes boring holes into the back of his skull. However, that feeling dissipated quickly, the buzz of alcohol and the curious attention of everyone else prying the words right out of his mouth. A slapdash smile broke across his face as he began.

“Picture this. When? The Reapers have just launched their brutal assault on Earth. The galaxy? In shambles. Palaven? Decimated. Our brave warrior queen Commander Shepard has just returned from Menae. Real horror show down there. Morale is at an all-time-low. Me? Just a simple, talented, and sexy pilot, first-of-his-class and doing his best to hold everything together. I’m succeeding. We just so happened to have crowd favorite Sir General Garrus Vakarian back on board, so I connect down to the main battery to check in, see how my dear, old friend is doing since he hasn’t even come to say hi to his ruggedly handsome friend Joker, and bingo, the line’s already open. The way I see it, this guy probably has a lot to say since it’s been a while since he’s talked to such a fine, upstanding guy like myself and was just waiting for me to call so he could find the words. Makes sense. Color me surprised when instead of a warm greeting and some deserved praise, I’m greeted by the unmistakable sound skin slapping the control deck and the breathless voice of our fearless commander begging Garrus to make her his…”

Joker was cut off with a squeak as Shepard snapped from her seat and clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Finish that sentence and I will break one of your ribs, Moreau,” Electra growled, ignoring the hollers of her crew sounding around her. She tried to keep her lips from cracking into a smile, especially when she saw the contrast of Vega’s horror and Kaidan’s muted disgust as their eyes darted from her, to Garrus, then back to her before locking into the void.

“You’re no fun, Commander. It’s not like we all haven’t heard what you and Garrus get up to at some point or another. Come on,” Traynor slurred, “throw us loners a bone.”

She’d never quite gotten over her unrequited crush on the commander. It was no secret that just about everyone on board had had a crush on Shepard at some point – though some were stronger than others. Coming in somewhat late to the party and thinking her flurry of feelings for the captivating woman were somehow unique, she was quickly acquainted with a full recap of Shepard’s colorful and saturated romantic affairs aboard the Normandy. Samantha didn’t exactly know what to expect when she was assigned her position on the ship – she was really only nervous to make a good impression on the Alliance legend – but she certainly didn’t expect to be thrust into the middle of a Fornax produced soap opera. Then, when the terrifying woman turned out to be so soft and kind and somehow even more gorgeous than in the vids, she found her own emotions swept up in the mix. She only now tried to forget how sexually frustrated her embarrassing failed attempts at seduction left her feeling – and the fallout from that which left her unable to watch any of Diana Allers’ undoubtedly excellent productions.

As far as she knew, nobody had a clue that she and Diana hooked up before the attack on London, and nobody needed to know. She just wished Diana would take a hint and stop asking to meet her for drinks. It didn’t help that Traynor suspected she only wanted to see her so she too could ask how the commander was doing.

“If you want something filthy, you only need to ask ABI for Joker’s extranet search history. Not that’d I know anything about that. I only have access to every vid he’s downloaded in the past two years,” Liara mused, winking at Electra from the bar. The panic that washed over Joker’s expression caused Shepard to stand back, smirk, and return to her seat. The attention had now fully turned over to Liara as the questions started flooding in from the crew.

The break in discussion about Electra and Garrus’ sex life gave Kaidan the chance to stand up and make his way back over to the bar. There was no way he’d had enough to drink to push that image out his head – not that he ever needed much of a prompt for it to haunt him. He poured himself another whiskey, tipping a touch more than enough into the glass as he stewed over the fact that Electra never begged him to make her his anything when they were together. And yet, when he returned to her, when he prostrated his ego and apologized and basically begged for her to reconsider their relationship, he was sure she’d come back. They had great sexual chemistry. Didn’t they? There was no way he could misremember it. He’d unconsciously compared everyone he’d had sex with since to Shepard and each time only reaffirmed what he was terrified to admit – he would never do better.

He took a long swig from his glass as he returned to the poker table, hoping Electra didn’t notice the way he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. It was clear she was comfortable here; back on the Citadel, she’d been wearing baggier clothes, but tonight, she wore a skin-tight jumpsuit that hugged and tugged every one of her curves. Her body had really begun to fill out since she came home from Huerta. Her breasts looked fuller, nipples peeking through the fabric, and where her stomach was usually perfectly flat and toned, a curve had begun to show through in a way that broke Kaidan’s heart.

In the back of his mind, Kaidan had always envisioned that after everything, she’d realize that it was him, that it had always been him, and she’d settle down with him. Two Spectres against everything and a love story that would put every popular romance novel to shame. In an alternate timeline, the baby rounding out her belly now was his. In that timeline, their baby wouldn’t be some hybrid threatening her life and health each day that it grew bigger. In that timeline, he would make her all the foods he grew up eating and take her back home to earth where they could raise their child with the softness and love and laughter they had never known as children. She’d love him because he’d be a great father, a devoted husband, a fierce protector. She’d be his. He would be hers. Everything fit together so perfectly in that timeline.

He felt pathetic staring wistfully at the figure she’d taken on because Garrus – for whatever reason Kaidan could never discern – had her begging for him to make her his. It didn’t matter what word came next. That was the only one that mattered in the end.

Kaidan pried his eyes away from her. Her body locked in his sights felt like a hot knife twisting into his sternum. His eyes instead went to the next best thing – from across the room, Kasumi watched him unabashedly. He lowered his eyelids (though that might’ve just been the alcohol) and opened his omni-tool to send a private message.

“No, no, no, you’ve got it all wrong. Wrex will tell you. I never made any moves on Shepard on the SR-1. I don’t even know where those writers got the idea that I had a thing for the commander. I mean, come on, Electra. Did I ever give myself away?” Garrus asked.

It was only a matter of time before their video game came up.

“No, he’s right. I mean, I always thought he was hot stuff, a real grade-A hunk – I just didn’t think he had a thing for aliens. Well, accept all those times I caught him checking me out. And then there was the whole issue of that one story…” Electra ribbed, her eyes twinkling as Garrus tried to defend how ridiculous his portrayal in the video game really was.

“What story? Care to share with the class?” Cortez asked, leaning forward from the sofa.

“Don’t worry, I’ll send you a copy, though I wouldn’t recommend reading it while you’re eating,” Joker snickered.

“I almost forgot about that,” Liara twittered, feigning innocence. “The tension between you too was enough to distract everyone from the even worse one about me and Shepard. You know, Garrus, I’m starting to think you lack a certain self-awareness.”

“Come now, Liara,” Garrus warned, his mandibles wide in a boyish, turian grin, “let’s not get on the topic of self-awareness. Speaking of, have you had a chance to flesh out your chapters about Prothean mating rituals? The inconsistencies in the vids circling the extranet are just begging for your peer-reviewed and professional expertise on the matter.”

Liara flushed a deep indigo and looked down at her drink, loathing that the comment earned a full-throated laugh from Javik at the other end of the bar. It was clear he was already quite intoxicated based on the unabashed way his eyes tracked up Liara’s body. If she weren’t feeling so conflicted, she might turn away, but the electric jolt his gaze shot through her body combined with the alcohol swirling in her senses brought her to arch her back just enough for him to notice.

This is why she didn’t like drinking – what kind of shadow broker was she if Garrus Vakarian could turn a question of self-awareness back on her? At this point, she didn’t feel in control enough to lie her way out of pretending she hadn’t both heard of and extensively pored through the Prothean erotica making its way around the extranet, and she also couldn’t pretend that the endeavor had been entirely academic.

“Oh, leave her alone, honey,” Electra laughed, rescuing to defend her particularly mortified best friend from needing to answer. “I think it’s sweet that you had such a big crush on me. All jokes aside, you could have convinced me otherwise with how much you ardently tried to dissuade me from pursuing you.”

“Wait, Garrus. Am I hearing this right? She pursued you? What am I missing? I thought everyone was practically tripping over each other to get a shot with Lola, and you had the guts to play hard to get?” Vega cawed in disbelief. “You?”

“It’s not like that. I just didn’t… I had reservations about…”

“He was terrified of her. Can’t say I blame him,” Kasumi answered for him. His unamused silence only confirmed that she spoke the truth.

People forgot that Kasumi really did see and hear everything. Honestly, that’s just how she liked it. She’d always preferred being a fly on the wall, or better yet, the wall itself. Since she was a child, she’d been fascinated with the saying, “If walls could talk.” To hear, see, absorb everything and not be even discerned from the background – spying and thievery went hand in hand – and she had two times over her weight in secrets. The difference between her and someone like Joker is she didn’t give up her information. There was no need. She was, in essence, the wall, and as the saying implied, walls can’t talk. She just filled up her own emptiness with the love stories and sweet whispered nothings she no longer had.

Their awkwardness aside, Garrus’ and Electra’s love story was her personal favorite in a long while, and it’s not like she listened in when she really wasn’t supposed to; she usually tapped out once things turned physical. One day, though, she’d give them the gift of their love story via graybox – she’d never valued anything more than her own, even if she had to destroy it. It wasn’t until Garrus was sick with grief while Electra lay in limbo that Kasumi decided to start putting one together for them. By the time it was ready, the gesture would override the general feeling of intrusion they’d feel at their most intimate moments being a touch less private than they might have believed. They’d be overwhelmed with the ability to see it all, feel it all, relive it all in permanent reflection.

In the end, no matter how much alcohol is had or how far away a heart has run, every soul is burdened with the deep longing to remember. Even when it wounds. Even when it tears. To remember is to prove one’s existence against the empty unremembering the universe exacts on mortals with every unending second.

Exhibit A: Major Alenko. He had to be feeling pretty drunk by now. He was losing control of his eyes as they locked onto Electra. Even after he sent a message asking Kasumi if she wanted to go somewhere quieter, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. That was a man in love – arguably just as in love as the man pledged to Shepard’s side until death – and who could blame him? Shepard wasn’t the type of woman you experience casually. She was the type of woman you love forever, that you’d willingly die to show that love. The memorial wall was evidence enough of that fact. Where others saw only names, Kasumi saw the poetry of romance and ardor embossed forever on silent metal – sacrifices made in the name of love for a woman that would sacrifice everything in return if it might just bring them all back.

And the look in Kaidan’s eyes as they sucked up every centimeter of her skin? That look was pure worship.

Exhibit B: Kasumi sucked the rest of her co*cktail down in one long gulp, relishing the way it burned its way down to her stomach. She might be able to hide herself from the world, but she could never hide from the way her insides twisted and crackled and writhed. And no matter how much she chased that burn – or that rush of adrenaline or that beautiful secret exchange meant for no one else – she couldn’t burn away the pain that no one in her life would ever come near the weightlessness she felt in love once. Oh, Keiji. If only you knew. If only I could just tell you how much it hurt to let it all go for some greater good. She was like Kaidan in a way. Both would always be chasing. He’d always be chasing Shepard and Kasumi would always be chasing invisibility. The same thing, really. And they could help each other forget in ways that would never need to be spoken.

The time was 22:45. The night had really gotten away from everyone, hadn’t it? Kasumi crept unseen from the room, sure no one had noticed her disappearance, but was met in the hallway by a pair of clammy, desperate hands and angry lips. She welcomed them into her clandestine nothingness and together they disappeared into another drunken moment that no one would notice and would be left behind by the time the new year had begun.

Solana soaked in all the stories, transfixed. As each hour passed and as she was handed more and more drinks, eventually being joined on the couch by Garrus and a bottle of brandy, she felt he’d become more and more a stranger to her. Were they strangers to each other? Did he feel the same way, that his own blooded sister was somehow more distant than ever, and that’s why he levitated back into her solitary company? Regardless, she felt grateful that just before the year turned over, she had a moment with Garrus by himself. The siblings formed an enclosed bubble amidst the raucous conversation. It dawned on them both at almost the exact same time that they’d never gotten drunk together, just the two of them – each time they passed the bottle, they pulled the trigger for a raw honesty they hadn’t shared in years, wondering who would be the first to fire a real bullet.

“It’sssweird, isn’t it? Like, you being here and me being here? And you’re married now. Like, who the hell are you?” Solana slurred, taking a swig from the bottle.

“You know me, Sol. Same guy, new tricks. Better guns,” Garrus responded. Solana handed off the bottle and he took it, hesitating before adding, “Why’s it weird?”

“I just… I don’t know. I guess I had no idea who you were all these years. What you were doing. I could imagine anything and everything, and I did, and I was still off. Like yeah, okay, it’s you, but I’m still mad at you. For not being there. For leaving me behind. And then, then after all of that, you just… act like nothing happened. How do you do that?”

“I… don’t know. Like I said, new tricks. I only told you a little bit of what all happened when I came back to Palaven, but my life has been pretty crazy that past few years. Unpredictable. Even harder to explain. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know if you really want that.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Omega. What happened?”

“Ouch. You’re not messing around. Alright, well… Well Shepard died. I’d gone back to C-Sec, but you know that because you were there for dad’s outrage when I left. And I left because Shepard died. I couldn’t… I couldn’t bear the thought that she died and I could’ve saved her and I’d never get a shot to tell her how I felt. It killed me. I wasn’t alive. I just wanted blood for all the evil and I wanted to feel useful because she made me feel useful in a way C-Sec never could. I loved her… even then. And in my mind, my lack of action is what killed her. So for two years I really got myself in a mess. Pissed off every merc in the goddamn galaxy. Saved a lot of innocent people. Got a lot of innocent people killed, too. There was blood on my hands and none of it measured up to way it felt having her blood on my hands. Then she shows up at the last minute like an angel of death and greets me like she hasn’t been dead for two years and I take a rocket to the face. So after all that… after I let her die… she still showed up to save me. So be sure to write her a nice thank you note for having a brother, even if the one you have is just a little uglier.”

“Wait. Was this that contract job? You were off doing vigilante sh*t on Omega?”

“The very one.”

“Huh. Remind me to ask you more about that when we’re not drunk,” Solana sighed.

She hated that she still didn’t feel satisfied. She looked around the room, feeling the crowd had thinned out a bit since the drinking started. Garrus looked lost in thought, eyes roaming until they rested on Electra and his mandibles fluttered and his grip around the neck of the bottle loosened. Solana heard it like sirens in his subvocals. My fire. My love. My light. I’m so sorry. I love you.

“So it’s always been her, huh?”

“Always. One day, you’ll understand.”

Electra pretended not to notice that Garrus had gone to sit with Solana, their heads bent together as they passed a bottle back and forth and talked. Something had lightened up in the air between them, like an invisible wall had shattered and the air could move more freely. She didn’t want to disturb them. She felt a little devious gleam that her plan to bring them closer seemed to be working. Maybe now Garrus wouldn’t gripe about having to share the battery.

She rested her hand on her belly, feeling out of place in the room of drunk people. She was never the drunkest at any given party, but she was also never the only one sober. That was a role more typically suited for Thane. He told her once that he used to enjoy drinking until his health began to decline. She joked that at least that meant she’d always have someone to play designated driver, not that she ever needed one. The joke was lost in this moment.

The time on the wall read 23:22.

It wasn’t hard to slip out into the hallway unnoticed. At this rate, Electra would be surprised if anyone in the room even realized just how close to midnight they’d crept. Their boisterous celebrations and the steady thump of the music and slow decline into drunken bliss drowned out their sense of time and place in the universe. An enviable state. Liara, who usually also maintained a certain level of sobriety, was sinking ever deeper into the bottom of her drink. Electra wondered if maybe she bet wrong considering that as Liara got more drunk and the music louder, her body drifted closer to Javik.

The sounds of the rest of the crew shouting and singing and laughing and crying filled the Normandy. In the back of her mind, she wondered if she should head up to the bridge to check on their place in the relay queue but was arrested by the paralyzing presence of the wall of names to her immediate right. Turning her body carefully and deliberately to face the memorial, she placed both hands over her baby and closed her eyes, not needing to read the names to recite each and every one in her head like a mantra.

Pressly. Williams. Jenkins. EDI. Tanaka. Krios. Anderson. Anderson. Anderson.

Did they know that it was all worth it?

Had she done enough to ensure that it was?

A hand touched her shoulder and she whipped around to find who approached her, but found herself standing alone. A chill swept over her and for a moment before she maintained her composure, she felt her breath hitch in her chest. She was alone – she was always alone, no matter how many people surrounded her – and yet she never really was. In her mind, something always called, beckoned, and filled her with a longing for a type of solitude that this lifetime could never fulfill. That desire ached somewhere deep in her chest, and she pressed her palms more firmly to the surface of her belly. Inside her, the fluttering life moved and Electra gasped as she felt for the first time on the surface, the slightest hint of her baby pushing up through her skin. Just a brief touch of a tiny, tiny limb pressing against the palm of her hand. The sensation brought her heart into her throat and she bit back a surge of tears she didn’t want to spill just yet.

“I didn’t think I’d find you alone, Commander,” Karin’s voice rang in from behind her. Shepard turned to see Chakwas exiting the elevator, a half-empty drink in hand. “You look pale.”

“Is that your medical opinion?” Electra asked as Karin joined her.

“All of my opinions about you are medical. But it’s also just an observation. Are you alright?”

“That’s a loaded question. Ask another.”

“Wish granted. How’s the party?”

“A lot of people are going to wake up wishing they hadn’t asked Joker so many questions about Normandy lore. Otherwise, it’s a good time. It’s a little weird being sober at a time like this,” Electra mumbled, her mind drifting while her hands called out to Sirius, imploring him to move again, prove that he ever moved at all, prove that he existed.

“I’m sure. I would make more of an effort, but there’s only a few more minutes until midnight, and only a few hours after that until we enter the Apien Crest and I’m liable for everyone’s life again,” Karin plucked, taking a sip of her drink. The twinkle in her eye over the glass’ edge brought Electra back to the moment they shared over the Serrice Ice Brandy, memory sparkling between them. That moment felt so distant, separated by even more than time. “The countdown will start soon. We should rejoin our companions. I wouldn’t trust them to even realize what’s happening without your leadership.”

Chakwas offered Electra her arm and they entered the lounge. The rowdiness of people shouting over each other and clinking glasses and exploding with laughter drowned out the deafening hollow of the names on the wall behind the door. As soon as Electra entered, Garrus strode over to her and gathered her in his arms, swinging her around and planting a kiss on her mouth. She couldn’t help but feel a giggle bubble to the surface of her lips, chipping away at the frost that had made a home in her skull.

“You’re supposed to do that when the clock hits zero, big guy,” she laughed, and in response he kissed her again, this time more deeply than before. She felt warmth shooting through her body like fireworks and wrapped her arms up around his neck to pull her body even closer into his.

“Thissszit! Ev-very one ready, 2188 we’re ready, baby. Woo!” Traynor slurred, standing up on the bar to start them in the countdown.

The voices banded together, some counting better than others (and Vega counting in Spanish), while Garrus kept his mouth locked with Electra’s, his subvocals buzzing in her teeth and throat and down through her toes as he lifted her off the ground. As the clock struck zero, the new year officially ringing in through the Normandy with a cheer that could be heard resounding on all levels, Electra felt Sirius move again and, as if trying to capture a minnow in a stream, yanked Garrus’ hand from around her back and pressed it over the movement. Her sudden movement broke their kiss and in that second as his hand felt the small, almost imperceptible movement against his skin, the whooping and yelling silenced until all he could hear was his own heartbeat and hers. He felt the tears in his eyes before he even registered what exactly he was feeling.

As soon as the movement had started, it stopped, and he crushed Electra against him again, ducking his face into the crook of her neck to hide the hot tears pressing out of his eyes. On his shoulder, he felt hers, their hearts pounding in tandem at the confirmation that all was real, all was well – that they were alive and everyone was alive and the stars were all alight and alive and aglow for all the many moons and miles around them – and brightest of all those stars, their son sent out his first signal into space.

In this moment – the only moment they ever needed to be truly happy – and shining. Dreaming.

Chapter 17: Steel Sky

Chapter Text

Shepard jerked awake to the sound of ABI’s voice over the intercom: T minus one hour until we reach Palaven. Cipritinian port officials are requesting docking papers. Garrus groaned beside her, rolling over and curling into a ball under the heavy blanket – his head probably pounding – but Electra felt the tuggings of old routine snag her body from the sheets. She swung her legs out of the bed and motioned for the lights to come on as she began to get ready. She brushed her teeth and bound her still-too-thin hair into a tight bun, regarding the woman in the mirror with vague remembrance. The bags were diminishing since dravesh had become the mainstay of her diet – not that her face had ever looked rested – and she had begun to resemble the soldier she once knew. That face in this mirror. Steadfast. Garrus staggered to his feet, muttering something about the lights being too bright, and Electra turned out into the room with a chipper greeting and a kiss on his scarred mandible.

The new custom N7 armor brought Electra a giddy excitement she hadn’t experienced in a long while. Like a kid on Christmas, she opened up her wardrobe and began to reverently retrieve the various pieces; the matte purple matched her old set. The new one had been designed to change shape and size to accommodate her changing figure, as well as offered a major boost in shields and biotic ability. Upon first trial running the armor in a combat sim, she was thrilled to find her cooldown had been reduced to almost zero seconds, and the power boost certainly didn’t hurt. She tried to pry the secrets of the armor from Hackett to no avail – not even when she wondered why this kind of compound armor tech hadn’t been available to her before London.

Her hands crackled as she tugged her gloves into place and she smiled to herself, ignoring Garrus’ suspicious side-eye. He hadn’t been so pleased to see how much stronger the armor made her – he knew she’d be far too eager to test it on more than the simulated dummies – and he was worried that with the boost in shields and power, she’d be even more reckless than before. He resolved himself to just needing to be a better 6.

Regardless of his anxiety, he couldn’t deny that she looked stunning in her familiar armor, her eyes shining like starlight as blue biotics sizzled in the air around her, whipping her hair and prickling her skin. This was the woman he’d fallen in love with – the woman the entire galaxy had fallen in love with; he only hoped their love had continued past the end of the war as much as his had. The attack on the Citadel left him reeling, wondering why he didn’t kill them on the spot for even thinking about harming his family. Had his reaction time been faster or his judgement sharper, there would be at least five fewer maniacs out for Shepard’s blood, and calculated damage reduction complemented Electra’s style of total and merciless evisceration best. Was he losing his edge, or was Electra just revving louder than before? Was that even possible? He watched her turning herself over in front of the mirror, her lips playing at a smile.

For all the excitement over her new armor, the piece Electra was the most grateful for was the cloaking modulator Kasumi had designed for her. While not as thorough as the one Kasumi wore, this one had the unique ability of disguising the fact that Electra was growing noticeably more pregnant. She’d gone on a tangent about how it worked – something something manipulating the refraction of light yadda yadda – while Electra tested it, impressed by how much it beefed up her arms and shoulders. For all the working out and physical therapy she’d been squeezing in each morning, she was nowhere near her previous size and strength and that wasn’t something she wanted her enemies knowing. Electra felt no one truly appreciated Kasumi’s attention to detail. She always wondered how it was the small woman could seemingly read every mind in the room – the better alternative to the suspicion that even now Kasumi watched. At some point last night – though they weren’t the only ones to stumble away in secretive pairs – Electra noticed both Kasumi and Kaidan had absconded. It was a welcome relief from the way Kaidan flayed her with his eyes. Maybe Kasumi planned that reprieve for her, as well. Either way, she couldn’t imagine running the Normandy without her ministrations.

Electra whisked away to the bridge, Garrus close behind her and struggling to keep pace, and her vibrant energy swept through the ship with fury as the hungover crew slowly slogged out of the deep recesses of sleep.

“Goodmorning, Joker!” she beamed, clapping his shoulder upon entry to the bridge.

Joker peered around at her with a frown, the bags under his eyes a deep purple and his hair sticking out in odd places under his cap.

“I liked you better in a coma, Commander,” he groaned, earning him a flick to the ear. “I’ve sent over our docking papers, but the turnaround is slow. I have a feeling we’ll be stuck in orbit for a while.”

“Can you patch me through?”

“Negative. Their communication is one-way only. We’ll have to wait until they give us approval to dock.”

“I can try to reach Victus. He forwarded his private comm frequency in case we needed to reach him,” Garrus offered. Electra responded with a curt nod and Garrus left.

“Anything out of the ordinary from their call? What are we dealing with?” Electra pressed.

“I’m just a pilot. And I’m tired. So, so tired. I’ll let you know if anything changes. By the way, when you get a chance, do you mind telling Liara to keep it down or stop bothering me? She’s been in some frenzy all morning. It’s like you people forget that while you’re all sleeping, I’m flying us through space.”

Electra walked back through the CIC, feeling the tired eyes following her. A knot separate from her growing hunger began to twist in her gut, but she didn’t have a name for it; the excitement she felt this morning had been all but consumed by it. There was something lingering behind the eye-bags and exhaustion in everyone’s eyes – a knowledge she didn’t share – but that regarded her like storm clouds.

Lost in thought, she almost ran into Garrus on the way into the information hub. He’d stopped in his tracks and, looking up, Electra realized why. The information hub had been stirred into a blur of raised voices and flying fingers as Liara paced around the consoles, eyes glued to a datapad as she commanded hapless crew members to various terminals. As if sensing Electra’s presence, her gaze snapped up, blue eyes fraught with a desperate anxiety Electra hadn’t seen in years. Liara motioned for her conscripted workers to keep moving as she moved over to the frozen couple.

“You’re finally up. Good. You need to see this,” she clipped, and the large, central screen flickered to life.

In the center of the frame, a figure wearing a chrome mask stood alone in a barren room. White walls, abundant shadow. There was no way to tell if the figure was man or woman or alien, and as they began to speak, the voice had been modulated to sound like a flanging chorus of voices.

“To any and all organic lives struggling in the wake of the Reapers’ destruction, this message is for you. Your fears of death are founded and your continued suffering is the proof that this war is far from over. We hear you. We see you. We have fought for your right to live and die on your own terms. By bringing you this information, we are prepared to die for that right. Hear me now: the Reaper’s are not dead. In fact, they walk among us now. On the morning of December 30^th, 2187, we secured evidence that Commander Electra Shepard is not what the world believes. We have been blindsided by lies and deceit while among us walks the greatest threat to our continued preservation – a shell harboring a hyper-advanced artificial intelligence only known to be possible with the technology of the Reapers. A blending of flesh and code – an abomination and threat to our existence. What you parade them as your hero is an imposter, a monster, a villain. I am about to show you undoctored and vetted evidence that the Commander Shepard you know is dead and her body is a disguise for the return of the Reapers.”

The video cut from the figure to a recording – security footage by the looks of it – from her room at Huerta. The timestamp read 13:22 on October 20^th, 2187. Sure enough, there she was, hooked up to a plethora of machines, tubes reaching from her limp figure under the white sheets. The only familiar imagery was her face, gaunt and serene, in the fluorescent lighting. Doctors in white coats moved around her, talking under their breath. One doctor approached the screen and began to speak, but the voice in Electra’s head processed as buzzing. She switched to manual breathing as Garrus gripped her hand, reminding her that she hadn’t drawn a breath since the video began. The room fell away, unending gray in every direction aside from the glow of the screen, and the only tether she still had to her body was the warmth of Garrus’ hand covering hers.

She snapped back as the footage was replaced by the masked figure from before, and the buzzing made way for that awful voice.

“The commander is not what you think. It is the harbinger of our doom. We are Progenitor. The dangers of Reaper technology continue to threaten us via the abomination that is waiting in this imposter’s body. The birth of this false infant is the birth of our destruction. The war is not over. Our attempt to stop the release of this Reaper into the galaxy has failed, meaning we must now take action to preventing the continuation of this so-called pregnancy. By ensuring the swift and thorough destruction of the AI calling itself Commander Shepard, Progenitor promises 300,000 credits and glory to your name. Join us. We will protect you. We will end the Reaper threat, once and for all, and ensure the hope of many generations to come.”

The screen cut to black. Electra leaned her weight into Garrus, her mind struggling to take hold of any single thought. How far had this information spread? How many people believed it? Worse yet, she herself still was unsure that she didn’t believe what they claimed – it wasn’t like she knew how she could be pregnant, much less how she could even be alive. Garrus gripped her waist, a feeling that she sunk the weight of her entire existence into.

Liara, movements slow as she studied Electra’s face, handed Electra the datapad in her hands before speaking.

“It was released across the extranet early this morning. The press was quick to jump. We’re faster. We’re still trying to find out how this footage was leaked, but it looks to be an inside job. My contacts with Huerta’s Advisory Board are already on it. I’ve compiled everything – every news story, every discussion board, every I.D. we could obtain – in this datapad. We’re feeding our own information, directing this as much as we can, but there’s only so much we can do. By the looks of it, most news sources are more concerned that you’re pregnant than they are convinced that you’re a Reaper. It’s not great, but it could be worse. However, we’ll need to prepare for the worst.”

Electra’s head was still swimming, but just skimming through the top headlines did instill a greater sense of peace and control. For once in her life, her celebrity status was paying off, with most reports solely focused on speculations about how far along she was and the gender of the baby than they were the claims made by Progenitor. An unsurprising wealth of fanart had also already begun to circulate. Electra sighed, shedding as much of her fears with that single breath as she could manage, before handing the datapad back to Liara.

“I… can’t deal with this right now. We have a mission, and I need to eat something. Garrus, try to reach Victus and get us on the ground. If you can, ask if this broadcast has made it around Palaven. If so, we’ll need to be ready,” Electra ordered. The steel edge to her voice had returned, but the strength behind it faltered. Garrus didn’t move from her side, only frowned down at her.

“You aren’t still thinking about going down there are you? After this? Of course this information has spread to Palaven. Do you know how much this puts you in danger? A bounty like that?”

“Garrus, I’ll be fine. If the Reapers couldn’t kill me, some two-bit bounty hunter certainly can’t,” she tried to bounce some lightness off the grit in his subvocals.

“Garrus has a point, Shepard. You were already a target – now, you’re a target in a lawless galaxy where 300,000 credits could make a significant difference. It won’t just be bounty hunters after you – it will potentially be entire government bodies,” Liara warned. “The Council made it clear that it wouldn’t be a problem sending others in your place. You are safest on the ship.”

“And what if I’m not? Remember what happened when we entered the derelict Reaper and the Collectors kidnapped the entire crew? I have no problems staying on the Normandy in the case of extreme danger, but if we let this group scare me into hiding, then we’re letting them win. We’re proving them right. Right now, the best way to prove them wrong is by showing my face and showing that I’m not afraid of them,” Electra insisted.

Both Liara and Garrus knew she was right. The logic was sound but their own fears couldn’t be downplayed. They shared an extended look, unable to meet Electra’s fiery gaze.

“That’s a false equivalency – you’ll be docked. You’ll have all the Normandy’s defenses, not to mention a quick escape if you need to make it. I understand you’re trying to make a point, but do you know what also makes a point? Staying alive,” Garrus growled.

“So are you just going to insist that I stay locked up every time I’m in danger? I’m tired of having this conversation with you. Both of you. I don’t need to prove myself to you, Garrus. I need to be respected. I’m making a judgement call – if I’m wrong, feel free to reopen this discussion. Am I understood?”

Electra stormed off, taking their silence as the acquiescence she demanded. It wasn’t like either of them could actually stop her if they wanted to – they had never been able to do it before.

“How do we always end up like this?” Liara sighed. Garrus ran his talons back through his fringe, watching the empty space where Electra stood before.

“We both love an impossible woman, that’s how. That and nobody else has the gizzard to tell Shepard what she should and shouldn’t do,” Garrus responded. He huffed a laugh and rubbed the brow plates wrought between his eyes. “I don’t have the gizzard for it. She terrifies me.”

“Impossible, but also incredible. We can’t help but worry about her, but that’s how our brains work, Garrus. We calculate odds – Shepard calculates the time it takes to reload her clip and throw another warp. That doesn’t leave a lot of time to think about probability.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Tell me, Liara – how bad is this situation? Really?”

“Well, we knew her pregnancy would go public eventually, I just thought we had at least another month or two. Information is still spreading slowly – at least, slowly relative to how it did prior to the relay failure. People have a lot more to worry about than what equates to celebrity news. Progenitor does concern me,” Liara assessed. She led Garrus to the central terminal and opened a datasheet. The information looked skim.

“The movement is so far limited to the Citadel and Sol System from what I can tell,” she continued, motioning to a few glowing hotspots where she traced the broadcast. “I still can’t get positive ID on the person in the video, but we’re working on that. I am the Shadow Broker, after all, and as far as I know, this group is still unaware of my identity. I’m putting out feelers. You’ll be the first to know, I assure you. The attack on the Citadel was their first attempt and considering how poorly that went, they appear to me unorganized, reckless. As they are now, they aren’t a major security threat. The real threat will be those who believe them and those who want to collect that bounty, though I also can’t find any information on who to contact to receive the payout. I’m guessing that would only be revealed upon confirmation that Shepard is dead.”

“What exactly is this group?”

“They’re an organic rights group, which might as well mean anti-AI group. They don’t believe the Reapers were destroyed, and as they’ve said, they believe Shepard is herself a Reaper. I suspect heavy batarian involvement considering their sentiments about the Alpha Relay. I suspect it runs deeper than purely organic rights – groups like this have existed for centuries. The fact that they’re surfacing now when Reaper tech has been so thoroughly eradicated complicates what they’re saying outright. They clearly have access to a significant amount of credits and information. These people are well-connected. The Reaper claim might just be a fear tactic.”

“Spirits, Liara. What if… She already worries so much about how this pregnancy happened – she doesn’t need any more reasons to want to go back to Despoina,” Garrus cursed. “We need to get ahead of this. I’ll check in with Tali on any progress she’s made with EDI.”

“I’ll do it – I don’t trust the security of your channels,” Liara said.

Garrus almost protested but considered that Electra being a target made him just as much of one and remained silent. It was about time he made the call to the primarch anyway, and he didn’t want to have to worry about his own well being as much as he was already worried about his mate’s. With a terse nod, he stalked off to the comm room, tuning out the babble of worsening news sounding all around behind him.

>>>>>>>

It was another two hours and some political finagling on Garrus’ end before the Normandy finally docked in Cipritine. From the outset, it was clear that security was tight and tension on the planet was at an all-time high. Stepping from the airlock flanked by Garrus and Solana, Electra was immediately stopped by a particularly anxious turian; his yellow eyes flickered around the dock and the grip on his rifle twisted and twitched near the safety. With only a passing glance over them and a clipped “general” to Garrus, he led them through the metal tunnel. This space had taken significant damage – black soot and hastily-patched holes lined the walkway – though from the looks of it, the damage didn’t look all that old. Electra felt the mounting tension and horror between Solana and Garrus and she wished she could understand the subvocal mutterings passing between the turians surrounding her. It didn’t help that since their disagreement earlier this morning, the only words Shepard and Garrus exchanged were regarding the mechanics of the mission. She almost felt bad for throwing Solana in the mix – she seemed a bit lost in the unusual silence deadening the space between the couple.

If it weren’t for the heavy stain of fear and hunger breathing over the land, Solana would be concerned at the lack of almost sickening levels of affection between her brother and the commander. They’d been weird the entire morning – a stark departure from the love and laughter that wrapped them up the night before. She’d been tempted to ask Garrus about it while they geared up, but he kept his back to her and his mandibles tight against his face. It was as if they spent the night mending fences only to clear a path to build a concrete wall. Between their coldness and the disturbing stillness of the dock, Solana found it hard to think much at all. Any amount of thinking just brought flashes of pain and violence and bodies piled on bodies bubbling into her mind’s eye, and she didn’t want to think of that; at least the blood had been cleared from the corridor since the last time she was here.

The tunnel led them into the heart of Lennet Station, but the damage that had been done rendered the massive structure almost unrecognizable. Where once a towering silver feat of the finest turian architecture commanded the vast sprawl of the city, huge missing chunks framed in wounded metal and broken glass gave way to the churning gray sky. The entire front of the building – which had replaced the dynamic movement of thousands of travelers with open dead air – had been blasted away and was now lined with rough-terrain military vehicles and twitchy soldiers. Any open space had been transformed into a maze of makeshift tents and half-empty pallets of supplies; there were more guns and clips in the room than rations by the looks of it, and every pair of eyes regarded the newcomers with suspicious hunger. Solana gasped at the sight, feeling her heart sink. She couldn’t imagine how the rest of the city looked. When her and her dad left, Lennet Station was still in mostly one piece.

Before the group could make it any further, they were stopped by a hulking turian who stomped up through the tents and, with one flick of the hand, dismissed the soldier that led them from the Normandy. He stood even taller than Garrus – easily 6’6 and stacked with muscle – and his gaze bore down specifically on Electra. She squared her shoulders and stepped forward.

“Commander Shepard, General Vakarian, I’m General Secter Bellitis. I’m the advisor to Primarch Victus and he’s informed me that, despite all formal warnings, you are to be escorted to the Hierarchy HQ at once and debriefed. I’m glad to see you are well armed – I can’t guarantee your safety,” Secter said. He began to guide them through the tents, closer to the gaping front of the station. Electra tried to ignore the way every set of eyes lingered on her – did they all know? How well was her armor and cloaking working to hide the protrusion of her stomach? How many of them wanted her dead?

“What kind of dangers are we up against?” Electra asked as they hopped up into one of the open-top rovers. Another soldier hopped in the turret mounted on the back, her hardened gaze not even bothering to stray from the battered horizon.

Garrus offered Electra his hand, but she ignored it, pulling herself up into the seat next to Bellitis. He’d never seen her so directly disregard him before and he had to squeeze his mandibles against his jaw to keep the sting of her dismissal from being heard. Leaning back into the seat, he propped his Black Widow against the notched frame of the door behind his mate, losing his focus in the way the air tossed Electra’s fly-away hairs across the image of utter destruction his birthplace had become. He would’ve never left for any other person; he just wished he could be sharing his home with his bondmate in a way that wasn’t so devoid of life. So cold.

“The Steel Fist’s presence isn’t as strong in this sector of the city – the Hierarchy still holds control of off-planet travel – but their patrols still keep our range limited. They’ve completely taken over the north and east quadrants of the mesa, and the south and west are both compromised as well. HQ is just outside of central in the west quadrant. If you see movement, try to shoot first – they’re taking out anyone associated with the Hierarchy in an effort to seize Lennet.”

“Spirits,” Garrus hissed as the rover bumped along the road, swerving around the chunks of debris and holes in the pavement. The ruin nearly broke him, but not as much as seeing his people in such a state of disarray. Turians never broke formation – for a merc group to have the Hierarchy on the back foot, Palaven had to be worse than he could’ve ever imagined.

“How did this happen? What about the hastatim?” Solana asked, not doing much to suppress her horror.

“The Steel Fist is the hastatim. They just follow different command,” Secter answered simply.

The rover carried on through the shattered city – the former shining glory reduced to shadows and echoes – wordless for another two klicks. It was starting to feel like the city was abandoned until a flutter of movement whispered up ahead and the soldier on the turret shouted, “Company at 12 o’clock!”

Electra stood up from the seat, bracing herself up against the upper frame to get a better visual while she positioned her pistol, when the dull thwip of a bullet bouncing from her shields fully snapped her adrenaline into gear. Without missing a beat, Garrus let a shot fly from over her shoulder and up ahead, a sniper in black armor tumbled from an upper roadway. As soon as she saw the one, Electra realized that the black-clad mercs had the rover completely surrounded. Her vision slowed as she watched another rover peel off from one of the side streets to close in on them, her warp flying and pistol aimed before the driver could even get within twenty yards. The car flipped behind them as one of her bullets hit the skull of the driver and they swerved into the protection of a side road, the buildings crowding the narrow street. The turret loosed a steady stream of fire around them as the mercs began to close in on them again.

Electra threw up a shield just in time for a rocket to dive towards them from some unseen perch in one of the buildings above. Secter shouted something, but no one could hear over the shockwave of sound and fire that exploded around the blue shell encasing them. The rover took another sharp turn, throwing Electra’s body against the frame; the shield faltered and she stumbled back down into the seat. Secter’s eyes were wild, searching, as he wrangled the vehicle through the tightly wound labyrinth of buildings. The Steel Fist mercenaries poured from every crevice and window and pile of rubble like ants on an injured beetle.

“How far?” Electra shouted over the gunfire.

“Doesn’t matter,” he shouted back. “They’ve got HQ surrounded.”

As he said this, his hand moved over the radio as he shouted out to anyone on the other line; when communication patched through, the fuzzy, distorted sound of bullets flying and rockets screaming almost superseded the voice on the other line.

“Supra-47 this is HQ. They knew you were coming. Fall back to the barricade on Amarit and we’ll take you in there,” the voice shouted. Secter opened his mouth to reply when a stray bullet launched into the radio with a crackling burst, severing any and all chance of reconnection. He cursed instead and careened the rover down yet another narrow street. Some mercs had positioned themselves along the road in their path and dove out of the way, but not before Electra could scatter their bodies into the surrounding buildings with a flare.

She felt her entire body pulsing with intensity as the space cleared around the rover; she had missed this. She raised her body up again from the seat, this time not even noticing the weakness in her muscles as energy coursed through her body, only to feel Garrus pull her back down as an explosion rocked the rover forward. Electra’s gaze whipped around just in time to see the soldier with a rocket-launcher following in the rover behind them. The soldier manning their turret was slumped over the controls in a sickening mess of blue entrails. Solana sprung to her feet, pushing aside the mangled corpse and taking over the turret; she managed to knock the rocketeer off his feet before their turret was sabotaged.

“How far?!” Electra shouted again, now more urgently. She’d managed to throw up another shield, but a familiar stinging at the nape of her neck told her she could only hold it for so long. The best she could do was continue to break down enemy shields with the Punisher, Garrus using the back of her seat as a perch for his sniper rifle as he shot down merc after merc. He’d be out of clips soon, and so would she.

“Get ready to make a run for it. When I turn onto this next street, we’ve got ground cover for about five, six yards. When I say go, we go,” Secter yelled.

Once they turned the corner, they were welcomed by an outpouring of familiar turian military colors as Hierarchy defense broke the line between the assaulters and the rover. At the end of the street, a barricade rose up around a staggering tower. Secter ordered them out of the vehicle as it screeched to a stop and, with a burst of speed and energy Electra’s legs had almost forgotten they were capable of, she whipped out onto the street, charging towards the barrier as the soldiers covered their rear. They reached the barricade, a panel shifting to allow them inside while cacophony and screaming filled the air behind them, and they slid through to cover. Electra waited for the others to go through first, throwing another flare at the mercs closing in on them before she felt Garrus yank her into safety, the panel slamming shut behind them. With the barrier securing their safety – at least for the moment – Electra felt her heart pounding and she leaned back against one of the walls to catch her breath. Garrus was immediately hovering over her, his hands searching her skin and brushing against the still perfectly preserved surface of her armor with worry. She lifted a single hand to the side of his face in a failed attempt to soothe him, locking herself into the depth of grounding blue in his eyes as she herself tried to hold her center.

“Where are they? Are they safe?” a harried voice hammered from their right. Their heads snapped around to see Castis pushing around the guards to reach his family. A visible relief washed over him as his eyes found them.

“We’re fine dad. It’s good to see you in one piece,” Solana said, greeting him with a hug.

“I had no idea things were this bad,” Electra remarked as he came over to check on her. He touched her shoulder briefly before assuming his regular rigid stance.

“The west quadrant was largely safe from The Steel Fist until you were en route. Seems like they found out you were coming and mobilized an attack,” he informed.

In his subvocals, the other turians heard loud and clear: They know about the child, my grandson. They will die painfully if they hurt you. Electra heard the murmur pass around her and felt her baby flutter in her belly. Anger, fear, rage. The understanding flashed through her as a baffling and momentary ineffable sensation.

“Castis, you don’t think…”

“We’ll discuss this inside, Garrus. It’s not safe here.”

They were led into the tower which, much unlike Lennet Station, was bursting with life. After being surrounded by hostiles, the presence of allies and order felt like cool rain on a scorched earth. These were the turians they all knew. Electra could feel the tightness in Garrus and Solana loosen a bit in the familiar and friendly presence, and Garrus stepped up to walk beside Electra, his hand finding her waist. Electra welcomed the softness of his grip on her body that nearly made her forget why there had ever been tension between them in the first place.

An elevator took them down into the subterranean levels of the building where they found Victus surrounded by a small ring of older turians. Their faces were all tired, their eyes sullen. Even when Victus beheld his old allies, the sharpness behind his yellow eyes was overcome with a superseding lassitude. Electra took his forearm in hers, happy to see the shadow of a turian smile cross his face.

“It’s a shame you have to see Palaven like this, Commander. Cipritine is a beautiful city. Our own people seem to have forgotten that unity, honor, and service are what made us great. The Steel Fist is a scourge, a shame, an outrage,” Victus barked, his fist coming down on the long, metal table in the center of the dimly lit room. A hum of concurrence passed among the others in the room. Victus pulled his hands behind his back and set his chin as he continued.

“The Hierarchy was weak after the Reapers. The line of command and order fell across Palaven and as the silence of war was followed by silence from authority, with millions starving and homeless, these traitors mistook the silence of the dead for the silence of an uncaring government and took power. They’ve sworn themselves against us – their own people – and claim it’s to preserve the strength of our race and provide for the people where we cannot, but what so many don’t realize is that, while we lack their numbers, they also lack the resources. It doesn’t matter, now. Many believe the days of the Hierarchy are over – they believe it’s time for new authority to control Palaven.”

“This sounds like more than just some merc group,” Garrus remarked. The darkness in Victus’ face confirmed that claim.

“I resisted coming to power when it was offered – I make for a lousy politician – but the world would see it that my military expertise is put to use. The Steel Fist must be put down, swiftly and thoroughly. We are in need of allies,” Victus said. Again, a strange understanding grappled in Electra’s brain – an unspoken sadness and pain hummed along the underside of his words.

“Exactly how large is this group?” she asked, pushing aside the eerie new sensation she got whenever one of the turians spoke.

“Thirty, maybe forty thousand strong, and that’s just the active forces; millions of citizens are consigned to their rule across Palaven. This is a full-scale uprising. We’ve determined that their head of operations is in Remidius City. The damage there seems on par with Cipritine – extensive but not entirely debilitating. A man named Ajax Ravidus is filling the role of imperator. He was a member of the hastatim tribunal before the war,” Victus informed.

“What exactly is the hastatim? I’ve never heard this term before,” Electra queried.

“The hastatim were Hierarchy execution squads meant to keep rebellions in check. It’s a bit ironic, isn’t it? They were our internal defense and now they’re the very ones trying to overthrow us. With the bulk of the navy returned home, the Hierarchy is no longer defenseless, but we’ve lost much of the infantry to The Steel Fist. We need the Alliance. Without them, we’ll be finished before the end of the year.”

“I didn’t come here to wage more war. What are their demands? These people need help, not violence; we’ve all seen enough violence for the next ten generations,” Electra insisted, crossing her arms. It seemed so ridiculous – unbelievable – that everyone was so willing to jump headfirst back into a war when the worst one had finally ended. She never demanded anything in return for all that she’d given, but the least she could ever hope would be a modicum of lasting peace. “Is there any way I can communicate with them without getting shot?”

“No, they are insisting on violence,” Castis interjected, shaking his head. “They seek to undermine the values and social mores that have cemented our place in the galaxy by shunning any outside race and even any turian that embraces alien diplomacy. They’ve rejected the volus, the asari, the hanar and elcor – everyone that isn’t turian is an enemy. The only reason they want to take Lennet Station is so they can prevent any outsider travel. They want to shut down the relay.”

“Commander, I’ve seen your work in action. You’ve built bridges over centuries of bad blood. I don’t doubt your ability to achieve the impossible, but the stakes are different. We no longer have a threat as big as the Reapers to unite us – unless you can deliver the resources they need, and deliver them now, then this isn’t a problem you can solve with words. Considering the unusual nature of your pregnancy is now public information, I have a feeling any of your diplomatic efforts will fall beneath that. They want you dead, Shepard,” Victus explained, pacing across the room. “If you want to use your influence to help, help us secure the Alliance. Turian-human relations have never been stronger – if The Steel Fist prevails, consider that progress a wasted effort.”

Electra prickled and crossed her arms tighter over her midsection. She knew the cloak hid her curved stomach, but she felt even more defensive of it. All her life she’d all but rejected the idea of having children specifically because she knew it threatened to erase the woman she’d made herself into. No longer defined by her greatness but relegated to the perceived lesser power of a life-bearer, she’d be dismissed, discharged, disempowered. Now that she was witnessing it time and time again, and especially by those who knew her best, she felt even more compelled to reject this reality.

“So what if they want me dead? Who in this entire galaxy hasn’t wanted me dead at some point? I’m still here. The Alliance is officially against action until I give my approval, and you don’t have that. Not until I know all my options,” Electra pushed back, her voice hitching. The dampened surprise at her rebuttal brought her a tremor of satisfaction. “If there is any chance that this can be resolved without taking up arms, then it needs to be considered. You can’t ask me to risk those lives and resources over five minutes of conversation – if the Alliance has already expressed opposition, they probably have good reasons, good reasons you aren’t telling me. I’m here to figure out a better solution.”

This time, Garrus broke in, his own voice filled with gravel as he stepped up to stand in the space between her and Victus so she couldn’t look away from him.

“Electra, think about what you’re saying. Are you really willing to make a sacrifice of this size on the off chance you can resolve this? Are you willing to sacrifice the life of our son? Timing is critical here. If we give them too much rope, they’ll pull what little we have left from under us. What about the Alliance then? The scale of conflict if we wait for things to get worse will go far beyond ending a rebellion,” he tried to reason. Garrus turned to Victus and added, “The Council requested that I come here to help you, Adrien. I’m at your disposal, and I support you fully, but I need you to understand that my responsibility to my family comes first.”

“I expected nothing less, Garrus. I won’t fault you for your loyalty. Commander, the Hierarchy needs you right now more than ever. We need your support. Please consider that just because you are bonded to a turian doesn’t mean you know better than a turian what’s best for our people right now. This isn’t a time for politics. How many times did political inaction prevent you from seeing through what’s best for the galaxy? How many lives did slow diplomacy cost in the end?”

This question gave Electra pause. She hadn’t meant to assume any kind of greater knowledge about turians, and the suggestion made her feel naked in the center of the room. In more ways than one, she had to realize that she was putting herself first. Her pride, her ego, her own inclinations to reason. She knew turians were reasonable – when they moved to action, it wasn’t without worthy cause. Garrus’ eyes pleaded with her – didn’t demand, didn’t condescend. In their imploring depths, she felt the shackles of her own bitter failures tighten. She wanted to fight back – wanted to insist on her way being the only way – but as the words formed on her tongue, they crumbled as they crashed against the backs of her teeth. She’d never felt so deservedly small.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll contact Admiral Hackett and see to it that Alliance troops are brought it for reinforcements.”

Chapter 18: Paralyzed

Chapter Text

By nightfall, The Steel Fist had been pushed back, though Electra didn’t bother to enquire any further after retiring to the small quarters reserved for her and Garrus. After reaching accord – despite the screaming voice in her head that told her this was the wrong decision – she’d sent a full report to Hackett, receiving within an hour the briefest confirmation that the Alliance would stand with the Hierarchy. Victus’ words echoed in her head. She despised that he was right, and not even just for the sake of her ego; the idea of killing so many for the sake of preserving a government body contradicted the very principle of the matter. Maybe it wasn’t her fight anymore. Maybe she should forsake bearing the morality of the galaxy and lean into the role she couldn’t avoid. She could take up a seat on the Council and play politics, after all.

For all the good of the Council, its current form no longer reflected or balanced the needs of the people. How many times in the past few years was it proven that without the united efforts of every race, there could be no progress? No victory? Shepard had managed to pull together every group and every disparate species to take on the Reapers, and for the Council to still struggle with filling the role for a human councilor after all of that, it had become abundantly clear the system was outdated. Representation didn’t need to be this difficult – it simply needed to be all-encompassing. A congress, rather than a council, with representatives of every race being able to participate in the restructuring and rebuilding of the galaxy. The idea was simple enough in theory, but even with the Council’s unlikely support, putting this into practice would be a different beast. The batarians certainly wouldn’t trust the system, even if it would benefit them the most, and what about the vorcha? The rachni? They all deserved – demanded – equal footing in galactic decisions, especially now, but did they all want it? Were politics a viable means to achieving peace?

Maybe all of this was just hormones and she wasn’t actually tired of killing. She’d felt it – the addicting electricity of battle endorphins and adrenaline – as she pushed through the bodies in her way. She cut through the enemy like a knife through water. It felt good.

Electra’s fingers traced patterns through the hair on her arms as she gazed through the screen of the datapad in her lap. For all her fantasizing about galactic equality, she couldn’t bring herself to face the immediacy her own exigency; if Progenitor killed her, none of her musings would even matter. It was hard focusing on an enemy with such ill-defined borders. Liara had chosen to remain on the ship and devote herself to uncovering any and all information about Progenitor; from there, she fed a steady stream of dossiers, news clips, message logs, and security reels to Electra, as if that would somehow bring her a semblance of peace. Electra wouldn’t know peace, not for a long while. Until her son was safely out of her body and the fabric of her existence wasn’t trying to self-deconstruct, she wouldn’t know peace. Maybe after Progenitor was dealt with would she try her hand at challenging the Council. She couldn’t decide which would prove more dangerous, existentially or otherwise. The datapad felt frigid against her bare skin.

No matter how betrayed she felt by him, Electra craved the fidelity of Garrus’ presence, his low purring rumbling through her ribcage.

He arrived late, a metal tray stacked with a few different freeze-dried meals in his hand. He didn’t dare speak first, not that he even knew what to say. The faraway detachment in Electra’s silver stare indicated that she too had run out of words. No resentment, no tension – just a continued quiet defeat.

“I’ve been promoted to Legate. At first, I wanted to turn it down, but they need me on the frontlines if we’re going to get this over with. I assured them that after this is over, they can take my position and shove it up their slits if it means I have to give up being the baddest turian on the Normandy,” he said after a while, attempting a laugh. To Electra’s disinterest, he asked, “You feeling Meat Delicacy and Greens or Ocean Delight for dinner? To its credit, the former promises that it is 100% meat.”

“I’ll have whichever one you don’t want,” Electra responded, trying to smile. A wave of drowsiness hung over her body like a curtain of lead.

Garrus set down the packets and approached where she lay on the bed. He hesitated after sitting beside her, hand hovering over her thigh before deciding to rest there. She tossed the datapad aside and wrapped her arms around him, the cold metal of his armor soothing against her clammy face.

Garrus practically melted into her embrace, finding a relief in her arms he didn’t know he needed. Ever since the first bullet skipped off her shields this morning, his muscles had been twisting under his skin, pulling his plates and scales into occlusive knots. He wasn’t looking forward to the argument they’d inevitably have over her joining the offensive against The Steel Fist, but at this point, he wasn’t prepared to push back against her. It seemed like every other conversation was a disagreement, most of which ended in her silence or her bitter acquiescence. She’d never been so docile, and he’d never seen her so broken.

“I’m proud of you, Garrus. Legate Vakarian. Castis must be over the moon.”

“Oh, don’t get me started on my dad. At this point, if he gets any giddier, I’m going to have to start looking into retirement homes for the clinically insane,” Garrus scoffed, the deep rumble in his chest rolling through Electra’s body. “Not that we all don’t have a padded room somewhere with our names on it.”

“Padded room? No more contact with the outside world? Don’t tempt me with a good time,” Electra sighed. “I think I’d miss you, though.”

“I’m sure we could get conjugal visits. Once they realize how dangerous your appetite is, they’ll have to officially prescribe my body as a medical necessity. One dose a day keeps the crazy biotic from blowing up entire planets… away,” he laughed, pressing his mouth into the crook of her neck and nipping lightly at the skin. The sound of her giggling tingled in the back of his skull.

“Promises, promises.”

She pulled closer to him, wishing his armor was already off so she could just feel his skin. At her prompting, he pulled her on top of him, his talons squeezing into her soft hips as he ground up into her, eliciting a sharp gasp at the pressure building between their bodies. It had been days since they’d had sex – since she’d returned from the hospital, they hadn’t managed to keep their hands and mouths off each other. Electra pressed herself into Garrus’ pelvis, eyes locked into his as they turned from a look of pleased surprise to heady hunger. A yearning ache was building in her lower gut; her fingers, as if compelled by a force outside of her, began undoing the latches of his armor. Garrus’ hands slipped up her shirt, tracing goosebumps up her soft skin before lightly cupping her breasts. They groaned at the same time, their urgency for each other rising.

Electra unlatched Garrus’ chest plate and flung it to the side. He watched to see where it landed, about to complain about dents, but had his attention snagged back by Electra leaning down to run her tongue up the center of his chest. She snatched his hands from under her shirt and pinned them to the bed, continuing to grind herself on his bucking hips. He tried to regain control of his arms – he easily could if he put his whole strength into it – but she bound his hands down with singularities. At his frustrated moans, she pressed her mouth over his and drew his tongue into her mouth, sucking lightly. Garrus felt his plates part, his throbbing co*ck pressing almost painfully against his constricting armor, and whimpered Electra’s name as she continued to grind herself on him. A flush stole up her neck and across her cheeks and her eyes rolled back as she continued to undulate on top of him, her own hands coming up to squeeze her breasts under her thin shirt. He needed control, needed to feel the release of slipping into her, but she ignored any of his soft pleas for release.

After some time, Electra let out a gasping moan, her body shuddering as she climaxed on top of him, the fluid motion of her agile hips stuttering as her body seized up. Garrus growled and pulled against the singularities pinning his arms to the mattress, desperate to touch her and caress her. His co*ck and balls were begging to be free.

“Electra, I need you. I need to fill you,” he pleaded, voice raspy and low. His feet were pressed into the bed, toes digging into the sheets and threatening to pierce into the soft material, as he continued to press up against her.

Finally granting him some mercy, Electra moved off of him and undid the clasps on his leggings, throwing the plates to the side and pulling the tight under layer down in agonizingly slow movements. As she moved down, she traced her tongue from his hips, down the inside of his thighs, and teased the sensitive soft spots around the base of his leg spurs. Garrus’ whimpering moans fueled Electra’s slow, intentional movements as she dragged herself down his body, the sharp lines of his metallic plating harsh against her erect nipples. The way he twitched and thrust and writhed beneath her, his body a contorting mess of pleasure and frustration, made her vagin* pulse with slick, wet need.

His body fully stripped, Garrus watched helplessly as Electra pushed herself to her knees and moved back up over him, removing her shirt with one fluid motion, her heavy breasts swaying. Electra straddled him again, sliding her puss* over his thick shaft and drawing a moan from both of them at the sensation. His blue-tinged cum budded at the tip of his co*ck and Electra lowered herself to lap it up, her tongue pressing into the slit before snaking down the rest of the shaft to gently lave around his heavy balls. He shuddered – he’d always told her that the area closest to the slit’s opening was too sensitive to have any direct contact – but she couldn’t stop herself from dragging her tongue up and around the base of his dick, sinking just slightly into slit.

Garrus let out a sound that was a mixture of a whimper and a shout, at first bucking against her probing mouth before white-hot stars of pleasure filled his sight as she pressed further in. She lifted her mouth again to his co*ck and shot him a wry smirk before diving in again, this time holding onto his hips to keep his body still. The rest of him convulsed and he gasped; whatever words his mouth tried to form came out as garbled moans and groans. He’d never felt a pleasure like this before. Blood surged through his co*ck, which twitched against his stomach as she continued to work her mouth around the base.

“Electra, I’m going to cum,” he warned, his subvocals growling beneath his crackling whisper. She didn’t stop, only driving her tongue deeper to touch a spot that had never been touched before.

As she did, Garrus’ body erupted with a full wave of uncontrollable pleasure as cum pumped out of his co*ck. His balls squeezed up and pulsed against her chin and his vision was only stars and static, barely hearing Electra’s mews of encouragement as he convulsed. When he could finally open his eyes, Electra stared down at him, lips twisted into a grin as she wiped the moisture from around her irresistible mouth. The singularities released his hands and he immediately sat up and grabbed her, pinning her to the bed beneath him and plunging his still throbbing, hard co*ck into her. She gasped and moaned out his name, but he crushed his mouth over hers, twisting his talons in her hair and using his other long arm to pull her body against his as he f*cked her.

She surrendered herself to him, his strength and desperate passion f*cking every last thought and anxiety from her mind, filling her with only him, only pleasure, only their shared need for each other – to be with each other, within each other. He drew another org*sm from her body, not slowing as she called out his name over and over. The sound of his name on her lips drove him over the edge and he pushed his entire length into her, burying his face into her hair as he came again, this time emptying whatever was left into her body. He was hers. She was his. Their rhythm slowed – thoughts and schedules and worries returning with each soft kiss they planted on each other’s bodies – though no matter how much they couldn’t ignore the pressure of the world speeding up outside their control, they couldn’t be bothered to feel or see or hear anything outside of each other.

No Shepard without Vakarian. The words trailed through their thoughts in tandem. Wordlessly, breathlessly, they affirmed their undying love and their eternal vow and slipped into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

>>>>>>>

Alliance and turian ships dangled above Cipritine like windchimes, casting the entire city in the deafening roar of engines signaling the swift precipitation of war. The rapidity of military action always astounded Liara and she wondered how The Steel Fist was assessing the sudden arrival of the mass of reinforcement. They were certainly quiet compared to their welcome three days prior. As the south and west quadrants of the city were combed for resistance and fortified, allowing a massive wave of movement and travel within that hadn’t been possible in the previous months, an eerie calm had settled over Cipritine. It wasn’t stillness, but rather the trickling flow of life returning to ruin, like the first hints of green tugging into a forest ravaged by wildfire. Civilians began to appear from the shadows, at first cautiously, unsure if the troops moving through would kill them, then with a compounding force that demanded an entirely new approach to housing and protection. Even the Hierarchy officials were shocked at the number of civilians who had been hiding, many of which weren’t even turian. Most survivors remaining in these sectors were volus, isolated and vulnerable in the wake of The Steel Fist’s power grab.

Initially, Liara insisted that she was most useful on the Normandy, her probes into Progenitor leading her through an unending labyrinth of dead ends and false leads, but as the plans for the coming action grew from a small recon to an all-out assault, she realized her duty as a proficient soldier demanded her presence. Either way, someone needed to stand with Garrus in making sure Electra didn’t overstep her own limitations. Neither of them had been having much luck on that front; it didn’t help that Chakwas couldn’t procure any real medical reason why Shepard wasn’t fit for duty. Shepard had fully sunk herself into her command again, hardly having time outside of her meetings to meet for drills with the crew. Liara was only grateful that it seemed some of the tension between her and Garrus had lifted, as the last thing either of them needed in a time like this was the loss of the bond that made them both so strong. The few times they’d both been available to run through battle simulations, Liara was reminded that the synergy they had in combat was unlike any battle connection she’d encountered. They were a force to be reckoned with, moving as one body, one mind even – even the best commando units couldn’t hold a candle to the connection shared by Shepard and Garrus.

She tried to focus on that as she gathered her energy and cast yet another biotic shield around her unit, but Javik’s critical shouting broke her focus, causing the shield to flicker. He turned his scrutiny to her, reminding her that if that happened in battle, she’d need to be the one to administer medigel. He’d been yelling all morning – stupid primitive this, careless primitive that – and Liara had had enough. Forgetting the shields, she whipped around and blasted him with a warp that knocked him off his feet. Stomping over to him, she diverted the shockwave he shot back at her. Unspeakable blue fury rippled in the air around her.

“You better hope it’s not you that needs it, then,” she shouted.

Javik rolled to his feet and put up his shields, backing away as Liara kept up her steady stream of attacks. He only deflected them, drawing her rage out of her like a thread from a spool.

“It is sweet that you think there is anything I need from you. It is you who needs me, primitive,” Javik spat with a smirk, earning a singularity that Liara unleashed with a primal shriek of frustration. Javik ducked out of the way just as Kaidan rushed over to place himself between them. The battle sim flickered to a halt around them.

“Hey! What the hell is up with you two? You forgetting who the real enemy is here?” he demanded. Liara turned on her heel, words jumbled up and caught in her mouth. She could feel Javik glowering at her back, but she’d already gone too far.

“My command demands perfection that she does not have. Her enemy is her own ego,” Javik clipped.

“You’re one to talk. For a purportedly amazing Prothean warrior, you can’t even run a cohesive unit,” Liara snapped back. Javik’s persistent sneer made her stomach twist, but she felt the eyes of the rest of the crew on her and bit back any other outbursts.

“Aren’t we a little old for schoolyard drama? Grow up, both of you. We’re launching the assault tomorrow. We’re a team,” Kaidan commanded. “It’s about damn time we start acting like one!”

They needed Shepard. No one could pull together a more diametrically opposed group of misfits like she could, and Kaidan had been feeling a lot of pressure to perform in her absence. He could say all the words she said, even use the same unyielding tone, but his voice just didn’t carry that extra weight that hers did. Kaidan looked around at the rest of the crew who had all stopped their own training to watch the scene unfold, specifically avoiding looking at Kasumi laughing at something Vega was whispering to her. He hadn’t been able to make eye-contact with her since New Year’s Eve, though they didn’t need eye contact all those times they met after that in the cover of night.

“Oh come on, there is no way that they’re banging,” Vega muttered to Kasumi. All week they’d been staking bets on whether or not Liara and Javik were having sex, and Vega wasn’t ready to admit that he’d lost the pool. At least he could share the debt with Cortez and Daniels.

“They’re in love, James. I wouldn’t expect you to know what that’s like, though. The only things you love are cigars and pull-ups,” Kasumi snickered.

Vega scoffed but couldn’t come up with a rebuttal. He thought back to the time he’d spent with Lola on Earth, not that he loved her. It sure felt close to that, though. Minus anything physical. Or either of them saying anything. Come to find out, she’s got eyes for the turian the whole time. Maybe he didn’t understand love. He also just couldn’t see how Liara and Javik could feel anything close to something like that; the looks they gave each other could cut diamond.

“Let’s break for the day. If you have anything you need to settle, do it before tomorrow,” Kaidan said, retreating back to the barracks. As he walked away, Vega pretended not to notice Kasumi disappearing behind him.

Vega almost wished he had something to settle so he wouldn’t feel so alone, but watching everyone scatter, he was relegated to his typical solitary company – just him and his reps. He tried not to think about what Kasumi said about love, especially about what she had to say about him not understanding it, and loaded up another simulation.

Liara stormed away from the old hangar, wishing she had someone she could talk to about what had been going on between her and Javik, but knowing that the only person she’d ever be able to confide in had enough on her plate. Goddess, as if she herself didn’t have enough on her plate. At 1400 hours, she still had plenty of time to get back to her more important work and maybe snag a bite to eat – anything to distract from her mounting frustration. She wasn’t even sure at this point if her anger resulted from his attitude or if it was merely a projection of her own inability to talk to him about what had been going indefinitely ignored. If she really thought about it, she’d realize that he wasn’t the source of her anger at all, but rather the anger stemmed from within for liking his cruel indifference. It didn’t make sense; she despised the way he spoke to her and treated her. So why did she feel so turned on, even now?

The duplicity disgusted her and made her think about her mother – that sick, twisting guilt she felt about Benezia’s involuntary betrayal. Liara needed to meditate.

She slammed the door of her makeshift office behind her, the sound making her jump. The terminal, blue screen scrolling with a continuous feed of information and news, called her, but she instead settled in front of the window. She crossed her legs and placed her hands on her knees and drew a long, shaky inhale. As she exhaled, she sunk into her internal palace, embracing the vast, echoey nothingness of eternity.

Liara didn’t know how long she’d sat like that, bathed in a biotic glow, when the sound of the door opening behind her ruptured her inner peace. She didn’t move, already aware that Javik had entered, though she couldn’t imagine why. If she stayed perfectly still, maybe he would just leave her to her meditation so she might refrain from murdering him.

“It is a shame to see you reject your rage. That anger is what drives your power. It is the root of potency. Instead of harness it, you let it disturb you. Rather than become one with it, you turn it away,” he said behind her.

After some time mulling over his words – though her better senses told her to dismiss it outright – she responded,

“I am not you, Javik. Maybe your kind is built on violence and anger, but I value inner peace. Without balance and calm, there is no control. Control is the conduit of power.”

“And yet you cannot control yourself with me. Your anger is unbreakable, strong, fierce. Your control is flawed,” he mused.

Liara pushed up from the floor and turned to face where he’d leaned against the terminal. He was the perfect image of a statue, yellow eyes flat and unblinking.

“Why did you agree to work with me? If you dislike me so much, why stick around? Now that the relays are open, I’m sure there are any number of violent things you can go take your anger out on. Why me?”

For once, he didn’t immediately respond with some witty, rude quip, but rather bored his gaze right back into Liara’s, mulling her words in his inscrutable mind. He had come to her not long after the Normandy crashed and, giving no elaboration, accepted the offer she’d posed before London. After that, he’d walked away and not spoken to her again until they reached the Citadel; even once they began working on the book, he gave her very little and just expected her to ask the right questions at the right times. Working with him was like digging for rare artifacts in a minefield. Despite how much he vexed her, she refrained from taking his help for granted, not when she had been sure that once they got off that planet, he’d disappear without a trace, back into the annals of a lost civilization, just as much a mystery and wonder as when he’d arrived. Still now she prepared for that eventuality. One misstep and boom – no more artifacts. She had to put her research first, always.

Maybe you should have thought about that before sleeping with him.

“While I know nothing other than warfare, I saw an opportunity for Protheans to be remembered for more than their defeat. We may have been slaughtered, wiped out and misremembered as gods, but we also lived. We had names, families, stories, victories. We had lives. Though I only know of these things through the memories conferred to me by others, my own existence defined only by my ability to kill, I feel that my definition of revenge extends beyond my initial understanding. At first, vengeance ended with defeating the Reapers. Now, I exact vengeance by defying the sentence of death and silence of my race by letting them be remembered as they truly were,” he explained, his tone subdued and thoughtful. Liara hated that she felt her own heart soften at the sound.

“And after the book is finished?” Liara mumbled, stepping forward but keeping her arms folded against her chest.

Javik turned from her and walked to the window on the opposite side of the room. He clasped his hands behind his back as he surveyed the sprawl of the city around them. Liara watched his hands wringing, the only movement giving away that he wasn’t in fact carved from stone.

“Do you know why my people made the exception of coupling with asari?”

Liara remained silent – her brain already answered what she didn’t want to believe. Without a response, he continued.

“Unlike any other race, asari could carry on the seeds of our race, however primitive the offspring. They could never be Prothean and were therefore never treated as such; however, in my time, it became more common for Prothean men to sire offspring outside of our own race, maybe as some futile hope that even if we died, we might live on through your species. Now… now I have reason to believe their efforts were not in vain. Asari, though you cling to your myths and stories like children, have excelled beyond any other primitive species in this galaxy, surely the result of the presence of our superior genes. I did not sire offspring in my time, but it seems that my time is not complete.”

Liara couldn’t find which words she wanted to say. Waves of conflicting emotion washed through her, all breaking in confusion and anger and sorrow and intrigue and disbelief. To go from being disrespected, degraded, and mocked to… surely he wasn’t truly suggesting that he wanted to… was he actually insinuating that he wanted to….? By the goddess, the utter gall to suggest that she might want to….

“You are a reasonable candidate for a mate. We already know we are physically compatible, you can’t deny this fact,” he said, extinguishing any doubts she might have had about his true intentions.

Javik turned to face her, expression unreadable as always. Liara was sure hers was some mix of surprise and horror, but she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t even tell how she was feeling. She was still so young, many years from entering her matron phase. That he proposed this so casually, with so little thought to the importance of her life outside of being a means for his own selfish goal of reproduction, brought a fire to her chest. However, that heat was shared with an unfamiliar yearning, a deep curiosity, a pride even, in being the one of many he could have chosen to give him a child. There it was again, that duplicity. Even now, between the boiling in her blood she’d only just soothed and the longing in her body she failed to suppress, she couldn’t bring herself to outright reject the offer. She couldn’t bring herself to say anything at all.

“It seems I’ve finally found the way to get you to stop talking,” Javik chuckled. He moved towards the door and opened it before turning around and adding, “You don’t need to have an answer for me yet. When the time comes, there won’t be a need for words.”

And with that, Javik left almost as soon as he’d arrived, leaving Liara an even more conflicted mess than before. At this rate, she’d need to meditate for another decade to know any ounce of tranquility. For the first time, she wished they’d never unearthed the Prothean that she might never have to envision what their hypothetical children might be like. Despite her best efforts, she imagined Javik cradling a babbling blue infant, that tantalizing slip of gentility awash in his severe features as he beheld his own. Swearing and shaking from her cursed reverie, Liara returned to the floor by the window and sunk herself back into the comforting embrace of thoughtlessness before the fantasy overwhelmed her better senses.

>>>>>>>

Electra hadn’t ever seen volus children before. Waiting for Garrus outside of HQ (they’d both been consumed in strategy meetings all day, the longest day yet, and he wanted a chance to see her before she (under Chakwas’ stern and unwavering orders) was supposed to turn in early), Electra watched a gaggle of children playing in the courtyard. As if the world around them wasn’t poised for combat and steeped in decay, they laughed and screamed and chased. The volus children were adorable balls of mischief, tottering around the more agile children, seemingly unaware of how their own physiologies kept them from keeping up. As she’d only ever seen volus in their more recognizable roles as negotiators and salesmen, it had been easy to forget that like any other race in the galaxy, they too had families, childhoods. One thing was certain, and it was that all children, no matter what race, had a remarkable propensity for lightness in the darkest of times. Electra basked in it, feeling privileged to be able to witness something so pure and sweet after all the horror.

One particularly small volus child sat apart from the rest; at first, he’d attempted to join in the fun, but after getting tripped over and pushed around, had relegated himself to the sidelines, unnoticed except for the watchful gaze of Electra. She wondered if many years later, he would remember this moment, wondered if it would make him bitter and mean; most broken adults were just rejected and hurt children, after all. She never thought herself so moved by the inner lives of children – even as a girl, she found she couldn’t relate to other girls who play-pretended doting mothers to little dolls – but over the years, something in her had changed. Like the earth shifting on its axis, rearranging the interplay of light and shadow over the land, a silent force had settled in her soul, a cloying, distant connection to an ancient maternal calling. Soon, Garrus would show up and, rather than speak about the violence that was sure to consume them for the coming weeks, she’d encourage him to watch and marvel at the spectacle of childhood bliss. He would feel that calling, too, and together they could sit in perfect silence with it. Electra wished he’d hurry, not wanting the children to scatter before Garrus had the chance to experience even a sliver of their profound innocence.

Her hand instinctively covered her stomach as she watched the children playing. She envisioned Sirius among them, laughter pouring out of him in sheer, untroubled joy, then maybe a cry as he fell and scraped his knee. Electra would rush over and gather him in her arms, plant a kiss on his wound, and tell him everything would be okay. He’d look into her calm face, eyes threatening a tidal wave of tears, and know he was safe and loved and the pain he felt only temporary. With the sureness of Electra’s undying love, he’d rush back out with his friends and cries of distress would be replaced with cries of elation. He’d be happy. She’d protect him and be there for him, always. She promised him now through the palms of her hands and the steadiness of her heartbeat. I love you, little star. I will protect you always. She swore she felt the little life wiggle in response and checked her omni-tool for messages from Garrus, but he still hadn’t let her know he was on his way. She asked his ETA, not expecting a reply right away, and closed the screen.

Her eyes lulling with contentment at the scene, she almost didn’t notice that across the courtyard, standing stock-still among the movement of bodies, a tall, dark figure watched. She didn’t notice until, after sitting for so long in that perfect peace, the horned figure advanced through the crowd, movements swift and deadly as it snatched up the lonely volus child. Electra dashed to her feet, moving before she knew she was moving, the choked screams of the terrified child spiking her adrenaline and instinctual maternal fear. Before she could even hope to save the boy, the marauder dug its long metal talons into his tiny, helpless body. Her legs pumped and she shouted for the other children to get behind her, but as she ran forward, the marauder appeared to move further away. The devastating squelch of tearing flesh, blood and entrails hitting the ground as the screams turned to cold silence, defiled her senses.

A roar ripped from Electra’s lungs; the children didn’t hear her, didn’t flee, and as the marauder dropped the tatters of the first little body, it snagged another. The metal talons latched into one of the little turians – he couldn’t be older than six – and the child shrieked. The buzz of subvocalization shuddered through Electra in an unspeakably uncanny way – she felt the pain and terror of the child, almost as if it was her own. With a mechanical snarl, the marauder ripped the turian child’s head from his body with one motion. A sharp pain stabbed through Electra’s pelvis as the child’s body went limp and fell to the ground; she crumpled to her knees, hands over her stomach as she searched for the source of the pain, but the pain was coming from within.

Electra cried out, tears streaming from her face as her insides twisted, still desperately trying to get the frolicking children around her to run, hide, fight, anything, but found she was stranded in futile isolation. Invisible. Paralyzed. Shattered. With each child that the marauder killed, more pain twisted in her body until she found herself begging with the monster itself to take her instead. Blood wet the inside of her legs as her insides tore apart beneath her skin. She searched around her frantically – Garrus should be here soon. He would see her. He’d help her. He said he’d always protect her, so where was he? Why couldn’t she feel him?

The ground beneath her began to rattle and shake with thundering crashes. In the distance, machine-gun fire sounded like fingers rapping on a window. The people around her didn’t seem to notice – they all continued about their business around her, now passing in every direction and obscuring the marauder from view. Military uniform mingled with ritzy glamor amidst the crowd; somewhere to her side, ice tinkled in a glass.

The intensity of the shaking increased, making it impossible to even try to stand through the pain. She would die here. Electra lifted her eyes to the sky and locked her vision in the unending slate of gray overhead. Garrus should be here by now. How could he not be here? She closed her eyes against the agony, against the hot tears spilling down her face, and began to count.

Electra’s eyes snapped open and she grappled with the sheets tangled around her. The building rattled and the space all around her was filled with the cacophony of panic – guns firing, voices shouting, grenades detonating. Her immediate surroundings were quiet enough, though the sudden and unexpected solitude shot like ice through her veins. Her skin was damp with sweat, naked against the bed. This was her room, yes, and these were her hands. Night had fallen, and the ceiling lit occasionally with the flashes of battle taking place outside.

No. No no no. How did she get here? When did she get here? This didn’t make sense. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She had to get back to Garrus. She was just there in the courtyard outside HQ; the bench had felt so solid beneath her. It was solid beneath her. Her omni-tool pinged with unopened messages, yet she was alone, ferried through space and time and crash-landed in this elsewhere.

Where is he? Why isn’t he here? Where is here?

Electra sprung to her feet just as she realized some heavy force pounded at her door, rattling it in its hinges. Her eyes were wild and breaths shallow as she tried to understand what the hell was going on when she scried her armor, propped in perfect order in the closet. Without missing a beat – the pounding on the door in time with her racing heart – she lurched towards the closet and methodically armored herself. This felt familiar enough that she was able to center herself in time for the door to snap open with a loud bang. Her bullets found the face of the first black-clad turian, knocking the large body back through the open door frame as she calculated her escape. The room was ten stories from the ground, and if The Steel Fist had made it inside HQ and all the way up to her room, ground level wouldn’t be much better. Even if she made the fall through the window, she’d probably land right on top of the enemy and be dispatched as quickly as she could stand. Her only way out at this point was through.

Another soldier stepped into the room – there looked to be at least two or three others behind him – and when Electra opened fire, she felt herself being tackled back onto the bed, her gun ripped from her hands as stronger, larger hands pinned her against the mattress. She opened her mouth to scream, but had a gag shoved between her teeth, stifling any sound she might have made. At this point, it was too late. She knew that. No one would come for her. At this rate, they were probably all already dead. Garrus would never let the enemy this close to her; if he were alive, he would have never let them touch her. Electra squeezed her eyes shut – the hot tears hadn’t ever stopped falling – as her hands and feet were bound. This was a dream. It had to be a dream. She’d wake up and Garrus would soothe her and cradle her body against his, or perhaps she’d awake back on the bench, the children still roaring with laughter as Garrus squeezed his arm around Electra’s shoulder in perfect contentment.

She opened her eyes again, the scene unchanged. Above all, she just wished she understood. She turned her head to look out the window, the dark sky alight with fire and smoke. One of the Steel Fist soldiers shot the window, glass flying in a spectacular luminous blossom. Before the glass settled, a battered dropship rose up and obscured the view, the hatch opening up into the small apartment. For some reason, Electra hadn’t realized until this moment that she needed to fight back harder, that this wasn’t a dream after all, and that if she didn’t, she’d very likely be taken to her death. Her biotics flared to life, snapping the cords binding her hands and feet just as a syringe stabbed into her neck. Her attackers shouted as she flailed, an unfocused surge of power loosing from her body in every direction, but the shouts were only sound with no edges. Just as soon as she prepared to unleash her full force upon them, she felt her strength sink inside of her body and her vision blur, all the colors blending into a uniform dark slate.

Oh God, the children. Are they okay? Did someone save them?

Garrus should be here by now.

Her last thoughts were of his beautiful blue eyes, his gentle hands, before all sensation drained from her body and her consciousness slipped into the deep.

Chapter 19: Quantum Ghost

Chapter Text

The Steel Fist hit hard and without warning at 2300 hours on the night before the planned assault. Springing upon the Hierarchy’s headquarters in the cover of darkness, a force of thousands erupted from within the Alliance and turian numbers as if pulling from the shadows themselves, immediately crippling any chance to enact a productive counter attack. Garrus had been kept long and late in his meetings, never even getting the chance to meet Electra for dinner – she hadn’t responded to his messages anyway. He hoped she was merely asleep, and as he’d finally broken free from the war room, he rushed back home, desperate to feel her body against his and catch some much-needed sleep before hell broke loose the next morning. The sight of HQ rising above the rest of the city before him had filled him with a hypnotic reprieve as he steered the rover through the narrow streets; watching then the calm break into a dizzying mess of fire and frenzy as the path between him and Shepard was severed nearly broke him.

Garrus never reached HQ. Within hours, their forces had been pushed into a bottleneck around Cipritine central, though Garrus’ scope never strayed too far from the nauseating silence emanating from that tower in the distance. He couldn’t break now. He couldn’t think. She had to be alive. There was no way in hell they’d take her that easily. Any moment now, she’d storm to the front of the line, her beautiful face twisted into a determined grimace as she took charge over the situation that unraveled more and more out of Alliance and Hierarchy control.

“Legate, you’re needed back at command,” General Bellitis barked behind him. Garrus didn’t bother looking back until he watched yet another body fall from a distant perch. Dropping his rifle, he scowled back at the general, surprised that his hardened features appeared sympathetic.

I know how it feels to lose someone, brother.

“Did they say why?” he asked, his tone flat and unfeeling. If he wavered at all, he’d himself have to hear the defeat, the fear, the panic, and that wouldn’t do anything to improve his aim.

“Negative. Sounded urgent.”

You can’t help her like this. I should know.

Garrus pushed back through the fortified line, back to Lennet Station where command had regrouped. At least they still commanded the station, if nothing else. Joker had been put into standby in case the Normandy was needed for combat – she was still one of the most powerful ships between both navies.

Approaching the inner sanctum of the station where the refugees had been gathered for emergency evac, Garrus was greeted by a flurry of relieved and familiar faces. Liara and Solana rushed over to him first, though the entire crew looked to be present. Everyone except Shepard. The way their expectant gazes dropped as he approached alone confirmed in both parties what everyone hoped wasn’t true – the commander was still missing in action. A numbing mixture of madness and anguish burned through the marrow of Garrus’ bones followed by a deep shame as he briefly considered how he’d trade any one of these faces for the face of his mate. Of course he didn’t want that – this was his family – but what he wouldn’t give to hold her to his chest and breathe in her aroma. Everything else felt cheap in comparison.

“Garrus, I…” Liara stumbled over her words. No one wanted to say her name.

“When did you get here?” he asked, pushing the glaring pain deeper under the sounds of explosions and screaming metal.

“The barracks were overrun at the same time as everyone else, but we didn’t get hit nearly as hard as the blocks around HQ. We took over civilian evac once we got the orders to pull back to Lennet Station. We got here just as the Fists broke through our defensive line. All the streets leading back are blocked,” Solana explained. Her hand lingered on Garrus’ arm and her subvocals flooded through him, trying to steel him and maybe pry back some of the tension clamming him up, though he held his sharp teeth gritting together in his mouth.

“Admiral Hackett and Admiral Melior have called an emergency meeting,” Kaidan said. “They know more about this situation than we do. Maybe they know something about…”

“Enough, Alenko. Let’s go,” Garrus growled, cutting him off. Kaidan averted his gaze and followed in subdued silence as Garrus broke away from the group.

The upper floor – or at least what remained of it – was alive with the heated and harried discussion of strategy, numbers, and tactic, generals and lieutenants flying around to ferry away new information or carry out new orders. Castis and Victus leaned over a broad table alongside Hackett and Melior. A number of other generals and commanders stood with them, though Garrus didn’t care to identify them. Their heads snapped up as Garrus took a place at the table, his wordless furor sucking the air from their throats.

“Shepard,” Garrus spat, nearly choking over her name. “Where is she?”

“To the best of our knowledge, Commander Shepard was asleep in her personal quarters at HQ at the time of the attack. I was there – the building was completely overrun within minutes. They were inside the whole time, though we’re not sure how they infiltrated undetected. There was no time to get to the upper levels and stage an evac,” Admiral Melior clipped. Though he outranked Garrus by more than a few levels, he kept his eyeline just under Garrus’, not wanting to face his seething persecution.

“Is that it? No leads? Nothing? What the hell happened?”

“Son, if we knew the whereabouts of the commander, you’d have known first. We have good reason to believe she’s alive, though her status is unknown,” Castis responded, his low tone a warning. This isn’t the time to mourn. You’re not the only one who has lost someone. Pull yourself together.

“My guess is she’s been taken as a captive – she’s far too valuable to kill outright. And if they tried to kill her outright, well, may the spirits have mercy on them. The point is, if they killed the commander, they wouldn’t do so quietly. I believe she’s been taken to Remedius City. They’ll want to keep her as far from their assault as possible,” Victus reassured. He wasn’t afraid of Garrus like the others – all he saw was a man in the deepest despair. To try to deny that they weren’t all afraid for Shepard would be to lie in a way turians weren’t able to lie. Even Hackett with his persistently flat voice couldn’t disguise his panic when he realized Shepard was missing.

“We’ve been put on the defense here. No way to be sure. Getting Shepard out of the picture was a smart move on their part. Break up the strength of our command, hit us where it hurts. While their force turned out to be bigger and stronger than we predicted, this is still anyone’s game. We’re still regrouping, but by our current metrics, we still outnumber and outgun them two to one, and we have what they don’t – air power,” Admiral Hackett broke in. “Let’s push back into the west quadrant, retake HQ, then carry out the assault on their base in the north. Once we push them back to the east, we send our combined naval forces to Remedius, hit em’ where it really hurts.”

A chorus of voices broke in, a mixture of dissent and agreement – clearly a continuation of a debate Garrus had missed a significant portion of. Even now, he struggled to hold his line of command behind the frustration that they weren’t immediately going after Shepard. If they knew where she was, why wouldn’t they focus on that? Before he could break in, he heard his father’s subvocals cut through the din –

This isn’t about you. This isn’t about Shepard. This is about Palaven. You’re a Legate now. Act like one.

Garrus slammed his fist on the table and circled away from the bickering men. His father was right, much to his chagrin, though he couldn’t help the fire crackling under his chest plates. If Shepard were here, she’d do more damage than three turian fleets combined. That they could ignore the immense tactical advantage of her prowess and go on to bicker over strategy struck Garrus as a futile measure in hopelessness. The longer they debated, the longer Shepard’s life hung in the balance – as if her life, after everything she’d done, mattered just as much as any other foot-soldier or civilian or general. If they wouldn’t do anything, Garrus would have to. Without them.

Garrus stormed away from the meeting, unable to stomach any more of their drivel, and made a beeline to the hangar where the Normandy was still docked. Alenko trotted after him, but when Garrus expected him to spew some nonsense about falling in line, he was met instead with his unwavering support.

“Benefits of being a Spectre is I can break from the line of command as I see fit. Can’t say you’re afforded the same luxury, but I’m with you all the way, Vakarian,” Kaidan said, clapping his hand on Garrus’ back in a rare display of solidarity. For all the years they’d spent serving together, this was the first time that loving the same woman actually brought them together outside of the necessity of their orders.

“Glad to have you on my side, Kaidan. It’s good to know our days of breaking the rules aren’t over. Get the others and meet me at the Normandy and let’s go get my wife.”

>>>>>>>

Electra peeled back her eyelids but the bright whiteness of the room burned her eyes, forcing them to squeeze closed. Her skull felt like it had been slammed in a door and her neck felt even worse – the L3 implant burned like an open wound at the top of her spine. She attempted to bring her hands to her face but found her hands secured to the uncomfortable stretcher beneath her. She pulled against them, realizing now that her whole body was bound. Her eyes shot open, reeling and dizzy as her body struggled against the lingering haze from whatever had been used to subdue her. A beeping monitor droned beside her in the otherwise empty room. She focused in on the sound, first matching her own heartbeat before recognizing with a wave of relief that her son’s own monitor fluttered in tandem. Now if only she could figure out where she was, she might have a chance to save them both.

She scanned the small sterile room, eyes lingering on the single door at the far side. Step one: break her restraints. Step two: break through that damn door. Easy enough. She wished her body didn’t ache so terribly; on top of the pain and wooziness adhering her to the thin stretcher, the only thing covering her was a thin, ill-fitting hospital gown. Gathering her strength and wits, she scanned the room again, noting that while she didn’t have access to any traditional weapons, she could probably wield the pole supporting the IV bag dripping mysterious fluids into her arm. Step one point five: rip this f*cking thing out before it could take her under again.

Gasping against the pain in her head and neck, she pooled just enough of her weakened biotic energy in her hands to send a pulse through the restraints. The metal clanged and clattered to the floor, the racket making her wince. She tore the needle from her arm and pushed herself up against the tempting heaviness of gravity so she could release the bindings on her legs. As she gripped at them, searching for similar metal bonds, she cursed as she realized these were magnetic pulse restraints. She leaned over the side of the table, hands fumbling on the underside in search of a release, though she knew already that the release was probably located on the exterior of the room. If she tried to break the glowing orange bands around her legs, she’d probably shatter her bones in the process, defeating the purpose of getting her legs free in the first place. She fell back against the bed with a hiss of frustration and searched the room again.

Realizing her best bet was getting one of the assholes holding her hostage to come around, she turned her attention to the monitors, following the thickest cable back to where it connected with the wall. She didn’t have the leverage or aim to pull it out from here and instead sacrificed some of her limited biotic energy by sending a stuttering shockwave through the machinery. As the monitor flickered and flatlined, she felt the unexpected release of her leg restraints. It was almost like they wanted her to escape if they were going to make it this easy. She swung her legs free. The force of standing almost caused her to fall (they must have been keeping her sedated with something meant to drain her and keep her weak) but with every movement, she felt her vitality returning. She didn’t have long – with the monitors down, someone would soon be there to check on her. Hearing a set of hurried steps approaching the closed door, she realized that soon meant right now and rushed to duck beside the door, the long IV pole gripped in her hands.

As the door swung open, she swung the iron pole into the throat of the intruder, satisfied with the choking sputter the turian emitted as he fell back to the floor. With no time to lose, Electra pinned him down and located his sidearm, driving a bullet into his skull before there was a moment to consider sparing him. As the turian fell limp beneath her, blue blood leaking out onto the white tile, Electra felt a jolt of anguish through her still foggy mind. The image of Garrus sprawled on the apartment floor on Omega in a pool of deep blue captured her, paralyzing her over the fresh corpse beneath her.

She shook her head – she’d have time to regret casualties later if she didn’t want to become a casualty herself. She stood and examined the corridor before her. To her right, another closed door led into a room with a long window that stretched all the way down to where the hall turned off. She didn’t detect any motion, but she heard the dead turian’s omni-tool crackle to life as a voice came through. She didn’t have long at all before someone realized there was a good reason he wasn’t answering. Electra entered the room to her right, relieved to find it empty – terminals and lab equipment chirped and beeped all around her, tempting her to investigate, but she first needed something better to defend herself with. The clip in the small pistol was nearly empty, and she could feel the air coming through the gown; unfortunately, the room offered nothing but the tantalizing reports she had no doubt pertained to her.

Thinking fast, she returned to the turian’s corpse, discarded the bulkier armor, and stripped him of the tight carbon-fiber under armor. It wasn’t likely to fit well – if it fit at all – but it was better than nothing. She tugged it into place over her legs, struggling to get it fitted well enough to protect her vital organs while she tried to gather her very slowly building energy to put up her shields. Multiple sets of footsteps approached from around the bend and she ducked behind one of the desks. Her best weapon now was the element of surprise.

Two turian soldiers dressed like the one before – a uniform that looked less like the organized all-black of The Steel Fist and more like a modified version of turian infantry – rounded the corner, guns drawn as they slowed their approach at the sight of their dead comrade. One of them spoke into her omni-tool, her voice low and steady.

“Varis is dead. No visual on Shepard.”

“She’s still there. Whatever you do, she isn’t to be harmed. Ajax needs her alive,” a voice crackled through.

Big mistake, Ajax.

Electra threw on her shields and rose over the counter. Just as the soldiers noticed her, her gun was already trained on them. They pointed theirs back, but they all knew that the soldiers couldn’t shoot. Standing her ground, she motioned for them to enter the lab, slowly backing around as they traded spots. With the pistol, she motioned for them to slide their weapons over once they dropped to the ground. Their hands went up in surrender, mouths clamped shut and eyes guarded, but like a worm digging into the soft tissue of her brain, their almost imperceptible subvocalization pierced the silence.

Hostile. Reinforcements. Compound C42 armed. Take her down.

The understanding clawing through her skull, buzzing like an angry hive of hornets, caused her face to contort and, for one critical moment, her steady aim faltered. This was just enough time for one of the soldiers to lurch forward and plunge a syringe into the space just under her collarbone. Electra tried to shoot, but her hand had already gone limp, dropping the gun as her liquefied legs crumpled beneath her. The soldier stood over her, yellow eyes apprehensive, confounded, as a wordless communication passed between them.

You can hear me.

>>>>>>>

When Electra came to, she sensed beyond reason that very little time had passed. The spot where she’d been injected still stung and she didn’t feel half as drained as she’d felt waking up before. She immediately tried to push herself up only to find the magnetic pulse bindings now strapped her in across the entirety of her body; there would be no breaking out of her restraints this time. The monitor was back online and both cardiac rhythms beeped in the room. If not for the immediate awareness that she was no longer alone, she would have leaned into the comfort of the sound and tried to sleep.

Her gaze jerked around until it met a new figure standing against the far wall. The stranger was lean and compact – short in comparison to most turians she’d encountered – and his plates were a dark maroon that looked almost black. Sparse white markings stood in stark contrast to his coloration. Shepard shouted to get his attention, and the turian waited a moment before turning his aloof disinterest from his omni-tool to the woman hurling insults and squirming against the restraints. His ruddy eyes flickered to the monitors before he approached. Something about him – no matter how much Electra wanted to hate him with every fiber of her being – tapered the adrenaline coursing through her system, and she grew still as he stood in silence beside her. Only once she stopped her movements and bit down on the steady stream of curses did he speak.

“Commander Shepard, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I should’ve known those metal restraints wouldn’t be enough – I had hoped you might realize how hopeless your situation was and maybe exercise a bit of patience, but I don’t blame you for what you did. You killed a good man, today, though I suppose I don’t blame you for that one either. I’d probably do the same,” the turian plucked. His voice had an almost feminine lilt to it, maybe an accent she’d never heard before. It only compounded the overall calm oozing from him.

“Who are you? Where am I? What do you want from me?” she demanded.

“I’m Dr. Lilix, head of medical research at this facility. I’ve been taking good care of you, though I apologize for the sedative. It’s not very gentle, but we had to be sure it worked. You should feel better within the hour judging on your rate of recovery. Speaking of, can I just say it’s been an honor to study you. You’re incredible, really. Truly one of a kind,” Dr. Lilix drawled.

“Cut the chit chat. I want answers,” Electra bit back.

Dr. Lilix sighed and tutted before pulling a chair from out of Electra’s periphery to take a seat next to her bedside. She could feel every second dripping away like molasses, slow and intentional. If this was a form of torture, it was working as intended.

“I suppose there’s no real harm in keeping you informed, if that’s what you really want. I don’t know what difference it will make now. You’re at the Helios Institute of Medicine in Remedius City. The time is currently 14:11, and today is Friday the 7^th of January, Earth adjusted calendar. I would tell you more about what’s going on back in Cipritine, but I don’t even know how that’s going. Probably not well for your friends if I can make a neutral guess – the Hierarchy grossly underestimated the resistance. Now, before you start freaking out again, I’m going to inform you that you’ll feel much better if you just stay still. You’re not going anywhere, Shepard, and believe it or not, I’m not going to hurt you.”

“If you’re not going to hurt me, then why are you holding me hostage?”

“Orders. I’ve been tasked with studying you. You’re something of a medical marvel, though I suppose you’ve been hearing a lot of that. You probably don’t even realize just how special you are – or just how special your child is,” he mused. Electra tried to detect insincerity in his tone, upset when she found nothing but his consistent, albeit detached, candor. She narrowed her sights at him and relaxed herself into the hard mattress.

“What could you possibly know about me or my son that I don’t already know? You don’t seriously think that highly of yourself that whatever research you’ve conducted over the past day or two can somehow surpass the best doctors on the Citadel, do you?”

“No, I don’t. However, I have no reason to lie to you, Shepard. And I know things these other doctors don’t. For now, at least. For starters, I don’t think your child is a Reaper, though it’s not a preposterous claim. While lacking any features that indicate external construction, the hybridization and the subsequent changes in your body to accommodate it are reminiscent of genetic manipulation only seen in the Reapers, but that theory only stands on the basis of there being nothing else to compare it to. So do I personally think you or your fetus are Reapers? No, but at the end of the day, the opinions and doubts of one or even a few doctors bears little weight. All things considered, I could also be wrong. Based on the look in your eyes, you yourself suspect that I am, though I have no doubt that if you truly believed your baby to be a Reaper, you would have dealt with it long before this point,” Lilix prattled.

He gesticulated as he spoke, gloved hands drawing up animated scenes in the air. If he was anything, Lilix was certainly interesting; for all the many turians Electra had known, she’d never met one so utterly strange. The quirkiness was almost endearing if not wholly jarring. He reminded her of Mordin, that familiarity lulling her into a false sense of security; she kept having to remind herself that this man still had her restrained behind enemy lines, something Mordin would never do.

“That’s… comforting. So you don’t think we’re Reapers. What do you think we are?” she pried, intrigued at the prospect of unfiltered honesty, something she’d been lacking since waking from the coma.

“That’s the million-credit question, isn’t it? Mutation maybe. You might even be glitch in the ‘matrix.’ What’s even more interesting is that you’re not the only one as everyone believes. I’m not supposed to be telling you this, though I suppose if anyone has a right to know, it’s you. Over the past few months, cases of hybrid pregnancies – consisting of a wide variety of hybridizations – have occurred in healthy turian women. There’s no way to tell how many have occurred as not every turian is going to have access to obstetric care at this time and, almost as soon as I sniffed out that these pregnancies were occurring, these women were whisked away for research elsewhere. All I can say is that your case isn’t isolated which makes it even more unlikely that you’re some kind of rare mutant. Some larger phenomenon is taking place, I just don’t know what or how, and I doubt anyone does. For now. What makes you such a special case is your pregnancy has progressed considerably further than any of the others I’ve seen, and you also present with a number of additional curiosities that flame the mystery. Like I said, studying you has been the highlight of my entire career. I don’t think The Steel Fist has decided what to do with you yet, but as a researcher, I rather selfishly hope they don’t just kill you.”

Electra clung to Lilix’s every word, wishing she had a better way to gauge his honesty other than her intuition. Her intuition told her he spoke only truth – and this truth was shocking. The very notion that she wasn’t so alone, that other women like her were currently faced with a similar fear and uncertainty and potential danger, rocked her to her core.

“Where are these women? What else can you tell me?”

“Unfortunately, very little. I wish I knew. With the data I’ve collected on you, I might actually be able to help them. Maybe come up with a better theory than Reapers. But like I said, they’re being researched elsewhere. I don’t know where. Believe me, if I knew, I’d tell you and probably ask you to take me with you.”

Electra gnawed on her lip and searched the doctor’s features. How he ended up here was beyond her, but she had to try to get through to him. Right now, his honesty was a lifeline.

“I know this is farfetched, but is there any way you can forward that data to me? I need it, Lilix. You don’t understand what this means to be,” she pleaded, wishing she could move her arms so she could shake him by his mandibles.

“Commander, what good will that data do you? It’s already unlikely you’ll be kept alive, and if by some miracle you escape before Ajax decides what to do with you, I’ll be held responsible and executed. Without me, that research is unreadable, and I don’t intend on sharing the means for decryption and decoding. Besides, where do you suggest I forward the data to? You don’t have your omni-tool and the second I try to send something outside of the facility, I’m done for, which means you’re done for,” he explained. “Think about this logically.”

Electra pressed her lips together. He was awfully defeatist, though she suspected that he was being intentionally misleading. The man knew how to choose his words, that she was sure of. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he could prove to be a useful ally, no matter how unconventional; perfectly good turians followed bad orders all the time. She’d need to play this carefully, regardless. There was no use trying to convince him to help her out before she knew her hand.

“So. Death it is then. I’d say the prospect frightened me if I hadn’t brushed with it so many times and come out on top. So am I just going to spend the rest of my time here? In this room?”

“That’s not up to either of us, but by now, you know that. What are you really asking?”

“I want to see the facility. As much as you can show me, at least. Before I die. I’ll behave. If you don’t trust me, feel free to keep me in my restraints, drug me, put a gun to my head – do whatever you want to make yourself more comfortable. I just want to get a feel for my tomb,” Electra pushed.

She assumed her request was a long shot, but the twinkle in Lilix’s eye suggested otherwise. Without breaking eye contact, he opened his omni-tool and ordered someone to disable the restraints; at his word, the orange bands retracted. Electra stretched her muscles, happy enough just to do that, before sitting up on the stretcher with forced docility. Lilix studied her for a moment before laughing to himself and standing from his chair. He offered her his arm as he led her from the room.

Out in the hallway, she ignored the uncontained horror on the lab assistant’s face as she passed by the window, arm linked in Lilix’s for support as her body still felt weak. He guided her down through the winding halls, past doors and labs and even more prying eyes. They all seemed less surprised that she was out for what appeared a casual stroll and more shocked that she wasn’t attacking them like some murderous villain, their confusion twisting up even more when she caught their stares and countered with a polite smile. Smile and wave and look for a way out.

After meandering the halls for a bit, Lilix occasionally narrating the purpose of one lab or another, they pushed through a set of double doors and entered the shaded fringes of a lush courtyard. The garden appeared to be in the very center of the institute, the swaying trees boxed in by four window-speckled walls. In the gardens, the company of doctors and scientists was traded for ordinary citizens. Children played hide-and-seek in the overgrown greenery while parents looked on; occasional sets of young lovers could be seen with her foreheads pressed together as they sat beneath the steel sky. Though the walls were tall, Electra got the impression that a sprawling city spread all around them, though there was no telling how much damage Remedius City sustained compared to Cipritine. If the pristine, unmarred garden was any indicator, then she assumed the city had fared significantly better in the war. It made sense that this had become The Steel Fist’s base of operations.

“I didn’t expect to see so many… ordinary people. I thought this was a research facility,” Electra remarked as they walked through the gardens. As she passed, some of the parents called their children back to their sides, watching her with open distrust and fear. Sure the propaganda about her had probably spread far at this point, but she didn’t expect to encounter such unabashed disgust. The fear scintillating in the children’s eyes hurt the most.

“It is. It is also the best place to receive medical care on the planet. You’re staying in the north wing of Helios that is focused on research, but two of the branches are dedicated hospitals. With Cipritine’s medical center demolished, Helios remains one of Palaven’s best hospitals. People are sick, injured, hungry. The Hierarchy wanted to share our resources with everyone on Palaven – even non-residents – but we can barely take care of our own people. Until Ajax Ravidus stepped in as imperator, most of these families didn’t have hope. At least now we’re able to give them a minimum of care and treatment,” Lilix elaborated.

“That’s understandable. For being so strapped for resources, it sure seems like none are being spared keeping me here. If Helios is so overwhelmed, why waste energy on me?”

“Because you’re valuable. You are aware of the price on your head, right? Between that, your value to the Council and the Alliance, and your immense value to private researchers, you’re one of our most worthwhile assets. And I thank you immensely for behaving. The last thing I want is to get chewed out by some Steel Fist hotshot who learned everything about hostage etiquette from action vids,” Lilix snorted, patting Electra’s arm. “Considering the last time you were taken hostage you destroyed an entire star system, I’d say this is going considerably better.”

“What can you tell me about Ravidus?

“He’s old guard. Real tough guy. Not the easiest to talk to, if you ask me, but I don’t think that has anything to do with his character. If it weren’t for him, turians would be in a much worse state. I know you’ve only seen things from the other side – probably told we’re all violent, lawless gang-members – but we’re only looking out for our interest when no one else will. The Hierarchy sat back while turians died and starved and if I know anything about human history, your species has rebelled over less.”

“A turian versed in human history? I’ve heard a lot of crazy things, but that tops the list.”

“Crazier than a human pregnant with a turian child? Don’t flatter me.”

“You might not believe me, but I never thought you were just a gang,” Electra confessed, biting the inside of her cheek. “I didn’t want this conflict; I wanted resolution. Though, I suppose I should be eating my own words considering you’re going to kill me.”

“Then we’re more alike than you know. Do you really think we want more warfare? We’re only doing what is necessary for our survival. If killing you ensures the survival of many, do you not think it’s worthwhile? It’s not my choice to make, nor is it yours. At the end of the day, we’re merely pawns clinging to the hope that we’re remembered as martyrs rather than villains.”

Lilix led them back around through the double doors, the antiseptic aroma in the brittle air of the halls sealing her away from the liberation of having the sky above her. She removed her arm from Lilix’s and followed at his side, surprised when he didn’t immediately sedate her for pulling out of his grasp. For some reason, his measured calm only instilled a greater sense of dread that her fate was in fact sealed. If by now no one had come for her, then that probably meant they were overwhelmed. Her memory flashed back to those moments – or were they hours – before she was dragged from her bed. Garrus never showed, not when she truly needed him, and she still couldn’t even distinguish dream from reality. For all she knew, this was a sick continuation of the nightmare from before; dreamy liminality clung to every surface, every word, every smell, like a fine layer of long-settled dust.

“Did any of the other women mention having strange dreams?” she asked suddenly, earning a curious side-eye as they very slowly walked back through the winding halls to her cell.

“No, that didn’t come up in any of their initial reports, though it’s funny you should bring it up. You have been having some very strange dreams, haven’t you?”

Electra stopped in her tracks and studied Lilix, wondering if his prescience confirmed her suspicions of his immateriality. If she could prove he existed only in her brain, then she might be able to wake up. In the waking world, Garrus wasn’t most likely dead – he was, in fact, certainly alive – and she could pull his arms tighter around her and feel the warmth of his skin against hers. She could probably push it even further and find herself opening her eyes back on the Normandy SR-1, back before her body started feeling like a marionette for her fragmented soul.

“What do you know about them?” she asked. She crossed her arms over her belly, almost forgetting the bump existed and flinching at the remembrance that no matter how careless she felt with her own sense of realness, the realness of her son depended on her.

“Keep moving. We’re almost back,” he prompted, offering her his arm again. She began to walk with him but refused his arm, keeping her arms clamped tight around her abdomen. She paid rapt attention as he continued.

“I’ve studied you more efficiently than you might imagine during your brief stay here. The abnormalities in your body are extensive. Of course you know that the very structure of your DNA is actively changing from levo-based amino acids to a dual-chirality mix of levo and dextro amino strands. Your hormonal readings are singular and beyond that, the rate at which your body adapts and changes to accommodate the even more singular life growing inside of you is astounding. On a scientific level, everything is unprecedented. Every finding is potentially connected, though finding the catalyst for every unprecedented change in your body would be the most important discovery. Naturally, that led me to studying your brain. I thought it might give me answers, but it in fact only gave me more questions. I believed that the strength of the sedative compound would put you into an almost hyper-sleep, expecting to only monitor the lowest frequencies of delta brainwaves. Instead, your theta waves were off the charts, indicating in fact a very intense and sustained dream-like state. Even more than that, the communication center of your brain showed the type of activity exclusively associated with the theorized quantum-entanglement communication observed in species like the rachni. In layman’s terms, telepathy. This seemed to bring you a great deal of distress – as it stands, the brains of humans aren’t designed for telepathic communication.”

They’d made it back to the room. Not wanting to interrupt him, Electra laid back down on the bed and settled herself into place as Lilix reactivated her restraints. She barely noticed as he did this, enthralled with his words. Did Chakwas know about this? Liara? Had they been misleading her on purpose? She needed to get out of here, if only to demand the truth.

“Look, I don’t even know what to make of it, but my initial findings seem to suggest that what is happening in your brain goes beyond dreaming – it appears that you are communicating entirely within your own mind. Your consciousness is not alone, at least not when you sleep. If you’d like (though as I pointed out before, none of this research is for your benefit) I can run more scans while you sleep and keep you updated,” Lilix offered. He wheeled over the IV and pushed the needle into Electra’s forearm. As the clear liquid began to drip through the tube, she felt her mind begin to fray.

“Lilix, I don’t want to go to sleep. I don’t want to die,” she said, her words slurring. Her eyes and lips felt weighted, like invisible hands pressed down on her tongue and cheeks and sinuses. “I’m not ready.”

“Not my call, Shepard. Just in case you wake up and I’m not here, you can find you personal effects in a locker in room 56F. South wing, first floor. The locker combination is 5788587. You can otherwise blast it open if you can’t remember that. Just remember. 56F in the south wing.”

Her heart rate had already slowed as the sedative dragged her deep into the murkiness of sleep. Lilix couldn’t be sure that she’d heard his last words – it probably wouldn’t matter in the end. From this point forward, he could only be responsible for making sure she made it through to the other side. Beyond that, her fate was her own to bear. The crease between her expressive eyes indicated that she already knew this, however, and so Lilix left Shepard to the watchful care of the machines, slipping from existence just as Electra fully slipped under, all traces of his presence wiped clean from the record of time and space.

Chapter 20: Crimson Whispers

Chapter Text

Solana squeezed her eyes shut and tightened the grip on her SMG. Tension coiled through her body like razor wire; even the hard, steel wall pressed against her back felt soft compared to the pressure mounting under her skin. Breathe, remember your training. Old ache radiated from deep within her leg. She was tired of knowing her birthplace as a battleground – before the pain, before the fires, before the sound of gunfire usurped the sound of city life. She had at least hoped that she might return home after all those long months and find silence. At least now the enemy felt relatively surmountable, though shooting through turians not so different than she didn’t sit quite right either. Behind her clenched lids, spectral filaments formed evanescent outlines of piled bodies and tumbling towers. A child paralyzed in the street as the Reaper’s red beam cut through the smoke. Move. Remember your training.

“I have a visual on the frigate. Sol, is this the one?” Garrus asked beside her.

Solana opened her eyes and glanced around the corner. Steel Fist sentries patrolled around the hangar, oblivious to the infiltrators.

“Affirmative. Should get us to Remedius City and back without a hitch. The guns don’t measure up to an S-class, but they’re nothing to be laughed at,” she confirmed.

“And you’re sure you can pilot this thing?” he pressed. Solana shot him a scowl.

“You really think I’d tell you about it if I couldn’t?”

When the crew first grouped back at the Normandy, Solana initially hovered around the edges. She wasn’t technically even crew yet, and while she didn’t want to show it, she felt out of place in their ranks. Sure, they weren’t too scary individually, but seeing them swept into their own chaotic machinations left her scrambling to make a voice. There was no room for meaningless input, not when it came to Shepard, and no one would want to hear what Solana really thought – that without Shepard, they were lost, and without them, Shepard was probably fine. Instead, once the crew had seemingly run through and discarded every option, the passing days turning shallow hope into violence-spun desperation, she mentioned that she had experience piloting freight frigates and just so happened to know where they might find one. If anything, she offered this information as a wedding gift to her sister-in-law – if Garrus spent any longer twisting himself into knots over Shepard, he’d probably attempt something even stupider and riskier than what they were currently doing.

It had taken three days alone to get just four of the crew safely through the tunnels in the north sector on the gamble that Solana was right about the frigate. When they reached the enemy hangar, she was as surprised as they were to find the ship grounded – The Steel Fist had been mobilizing essentially any aerial options against the power of the combined turian and human navies. What was worse is they still had to commandeer the frigate and then successfully make it out of Cipritine and into Remedius without getting shot down. Half of their success so far was owed to Garrus’ devolving insanity and the other half was little more than dumb luck and maybe the intangible whims of the Spirits.

“Alright, fire squad. Do you copy?” Garrus spoke into his omni-tool. “We’re in position to rush. Engage the enemy on my count. Three… two…”

The quiet in the hangar split open with the sound of grenades detonating on the far side, kicking the Steel Fist soldiers into a confused frenzy. Before her leg could complain, Solana broke into a sprint across the long hangar floor, eyes locked on the frigate’s open hatch. Garrus sprinted behind her, sending bullets past her head and taking out the troopers in their path before they even saw them coming. Smoke began to fill the room. Solana couldn’t tell the sound of guns firing from her racing heart. Move. Breathe. She barreled into the belly of the frigate and pushed forward for the controls.

Garrus tied his focus to the frigate’s door, wishing his visor could do more to distinguish the bodies moving through the increasing smoke and debris in the air – the fire squad had about forty-five seconds to get inside before they’d need to take off, and not a second longer. A Steel Fist trooper shot into the frigate and Garrus dispatched him without flinching – thirty seconds to go. The frigate hummed to life as Solana fired up the engines, though Garrus tried to keep his attention away from his sister. He’d spent more than enough time questioning her capability – at some point, he’d need to learn to trust someone other than himself to get the job done. He could tell by Solana’s reticence the entire well that she doubted herself enough all on her own.

“Ready to go, Garrus,” she alerted him, her voice surprisingly level against the din.

“Come on, fire squad, hurry it up! Alenko, Goto! Where are you?” Garrus shouted into his omni-tool as he sent another round of bullets into the troopers trying to board.

“They’ve got us pinned in the control room. We can hold them off, but we’ll never make it out,” Alenko responded. His voice sounded strained. “You need to leave before they call for backup. We’ll be fine. Just go get Shepard.”

Garrus growled in frustration. He couldn’t help but remember all the times they’d been caught in situations just like this only for Shepard to bulldoze clean through without even breaking a sweat. If it weren’t for her voice in his head, he’d go ahead and seal the frigate airlock and order Solana to take off – he wasn’t cut out for her brand of lossless domination. Even after all these years, he still couldn’t figure out how she did it. It made the number of losses he’d come to bear seem like a failing rather than the standard baggage of any soldier, though should Garrus lose her… he couldn’t think like that. Not now. Not when they were so close to getting back to her.

“Solana, seal the hatch behind me. I’m going to go get fire squad. I’ll be back.”

Solana whipped around in her seat and tried to mask the whine in her voice. Their clock was running into overtime as their plan slowly crumbled.

“Garrus, if they can’t break through those troopers, what the hell makes you think you can? Think about what you’re about to do,” Solana hissed. “If you go out there, this whole thing falls apart. They’re safer in the control room than you are in the open. We have to go. Now.”

Garrus only stared back into her frantic gaze with that familiar blue inscrutability. Was it determination? Bravery? Stupidity? No. Was it all of the above? Of course. Those are the eyes of a man in agony.

“We do this Shepard’s way or no way at all,” Garrus responded before stepping out into the smoke.

>>>>>>>

Shepard perceived light coming in and out through her eyelids, milky pink flashes of fluorescence breaking through the groggy sludge in her mind. Her hands and feet were still bound, but she sensed that her body was in motion. She fought her lids open, eyes meeting a bright blur of stained ceiling tiles and overhead lighting – in her hazy periphery, she saw the bobbing shadows of nurses walking alongside her stretcher and felt the terse fear in their gaits. It took her a moment to remember where she was – though now that she was in motion, she couldn’t be exact – and her instinct to fight against her restraints dulled. Of all things to pop into her head at this moment, Electra recalled stumbling up to Anderson’s old London flat; she couldn’t have been any older than seventeen at the time, still reeling from the loss of her parents and the loss of her home. She’d been a mess in those days. Anderson opened the door as she failed to locate her set of keys. His face had fewer wrinkles then, though it looked more severe than she could ever remember. Despite this, he reached out and gripped her against his side, dropped her onto his couch, and tucked a blanket around her with rigid, furious kindness – he would have made a wonderful father. She swallowed hard against the ripping ache that Sirius would never know him. Just as she closed her eyes again, the cold air of the corridor stinging them, she heard Anderson’s voice propel her back to the real world – It’s time to wake the f*ck up and take control of your destiny, Shepard.

“Hey, can one of you tell me where you’re taking me?” she asked, her words slurred.

One of the nurses looked over at her before quickly averting her gaze. She looked terrified and said nothing, though Electra felt a whispering of an answer vibrate in her inner ear. Don’t talk to her. Don’t look at her. Don’t engage with her. Keep moving. Almost there. The turian nurse shuddered as the message trickled into Electra’s mind.

“Where’s Lilix? Does he know you’re moving me?” she asked, though she didn’t expect an answer. The four nurses guiding her stretcher had their eyes laser-locked forward and their mandibles clenched around their jaws. Lilix wasn’t among them, and these halls appeared different from the ones they walked through before, though she could only assume this was the same building. She had to assume that. The oddball doctor seemed far too invested in her case to let her leave so soon, not that she had any idea how long it had been since going under.

The last time she woke, it was the seventh, already three days past the time of her capture. She quelled the worst of her fears to the best of her ability, but her anxiety was split between the worst outcomes: either the Hierarchy and her friends were already defeated and dead or they had simply given up on finding her. In the case of the latter, it surely meant Garrus was dead – he’d never stop looking for her. She wished she could call out to him through the ether if only to assure him that it wasn’t too late, but even the memory of his voice felt faraway in this moment.

After more wordless travelling, the nurses pushed the stretcher into a large elevator. The doors hissed closed, but no one pushed any buttons. Finally, the nurse who looked at her before pulled a syringe out of her coat pocket and brought the tip to Electra’s arm. Electra craned her neck to watch, noticing that even the slightest movement caused a flurry of fear to pass wordlessly among the turians. She attempted a smile, though with the general torpor commanding her features, she wasn’t sure if it came across as more than a weak grimace.

“This will temporarily block your biotics. Do not try to use them. I’m saying this for your sake,” the nurse muttered as she pushed the liquid into Electra’s vein. An icy heat swept under her skin and settled like a glacier beneath her sternum. The sensation brought some of the edges back to her thoughts, but she felt like a candle that always remained lit somewhere in her core had been blown out. The matter around her felt mute and hollow and her implant seared.

The elevator rattled and began to ascend.

When the doors opened, Electra was pushed out into a large open room. Floor to ceiling windows spread across the expanse, revealing a mottled tangerine sky in every direction. In the center of the room, a large figure sat on a couch facing the windows – he didn’t move as the group entered, though his presence felt heavier than all of theirs combined. Much to her surprise, Electra felt the restraints release and the nurses stepped back, allowing her to sit up and test her bare feet on the reflective stone tile. As she stood, she glanced at the nurses as if for approval, but they had their eyes locked on the seated figure.

“You are dismissed,” he said, his voice so low she felt it through the soles of her feet. His long-taloned hand raised up and beckoned. “Shepard, join me over here, would you? I want to see what all the fuss is about.”

Electra approached cautiously, not used to the contrast of her bare feet touching a cold floor while her adrenaline screamed to fight. She heard the elevator close and descend behind her; the time it took to cross from where she entered to the low sofa felt like hours. Coming around the side of couch, she found the turian’s piercing blue eyes on her, tracing and following her with rapt precision. No movement she made felt too small under his scrutiny – these were eyes that saw and knew everything. Though seated, his sheer size was apparent as well, and his plates were almost entirely black. Red markings circled his eyes ran down his spiked chin, making his embellished red and black armor blend in almost as an extension of his body. Even his sharp, jutting teeth were black. Electra fought the urge to wrap her arms around herself, instead taking a seat at the other end of the L-shaped sofa and resting her hands in her lap. Without a weapon or armor, she felt naked.

“You look smaller in person. Has anyone ever told you that before?” he remarked, an unexpected lightness bouncing around his words.

“Most people either know better, or die before they get the chance,” she replied, her response making the turian’s mandibles flutter. “Why am I here, Ajax?”

Ajax Ravidus shifted his weight, though the intensity of his gaze never stuttered. The last thing she expected from the notorious imperator was a conversation on a couch, especially considering the four separate arms Electra counted on him, though as he mulled her question in his head, his posture became even more slack.

“Now here’s a character of the highest intrigue. An orphan, a hero, a ghost. For all the versions that exist of you, to behold you in the flesh is to know only one – a woman, plain and pale. Your well-rehearsed bark and decisive bite precede you as well as obfuscate the elusive truth of your nature – and that’s because your nature is bleak and boring, not at all like the myth and legend the rest of the world insists upon,” Ajax spoke. His words were crisp and neat like perfectly folded origami. “You know, now that I see you, I’m starting to wonder if this whole thing has been one big misunderstanding. Where’s the Shepard worth 300,000 credits? Where’s the destroyer of worlds?”

“Sorry to be such a disappointment. To be honest, I find it pretty refreshing that you see through all the celebrity crap, so if you were trying to hurt my feelings, better luck next time. Now, can you tell me why I’m here?”

“To make a long answer short, collateral. Isn’t that the only answer that matters?”

“Try me.”

Ravidus stood, revealing his full imposing height, and strode to the window. The orange light drew subtle burgundy shades from the pitch of his skin.

“As we speak, The Steel Fist is closing in on Lennet Station. You underestimated us, assumed we were no more than a mercenary group – you were wrong, and you’re paying for it. Lives could have been spared, but as it has always been, new blood must always pay for old money. Let me be more clear. Because the Hierarchy insisted upon itself, insisted upon the old way, they’ve cost double the amount of death. First by starving us, and again by declaring us their enemy for simply suggesting change. When the hand that feeds no longer offers food, we eat the hand.”

Electra reveled in Ajax’s words. Were he not holding her hostage, she would probably offer him a place on her ship – something about the interplay of power and poetry in his words satisfied her writhing soul and rose the hair on her arms. Were he not the only thing between death and freedom, she too would follow him.

“I feel it goes without saying, but I am not the Hierarchy. Nor am I the Alliance. In fact, if I’m anything, I’m reasonable. I understand why you’re doing this, Ajax, I really do, but you’re clearly more a man of words than a man of war. Let’s talk. It’s not too late to call this off,” Electra urged, pressing her hands into her legs. As she spoke, she felt her emotion seeping through her skin and swirling in the air between them.

“You didn’t understand me – Lennet Station is all but ours. We’ve won.”

“How long has it been?”

“Eight days. The fight has been brutal so we needed to be sure we didn’t need you on Palaven. I suppose I’d like your input on what you think we should do with you – there are a number of options on the table.”

“You’re bluffing. Do you really expect me to believe that you care about my input? My guess is you’ve gotten yourself into a bad spot. You’re taking heavy losses and you need me. Work with me to end this. If you care about turian lives, help me save them.”

Statuesque against the sky, Ravidus stood for a while before glancing back at Electra, a new glimmer of interest in his eye. He approached her with his hand out, like a poacher approaching a tiger, and crouched down in front of her.

“You’re not used to things not going your way, are you? You’re so obsessed with control because when it comes to your own self, you have none. Your body and your mind behave in ways you can’t predict, can’t redact. You feed more and more of yourself into the world hoping something sticks, but you don’t really care about that do you? You only care that when you look inward, all that’s there is the silent indifference of shadow.”

“So, I take it you’re not interested in talking,” Electra plucked, leaning back as if that would insert some distance between herself and his unrelenting examination. She felt his eyes like fingers sliding into the soft matter of her brain. “Fine. What do you actually want from me?”

“That depends, Shepard,” he sighed, rising to his feet to return to his end of the sofa. “What do you think you can offer?”

“My ears and my influence.”

“Very well. The Steel Fist rose out of a lack of unified leadership and a desperate need for turian-first policy. Why turian-first? Picture this: time and time again, the turians rise to the occasion and bolster the galaxy against any and every threat. Our place on the galactic stage has been earned with our dedication and paid for by the innumerable dead. All we’ve ever asked for in return was order and justice. We asked that our sacrifice be honorable. Tell me, Commander, where is the honor in what was lost to the Reapers? Where is the honor in upholding a failing institution that played that loss for political and financial gain? And for what? Tradition? The illusion that the turian’s foothold in galactic hegemony will somehow repay the debt incurred by this loss? These long months, while you threw lavish parties and ate your fill of our sacred food, our people have suffered, only for the primarch to return and condemn us for finally demanding a claim to our legacy. There is no honor. Not when lives are being lost. The Steel Fist stands for those lives, for turians. The Hierarchy stands only for unremembering relevance.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking – that if The Steel Fist truly stands for turian interests, then why are we killing fellow turians? Why are we incurring more violence after so much was lost? Would you believe that we didn’t start this? Let me walk you through it. When the Reapers fell from the sky, Palaven was a ruin adrift the unresponsive skies. There was no unity, no order, no reprieve. Yes, the clouds of destruction parted, only for the light to shine on a people so drained and ravaged that even the spirits of our world were silent. And then the silence persisted. Palaven being so diverse, many disparate groups began to rise and sought dominance, and what tatters of the Hierarchy were left did nothing but argue about political succession. They assumed that turians would again fall back as they served first themselves, then the krogan, then the volus, the asari, the elcor, the hanar. The human. Those days were dark for the turian, the darkest yet. They called the hastatim to quell the violence but hierarchal law states that non-turian resident races are not subject to the hastatim. They were asking us to kill sick and hungry turians in cold blood simply because they were sick and hungry, while every other race received the care we deserved. The hastatim responded by rejecting the hierarchy. Unsurprisingly, most other turians supported this.

“The Steel Fist was their only light in those dark days. I didn’t choose to be the imperator, rather the role chose me. I spoke my mind about what the turians were owed and turians listened. You underestimated us because you believed the Hierarchy to be all that turians are, when in reality, the Hierarchy is only the reflection of what the rest of the galaxy asks the turians to be – duty-bound, performatively-progressive shills. We tried to reason with the Hierarchy, tried to see to a peaceful transition. Their response was to kill us rather than give up their pitiful slice of power.

“Now let’s speed things up to the present. The Hierarchy was of course overwhelmed. They were losing. All the while, we were offering a resolute end and peaceful transition of power so long as our terms were met. We all but had our terms secured with minimal casualties across the board. I suppose you were told all about how we forsook the other races, but we offered them relief as well. Because they expect turians to simply prostrate and offer up all we have for the so-called greater good, the turian-first policy we offered looked like an all-out assault. Cue the mass relays reopening. The navy and elites return from their vacation and, rather than listen to us, they have you call in the Alliance to murder us for defending ourselves against tyranny. They take our desperate need for change, our simple wish to be relieved from our station as the galaxy’s sacrificial lamb, and seek to blot us out like we’re a minor, temporary embarrassment and not a smaller piece of the larger truth that has been glaring under even larger threats – that there is no representation, for any race, that is fair in this galaxy. After everything, after all this loss and destruction and pain, we’re still insisting on the old way as if the old way isn’t what got us into this mess. We are not radical. We are merely the result of thousands of years of fighting for scraps while those that bend to the will of a very select few live comfortably.”

Electra nodded as Ajax spoke, his clenched fist slapping into his open palm as he spit out the anger and frustration of thousands of unmarked graves. Even if she couldn’t understand the words he spoke, a chorus of subvocal emotions wavered in the air and snapped through her senses like fireworks – Anger, Spirits. Anger and injustice. There is no honor in this. There is no honor without balance. We did what is right for us when no one else would – we could not kill each other in the name of the law. As we poured out his manifesto, Electra rose to her feet and began to pace, the unspoken transmission crawling under her skin with a parasitic presence. She had to focus in on the words he spoke with a mental iron grip as wave after wave of unspoken communication scrambled the fiber of her conscience.

All the while, she felt Sirius moving inside of her – such a small and ephemeral presence, yet so responsive to the spitfire passion coursing through her body. Something about those movements twisted her on a subatomic level. Ordinarily, she would be like a cliff against the sea, and the waves of every word would crash around her; now, she felt that half the stone was made of water, and when the waves crashed, they crashed through her and within her, shaking up her particles. Could Ajax tell that she understood the subvocal message in his voice? Whenever she’d first awoken, that one Steel Fist soldier seemed to notice – a fact that neither party could comprehend or even believe.

“You’re right to be angry,” she responded, trying to feed his own passion back to him via her mirrored philosophy. “Believe me or don’t believe me, but I believe you. I am angry for you. The Council offered me a position and I turned it down because I also can’t bring myself to participate in a system that functions on a lack of representation. I understand you. Now think about it – the offer still stands. We can work together. We want the same thing. I’m not saying a resolution will be easy, but don’t you think it will be easier than this? Aren’t you tired of the violence? I know I am. Despite that, despite wanting peace, the dead have never been honored with words alone. They demand recompense. If you let me go, if you call off the attack, I can meet that demand. Work with me, Ravidus. Believe in me. I'm not just another politician. I know the value of blood.”

To her surprise, Ajax laughed in response and shook his head. The rough gravel of his dark laughter chafed around the inside of Shepard’s skull.

“Do you not hear yourself? Do you really lack that much self-awareness?” he asked after some time. He regarded Shepard with a bitter smirk. “You can’t possibly understand me because you are the very face of everything I’m speaking against. Without the turians, it’s safe to say that no matter how special you supposedly are, the Reapers would have won. Now that it’s all over, you go and marry a turian that exemplifies everything wrong with the Hierarchy and become the face of galactic salvation – humanity saves the day, and a triumph for interspecies relations to boot. You can play the unsuspecting hero all you want, but at the end of the day, you have your life three times over and more money, security, and glory than every other living soul combined. Be honest, Shepard, you’re only here right now because you want to be. You don’t care about turians, no matter how much you think you care about your bond mate and your half-breed – you’re here because you have something to prove.”

Shepard’s breath caught in her throat. Ravidus’ message came into her mind loud and clear – you’re a fraud.

“Remind me again how I drugged myself and abducted my unconscious body half-way across the planet for ransom. Crazy as it may seem, I don’t want to be here. I didn’t choose this. I chose to do what I thought was right for everyone. I’m choosing that still. However I’m rewarded for that is beyond my control,” she retorted with a scoff, trying to disguise the shake in her voice. “Is it money you want? You mentioned my bounty and I know you’re planning on turning me over to the highest bidder. Hell, since my wealth is no secret, I’ll pay you whatever they’re offering and then some, and after you’ve taken me for every credit I’m worth, I’ll still be the only ally you can trust to listen. I can and will fix this, but only if you let me go. Please.”

“How many have truly seen the great and just Commander Shepard beg? I’m imagining not many – your unyielding desperation for control usually works by now, or perhaps you’ve just always had the upper hand, moral or otherwise,” he mused. It felt as if every word Electra spoke fell into a pit before reaching him, and the more she spoke, the hungrier his eyes looked. She couldn’t explain it – maybe the sedative was still affecting her nervous system – but it felt like he devoured her through her words. Leaning forward, he asked, “Tell me, why are you so afraid of failure? You said it yourself. You’re tired, Electra. More than that, you know I’m right. You agree with everything I’m putting forward – so why are you still fighting?”

When Shepard didn’t answer, her words scrambling against the steady influx of tumultuous waves, Ajax continued, moving closer and closer to her as his slithering words licked at her bones.

“You say you fight for honor, for what’s right, but I see a different truth – the real truth. I see a woman who has lost much more than she’s gained. A simple and unexceptional orphan who first failed to save her family; then, in trying to make something of herself to compensate for that loss, failed to save everyone but herself. First Mindoir, then Akuze – those losses define you, and they’re where this all started. Am I wrong? No? After that, you saw yet another opportunity to stand out, to prove against all odds that you were something, that those losses were flukes – the chance to make those deaths mean something. The Reapers. You didn’t see it at first for what it was, but that didn’t matter because it was always so much bigger than yourself. It created the perfect stage for you to prove that death had any meaning at all. If there was an opportunity to spare a life, that life was spared. Not because you cared, but because you had something to prove against the empty loneliness of your existence. Ultimately, this made for the image that’s so famous – the legend and hero. You took to that role like klixen to rotting offal. The Reapers were a big enough threat to humanity, and therefore an opportunity to once and for all fight against the bittern senselessness of your own losses – save everyone, every last soul, and finally the hungry void inside would be satisfied.

“But it wasn’t satisfied, was it? Spirits knows what happened that day. Even you, the brilliant and singular hero, don’t know, do you, Shepard? Like everything else, your success was a casualty in your personal and private conflict with your own mortality. You’ve always believed it should have been you. All those times. No matter how hard you tried, you trailed a litany of corpses in your wake – many of whom you loved, and none of them your own. Even when you did die, you sprung back from that utter nothingness like a weed. After everything – for every life you couldn’t save – your own seeming immortality taunts you. And now, you’re so desperate to make this situation right, not because you truly care about the cause, but because you’re scared of what might happen if, for once, you can’t fix what’s broken – if for once, you can’t seem to find a way to make these deaths worthwhile. It’s a domino effect. If you can’t fix this, this tidal wave of horror following your grandstand, you’ll be forced to confirm what you already suspect: that whether or not you or your unnatural offspring are Reapers, your uncanny continued existence was a result of their power; your proliferation is the harvest of the very thing you’re famous for destroying. After all that you’ve done to prove yourself a worthy opponent of death incarnate, you’ve failed most famously. You’ve even gone so far as to profane life itself. Is that why you want to die, Electra? Because death is the one thing you can’t fix? Can’t control?”

“For finding me so unimpressive, you sure have a lot to say about who you think I am. I’d say it borders on obsessive. If you spent as much time on a resolution as you do worrying about my life, maybe your people wouldn’t be dying right now,” she said. His words pulled whispers from the back of her mind, as if speaking from them directly.

Ajax leaned forward, studying Shepard’s face from inches away. He felt his hot breath filling the space between their skin, noticing how his subvocal tones seemed to ripple just behind her silver irises like pebbles falling into utterly still ponds. He could smell it on her – turian – and not as a result of her choice of mate or the child inside of her. It was within her flesh. For being so plain and unhardened and fragile, he also wondered how it felt to be inside her, truly living in the miserable confines of her skin.

“I never said you weren’t enticing. I can’t help but wonder at what makes you tick. Why, when I touch you, I feel the unbridled power of creation.”

He reached his hand out and stroked her cheek, trailing his sharp talon down her neck, between her breasts, over her rounded belly. Her nipples hardened and little bumps raised across her skin. She flinched away from his touch, which only drew him closer, his hands gripping her waist as he brought his face to breathe in deeply at the crook of her neck. She struggled against his iron grip, recoiling as he drew his palm across her belly and up to the strange softness of her breast. As he pulled back to look at her face, he felt a garbled shove of emotion - violence, terror, panic - attempt to make sense in his mind and pulled back, shivering at the perception of an unflinching and immense breadth behind her eyes.

“What do you want from me? Why am I here?” she asked again, hushed this time, frightened. He couldn’t stand to be near her and got to his feet. With one finger to his omni-tool, several pre-prepared messages sent out across space.

“When you first asked me that, I gave you the short answer. Collateral. The longer, or should I say more complicated, answer, is simply that you are choosing to be here right now. If you wanted to leave, you would have left by now. My forces are miles away and you and I both know our means of keeping you bound don’t work. The Alpha Relay certainly stood no chance, so we certainly won’t. To be honest, I was shocked when they said we captured you, and so easily at that. Even now, I’m not entirely sure what to do with you. Do I give you what you want? How should I answer that? Freedom or death? Do you perceive a difference between the two?”

“It doesn’t have to be like this. We can end this peacefully,” Electra warned, though when she tried to draw her biotics from inside, every nerve ending in her body pricked with an electric jolt of punishing pain. She winced and doubled over, sinking to her knees on the unforgiving tile. When the wave of pain passed, she peered up at the imposing turian and, in his eyes, a mixture of pity and desire and disgust comingled in the morning glow. He pulled out his pistol just as the elevator opened at the far side of the room.

Garrus, forgive me. I really tried to hang on.

“Shepard, if this were a matter of money or compromise or whatever it is you think you can provide in exchange for your life, you would walk. Unfortunately, this is a matter of principal. I stand with Progenitor – in other words, I stand against you. Hopefully you won’t be the last one to listen to me as patiently as you have. As unspectacular as you are, you are the best I've seen of humanity. Spirits guide you.”

Electra closed her eyes and curled around herself, instinctually wrapping more of her body around the tiny life of her son. Whispers peeled from all around – Anderson, maybe, or perhaps her mother – but when the bullet never entered her body, the whispers snapped back into one oppressive and strange silence. When she opened her eyes, red light glowed around her, and a singular bullet hovered inches from her face, frozen in time and binding her irrevocably in the space between living and dying. Where the old flame had died, she felt a new one jump to life, and the crimson glow quivered around her. Just as soon as both she and Ajax realized that she wasn’t dead, the deafening roar of a clip being emptied into the air shattered the stillness.

At the sound, Electra leapt to her feet and threw herself over the sofa, taking cover for the few seconds until the soldiers entering had a chance to sedate or shoot her. They were breaking from their own stunned stupor and coming at her from the left. On the other side of the couch just a few feet away, Ajax loaded another clip, his hand shaking in a way it had never shaken before. Three seconds is all she had. She tested her biotics, finding them still tapped by whatever compound she’d been given before coming here. Whatever this was, this biotic force commanding the space around her, the only choice she had was to trust it. Bullets were suspended like electrons around her, as if waiting for her to tell them what to do. She counted her breaths. One, two, three. Ice tinkled in a glass somewhere to her right, and she stood to meet the fury of multiple rounds of fire.

As soon as she did, as if being moved by a phantom memory sealed away in her muscles, she sent the force outward, shooting the bullets into Ajax and the soldiers like shrapnel. One of the soldiers fell to the ground, but Electra had her eyes on Ajax. The bullets bounced off his armor like raindrops, fueling the bloodthirsty panic that had overtaken his movements. He lunged forward and tackled her to the ground. Her head slammed into the tile and she felt her joints rattle in their sockets as his massive weight bore down on her, knocking the breath from her lungs. Before she could even try to gasp, his massive hands were at her throat, clamping her airway with ease against the floor. Her body flailed against his bulky body, but all her attempts to bring her biotics to the surface failed. Stars began to flash in her vision. In her periphery, she saw a soldier approaching with a syringe and bucked back against Ajax, unable to avoid the way his eyes added more and more weight to his hands at her throat. For a moment, even with all his size and strength, the apparent fear made him look like a frightened child. Electra felt sorry for him – sorry that the child that he once was, who grew up to be capable of causing so much pain, had at one point felt so unheard that he carried that loneliness with him his whole life and brandished it like a blade.

Before she even realized what she’d done, her body was on top of his, her hand cradling the back of his head while the other slammed down through his armor, through the metal plates of his chest, and seized around his blue heart with a blast of red energy. Tears sprung in his eyes as in hers as his heart was crushed in her fist. With a cry of horror at what took place, a red shockwave blasted out from around them, shattering the windows in a glittering blast and cracking the tile beneath them.

Electra stumbled back and realized she was the only one in the room still alive. Blue blood dripped from her shaking arm. As the ringing in her ears subsided and she began to hear her heart pounding in her chest, she realized sirens sounded throughout the building. She didn’t have time to wonder how or why, though she did realize that, in a sense, she’d answered Ajax’s question. His blood staining her skin and thin gown, she dashed towards the elevator.

Chapter 21: Red Reckoning

Chapter Text

January 12^th 2188, 0750 hours

Intercepting all active comm links on Palaven, a message pinged in the early morning. The morning had otherwise been quiet, as at 1800 hours the night before, the Alliance had managed to push into the north sector of the mesa and fortify the fluid perimeter around Cipritine central. Since then, the troops had caught a momentary break from the incessant eight day assault on Lennet Station. Stephen Hackett hadn’t slept, but he hadn’t quite started his day yet either. He walked through the medical tents with two steel canteens of coffee– stretcher after stretcher of bodies laid up like mummies – and scanned through the faces, seeking out a head of silver hair.

“How good of you to make the rounds, Admiral. These soldiers could use the morale boost,” a voice came from behind him. Hackett whipped around – fast enough to appear rapt but not too fast that he gave away his surprise – and met Karin’s muted grin. Purple bags hung under her eyes as she ducked out of a tent and saluted the Admiral. “My, you look fresh as a daisy, Stephen. Is that cologne?”

Hackett scanned the area, wary of the injured in the vicinity – he could never be too sure who was listening, and he hadn’t made it to where he was by conferring the image of a meandering romantic. Sure that at least no eyes were on them, he handed Karin one of the canteens and smiled internally at the way her eyelids relaxed as she took a long swig from the cup.

“Do you have a moment to speak privately, Dr. Chakwas? I understand that you’re up to your neck in work here,” he clipped. “I wouldn’t want to distract you from more important matters.”

Any passing listener wouldn’t be able to discern his tone from his standard terse, professional manner of speaking, but Karin raised a brow and beckoned him into one of the empty tents. As soon as the flap swung closed behind them, he reached around her waist and pulled her against his body, pressing his lips over hers. They felt so soft in comparison to his, which were chapped from the grit and smoke in the air.

“I’ve missed you, Stephen,” Karin moaned against his mouth as he pushed her over to a cot. Her long fingers already loosened his belt. She fell back, eyes narrowed in a smolder. “How long do we have?”

“I’m Admiral Stephen goddamn Hackett. We have as long as you’d like,” he growled, finishing the job she’d started with his belt.

Just as he leaned over her lithe body, both of their omni-tools pinged – if it was an Alliance wide message, it couldn’t be ignored. Karin opened her omni-tool as Hackett begrudgingly pulled his pants back up and fastened the buckle. Just as he moved to check his messages, Karin let out a crushed sob that stole his attention. He turned and met her dewy eyes and they searched his face for something – comfort, relief, an answer. Hackett opened the message – received from an encrypted line – and felt his throat drop into his chest.

A picture of Shepard listless, lifeless on a stretcher commanded the screen and was accompanied by a simple message,

“Progenitor will always prevail.”

0800

The lights in every mysteriously empty corridor flared red and alarms blared across the PA. She had no way to orient herself – every corner led her around to another identical hallway lined with locked doors like a dizzying and feverish labyrinth. Her eyes searched for anything that might help her. South wing, first floor, 56F. 56F. 56F. How could she even know what wing she was in? The hospital had a severe lack of signage and the haunting emptiness only made it harder for her to focus on reading numbers and text. Her slick, bloody hand pressed against every door and every number. 307X. 309X-2. 311F-1. A trail of blue followed her, flashing as a purple trail in the red glow of the alarms. She almost wished she’d see someone – even if that someone was out to kill her – but the emptiness stacked on emptiness, and after some time, she found herself back at a door she’d run her bloodied hand across.

She cursed out loud and tried to gather herself – whatever they’d been injecting her with had a potent vice grip on her entire nervous system, as even her composure rocked and rattled around in the nightmarish maze. She threw herself around another hallway, this time not seeing any hint of Ajax’s blood on the steel surfaces, and barreled forward, wishing her legs felt less like they’d been frozen. South wing, first floor, 56F.

Just as she neared the double doors at the end of the long corridor, she heard commotion on the other side and pushed through the door on her left, grateful it swung open into a small closet. The door closed behind her just as soldiers pushed through, their voices jumbled together with the clanking of boots on the metal floor. Gone as soon as they had entered. They must be heading for the elevator where they’d very quickly find Ravidus’ corpse. As soon as the sound of soldiers disappeared around the corner, she took a sharp breath and prepared to leave when the dim light revealed a map on the back of the door. She was in the east wing, and if she read correctly, the double doors should take her into the courtyard where she could gain entry to the south wing. Scanning the map further revealed that atop the south wing was a landing pad, probably originally for emergency medical transports. If she timed her escape right, she bet that she’d find at least one craft there that she might be able to take to Cipritine.

Step one; gear retrieval. Step two: don’t die in the process. Step three: find Garrus.

She pushed out into the empty hall and straight through the doors. Blinding morning sun bore upon her and upon a similarly empty courtyard. No more children or lovers – just the intermittent splash of red across the foliage as the alarms blared. A quick glance around showed no movement, though she was sure that the cameras lining the walls had her in their sights – reinforcements wouldn’t be far behind. She had no time. Shepard raced across the courtyard, stumbling slightly over the overgrown roots. She caught herself on a tree trunk and looked over only to be reminded of the blood coating her skin. The sight made her shudder. She both was and wasn’t eager to try her biotics, for fear of what might come out her. She just had to hope that the south wing was as empty as the east.

Once inside the south wing, finding 56F proved simple – the complication arose when she rounded the corner and realized that 56F was in fact occupied. Through the partially shielded glass, Shepard saw three soldiers pacing around and moved closer, ducking just out of view and away from the door. Their voices were muffled by the glass, but upon closing her eyes, communication vibrated through her. At first, it came through as an electrifying sensation that sent her brain and gut in spirals; after a moment, a stillness set over the buzzing and words danced into her understanding.

We’ll standby until the hostile is located.

Shepard’s eyes snapped open as a set of strong hands grabbed her and began dragging her across the floor. She began to struggle against them, meeting the narrowed yellow eyes with a flash of desperate anger, but the hands were stronger. The turian dragged her into 56F without an issue and slammed her body back against a wall. The soldiers surrounded her with their guns trained on her.

“Scratch that. We’ve got her in the south wing. Yeah, 56F,” one of them spoke into his omni-tool. In a way, the voice matched the one from before.

“You’re not getting away this time, Shepard,” another clipped. “And no one is coming for you. The Alliance thinks you’re dead.”

“You’re making a mistake. I don’t want to have to kill you. Let me go, and you get to walk,” she warned. The soldiers exchanged looks, a mixture of amusem*nt and nerves. For as much as she put into the threat, even Shepard wasn’t sure that she could follow through. She drew her biotics forward to her palms, struggling to conceal the wince of pain it brought to her face.

“You’re not exactly in a position to barter. Ravidus might be dead, but we’re still in charge. You’re lucky we don’t kill you now,” the soldier said, thrusting his gun in her direction. At the motion, she felt her biotics flare beyond her control and had to hold her hands back, startled by the surge of energy. The corresponding flash of red lit in the soldiers’ eyes and they backed up.

“Go. Now. I can’t control…”

Just as she tried to warn them again, one of the soldiers fired – whether intentional or not – and the sound of the gun seemed to be the final catalyst for an explosion of force that lashed out from her whole body. Her eyes clenched as the power escaped her, rattled her, and when they opened, the three turians were on the floor, bodies still and quiet. Electra gasped and struggled up to her feet, horrified at the sight of the bodies. There were no wounds, no sign of trauma or damage – only a permanent and immaculate death accompanied by a gathering of her own strength and senses. Like she drained their souls into her own.

Spirits forgive me, she thought in a strange moment of faith. No time remained for that moment, however, and she located the lockers on the opposite wall. As she entered the code for the lock, she found her hands shaking. The shaking was remedied as soon as her fingers ran over the N7 logo on her familiar armor. It all looked to be in one piece, unmarred and shining in the lights. She dressed quickly, dropping the thin gown like a ghost over the turian corpse nearest her. Unable to bear the weight of her own horror, she sprinted from the room and took the nearest elevator, the doors closing just as soldiers rushed into the building. She had about two minutes max to get into the air, and if her hunch about available aircraft was wrong… she didn’t wasn’t to think about the alternative. She’d had enough of her own terrible new power. At least now she had her guns.

The elevator opened to the roof landing pad which was empty, much to her relief, aside from one somewhat battered looking transport shuttle. It had been a while since she’d piloted a dropship, but she would worry about landing protocol once she was out of Remedius City and en route. For now, she was just grateful that she wouldn’t need to kill anyone else at the facility. She fired up the engine of the dropship and set its course, relaxing against the seat just as it took to the air. Outside the windows, a squad of Steel Fist soldiers broke out of the elevator in time to watch her take off. Looking down over the city, she thought how beautiful parts of it appeared in the morning light – the glittering silver of towers and roads looked almost blue the further she lifted into the sky. Her eyes closed and her hands fell away from the controls, limp and tired by her side.

I’m coming, Garrus. Just hold on.

10:34

They were trapped now, and if they were to make it out, it would be by the thinnest margin. At least the group was safely barricaded in the control room. For now. Kaidan wasn’t so surprised to see Garrus and Solana come to the rescue, dropping every single Steel Fist soldier with almost mathematical precision, but they were all surprised when not five minutes later, a sizeable reinforcement had arrived, sealing them inside with no foreseeable way out. By then, the frigate they’d hoped to commandeer was retaken by the Steel Fist – now it was a waiting game. Either the Steel Fist would break past Kasumi and Solana’s ongoing efforts to keep them out, or the Alliance would be able to dispatch a small force to rescue them. Kaidan looked over at the women at the controls, then at Garrus, who sat crumpled against a far wall. They’d all received the same message; Kaidan tried pushing the image from his mind, though it looked like Garrus was having less luck than he. Kaidan understood, though, that the pain he must be feeling was unlike anything Kaidan could know. Kaidan only stood to lose a fleeting dream, a spectral memory of an unforgettable embrace – Garrus lost everything. He lowered himself beside Garrus, saying nothing.

“I thought we had more time,” Garrus muttered after a few moments. “It was stupid of me to think that.”

“You did what she would do. Are you saying Shepard is stupid?” Kaidan responded, though he felt afraid to say anything at all. When they first received the message and the wretched image, Garrus had released a keen unlike anything Kaidan had ever heard – one so full of pure, unadulterated agony and rage that even Solana looked shaken by the sound, and she hadn’t stopped silently dropping tears onto her hands as she struggled to keep the control room doors closed.

“Watch yourself, Alenko,” Garrus hissed, snapping his gaze up to meet Kaidan’s. As soon as he saw the pitiful regret in his eyes, Garrus dropped his head back down, ashamed. More than anything, he felt shame, mostly because all he could think to do now was to let the doors open so he might face down the entirety of the Steel Fist himself until his own life was extinguished.

That image – the image of Shepard lifeless on a stretcher – felt like a puzzle piece falling into place in his brain. All those months staring at her in Huerta, haunted by nightmares of her life slipping out from beneath him, powerless to save her or even speak to her, had mapped out the most logical and illogically incomplete image of her death. That image had never left – though the past month had pushed it back – and now it was finally complete. She was dead and nothing they had done or planned or said in the past month mattered. She was dead. For all that she’d done, for all the odds she beat, to be killed by his own people… Garrus struggled against a new wave of sobs. He wished she’d just died at Huerta and spared him the anguish of having hope that they might have a life they’d only ever dreamed of. It always did seem too far-fetched. At least then he’d have felt satisfied by their goodbye. At least then, they actually had a goodbye. Now, he could only hope they’d find a way to recover her body so he might see her one last time before he found some moderately honorable way to die. It didn’t matter if she’d want him to move on – he couldn’t without her. Not this time.

“Fire team… send… we’ve received your request for backup,” a voice crackled over the speakers. Kaidan, eager to make himself useful, hurried over to the radio. This was the first they’d heard from anyone in over an hour.

“This is Major Kaidan Alenko. Backup is still needed. Do you have our coordinates? Over.”

“Kaidan, it’s Traynor. What the hell happened?”

“Complicated. Can you get here or not?”

“I’ll try. Steel Fist reinforcements are inbound and the Normandy is tied up, but with this much fire, the Alliance won’t notice if Cortez takes the Kodiak. What’s your status?”

“We’re trapped inside the facility’s control room. Goto and Vakarian are keeping us sealed in, but there’s no way we’ll make it out once those doors open. There are probably twenty, thirty soldiers on the other side. If you can get a small team over here, we can take them from two sides. Control room is on the north side of the facility if you can take the south. What’s your ETA?”

“Thirty minutes. T’soni and Vega are gearing up now.”

“I’ll leave the line open. Contact me when you’re in range. Alenko out.”

11:02

As soon as Shepard approached Cipritine, greeted by the sight of an airspace lit up by missiles and fire, she dropped the ship lower around the edges, hoping to find a way to the center without being shot down. The dropship was low on fuel, meaning she couldn’t afford to make too many evasive maneuvers; if she was lucky, she had just enough to make it to Lennet Station. As it stood, she’d already had to cut out any power to her weapon systems, not that they were very good to begin with. She took a gamble and powered on the radio.

“Alliance forces, this is Commander Shepard requesting backup. Does anyone copy?”

The radio returned only static. Frustrated and running out of time in the shadow of the city, she tried again. The dropship began to shake as the fuel ran dangerously low, and she searched her surroundings for somewhere to take it down safely.

“Shepard? Shepard is that you? Come in Shepard,” a familiar voice demanded. Samantha Traynor. She almost laughed in relief at the sound of her voice.

“Traynor? This is Shepard. I’m in an enemy dropship, approaching from the north. I’m running out of fuel, don’t know if I can make it all the way. I need you to send someone to get me.”

“Commander, it really is you. It’s good to hear your voice. We all thought… well, nevermind. I’m locating you now, but we can’t break away. The Steel Fist is hammering us.”

“What about the Kodiak? Is Cortez on board?” she asked, eyeing the fuel gauge with panic.

“Negative. Cortez left half an hour ago to rescue your rescue team. They’re a little tied up. I can have Hackett send someone – I’m sure he’d be more than…”

“Where are they?”

Anxiety gripped Electra and she felt her spine stiffen. She should have known Garrus would try to find her.

“North sector. I haven’t heard from them since Cortez left. If you’re approaching from the north, you might…”

“Coordinates. Now.”

As soon as she made the demand, her omni-tool pinged with a location less than two kilometers away. She was pushing her luck, but she had to get her crew. No exceptions. If they were in danger because they were trying to save her, she’d never forgive herself if she lost anyone. She plugged the coordinates into the dropship’s nav and felt the shuttle waver before veering off through the dilapidated city.

Within minutes, Electra spotted what looked like an old hangar and heard the sound of guns firing over the sound of her engines failing. She took the dropship down a few blocks away just as the last of the fuel was spent, the ship’s power failing as soon as she landed. For a moment, she considered simply staying put and trusting that Joker would inform the necessary parties to send back up, but she also couldn’t bring herself to just stand there while she heard the firefight. As far as she knew, she hadn’t been spotted and still had the element of surprise, even if her only defense was her two guns, which now felt about as powerful as bb guns at the sound of the fight ahead. She had try. She had to fight. Unholstering her SMG and arming her shields, she followed the road to up to the hangar.

11:10

The Kodiak had arrived just as Solana and Kasumi began to lose the battle against the Steel Fist’s tech team. They could only keep the doors closed for so long, and it was clear that the exhaustion had begun to take them. Garrus now paced at the door, his anguish turning into blind, bloodthirsty rage with every agonizing second that crept by. Almost as soon as they heard a shoot out ringing from the other side of the hangar, Kaidan yelled for them to take cover as the doors slid open and the air filled with bullets. Garrus ignored this and charged forward, causing Solana’s heart to skip as she vaulted over a barricade to try and give him some cover. However, within seconds, the first round of soldiers were dead; Garrus stepped over their corpses and out into the open. Solana had never seen her brother like this, though she was certain that he intended to get himself killed. She couldn’t let that happen; to have her only sibling ripped away after finally getting a chance to get to know him would be more than she could take. She sprinted out of the room to chase him and pulled him down behind cover just as a grenade detonated where he had been standing.

“What the hell are you thinking, Garrus? Are you f*cking crazy? Get it together!” she shouted, relieved to see Kasumi and Kaidan rushing forward to take some of the heat away from them. Kaidan yelled into his omni-tool – hopefully in contact with their reinforcements – but she couldn’t hear him over the sheer force of will she had to exert to keep Garrus grounded beside her. Her leg ached with a vengeance.

“I have to end this,” he growled, pulling away from her just as another grenade detonated. He fell back from the blast. Nearby, Kasumi fell to the ground unconscious. Solana scrambled and pulled Garrus back to cover.

“Just because she’s dead doesn’t mean you have to die, too!” she whined, slamming her fist into his shoulder to pin him back. She felt herself yelling, but the ringing in her ears drowned her voice to a whisper. “Do you really give up That easily, you f*cking coward?!”

Garrus looked at her, dazed from the blast, a trickle of blood running down his face. His subvocals were all jumbled in the chaos, giving nothing but his cold indifference – a resignation to death. She’d heard it before when the Reapers attacked, heard it in the last moments before their mother died, but for some reason, the sound only conjured up the memory of the first time she went hunting and her bullet had only crippled the corvax. Moments before she took a knife to its throat, its large, black eyes flared at her and its teeth parted to release a mangled and desperate cry not dissimilar to the garbled sound crashing through the space between her and her brother.

Pull yourself together, Garrus. I still need you, she begged wordlessly.

Another grenade detonated behind them, and Kaidan fell to the ground beside Kasumi. Peering over the barricade, Solana counted about thirty seconds before the soldiers located them and shot them all dead. She saw a singularity wavering on the far side of the hangar but couldn’t count on Liara or Vega to save them now. They’d have to move as a unit or be lost. She considered trying to move over to Alenko or Goto to administer medigel, but there just wasn’t enough time. She closed her eyes, counting her breaths and trying to remember how this went in the sims when she felt the unexpected warmth of Garrus’ hand on her wrist. She looked over and he nodded as he turned his sniper rifle over the edge of the barricade and began to shoot, bullets bouncing off his shields as he took fire. She pushed herself over just as a blinding explosion of red filled the room, pushing both her and Garrus back with a shockwave. Steel Fist soldiers shouted in confusion and turned their attention to whatever had detonated in the room, but their shouts quickly turned into screams and calls to retreat as a flurry of red cut through the smoke and debris and straight into their lines.

Shepard had found it surprisingly easy to make it inside, but the sound of the battle only made her implant sizzle at the back of her neck and she pumped her legs harder. If there weren’t reinforcements at the entrance, then they were focused on her crew – on her family – and she needed to hurry. By the sound of it, they wouldn’t last much longer, and that was if they weren’t already dead by the time she reached them. Breaking into the hangar, she first caught sight of Liara and for a brief second caught her disbelieving blue eye before Liara’s shields broke and bullets took her to the ground. There was no easy way to tell from here what she was up against, and before she could even try, a fire consumed her senses, blinded her, and her body became an unwitting weapon. Red biotics ripped out of her, following the line of bullets back to a squad of Steel Fist soldiers bearing down on her. They fell in her wake. As red light whipped from her body, commanding her limbs and frying her nerves, she struggled against the sheer power like trying to control sails in a storm. It was a power unlike anything she’d felt before. Sounds almost like words seemed to stream out of her – not shouts, not cries, but a flanging vibration of communication that sounded like sheets of metal tearing under a gale.

Electra felt him in the room without seeing him, though her gaze tore around, seeking his familiar features between the explosions of force as she slammed her body and unleashed unprecedented novas into the assaulting troops. The more she wielded this new power – or rather, it wielded her – the more she felt a sense of control over it. It was a tug-of-war within herself, pulling at the very fabric of her being as it launched from some unseen pool at her core. Bodies fell around her like leaves in autumn, and she struggled to be more than just a passenger to the slaughter she brought, though the more she struggled to find Garrus, the more her biotics flared beyond her control. It was a desperate and devastating reckoning, the kind that would make any normal human believe in a god of biblical proportions.

In the midst of the red glow and among the body parts flying around her, she swore she could feel dark eyes watching her, moving her, commanding and controlling her. Fear snuck its way though the rage. She didn’t know who she was, who she had become. She wasn’t human. There was no god.

Almost as soon as the fight had begun, it was over. Or so it felt. She slammed herself into a soldier with a cry, taking him down into the hangar floor with her fist. Blood exploded around them in a mist, but not before she caught the look of horror in his eyes and realized that he’d been running from her. She extracted her now trembling hand from his back, feeling the crunch and squelch of his innards moving around her fingers as she stumbled back. Electra searched for another target, but no more guns fired. Her chest heaved. Silence settled in the absence of fire just in time for her to hear someone call out to her.

“Lola?! What the hell, is that you?” Vega shouted, rushing up to her. The look of confusion and relief in his face should have comforted her, but instead she could hardly look away from the carnage she’d inflicted. Vega put his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him before crushing her in a hug. It took her a moment, but she pushed back to get a better sense of her surroundings.

“I need a casualty report. Now,” she huffed, her voice shakier than she hoped it would be. His eyebrows knit and he turned back to where Liara fell, but she’d begun to stumble up from the ground, Cortez supporting her weight.

Electra felt her breath hitch – Garrus was nowhere in sight. She whipped around to find him, but he’d found her first, and she practically turned into his arms. Garrus swept her up off her feet, burying his face in her shoulder. His whole body quivered at the touch of her warm skin against his neck – a feeling he believed he’d never experience again – and if it weren’t for the urgency of his home world or his millions of questions, he’d have never set her down. The smell of her, the sound of her breath huffing out of her as he squeezed her against him, seemingly paused time for just a moment, just enough for him to regain the balance he needed to breathe again.

When Garrus set her down, he met her bewildered silver eyes – eyes that looked like the glory of Palaven – before pressing his mouth over her lips, his mandibles flickering against her cheeks. Electra released herself into the kiss, deepening it with the greatest wave of love she could muster. She knew Palaven needed her, needed all of them, but she needed this moment first.

“What happened to you?” Liara asked behind them.

Electra pulled back from the kiss to find that a shimmering red aura encased her and Garrus. His hands gripped hers as he marveled at it, though when he searched her face for answers, he met the same awe and confusion. As soon as she opened her mouth the speak, the light dissipated. Solana limped forward with Kaidan and Kasumi. Had she not arrived when she did, they’d probably all be dead.

“I… don’t know. I can’t explain it,” Shepard said, not knowing where to begin.

“I’ve never seen anything like this, Shepard,” Liara muttered, shaking her head. “Shepard, we thought you were dead. This morning, we all received confirmation of your death. We thought… how did you get here?”

“Ajax Ravidus tried to kill me. He was working with Progenitor and intended to collect the price on my head, but then I… I killed him. I got away in a dropship. I was unconscious most of the time that I was there, though, so there’s not much I can tell you other than that. We need to get back to the Normandy,” Shepard said, but when she tried to take a step forward, she felt her legs buckle. Garrus caught her before she could fall and scooped her into his massive arms, carrying her over to the Kodiak before she could protest to being taken off her feet.

“The Steel Fist has the Alliance and turian fleets pinned, but with Ravidus dead, we might be about to catch a break” Cortez informed as they entered the Kodiak. “I’ll patch us through to command, see if we can make it back safely. Maybe request backup. Getting here in the first place drew a whole lot of hell.”

Garrus set her in one of the chairs and sank beside her, still supporting her weight with his arms and rubbing circles on her back. He had to fight every urge to make demands. He couldn’t imagine what she’d been through to get here, and what must be going through her head if even she didn’t know how she managed to cut through thirty well-armed and trained soldiers without getting even so much as a scratch. Regardless of whatever it was, it had certainly drained her. She looked like she could barely keep herself upright while sitting; she leaned her whole weight into Garrus like a crutch.

“Shepard,” Liara said, her voice barely above a whisper, “you need to tell me everything you can remember.”

She crouched in front of Electra and placed her hand on Shepard’s knee and searched her face but found the same helplessness she saw there when Shepard first arrived.

“I’m not the only one. There are other hybrid pregnancies. There are more like me and they’re all in danger. Progenitor…,” Electra said, but though she wanted to continue, a pain seared in her lower abdomen.

Electra doubled over, hands gripping her belly and her vision filling with stars. A heaviness began to crawl up her limbs and she felt her body give over into Garrus’ arms completely. She heard multiple exclamations, but their voices sounded far away. The Kodiak rattled as it lifted from the ground. Electra opened her eyes, but instead of seeing the Kodiak, she only saw grey, as if that void was blinding her. She could feel Garrus’ hands on her body, multiple hands, kind hands, and in some distant, echoey space she heard their voices, but above all else, her senses were flooded by the deep and dreadful bellow of an old foe – the reaper horn sounded, and her mind slipped away yet again into unconsciousness.

>>>>>>>

Shepard could sense the Normandy as soon as the Kodiak whisked her into the cargo bay, her eyes beginning to flutter into awareness as she was hurried to the medbay. Garrus’ hands never left hers, even when she felt her body lowered onto a stretcher, but almost as soon as the pinprick of a needle touched her skin, her eyes fully opened and she sucked in a full breath, sitting up with a gasp. As soon as she did, the same cramping pain shot through her belly and thighs and her hands struggled away from Garrus’ as she reached for her stomach.

“Where the hell is Chakwas?” Garrus demanded, though he knew as well as Liara that she was still groundside.

Joker had alerted the Alliance of Shepard’s return almost as soon as he communicated with Shepard, but The Steel Fist had struck again, with reinforcements pouring in from the north and west in an unending battery. He’d had no time before the Normandy was called into service, and he hardly had time to get out the necessary alerts. It was simply a matter of luck that he’d left the Normandy’s communication systems open to track the rescue team. Right now, he was caught weaving and bobbing around the enemy lines, taking down what he could while still keeping his ship in one piece. If it weren’t for Cortez being a top-class pilot himself, the Kodiak would’ve never made it back into the cargo bay.

“I believe she’s in false labor. The stress must have induced contractions. Shepard, I’m administering a mild sedative. I need you to stay still. You’ll be fine,” Liara tried to soothe. She glanced at Garrus, though he seemed to be reeling as much as his mate.

Liara began to remove Shepard’s armor when Shepard grabbed her wrist, her eyes snapping to Liara’s face as she sucked in a long shaky breath.

“Get it out of me. It’s a Reaper,” she growled, shocking Liara. She heard Garrus whine as he stroked her back, her hair, her arms.

They’d heard their fair share about her anxieties around the baby – and they shared in their own – but they’d never heard her speak about it like this. Even in the beginning, when life seemed so much more uncertain, she’d maintained some level of positivity around the situation. She’d never directly called her baby a Reaper, and she certainly had never ordered them to remove it. Him, Liara reminded herself, not letting Electra’s unsettling words sink in. She again looked to Garrus for some support, but tears budded in his eyes as he watched with horror.

“It’s going to kill me. It’s going to kill everyone, everything. We have to kill it now. Kill it now, Liara. Before it’s too late,” Electra begged, her voice raspy and her cheeks stained with tears.

Liara pulled more of the sedative into the syringe and pushed it into her IV, though she felt cruel doing so considering she’d been sedated for over a week already. She couldn’t decide what was worse: that her dearest friend had seemingly lost her mind or that she was the one in charge of making sure she found it again. Shepard’s wild eyes began to gloss over after a few seconds until her lids finally closed, allowing Garrus to gently lower her to the gurney once more. The man looked like he was barely holding it together. Goddess have mercy. We need a break.

Liara administered fluids next and pulled up her vitals, monitoring the increased activity until she was sure that Shepard’s body had calmed down. If this was any indication of what her actual labor would be like, then they needed to heavily consider a surgical birth. The charts showed excessively elevated levels of hormones as well as a slew of erratic brain activity that Liara couldn’t begin to read – she was an academic doctor, not a medical doctor. All that she knew to do was simply what she’d learned in this short month working with Chakwas, and there was no telling when they’d be able to reach her. Based on the movements of the ship, the Normandy was still locked in battle. Of all things to miss, Liara wished for the days before the Reaper invasion, days she spent rushing into battle against the geth or watching her back for traitors. Days she never thought she’d miss. How had Palaven of all places come to this? She tried not to think of Thessia.

It seemed Garrus was wondering the same thing. He sat back on the other gurney with a wince – they were both pretty banged up from the fight at the hangar. For a while, neither spoke. They didn’t have the words. No words could begin to describe the stew of misery and worry and relief they were currently mired in.

“She said there were others,” he finally mumbled, getting up to administer medigel on his wounds. She rose behind him to do the same, never letting her eyes stray far from their unconscious commander.

“She also said that the baby is a Reaper and asked that I kill it, so let’s wait for her to wake up before we take her at her word,” Liara sighed. As the medigel set to work over her tender wounds, she also finally allowed herself a moment to rest before patching through to Joker.

“What’s going on out there, Jeff?” she asked.

“Their forces are staggering but Alliance has asked us to pull back to Central. We won’t be able to take them all at once. I’ll have us landed as soon as I can get clearance,” he informed. After a pause, he added, “How is she?”

“She’s resting,” Liara replied simply, eyes flashing to Garrus. He seemed to share the same thought as she did in keeping the exact details quiet. “Keep me updated on our status.”

Liara cut off the call and muted the link. She felt her teeth grind until her jaw popped as she regarded Shepard’s resting figure.

“Liara, what the hell is going on?” Garrus asked, though she could tell he asked not because she knew the answer, but because he desperately needed to talk. He’d been a mess since she was taken, though that worry had been superseded by this newer, much more concrete one. “I’ve seen all kinds of things in my time. Crazy things. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“I’ll have to do some research, but we might be seeing something that’s never been studied. Her body has been changing in scientifically uncharted ways since the day she was recovered – this could very well be a part of that,” she hummed. Her chest felt tight as she spoke. Was it excitement? Fear? She couldn’t even tell at this point, not with her nerves still raised from the firefight.

“You don’t think… surely they couldn’t have done this to her,” he mused, walking back to Shepard’s side and taking her hand in his. His thumb ran slow circles over the back of her bloodied hand. Blue flakes fell away at his touch, revealing her alabaster skin beneath.

“No, I don’t think they did this. Turians aren’t known for their biotic R&D. As for her mental state… don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming,” Liara said.

“No, no I didn’t. To be honest, that’s my fault. I’ve been shutting her down every time she tries to talk about it. I just wanted her to be safe. I should’ve listened to her. Talked to her. Did you?”

Liara simply shook her head, redacting her own sureness that there had been signs. For all the insanity she’d heard from Shepard since she’d woken from the coma, she’d never heard anything quite like this. She could only hope that it was a result of the stress, and that she’d awake in a much more lucid state.

“Garrus, we haven’t been entirely forthcoming about some of the readings. I’m no expert – even Chakwas doesn’t know what to make of it – but her dreams are… more than dreams. We passed it off for the most part, but I believe it might be time to figure out what’s going on,” she confessed, recalling that first moment Karin had explained the brain scan readings when Shepard was still in a coma. None of it made sense according to the books – not that any of her medical chart could be cross-analyzed with standard research – but when she came to them about the Leviathans, Liara could only double down on her denial for the sake of her friend’s safety. No one studied the brain under Leviathan domination, though she could make educated guesses now.

“Don’t finish that thought, Liara. The answer is still no,” he warned.

“Don’t worry, I agree. However, I think it’s best we stop having these conversations without Shepard. Afterall, we would be dead today if not for her actions. The time for transparency is now. That is, if Shepard wakes up and isn’t still asking us to kill your child.”

“Sirius,” Garrus said after a moment. “We’re naming him Sirius. We’re still working out the middle name, but I think she wants it to be Anderson.”

Liara walked over and placed her hand on his shoulder, joining him in staring down at Shepard.

“That’s lovely,” she added quietly, praying to Athame that she might allow the child to know his name.

When the Normandy was called back to dock a few hours later, the airlock immediately opened to Chakwas and Castis nearly breaking the door down. Joker simply pointed them to the medbay, himself left in the dark about the Commander’s condition. When he tried prying the details from the others who were there, they simply told him she’d “gone loco” or “collapsed into Garrus’ arms as soon as the fighting ended which was actually quite romantic.” He’d been too busy keeping the Normandy from getting blown to bits to get anything other than that, though now he wished – not that he wasn’t perpetually wishing – that EDI could be here to give him some company in the lonely bridge. He was only directed to keep an open line with Alliance command until Shepard had the deck. EDI would at least be able to fill him in.

When Chakwas and Castis burst in, they were surprised to find Shepard sitting up and eating, looking refreshed as if waking from a restful sleep. She didn’t have a bruise or scrape to be seen, and her cheeks had a pinkish color to them that Castis had come to realize was healthy and not some sort of pigmentation condition. He could tell from his son’s expression that he seemed as shocked as his father that Shepard was doing so well; Garrus sat beside her, picking at her food and cooing subvocal sounds of contentment and calm, his skin never not touching hers. If she had been in any state of disarray, they’d clearly cleaned her up and taken good care of her medical needs.

Electra watched the rainbow of emotions cross the new faces, smiling when they both gave over to the pure relief and happiness at finding her alive. However, just as they both rushed in to embrace her, she held up a hand to stop them. She almost felt bad that they’d caught her feeling so well – she didn’t remember anything past that last surge of pain before Liara sedated her, but based on what she’d been told, she was probably far from okay. It didn’t matter if she woke up feeling mostly fine. She’d let them fill her in on the details, mirroring their own horror, before promising that she’d tell them everything she knew once Karin had arrived. First, she had her own questions.

“I’ve been gone eight days. What’s happening out there?”

“Unexpected break. The Steel Fist hit hard this morning, not long after the message spread that you were dead. Reinforcements flooded in from Remedius City, presumably to wipe us out for good, but news of the imperator’s defeat spread quickly. Their lines faltered, ours were bolstered. For now, we have them pushed back to their previous line. As for all the days before, we’ve only lost more ground since the initial attack. It’s been a brutal fight, but with Ravidus gone, we stand a chance at calling it off and reinstating the Hierarchy,” Castis dutifully relayed. His joy at seeing his daughter-in-law alive had reinvigorated the hope he felt for his family, his planet. Shepard was synonymous with hope at this point.

“Pardon my tone, Commander, but I’m a bit more than eager to find out where you’ve been the past eight days. Out with it,” Karin prodded, an edge to her already sharp voice. She pored over the recent readings, brow furrowing at the lack of answers in the data.

“They took me to the Helios Institute in Remedius City where they had me sedated for almost the entirety of the eight days. I broke from the sedative once and spoke with a doctor there, and the next time I woke up, they escorted me to speak directly with Ravidus. There is more information than I know what to do with, but I’ll try to give you the basics. Ravidus was working with Progenitor, and he tried to kill me but, due to some unexpected biotic upgrades, I managed to take him out and escape. My doctor at the facility was Dr. Lilix, and I gleaned a full report’s worth of information from him, but only spoke to him once,” she began, looking over to Garrus. His gentle eyes prompted her to continue.

“Dr. Lilix told me that other cross-species pregnancies were reported on Palaven after the war ended, though he didn’t give me much information other than that they were sent away for further research. Apparently none were as far along as mine, though there were, according to him, a wide variety of hybridizations. He had data, but he wouldn’t send it to me, and I never had the chance to see him again. If there’s still a way to contact him, he said he’s the head of medical research at Helios. I don’t think he’s dead – he seemed too valuable to be discarded. He told me other things… about my ‘dreams.’ He told me that they aren’t just dreams, that I’ve been communicating telepathically. On top of that, I think I’m beginning to understand subvocal communication.”

Karin and Castis stood stunned, with Liara and Garrus listening intently and both internalizing with deep intrigue that she again claimed that there were other women like her.

“Dr. Lilix? I haven’t heard that name before, but it’s possible things have changed since the war,” Castis remarked. “When my wife was undergoing treatment for Corpalis Syndrome, Dr. Palinion headed medical research. I’ll get a probe into it, but that won’t go anywhere until we can end this conflict.”

“I want to help. I spoke at length with Ravidus. I understand their side – I can help write up a olive branch,” Shepard offered eagerly. The last place she wanted to be right now was on a stretcher – she really had grown tired of being monitored and kept in bed. She wouldn’t even mind being told to lay off conflict for a while, not at least until she understood the red biotics, but she couldn’t be bedridden any longer. She’d made so much progress over the past month, and any more time spent hooked up to machines felt like it was overriding that growth. She was restless, anxious to get to work where work still needed to be done. If anything, she wanted to blot from her memory the words Liara and Garrus told her she said – they aligned too perfectly with her nightmares. Yet another reason to keep in motion.

“Slow down, Commander. You went into false labor. Ordinarily, that isn’t too much concern as long as it’s addressed, but your pregnancy is far from ordinary…,”

“I’m not staying bedridden until this baby is born. Not unless I must,” Shepard interjected. “I can agree to take it easy, but only when I can afford to. You’ve said it yourself – my pregnancy isn’t ordinary. I know my body and my limits, and I’m not letting this stop me.”

Karin challenged Electra’s iron gaze before setting the datapad down and relinquishing. She knew beforehand that Shepard was an indomitable force, though she did doubt that she listened to her body’s limits. Maybe it was the horror at seeing yet another unnecessary loss of life, but she felt resigned. She hoped they’d at least recover the doctor’s data and give her something tangible she could wrap her mind around rather than try to predict and understand the Commander.

“Very well, Shepard. What else can you tell me?”

“Lilix used the words quantum entanglement and telepathy when describing what was happening in my brain. I want to know more about what’s happening, and I want to know what you know and what you’ve been hiding. Both of you,” she demanded, eyeing Liara as well.

“There’s not much I can tell you,” Karin sighed. “You’re correct in that some part of your brain appears to be communicating internally, but I’m not a neuroscientist. Far from it. I specialize in trauma. We knew from when you were in a coma that your sleep state was abnormal, but without being able to tell you exactly how or why, it seemed counterproductive to bring it up until we had more information.”

“Then why didn’t you just go into my brain and see it for yourself?” Shepard asked, turning to Liara. “I told you it was more than dreams, and you told me I was being unreasonable.”

“It’s too much of a risk. When you were in the coma, I tried, as did Javik. We met the same… emptiness. Like a big wash of grey. Nothing. You have to understand how peculiar that is. Think back to when we joined minds on the SR-1 – do you remember the intensity and color? That’s normal, and it’s exhausting. Going into your mind when it was like that was more than exhausting – it was actively draining.”

“Do you at least believe me that the Leviathans are behind this?”

Liara hesitated, glancing at the others for support and finding none.

“I do. Maybe not the way you’re saying… maybe more as an after effect of having your mind joined with theirs on Despoina. Maybe it isn’t them at all. There isn’t enough evidence either way. Returning to Despoina is suicide and might turn out to be nothing, but regardless of what is really happening, I believe you. I don’t want to join the camp of not believing, not when you always end up being right,” she confessed, looking away from Shepard.

“I’m not suggesting we go back,” Shepard responded, realizing with a stab of shame that after her outburst, Liara and Garrus must be particularly on edge. “Another life depends on me now. Protecting my family is my priority.”

“Of course. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you all we knew. We just didn’t know what to tell you, and we were worried about what you might do with that information.”

“Water under the bridge,” Shepard soothed, touching Liara’s hand. Liara returned a weary smile. “We’re filled in now for the most part. I’m sure everyone is dying to know how I’m doing, and I’d like a moment alone with Garrus, so why don’t you give an update. I’ll join you in a bit.”

Everyone filtered from the room, and as soon as they did, Electra pressed her body against Garrus’, squeezing her arms around his waist. It had felt like an eternity since she’d been able to do just that without some kind of audience. Garrus purred and stroked her hair, inhaling the comforting aroma of her skin. For believing only this morning that his wife and child were dead, he couldn’t get enough of it. Those eight days had been clouded prison. He could hardly recognize the level of anguish he felt building to the moment he saw what looked like her lifeless body.

“Electra Shepard, don’t you ever do that again,” he breathed into her cheek.

“I love you, too. And I’ll try my best to not get captured. At least next time I’ll keep everyone in the chat updated on my status,” she laughed, burrowing into the deep well of his carapace. Her laugh faded as quickly as her forehead touched the metal of his armor.

“What happened that you aren’t telling?” he asked, though he wasn’t exactly eager to find out.

“Ravidus. He… knew things about me. Told me things about myself I didn’t even know. Hell, maybe he just got into my head, but I’m scared, Garrus,” she said, looking up at him. “What if I don’t want to live? What if… if I’m not even alive? He touched me. He wanted me. Then he tried to kill me and I just let him. If it weren’t for this new power, I would be dead. Something saved my life and it wasn’t me. Whatever happened at the hangar was the same thing. I’m scared of myself, Garrus. I’m scared at how easily I just let it all go.”

Garrus studied her face, studied that depth behind her eyes – the one he’d seen wavering since she awoke, the one he’d never seen before. It scared him, too, though he never knew how to say it. Until now, neither did she. All his worst fears that she wasn’t truly alive, or that she didn’t have any drive to stay alive if she was, flooded into him and he struggled to steel himself against a tidal wave of weakness threatening his spine. He’d known that darkness. They’d never talked about it directly, but she’d maybe seen it in him on Omega. Perhaps that is what he recognized behind her pupils, and the unflinching authenticity of her indifference is what drove him wild. That he could read the apparent fear on her face, on her quivering lips, told him that whatever darkness bored through her psyche hadn’t won yet.

“No matter what, you’re still here. There’s a reason for that,” he pushed. With a growl, he added, “Ravidus was a slimy disgrace. It’s good that you killed him. If you didn’t, I’m not sure you could stop me from relieving him of his life, and I’m sure I’d make it hurt more, and for longer. If you wanted to die, you wouldn’t still be fighting with everything you have. No way in hell. Yours is a thankless job.”

“You’re probably right. He got under my skin; psychoanalysis is flawed, anyway. My life means everything now and… I need you to know that what I said…”

“Hold that thought,” he interrupted. “I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. I’ve been a complete ass and you still showed up to save mine. I’ve never been so good with words, and I’m even worse with emotions, and that’s made me into a lousy husband and an even worse subordinate. Arguably, it’s made me better in bed, but that’s beside the point – I haven’t been listening to you. I need you to know I have your six, in everything. I trust you. Spirits, I’ve spent so much time anguishing and worrying and trying to control without realizing how isolating this must be for you. For all my calculations, I never factored in the fact that you’re an unstoppable badass and that’s the reason I fell in love with you. I’m sorry, Shepard, for not being the man you needed me to be. I’m ready now.”

Electra studied his face and moved her hand up to stroke his mandible the way he liked, her fingers tracing the scar patterns on the right side of his face. His mandibles flickered and tightened in the way she’d come to recognize as a turian blush, his eyes averted to his lap. For being such an imposing and accomplished vigilante-turned-war-hero, she relished that she could see the big guy turn into such mush. It brought her back to the first time she cracked a joke about the rumors circulating about them – the way his uncaring bravado melted into boyish stammering as he claimed the mako needed realignment. Would he ever be able to understand why she loved him so much? Of course it was his unwavering loyalty, his bravery, his dedication – and he was a wicked shot to boot – but it was more so his unexpected softness. The way his talons only grazed her skin for fear of hurting her, and the way he gripped her body against his with such crushing, delicate urgency. Touched her, spoke to her, in a way she had never been before.

“You’ve always been the man I needed. From day one. Don’t ever doubt that,” she assured, pressing her forehead to his. “And you don’t need to apologize for being protective of me. Don’t tell anyone, but I kind of like it. This has been a lot for anyone to handle. Even us. And we’ve been dealing with Cerberus and the Reapers for four years.”

Garrus sat back and sighed, never releasing Shepard’s hand. Looking at her face, he wondered how he never realized how beautiful humans were, thinking that maybe none of them are besides Shepard.

“So, tough week, huh?”

Electra giggled.

“You could say that. Ready to go face the music, big guy?”

“Of course not, which is why we should go ahead and get it over with. I’ve probably pissed off the entire Hierarchy by now. The sooner they’re fed, the sooner I can take you back up to our cabin to let off a little steam.”

Chapter 22: The Sea Dance

Chapter Text

Expectations are funny things, and the last few years of Tali’s life mostly taught her not to keep them. She recalled the feeling of Shepard closing her fingers around that rock of her home world – the way the warm air felt on her bare face – and how even then it felt wrong to talk about having a home there. Tali surprised herself when, instead of staying behind to fulfill that fantasy, she joined Shepard to take on the Reapers. It wasn’t until she finally returned to Rannoch that she realized that she might have been running – running from the fear that whatever brief fantasy she entertained about her new life would crumble as soon as it was allowed. Was she sure her heart sunk when she heard that the mass relays were active? Was that what she felt stepping off the Rayya and onto Rannoch with no intention of leaving? She should be happy; at least, she expected that she would be happy.

Salty air rolled through the open window of her prefab sleeper unit, waking her from her flimsy veil of sleep. Thin strips of pale moonlight peeked through the shutters. Next to her, a much larger body turned over on the too-small bunk bed, his arm sliding from her waist and pulling the shared blanket off her legs. Kal slept so deeply – something Tali couldn’t fathom. She wasn’t used to the quiet, to the stillness, and she certainly wasn’t used to having a warm body in her bed almost every night. Somewhere in all the years she’d spent running and shooting, Tali had lost the ability to exist without something threatening her peace, her restfulness defined only by its absence. Now, she lay awake for hours every night until, as if blacking out for mere seconds, she suddenly found herself waking up the next morning.

She wasn’t the only quarian wrestling with the new way of life. Far from it. The forums helped her feel some connection to her people, to their shared struggles. So many found the dilapidation of their cities, the quiet of the long nights, the foreignness of stone and dirt to be overwhelming. These weren’t the things that bothered Tali. In fact, after spending many hours talking to strangers online, she had begun to realize she had it better than many others. However, she missed her Normandy family more than anything, and found that rather than focus on building her life on Rannoch, focusing on her work with EDI and the geth injected just enough stress into her life that she might forget for some time that anything had changed. No, unlike others, she was far too relaxed.

Tali slid her feet to the floor, moving quietly in hopes that Kal wouldn’t notice her getting up. To her surprise, she didn’t have any qualms with having him around. It helped that he didn’t try to change how she lived. He didn’t mind that they shared a tiny mattress when they could afford to be living lavishly in the city, or that he often woke in the middle of the night to find her missing. As far as she could tell, he was just happy to have someone who understood what he’d been through. They hardly even talked about anything, least of all the relationship that had sparked between them – almost everything left unspoken and undefined, a nebulous and impersonal kind of intimacy that allowed them to feel close without the need to be vulnerable. With some quarians beginning to transition to suit free life, vulnerability was the last familiarity they had, and not something easily given up.

Tali trekked along the Leyya Sea’s coastline to the old geth server, a few lights twinkling in the early hours like fabricated stars. In the north horizon, just over the comm hub, the glow of the reclaimed Jelachai disrupted the pristine night sky. Power had been restored to the old capital so quickly that it felt like quarians had never left – this was part of the reason she preferred to stay so far from the city. That, and Admiral Daro’Xen had effectively made the geth server the central lab for the geth reactivation project. Here, EDI’s body spent day and night hooked up to computers amidst the recovered bodies of geth; the quiet made it hard to see the lab as little more than a tomb. Tali wondered if this just made her depression worse.

As she did every morning, she fell into the same patterns with her work, scouring the decimated hard drives and databases in some attempt to restore the old consensus, always reaching the same dead ends and unanswerable questions. She thought of a conversation she’d had with Liara a few days ago – about how the more she looked through the same information, the less sense it all made. She wished her friend were here now. Not that Liara could help with her problem, but having someone around who understood the unique torture of feeling inadequate and powerless in the face of inscrutable enigma and chaos might help her focus on the problem rather than how small she felt next to it. She thought about calling her now when she realized three hours had passed and the sun had begun to rise. Soon, Admiral Xen and the other techs would arrive, probably tell her to take a nap. Jor’Tal hovered in the repair frame, dead light staring her down like a rolled back eyeball. Unseeing yet not without the property of making her feel seen.

Please don’t wake up.

Please wake up now.

“Can you compile the data from server 342 and have it sent to my terminal?” Admiral Xen’s voice broke through Tali’s concentration.

Green and red text trailed over her HUD. She cleared her visor’s interface and checked the time to find that three more hours had passed in the span of just a few minutes. Had she fallen asleep? To her right, Admiral Xen stared at her with her hip co*cked and fingers rapping on her desk. She must have fallen asleep. She didn’t even realize the admiral had arrived.

“Yes, of course, Admiral. Why do you need it? I thought we’d cleared that server’s memory?”

“I was looking back through our reports and found something of interest. A timestamp indicating activity in a geth unit’s memory core on December 10^th. I’m not sure how we missed it the first time,” she said. Her tone could freeze fire.

“December 10^th? But that was after…”

“I know. Unit 2044. A geth prime located on an Alliance maintenance ship. I’ll have to check the shipping logs to see if it’s been returned to quarian custody.”

Tali stared at Admiral Xen expecting further elaboration, but the woman turned and offered nothing else but the chilliness of her back. Tali found the Admiral’s obsessive and cold aura to be overbearing, but it was her obsession with the geth that made her suited for their work. If not for Xen, there was no way Tali could have even gotten approval for the project, which allowed her the freedom to also work on EDI. She just missed working alone.

“I’ll go ahead and run through the other servers,” Tali mumbled, standing from her desk.

“No, Tali, you need to rest,” Admiral Xen sighed. Was that kindness Tali detected? “Take the rest of the day. Tomorrow, too. That’s an order.”

Tali tried to think of the last time she’d been told to take some time off. Of course, Shepard usually insisted that her crew have plenty of freedom to relax, but that was different. They spent a lot more time getting wounded and putting out fires, and the rest of the work Tali did in engineering was easy compared to the work she was doing now. She never made mistakes on the Normandy. Not like this. Unfortunately, working alone caused this mistake. She could’ve sworn she checked her server multiple times for any unusual activity. Server 342 was her responsibility. How could she have missed it? Stupid girl. Her father would shame her for an oversight this huge.

The Leyya Sea sparkled like crushed sapphire in the hot afternoon sun. Red dust blew in the air alive with the sound of palm leaves snapping together. Returning to her prefab, she was relieved to find it empty. Kal had smoothed the blanket over the bed and left a few immune boosters on the kitchenette counter. Tali considered plugging them into her suit before reaching instead for a bottle of cheap wine she’d stowed and heading back out to the shore. Perching herself on a sunbaked rock, she popped the top and opened her omni-tool messaging system.

TZ: Potential breakthrough with the geth. I’ll keep you posted when I know more.

LT: That’s great news. How are you?

TZ: I’m fine. Busy. How are things on Palaven?

LT: I take it Garrus isn’t responding. That isn’t surprising. He hasn’t rested for a moment since we arrived. Things are coming together here, though the Reapers have done an incredible amount of damage. I can’t imagine anything would be left if Shepard didn’t destroy them when she did.

TZ: How is she?

LT: I don’t know how to answer that, to be honest. The baby is healthy. How are you, Tali? Really.

Tali closed her messages and put her induction straw through the top of the wine bottle. The system was so clunky, so overbearing. She wanted to feel the cool metal on her lips, wanted to feel the rich, red liquid around her teeth. She pictured the vid films of humans swirling wine in glasses at fancy parties, their eyes closing as they tasted the subtle notes and inhaled the complex aroma. Taking a few more long sips, she brought her free hand up and released the seal of her visor. Her suit’s monitoring system chirped an alarm, but the rush of air and sound coming through to her bare face drowned it out. She removed the mask and squinted at the bare, unadulterated sight of the golden rays of sun bouncing on the crystal waters. The briny air beat her skin, warm and moist, and freed a few dark locks from around her forehead. After a few moments, she inhaled a deep breath, closed her eyes against the light, and brought the bottle to her lips. The sensation overwhelmed her. Tears twinkling in her lashes were whipped back into her hairline by the wind. She felt so naked.

She needed more.

Sure that she wasn’t immediately dying and confirming her solitude, Tali swept her hood back from her head and shook her long hair free. The curls fell around her face, tickling her nose. Next, she unclasped the collar and laid it beside her visor, twisting her neck until a satisfying pop sounded. Piece by piece, with ceremonial piety, she removed the articles of her suit and laid them beside her, taking sips from the bottle with each increment of undressing. For every thought of death and every thought of illness, she took a sip and removed another piece, until naked she stood overlooking the sea, her hands running up her stomach and over her breasts until she brought them to comb through her hair. The sun’s heat which had felt oppressive in her suit now felt like a mother’s warm embrace.

Slowly, slowly, Tali walked out onto the sand of the shore, memorizing each sensation on the bottom of her uncalloused feet. Her toes sunk into the soft sand, prickled at the sharpness of twigs and small stones. She let the tide brush over her feet with a yelp at the surprising coolness of the water before taking a step into it. Her eyes were wide as she watched the way light rippled like ribbons on her pale skin through the clear water. A larger wave crashed over her legs, pushing her back with unexpected force. Stumbling, a laugh tumbled out of her, resonating on the sharp pan of open air. All around her, ancient memory danced in the communion of water over her skin. It had been centuries since a quarian touched these waters, and yet she felt the sea greeted her like an old friend. It drew her deeper and deeper, teased her with the rhythmic rushing the waves around her legs. It reminded her of a traditional dance in which two partners would dance far apart as if locked in a tide before sweeping back together in a graceful spin.

“Tali! Oh… I… I’m sorry… I…”

Tali snapped out of her daze and turned, her hands instinctively coming up to cover her breasts. Kal stood by the rock with his back to her. His hands seemed as lost as his feet – he didn’t know whether to leave or panic or run or laugh. His mind was racing, not a single thought staying long enough to tell him what to do. He didn’t even remember what he’d come here to tell her. Did he have anything to tell her? He hadn’t planned to come home until later in the evening, so something must have sent him in search of her. When Tali wasn’t at the lab and wasn’t even at the prefab, he’d followed the sound of her rich, delightful peals of laughter until he found first her discarded environmental suit and then, before even registering what he was seeing, found his eyes locked on her lithe, naked back.

Heat shot up through his body, seared in his cheeks and in his groin, before he turned away in a mixture of shame and arousal, which only brought more shame. Pushing the sight of her naked body from his mind, he was then inundated with a deep concern for her safety. Not only was she out of her suit, but she was in the water. Water that could be carrying any number of microbes and bacteria. And she was drinking. Without the help of her filters. Keelah, she could die.

For all that, Kal still couldn’t erase the image of her body in the sun, the light illuminating the lavender tones of her skin and playing in the rich, dark coils of her hair. He couldn’t stop himself from imagining his hands in that hair, on her back, on her hips – his skin against hers.

Tali practically sprinted out of the water, not bothering to dry herself as she hurried to put her suit back on and stammering apologies over and over. The words tripped over her lips; she’d finished nearly half the bottle of wine.

“I’m… oh, Keelah, you weren’t supposed to see this. I’m fine, I promise. I feel fine. I didn’t think anyone would see me. I’m just… well you see I was… mash’ai’ffet. You can turn around now, I’m dressed,” she bumbled, sealing her visor into place. Her cheeks were burning, and not with fever, though that probably wasn’t far off.

Kal faced her again, ducking his head still. It wasn’t that they hadn’t done their fair share of fooling around, but it had always been over-the-suit. Just fun and easy. He’d always imagined seeing her naked for the first time (if he ever did) would be much more intimate. And mutual. Part of him was relieved to see her back in her suit, though he didn’t dare step closer. His thoughts began to slow. Once they did, he remembered why he’d sought her out in the first place and his anxiety piqued again.

“Batarian raiders are attacking Jelachai. You need to come with me immediately.”

>>>>>>>

If it wouldn’t make his headache worse, Garrus would slam his head against the table. Voices rose all around him. He couldn’t take another minute of this nonsense. He’d always known political life wasn’t for him, but he wasn’t given much of a choice when asked to advise the Hierarchy on the rebuild.

It had been a week. A week since The Steel Fist had been squashed and a week since the Hierarchy came back to the seat of power. A week of the same issues being debated ad nauseum. The words were all becoming mush in his head to the point that he could no longer differentiate between senator and thermal clip. To top it all off, he had a mountain of paperwork sitting untouched on his terminal and an avalanche of unread messages. Even Castis was starting to look weary, not that he’d ever admit it. He’d thrust himself – and his family – into the thick of the rebuild efforts and threatened to go to the Council himself if they thought about calling Shepard off planet so soon. Garrus was thankful for that, and thankful that Shepard seemed willing enough to take it easy.

She sat beside him, arms folded over her growing belly and gaze unfocussed amidst the din. Garrus couldn’t tell if she was even taking in any of the information when she rolled her eyes at something Senator Erveshan said. She leaned in to cut him off when yet another senator started in on Erveshan, seemingly satisfying whatever it was she thought to add. Shepard returned to her languid and unbothered pose.

Garrus couldn’t get a good read on her these past few days. Communication between them had never been better – or at least not since Huerta – and yet he couldn’t help but feel like she was holding out on him. Every night she woke from a nightmare, sweat staining the sheets and her skin somehow even more pale, and she’d curl in on herself like a collapsing star until her breathing returned to normal. He stopped asking what they were about when the only response he'd get was a haunted and apologetic look and a shake of her head. When she’d wake the next morning, any trace of that frightened look had vanished and she’d move about her day like nothing happened. In fact, she’d taken on her own work with a chipper zeal he’d never seen, could never comprehend. Meetings with the Council, meetings with Hackett, meetings with citizens. She’d become a regular politician. Garrus was starting to think she enjoyed this kind of work.

Meanwhile, he wished he could mirror her energy. When they found no records indicating Dr. Lilix existed, she didn’t seem fazed. When certain turians tore up her social restructuring proposals, she never abandoned her beliefs. When the Council sent her report after report of the widespread chaos ensuing on other planets, she didn’t balk. She sent her messages and filed her paperwork and drafted her proposals and finished it all off with her own rigid schedule of physical therapy.

In a way, Garrus had missed this side of her, much in the same way he’d missed being back on the Normandy. He’d always choose working by her side over just about anything else, though maybe not lounging on a distant shore somewhere tropical. In that all-but-dead fantasy, she was still there beside him, maybe wearing some skin-tight revealing number. He believed humans called them bikinis. Now that was a nice distraction. If he focused on that image long enough, he might forget about the raging debate ringing in his ears altogether.

By the time Victus dismiss the room for the day, the sun had already set. Walking back through Cipritine to the Normandy, Garrus marveled at the return of traffic lights illuminating the roadways. Life had returned to the city with a fierceness. Lennet Station had transformed seemingly overnight from a crumbling military outpost to the familiar bustling center of travel and culture. Even since leaving that morning, the determined construction crew had replaced the shattered windows of the ground floor; glowing advertisem*nts and notices flashed on the fresh glass as if they had never been broken. Port authority announced transport shuttle departure times over the restored PA system, and travelers rushed to and fro. Many lingered near the missing persons help desk, hoping to finally find people they probably hadn’t seen since the Reapers attacked.

Back on the Normandy, Garrus hoped he might have a quiet dinner with Electra, maybe even attempt to tackle some of his work, when Traynor immediately directed Shepard to unread messages at her terminal. Shepard looked over at Garrus with what she hoped he read as an apology – she already knew what these messages were about. The Council seemed willing enough to give her some time to help with things on Palaven, even without the immediate threat of losing the Hierarchy, but she’d known all week that they needed her on Tuchanka. Garrus seemed to know as well and headed up to the crew deck to gather the rest of the crew.

Subject: Action Requested from the Council

Commander Shepard, while we appreciate your continued help on Palaven, we need you to go to Tuchanka and oversee the terraforming project. We haven’t had any reports of immediate violence among the krogan, but they are refusing to update us on their progress. Please alert us when you have arrived and send your official evaluation. We can’t afford a repeat of the Krogan Rebellions and require their continued cooperation if we are to continue to supply relief funds.

We have also looked into these reports of hybrid pregnancies and suggest you contact a salarian scientist by the name of Dr. Aemarth Solus, a relative of the late Mordin Solus that served on your ship. We have reason to believe he is located on Tuchanka, though that is all we know. If we learn any more information, we will contact you immediately.

Shepard closed her terminal and rubbed the space between her eyes. The Hierarchy wouldn’t be pleased that she needed to leave so soon, but her time had run out. More than anyone else, Castis would be disappointed. She wasn’t blind to his continued efforts to get her to stay until the baby was born. But she was already dispensable on this planet. She’d sat in on the top meetings and given her proposals, but even for all the respect and gratitude earned on this planet, they didn’t seem too keen to hear out her ideas on the restructure. She wouldn’t have even given it if Victus himself hadn’t asked – she felt woefully unequipped to handle turian politics. Perhaps Tuchanka would be easier. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be shot at with Clan Urdnot at the helm, and her interest in Mordin’s relative alive on the planet piqued her interest more than anything happening on Palaven.

“Traynor, have Joker prepare us for departure to Tuchanka in the morning.”

Shepard entered the information hub quietly and rounded the corner into the central chamber when she noticed Liara leaned over her terminal, her face in her hands. Startled by the sound of the door closing, she stood up quickly, but her posture deflated just as rapidly once she realized who it was. Shepard had known Liara was under a lot of stress, but she rarely ever showed it. Walking over to her friend, she gestured for her to join her on the stairs.

“How are you holding up?”

“Do you ever think you’re not cut out for this, Shepard?” Liara asked, directing her voice into her lap.

“Sometimes. I usually don’t have much time to think about it before I’m asked to step up to the plate again,” she said simply.

“I feel like I’m letting you down. I’m the Shadow Broker. Information is my oxygen. Tell me how we’ve been getting hounded by Progenitor since we left the Citadel, and I still can’t get any good intel on them? All my sources are scattered and I’m up to my neck in requests. It makes me miss my old life.”

“Ever consider giving it up?”

Liara looked at Shepard like she’d shot her, though her eyes immediately softened. She stood from the stairs and paced around the terminals, her mouth occasionally opening then closing before she finally found her words again.

“As you know, I am young for an asari, but I feel old Shepard. All my life I’ve spent in search of hidden truths, rare knowledge, and I’ve been dismissed and told I’m too young or too naïve for any of that work to have mattered. When the opportunity arose for me to become the Shadow Broker, I took it as means to harness control I never felt like I possessed. At first, it worked. You helped me achieve that, and for that I’m eternally grateful. In fact, if you had never stumbled upon me in those ruins, I’m not sure I’d have ever had the chance to know what I’m capable of. Realistically, I’d be dead. I owe my life, my life’s work, to you, Electra. I’m not sure I’m adequately repaying that debt. I’ve continued my work as the Shadow Broker largely because I was sure it would help you, though now I’m not so sure. The nature of information has changed dramatically since the end of the war, and so too my own personal desires. That feeling of control has been replaced by a longing for something more. Something meaningful.

“You were there on Thessia when I had everything I held true about my life’s work ripped out from under me. While I’m able to remedy that loss with the current work I’ve been doing with Javik, I… find myself called by unexpected desires. I’m young, Shepard… too young. I should be diving deeper into my work, into my calling, and yet I’m finding my energy spent. I’m at the end of a road and multiple paths are open to me and for once, I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to fail you. You’ve never failed me,” she prattled, wringing her hands as she paced.

“The work you do here is vital, Liara. Don’t ever think you’ve failed me. I would have never gotten to where I am without you. Without your friendship. I don’t care if you can’t help me find the answers I need. You said it best – the nature of information has changed. Maybe you just need to figure out how and work from there,” Shepard suggested. She wished she could say more, but the knowledge that she was the primary cause of Liara’s stress kept her mouth shut. Liara hadn’t even seemed this upset after the death of her mother.

“It’s more than that, Shepard. The fabric of existence has changed. Everything is rethreaded and I lack the perspective to understand how. All I know is I’ve been rethreaded with it. Tell me you don’t feel it, the changing of the seasons.”

“I think you know I do. Everything about me feels different,” Electra replied, feeling a chill in her limbs that drove her to her feet. She walked to one of the terminals and the hologram shifted to display the overview of her personal file. “We have to choose to work with what we know. Hold onto anything we can.”

Liara stopped pacing, analyzing her friend before joining her at the terminal. The blanks in Shepard’s chart were daunting. Though Liara felt responsible for all that was missing, she couldn’t imagine how it must feel to have those things missing in herself. And what about the child? He would be the first of his kind, no single culture, no history, and, if they didn’t figure things out soon, no idea how he even came to be. He would be a portrait of solitude in the universe and simultaneously a blank canvas upon which an entirely new history would be written. Sirius. Liara couldn’t wait to meet him.

“Javik wants to have a child with me,” she said before she could stop herself. “And I think I want that, too.”

Electra’s eyes went as wide as solar eclipses.

“Let’s roll that back. A baby? With Javik??”

“Well, he came to me a few weeks ago and put it rather bluntly. He sees it as his purpose and duty as the last Prothean to father a child. I understand it, and not even from a purely sympathetic point of view. I understand it because I feel similarly. Typically, asari don’t begin to want children until their matron stage, but I feel moved by something that is greater than any one race. The krogan no longer have the burden of the genophage, and the quarians have lifted the one-child policy since returning to Rannoch. Everywhere, each population is facing the greatest loss of life ever recorded in our cycle’s history, and life is surging as a response. I believe it’s why everything is in such upheaval – everyone had to come to terms with mortality, and in the face of such loss, they’re eager to live to the fullest. I want that, too, for myself. One thing I’ve thought is that by the time I reach my matron stage, you and your son will be dead. I want our children to know each other, Shepard,” Liara confessed, hugging her arms close to her body.

“I’ve never known you to make a decision without thinking about it. Only you can know what’s right for you. And it’s not like you need to make that decision now,” Shepard sighed. She didn’t know what to make of this information, though she couldn’t help but think how nice it would be to have her son brought up with Liara’s potential child. The thought felt selfish; Liara probably felt the same way.

“I know you’re right. I still haven’t made up my mind, obviously. But it does feel good to finally acknowledge it out loud,” she said, leaning her head on Shepard’s shoulder. “Our lives are strange, aren’t they?”

“Better than fiction,” Shepard agreed, allowing herself to smile. “So, Javik huh? Have you…”

“Not exactly. I’m sure everyone’s probably noticed the tension between us by now. Don’t think I don’t have access to all the separate betting pools. Actually, it was at your bonding ceremony that we had our first encounter. We didn’t get very far, but it wasn’t nothing. To my surprise and chagrin, I didn’t hate it, either.”

“Right. I won’t tell. You have a pretty insane workload without the added stress of fending off Joker’s curiosity,” Shepard laughed. “Not that I want to add to it myself, but we’re leaving for Tuchanka in the morning. The Council wants me to update them on the krogan’s progress. Do you know anything about a Dr. Aemarth Solus?”

Liara’s eyes flashed with intrigue and she walked over to her primary terminal, pulling up a dossier on a salarian that looked almost identical to Mordin. Shepard scanned the information hungrily.

“I’ve known about Aemarth since I’ve known about Mordin. He’s Mordin’s brother, though I’m not sure how well they knew each other. Almost all of Aemarth’s records are classified by the STG, which either means he’s brilliant or criminally insane. Based on what we know about Mordin, it’s probably a combination of both. What did the Council tell you?”

“That he’s probably on Tuchanka, and might have information about other hybrid pregnancies, but nothing more than that. It seems they have about as much access to information about him as you do.”

“Well it’s a welcome step in the right direction. I’ll take anything to help with that effort, though it’s still astounding to me that more information isn’t available about these rumors. It could be an active cover-up if they are true,” she said, her brow hiking up and a glimmer settling in her eyes. “I look forward to meeting this doctor.”

>>>>>>>

Garrus had tried to keep his father from coming aboard the Normandy, but almost as soon as he called to tell him they were set to leave in the morning, Castis had insisted that he see them off with a nice dinner. By the time Electra had finished up in the information hub, Castis was storming onto the ship with a number of choice words for both of them. Garrus initially believed they’d at least have a quiet dinner on the ship, but Castis had other plans. He practically commandeered the Kodiak, breaking Cortez from taking inventory in the armory to have him escort them to a real Cipritinian dinner. Dragging Solana with them, they took off into the glittering city.

Castis instructed Cortez to drop them off near HQ, telling him not to worry about escorting them back. Garrus was starting to worry his father had snapped and was taking them hostage when, to his surprise, they were led to a restaurant in the underground. He didn’t think any restaurants would be operational so soon and with so many shortages still plaguing the planet, but it did make some sense considering Hierarchy officials tended to enjoy their comforts. The restaurant was clearly reserved for elites, a fact that obviously bothered Shepard, but they were soon overwhelmed by the rich aroma of fresh meat and bold spices coming from the kitchen.

“How does he do this? It’s like he’s always three steps ahead of us,” Shepard whispered to Garrus. Looking around the shockingly lavish and well-preserved interior, she felt underdressed. She recognized a few politicians from the various meetings she’d been attending all week, a handful of whom acknowledged her with a nod.

“In case you haven’t realized it yet, you’ve married into a fairly big name on Palaven,” he responded. “I’m kind of important around here, Shepard.”

“With your social graces? Could have fooled me, Vakarian.”

Castis led them to a long table at the back of the restaurant where Shepard was stunned to see Primarch Victus and Admiral Hackett. Solana groaned as they approached, clearly sharing the same sentiment as her brother and Shepard.

“So, I hear you’re heading to Tuchanka first thing,” Admiral Hackett began as soon as they’d taken their seats. He was wasting no time tonight, though Electra wondered if he was only asking because that meant Karin would also be leaving. “I expected you to stay longer.”

“I’m actually overdue. To be honest, I’m surprised you’re still here. I would think you’d have a lot to do getting Arcturus Station up and running.”

“The primarch asked that I keep Alliance presence groundside until we’re sure no one tries to overthrow it again. Handling official Alliance duties remotely has been straightforward enough. Honestly, I’m trying to avoid the Council at this time. They seem to think I’m going to find them a human councilor or become one myself.”

“I would think you’d do well in that role,” Garrus said with a hint of sarcasm. It wasn’t lost on Hackett, who flagged over the waiter to bring another round of drinks.

“You know who would? The commander,” Victus offered, sipping his own drink. “I understand better than most the desire to stay far away from politics, but the work you’ve done on Palaven as well as everything you accomplished during the war makes me think you relish this type of work.”

Electra wished they could just go ahead and eat. She didn’t come here to talk shop. Even Castis looked a bit impatient with the conversation; she got the feeling he brought them here as a more sentimental send-off rather than a continuation of the debates they’d been immersed in all week. Before she could answer, the waiter returned with the drinks and Castis ordered for the table. Maybe he heard the growling in Electra’s stomach. For all his quirks, she’d miss the old turian.

“Adrien, could you not pressure my wife into accepting yet another set of responsibilities? We haven’t even had our honeymoon,” Garrus groaned, effectively deading the topic.

“I hear Rannoch is beautiful this time of year. The Council have any plans for you to head there? It’s much better than the thresher maws and sandstorms on Tuchanka,” Victus mused.

“If the batarians weren’t hounding the planet, I’d agree. I’d argue that any developed planet in the galaxy is either rubble or violence,” Hackett countered.

“Batarians on Rannoch? When did this happen?” Shepard and Garrus asked almost in union. Tali.

“Reports came in asking for Alliance back-up just this morning. A batarian militant group landed near the capital Jelachai and seem to think the planet is for the taking. The quarians are holding their own for now, but I’m sending reinforcements. I’m surprised the Council hasn’t asked you to make it a priority.”

“I am too. If anyone is responsible for talking down the batarians, it’s me. The Council must think the situation on Tuchanka is more important. Keep me updated on Rannoch if you can. I’m still allowed to make my own judgement calls.”

Shepard felt tension from both Castis and Garrus, though Garrus was more focused on his omni-tool, probably sending a message to Tali. They could talk about this later. Hopefully, the Alliance reinforcements could hold things together until Shepard could make it over there. The thought that she alone might be able to fix this situation exhausted her. Heaps of steaming foods on large, silver platters rejuvenated her a bit, though the irony wasn’t lost on her that while she sat in luxury, her friend was potentially in danger, and millions more starved.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay here, Shepard? You could work remotely. Conditions are only set to improve, and your safety would be guaranteed,” Castis said as they ate, watching her as she plowed through the large plate she served herself.

“Leave her alone, dad. Don’t you trust her to take care of herself? Plus, she has me and Garrus to keep her in check if she gets any crazy ideas,” Solana butted in. Had it been Garrus, Castis might try to argue, but he clearly had a soft spot for his daughter. Every time she spoke made Electra’s decision to bring her on board feel more justified, particularly because she knew Solana could keep Garrus grounded when even she couldn’t. Shepard would have loved to meet their mother.

Not long after food had arrived, Hackett excused himself, saying that he had a lot of work left to do. A knowing look between Garrus and Electra revealed that they both suspected he really meant Karin when he said work, though no one on the Normandy could get a clear answer on the level of their involvement.

Conversation past that point lightened considerably, especially with Victus keeping the rounds of drinks coming to the table. Electra had seen Victus drunk at her bonding ceremony and was pleased to see he kept a similar energy even now, his questions getting more and more personal as the dinner progressed. Eventually, enough deflections got Castis on his own derailment in which he began regaling her with stories of Garrus and Solana’s childhood. His eyes took on a wistful glaze as he began to talk about how long he’d dreamed about being a grandfather, all the plans he had involving his grandson; Sirius hadn’t even been born yet, and Castis seemed intent on using the word “grandchildren” when talking about these plans.

Though Garrus and Solana looked like they would rather be anywhere else, Electra was happy to hear more about her family. For all the years she’d known Garrus, he’d been less than forthcoming about his childhood; hell, she didn’t learn about his sister until she read through the shadow broker’s terminal. Hearing their stories filled in a gap in her own life with warmth and light that she wouldn’t be able to provide for her son. Eventually he’d ask about her life and she’d only be able to tell him stories of loss, of pain, of loneliness. How she’d barely known her family before they were taken from her, and how she struggled to remember their faces. Relishing in Castis’ stories, she was struck by a sudden and sharp reminder that the only other man she’d considered a father was also dead. Anderson would have made a wonderful grandfather, even if it wasn’t by blood. He should be sitting here with them, or at least be there to reassure Shepard that everything would turn out okay. He saw something in her she didn’t have the eyes to see, and when he died, that version of herself died with him. She could use that now.

Garrus noticed she’d gotten quiet and remarked on how late it had gotten. At this rate, Castis could talk clean through to the morning, but he knew the time had come to see them off. Victus offered to call them a car, but Castis wanted to drive; Shepard wouldn’t deprive him of some extended moments with his family. For as much as the man could sink into his work, she knew he’d spend most of the coming months worried for her, worried for his grandchild, and probably sending them a slew of invitations to come back and stay with him. She didn’t know yet where she’d be in the next few months, but she knew she wanted him there when Sirius was born. Usually, she tried to keep her mind of the coming birth, a prospect that scared her more than the Reapers ever had, but if she could just imagine the look in Castis’ eyes upon meeting his grandson, she could move through the rest.

Castis walked them up to the Normandy’s airlock, his steps long and halting. Giving each of his children hugs and touching his forehead to theirs, he finally took Shepard by the shoulders. Buzzing in her skull in that same confounding bramble of sound and vibration, words peeled from the unspoken space between them.

You come back in one piece, my daughter.

Electra surprised him with a hug and in her mind, thinking the words as strong as she could, a promise.

You will see his face.

Chapter 23: Mother of Millions

Chapter Text

Looking out of her ship’s observation window, Samara beheld the red glow of Omega. She’d been here many times – a festering rock filled with the lowest scum the galaxy could offer. Her work was cut out for her in a place like this. That it was silent now, and the space around it still, gave her pause for the first time since giving herself over to the code. She couldn’t predict what she’d find here; criminals weren’t known for being so mute.

When the Reapers were destroyed and she confirmed that Falere survived, Samara believed she’d maybe retire and spend her remaining time with her daughter, but the state of the galaxy demanded her service more than ever. Gangs exploited what feeble scraps of order remained. People starved while barons feasted. Lawlessness presided over the stars. Many of her sisters died holding the line on Thessia, and though she wanted to return to her home world to stand in their honor, she still felt bound to Shepard. This was different from the oath made to the commander, different even then the rigidity of the code she served – this was an oath of the heart. Of course the situation on Omega was pressing in and of itself, but she felt that buried in the stark silence of the asteroid was a truth about Shepard she had to uncover. It whispered in the crimson aura.

The Spectre she’d been travelling with walked onto the observation deck and joined her at the window. Samara didn’t know how to feel about Gelin Kysi, the asari standing beside her now – she had yet to see her in action, and thus determine her adherence to the law. She hoped she wouldn’t have to kill Gelin. It would only distract from her more important goal.

“We’re still unable to get any communication in or out of the station. It’s locked up tight. I did receive an encrypted message from someone you may know – Zaeed Massani. He arrived here not long before we did. He’s directed us to use the upper southside docks. Do you trust this source?”

“I do. Take us in. I have a feeling we will be met with either fire or silence. I’m not sure yet which is worse,” Samara hummed, her eyes never leaving the station.

Gelin Kysi had heard of the justicar from legends and stories – she didn’t want to tell her that hearing those stories had directly influenced her to pursue a job as a Spectre. That she was now working directly with the justicar was like something from one of her maidenhood daydreams. She hoped that she would make her proud, though she was more than nervous to dock. Gelin was facing a lot of pressure from the Council to get communications with Omega reestablished, largely because it was one of the most reliable sources of eezo. She was surprised to learn that she’d been the one sent to investigate at all as she’d never seen an assignment off the Citadel. The chance to prove herself – not only to the Council but to her hero – had arrived. There was no room for error. That the justicar seemed trepidatious didn’t inspire any much-needed confidence.

They took the ship around to the southside docks and found nothing and no one stopping them from pulling into the docking bay. No alarms sounded and no guns were fired as they stepped off onto the metal platforms. They walked in bristling wordlessness through the filthy walkways, lit by the occasional flickering orange sign, until a gravelly voice stopped them from going further.

“You’re not going to want to go in that way,” Zaeed spoke from the shadows. He sauntered into the dim light and flashed his mismatched teeth at Samara. “Lovely to see you, again.”

“It is good to see you are not dead yet. What is beyond that point?”

“Walk with me,” he said, and led them back to a discrete door. They dropped down into a dark service tunnel, the sound of the feet hitting the metal pipes echoing throughout the pitch. Samara held a biotic orb up against the shadows to light the way and Zaeed began walking.

“Place is completely overrun by a group calling themselves Progenitor. Thought I’d come here to collect some bounties when I realized my hits were all dead or missing,” he explained, then flashed the light on his scope at a wall. An unfamiliar symbol like a set of six eyes was painted on the metal. “Never seen a gang with that mark before. Typical for Omega to have new people in and out of power here, but I don’t see that happening easily with Aria T’Loak back in charge.”

“Have you been able to find her?” Gelin asked.

“Yeah, I have. Holed up in the walls like an angry dog in a cage. She’d just gotten the damned place back from Cerberus, but with her gangs out fighting the Reapers, she had no choice but to retreat. Hasn’t been able to get a word out. Struck a nice deal with me if I get Omega back for her.”

“What’s your take on Progenitor?”

“Ask Aria. I’m just here for my goddamned payout.”

They dropped down to another set of pipes and then down a long ladder to another small service hatch. It opened to a small warehouse guarded by a small group of Blue Eclipse mercs. They aimed their guns at the newcomers but put them down as soon as they realized the justicar approached. One asari’s hands were shaking. Ahead, they could hear Aria’s sharp voice barking commands and yelling expletives. She paced around a row of terminals, only stopping to glare at her newest guests. She stormed down to meet them before they could come any closer.

“Dammit, you useless lump of scar tissue! I told you to bring me Shepard,” she shouted at Zaeed. He appeared unmoved, though her crackling blue finger was pointed inches from his chest.

“Ahhh, shuddup T’Loak. You know our signal is blocked. I brought you a Spectre and a justicar. Be happy that’s all I’ve brought.”

Aria leaned back on her heel, slowing her breath as she examined Samara. They’d encountered each other before. She’d given Aria a hell of a hard time when she came here looking for her daughter, but at least she never had to fight her. Samara scared her sh*tless, and she’d be stupid to not be afraid of a justicar in her territory. There was a host of reasons Samara could find to kill her. She had to play this right.

“How are they blocking the signal? Even Cerberus couldn’t manage that,” Gelin asked, earning a snarl from Aria. Her focus seemed to be on Samara.

“I don’t know. They showed up not long after the Reapers got taken down and took everything. What’s worse, seems like most of the people here were already with them. For all I know, they are Cerberus, just operating under a new name. To be honest, I don’t care. I want them gone,” she growled.

“Where is the communication hub located?”

Aria whipped around, leading them to her terminals where she pulled up a holo map of Omega. A section of the furthest tip illuminated. A long trailing line spanned that point and ended in ther current location. They’d need to cross almost the entirety of the station, and looking around, Aria didn’t seem to have a lot of reinforcement. Of the ones she had, maybe half looked like they’d ever seen direct combat.

“If you think you can just waltz in there, you’re wrong. They have insane numbers, and they’re not afraid of sh*t. Most of them are civilians and even they’re acting ready to die for the cause. Tattoos and everything. This is the only route I haven’t tried yet and it takes you straight through the mines, which is where their base of operations is located. They’re doing something down there. Whatever it is, it’s not anything I’ve seen before. They’re testing on people. Making bio-weapons, medical equipment, all kinds of nasty chemicals. I don’t know for sure what all they’re doing seeing as I can’t get any kind of surveillance in there. But I did get something.”

Aria motioned to one of her guards to open a metal locker off to her right. The guard, hands shaking, undid a series of heavy-duty locks before swinging open the door. Inside, a large sphere swirling blue, green, and black.

>>>>>>>

Shepard had never seen so much green on Tuchanka. Joker put the Normandy down in Urdnot amidst a ruin now overgrown with thick vines; grasses poked through cracks in the stone and moss crept up the legs of the krogan statues. Shepard might’ve believed they’d gotten off course and landed on a garden planet, but the booming voice of her friend and the acrid smell of toxic dust on the wind told her otherwise. Wrex threw his hands up and rushed to greet them from the airlock. He looked ready to crush Shepard in a hug, instead taking her by the shoulders and giving her a firm shake. Behind her, she could hear Solana squeak at the sight of the massive warrior bearing down on them – she’d never gotten used to seeing the krogans as allies, much less warm friends.

“And you brought the whole clan with you! It’s good to see you’re still holding it all together. Behold, Tuchanka returns to glory under clan Urdnot,” he laughed, gesturing to the greenery around them. “Just wait until you see where I’ve been living. It’ll make your little apartment look like a varren hole.”

The landing party – Garrus, Solana, and Liara – followed Wrex through the ruins to a massive, fortified structure that stood out from the rest of the dilapidated stone. It looked to have been built recently. Guards stood posted at the ornately carved doors, though they didn’t look like they cared much about who came and went. Compared to their arrival on Palaven, this felt like a vacation. They entered into a cavernous great hall, and the air felt cool and crisp inside, much unlike anything Shepard had experienced on the planet before. Massive krogan statues held up the ceiling in rows around a central garden, which sat under a large skylight. The light cascaded through the tops of alien-looking trees and glimmered in a crystalline pool. The room was filled with krogan, but not just the male warriors Shepard was used to seeing – krogan women mingled among the men, and children wrestled around the feet of the adults. Shepard had never seen a krogan baby before, though they were exactly as she might have imagined: miniature balls of chaos and aggression, complete with their own miniature sets of armor. It was probably a good thing she and Garrus wouldn’t be adopting one after all.

Almost as soon as they made it to the central garden, a pair of krogan children rushed from the sidelines and barreled into Wrex’s legs. He pretended to stumble before sweeping one of them up into his arms and throwing the child into the air. The red-scaled child laughed with manic glee while the other rammed into his legs again. Not far behind them, Bakara rose from where she sat under one of the trees and moved to join them.

“I’d like for you to meet our boys, Shepard and Mordin. They’ve already heard much about the warrior who took down a Reaper on foot,” Wrex said. The child in his arms – the one that took the most after him – stared at her blankly for a second.

“Small,” he uttered before losing his attention and rolling out of Wrex’s arms.

“You’ll have to forgive them. They just learned to walk, and once krogan children learn to do that, they don’t stay still,” Bakara’s deep voice rumbled with pride. “You will know what I mean when your own child starts walking.”

Something about her presence brought Shepard a deepset feeling of peace she hadn’t felt since learning she was pregnant. Maybe it was that she knew the woman understood what it felt like to be fearful of a pregnancy rather than hopeful. Either way, the combination of her soothing voice and the verdancy of the garden around them made Shepard never want to leave.

“They’re amazing. All of this is amazing. I knew Tuchanka would be different, but I didn’t expect to see gardens. How did you do all of this so fast?”

“Let’s just say we cashed in a few favors with the rest of the galaxy. Believe it or not, the salarians provided us with the terraforming pods and have scientists upgrading the Shroud,” Wrex explained.

“Salarians? I didn’t expect them to be so involved. They were pretty pissed about curing the genophage,” Garrus quipped, remembering their notable absence on the front lines.

“They have good reason to make Tuchanka habitable. And they have good reason to be keeping tabs on our growth. You won’t find any of them here, though. They gave us the pods and moved on. Most of their research facilities are located away from major clan territories,” Bakara replied.

“So that would explain why the Council sent me to give an update,” Shepard said.

For as much as she was happy to be here, she couldn’t help but think she’d be better off elsewhere, like Rannoch. The conditions on Tuchanka appeared remarkably stable. Bakara gestured for them to take a seat in the grasses. Moving under one of the trees, she could now see the nest-like pallets of pillows and blankets lined the shaded areas. As she began to lower herself to the grass, Bakara took her arm and pulled her over to one of the pallets. A sharp look at any of the others told them that this was a privilege apparently reserved for her.

“While I understand the Council has a keen interest in keeping us in order, you should inform them that we are only interested in speaking openly when they allow a krogan embassy. Many krogans are still scattered in Council space and have no means of securing transport or representation. We are grateful for their continued financial support, but we’re mostly interested in reciprocity. If they want openness, then we want to be welcomed,” Bakara said, her tone bitter. Electra noticed that Wrex had turned his back and was speaking to Garrus out of earshot; her conversation was with Bakara alone. As Bakara spoke, she gestured for a veiled krogan to bring forward a tray with food and water, which was set on a chiseled stone beside the pile of blankets.

“That seems fair. I’ll see what I can do for you,” Shepard promised.

Bakara settled onto the grass beside the pallet and opened her mouth to eat some of the meat on the plate. It looked like smoked pyjax, something Wrex had sought out multiple times while on the Normandy. She’d never tried it, but she was hungry and it felt rude to refuse. Taking a morsel from the plate, she found the meat pleasantly sweet if not a bit gamey.

“I have no doubt that you will, Shepard. I’m glad they sent you, though more so for other reasons. When I learned of your pregnancy, I hoped you would come. Knowing you would be the one they send, I may have arranged for our political play with the Council to ensure that Tuchanka be made priority,” she said, eyes flashing. “You haven’t been taking care of yourself.”

Electra wasn’t surprised that Bakara had taken a leading role in political maneuvering. She’d trusted that the active presence of krogan women in Tuchanka’s restoration would induct them into the galaxy with a more diplomatic and compromising position. Personal reasons aside, Shepard would see to it that the krogans be given a chance to remake their image. Her mind filled again with the unerring vision she had for non-council races – for everyone to have access to equality and representation – but Bakara’s critical gaze brought her back to the moment. She glanced over at her crew not far away, catching Garrus’ curious expression.

“Wrex, the commander and I would like some privacy. Why don’t you show our guests around the rest of the Hall of Urdnot,” Bakara instructed after noticing the nervous way Shepard glanced at the others.

Garrus looked to Shepard for approval, but Solana was the one to snag him by the arm and follow Wrex away from the garden. They were alone now except for the krogans meandering in the distance. At the edge of the garden, the twins tumbled in the grass, laughing and growling as they wrestled. Bakara turned her gaze to her sons, an absent smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

“I gave birth in this garden not long after you felled the Reapers. It wasn’t a garden then – only a ruined temple just shielded enough from the elements. I gave birth alone with only my own gun to keep guard against predators. For many nights, I didn’t sleep as I held them in my arms. It seemed like any moment, they could stop breathing. I was prepared for the worst. For all the babies I’ve lost, the loss never gets easier. Even now, with two strong sons and another on the way, I can’t forget the ones that came before. Hurx, Klordan, Vilthana. Those are only a few that I buried, among many more who were never named,” she said. Her voice sat heavy among the leaves. Electra felt her son move inside of her and moved her hand to her stomach.

“We’re naming him Sirius. He’s healthy, strong. He moves a lot now,” Shepard traced her thumb in circles around her navel before disabling her cloaking matrix. Bakara’s eyes moved to her now visibly extended belly and hummed in approval.

“It is normal to be afraid. Especially for you. I imagine the males in your life think they know what’s best for you.”

“Not just the men – almost everyone. It makes me second guess if I even know what’s best. It’s not just motherhood and birth that scares me. I’m scared of myself. Of what I’m becoming. Have you heard what’s being said about me?”

“Does it matter? What do you think of these rumors? The only thing that matters is what you know about yourself.”

Electra couldn’t find the right answer. She kept her hand pressed to her stomach and focused on the movements inside, trying to distinguish one movement from the next. A search for a constant and steady reminder that this was her son – a helpless, small baby not even fully formed yet. Not a monster. Not a machine. It didn’t seem to help. Bakara, perceptive as she was, noticed that Shepard’s eyes had taken on a faraway emptiness, the piercing grey darkening as a shadow swept in from inside. She handed her a cup of water and returned her gaze to the boys.

“You aren’t alone, Shepard. A month ago, a salarian doctor arrived here with a transport of women with extraordinary pregnancies. Pregnancies science says shouldn’t be possible. Not even Wrex is aware of their presence. I have been overseeing the ethical treatment of these women, providing safety and seclusion. Would you like to meet them?”

Of course Bakara would know about this. Hope flared in Electra’s chest.

“How soon can we go?”

>>>>>>>

Tali rushed up to the barrier, shotgun pulled tight to her chest. No clips. She cursed under her breath, which was beginning to feel ragged. She cursed again. She shouldn’t have gone out into the ocean, or she should have at least taken the immune boosters before rushing off to Jelachai. Across the street, the red of Kal’Reegar’s suit stood out against the brushed taupe of the sandstone buildings. She thought she caught him glancing back at her, but his focus was on the wave of batarians spraying bullets into the buildings. The sight of an unarmed civilian dead in the dust filled Tali with unspeakable rage. If she wasn’t out of clips, she could probably take down the entire raiding party herself. In the distance, she heard the signature crackle and pop of Chiktika getting shot down. It would be at least a minute until her self-repair process initiated, and if the batarians kept advancing at this rate, she only had a minute. A minute and no clips and the early stages of a cough.

When Kal found her the other day, naked and drunk and acting like a complete bosh’tet in the sea, they’d had no time to talk about what he saw, or what she was doing. He’d pushed her into the rover and taken off through the desert until they hit the city, where the batarian ships hung over the buildings like storm clouds. Black smoke ushered from their bellies as they released dropships and bombs, and each explosion that rocked Jelachai felt like it dropped directly in her chest. At first, she didn’t even register that a constant and warbling sound of screaming sat over the entire city. She gripped Kal’s arm as they powerlessly watched their city destroyed, her teeth gritting together and trigger finger ready to see some action. His squadron met them at the city walls and she’d ignored a suggestion to stay behind and direct fleeing quarians to the space port for evacuation. No. Tali never turned her back on a fight for something she cared about. With a fleeting hand on her waist, Kal moved the squadron into the city at sunset. The sun had officially risen.

She thought about dashing over to Kal’s cover and grabbing some clips off him, but she’d almost certainly take enough fire to break her shields. Her only option now was through the tightly packed houses lining the street. Not wanting to distract Kal, she slipped back through the buildings unseen, her legs pumping until she reached a narrow alley. Her eyes scanned the ground for spare ammo but found a surprising lack. Had they also been facing a shortage of clips? It seems she never had this problem in previous firefights. There had been a few times Shepard set the Armax Arena to no spare clips, but those were different fights, and Tali could buy time with Shepard’s brutal and explosive show of biotics. Come to think of it, there weren’t many fights where Tali felt entirely needed – Shepard could hold an entire platoon off by herself if she put her mind to it.

As Tali slipped through a broken window and into an abandoned house, she ducked down and watched the heads of the batarians passing her by. Her internal radio crackled.

“Tali, come in,” Kal’s urgent voice sounded in her suit. “Tali, are you injured? I repeat, come in Tali.”

The batarians still passed by outside, wave after wave of them. Had they sent their entire fleet? It felt like overkill, but the batarians weren’t known for their yielding assault style. If she responded now, they’d surely notice her presence, and then she really would be in trouble. In a crate near the window, she spotted a spare clip and crawled towards it, reloading her shotgun. She craned her neck to peek through the window and didn’t see anymore of those ugly heads passing outside. She’d gone outside of her range to control Chiktika as well, leaving her with no means of surveillance. It was now or never.

Tali hoisted herself up through the window and used her lucky break to dash to cover on the other side of the street. Now in range, Chiktika chirped to life and sent a round of bullets into the batarians’ backs. Payback. From here, Kal was probably now behind her – right at eye-level with the batarians, and she poked her gun out hoping to get a few before they were too far out of range to make the shot. Two of them fell in the street, but the third shot only grazed the raider in front of them. Tali sprinted out to get a shot from better cover when she felt the butt of a punisher come down on her shoulder. Just as she rolled over, eye-to-eye with the open mouth of a gun, two bullets shot through her assaulter and he fell to the ground next to her. Tali’s heart pounded in her chest. She had to move fast.

Just as she stood, she felt an arm snag her and drag her back into cover with a flash of bright crimson. Kal sprinted with her back through the buildings just as another dropship descended on the city like a plague. Kal kept pulling her back until they both slid into the safety of a dark building, falling to the ground as they tried to catch their breaths for the first time in hours. Tali had a stitch running up her side that made her wince every time she breathed. Coming through the darkness, Kal crushed her in his arms, their visors clacking together somewhat awkwardly as they held each other’s bodies. The gesture stunned Tali – he’d never been so forward without a few drinks at least. Battle endorphins were a bit like being intoxicated.

When he released her, they had nothing to say that could be said here, not that they ever had the right words to say to each other. Tali thought back to her trial – he hadn’t held back then. Were the stakes not as high, now? Had they just begun their relationship in a way that doomed it? He turned around and put his finger to his radio receiver.

“Come in left assault. I’m issuing a full retreat to the city space port. I repeat, full retreat!” he shouted. No one came through on the other end of the line. Tali might be the only one left. She tried to swallow a hacking cough and turned away from her. Opening her omni-tool, she was relieved to see a message from Garrus.

GV: You alive? Heard reports about batarians. Update as soon as possible.

The message had been sent a few hours ago.

TZ: Still alive. Situation bad.

She hesitated, wondering if she should ask how soon they could be there before sending the message as is. It was probably enough to just let him know she hadn’t died. Her omni-tool pinged almost as soon as she’d sent the message. He must be worried to be responding this fast.

GV: Alliance sending reinforcements. If things don’t get better, we’ll be there. Be safe.

“Kal, the Alliance is coming. I just found out from Garrus,” she said, hoping it might be better news than the silence he received from the rest of his squad.

Garrus’ name sent a spark of jealousy cutting across Kal’s thoughts. He shook his head as if to free it manually before starting to pace around the small room. They didn’t have long until the batarians found them here. They needed to make a run for it, though he couldn’t stand the thought of leaving his men. If they were still alive. Still no responses to his call to retreat. He set the command to loop and hoped that if anyone lived, they’d hear it. Were it not for Tali, he would consider going and finding them himself, but he felt compelled to get her safely to evac. Her breathing was sounding worse by the minute, and she’d probably need medical care if she didn’t want a life-threatening infection.

“Did he have any more information on the Alliance reinforcements?”

“No. I don’t think he knows, either. I’m sure if I ask, he can pry for more information. I don’t know if anyone is aware of how bad things are here,” she replied with a shake of her head.

“Both Mareh in the south and Shagro Veara to the east have been hit hard. If the Alliance is coming, that means the flotilla is aware of the damage and has requested proper back-up. Or so we can hope. We need to get to the space port. If we go now, we can probably make it…”

“NO. No. We aren’t just going to tuck our tails and run. We just got our home world back, isn’t anyone interested in defending it? I can’t abandon the work I’ve done. My friend’s body is still here,” she interrupted, closing in on him, her fists balled. Kal had never seen her like this, and he couldn’t lie and say it didn’t make him fall a little bit in love with her.

“You’re right. We’ll go to the server, hopefully beat the batarians there, if they go there at all. How are you feeling?” Kal reached out, his thumb tracing her collarbone. The sliver of space between their bodies tingled with built-up static crackling between their suits.

“I’ll be fine. I have some spare antibiotics and immune boosters at the lab. Once I get to those, I should be fine,” she insisted, moving away from his touch. She swallowed another cough, though it didn’t escape Kal’s notice. She sensed him wanting to move closer to her, wanting to reach out, and paced to the edge of the room to peer through a small window.

After being seen naked yesterday, she didn’t know if she was entirely ready to address what they were feeling. After the battle, after they made it to the server and didn’t die – she’d tell him then how she really felt. At least this way she had time to think about what exactly it was that she was feeling. Oddly enough, she could only imagine about how good it would feel to sleep tonight, maybe for the first time since being on Rannoch. Silence might be nice for a change.

“Coast is clear. Let’s go.”

>>>>>>>

Bakara led her to a mako in the lower levels of the compound, a garage opening for them into the vast sprawl of the Tuchanka wilderness of the lower Kelphic Valley. Electra pressed for her crew to come with, but Bakara stressed that the security threat was too high to bring anyone not necessary. Liara would be disappointed, perhaps even angry that Shepard didn’t push harder, but she wasn’t going to tinker with a chance to meet the doctor. They drove among the ruins and rocks being slowly reclaimed by growth until they reached an entrance concealed in the side of a cliff. A hidden door opened enough for the mako to enter a barely lit garage, where upon stepping out, an armed salarian approached to lead them further into the facility. Long hallways punctuated by labs led them to an open room in the deep recesses of stone.

A group of ten women, mostly turian, were spread out in the room. More pallets of blankets and pillows filled the space around a burning hearth. Mismatched tables and chairs formed what looked like a dining area, and there were even a few screens playing vids. Along with the women, a few men of differing races sat amongst them. Most men were human, though Shepard also saw a quarian and a batarian. Upon entering the room, all eyes zeroed in on her with rapt curiosity, all surely recognizing her. Her entrance dispelled the hushed chatter heard from the hallway.

Popping up from behind a table, a salarian that looked exactly like Mordin Solus twittered and hurried over to the pair. At his warm greeting, the rest of the occupants seemed to drop their guard, though Shepard knew they were all talking about her.

“Dr. Aemarth Solus, happy to meet you. Knows you worked with my brother. Interested in studying you. Helping you. Interested in helping you,” he corrected when Bakara narrowed her eyes.

Shepard was struck by how nearly identical to his brother Aemarth was, down to the cadence of his speech. Was something like that genetic? Even before he corrected himself, Shepard felt herself lulled into a sense of security with the doctor. If it meant she might get some answers, she didn’t mind being studied.

“Please, follow me to my lab. Your presence is unexpected for other patients, potentially stressful.”

Aemarth zipped past them and back through the door. Looking back once at the curious people – women potentially like her – she trotted after the doctor. He led them through a series of corridors into one of the labs where he dismissed another salarian.

“Apologies for the mess. Assistants don’t share my standards,” he prattled as he shuffled datapads and lab equipment. He patted a hospital bed to invite Shepard up, but she crossed her arms.

“Forgive me if I’m not eager to let you poke and prod me just yet. I don’t know anything about you,” she said, eliciting a twittering chuckle from the doctor. Bakara sighed and settled herself into one of the chairs in the lab.

“Of course, Commander Shepard. I am Dr. Aemarth Solus, biology specialist for the STG. At your service and disposal. I hoped I would get to study… meet you since I became the researcher in charge of Project Chirality.”

“Project Chirality?”

“Yes. It is a project studying the phenomenon of hybrid procreation, particularly dual chirality procreation, but any hybridization fits the bill. Subjects under my care are mostly turian with the exception of one human woman. All are currently confirmed to be pregnant with offspring sired by previously believed non-viable male partners. Scientifically confounding. Incredible. Impossible. Or so it once was,” he detailed, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Does the STG know about this? The salarian government?”

“No. Well not exactly. I was given an assignment to research reports of these pregnancies on Palaven, but due to increasing danger for these women had to classify data and evacuate the patients. Clan Urdnot repaying a favor for my brother’s work curing the genophage. All research continues with topmost secrecy to avoid drawing attention before I am satisfied. I would very much like to collect your biological data, now. Please.”

Shepard squinted at the doctor before hopping up on the bed, her heart rate rising as soon as she saw him wheel over a tray lined with syringes and scalpels. He directed her to remove her armor, after which he began placing nodes on her body. Her heart didn’t stop pounding, and her eyes never left the tray. Were it not for the trust she placed in Bakara, she would have blasted her way out of here minutes ago. He struck her as even more detached than Mordin, and with the differences now becoming more apparent, her initial instinct to trust began to erode. Only the layers of deep classification of the project afforded him the right to collect any information about her body.

Connecting her to a terminal and monitor, he began to hum as data leapt onto the display. His large eyes sprinted across the screen as he muttered things Shepard couldn’t make out. The words came out in tones that made it sound like a song.

“What kind of danger were these women facing?”

“Scientists with bad intentions. Progenitor. Ajax Ravidus. Danger ranged from proposed vivisections to outright extermination. Not to mention the apparent risks to mother’s health. Body in flux, unstable. Pregnancies incredibly high risk due to lack of medical data and compounding physiological changes. Stress is also bad for a developing fetus, untold how bad for one that shouldn’t biologically exist,” he replied nonchalantly.

He hovered a sonogram wand over her belly until an image of her baby became clear on the screen. The image caught her breath – he looked bigger than the last time she’d seen him, and it’d only been a matter of weeks. The little crest had elongated, and she watched as the fingers opened and closed. Parts of the face that had looked more human before now showed the early development of spiked plates along the jaw and brow, and spurs were beginning to form along the length of his limbs. She wished Garrus could see how much their son had changed in such a short time.

“Incredible. Simply incredible. Fetus is male, estimated to be between twenty-one to twenty-two weeks based on knowledge of human and turian fetal development benchmarks. All other pregnancies on record are earlier than twelve weeks. It is possible you are the first, impossible to say until scope of this phenomenon is realized.”

“Are you saying there are more like us?”

“Quite possibly. Only rumors, but so were these. Likely to see numbers increase as galaxy stabilizes and the population predictably surges.”

“So what do you know? How is this possible?” Electra asked, her voice raised with urgency.

“I wish I could answer, but data is insufficient. My apologies. I understand this data is of deep personal interest. If you would allow, I would like to take some samples to add to my research.”

“What kind of samples?”

“Blood. And placental. This poses no risk to you or your fetus, though there may be some discomfort.”

Electra glanced back at the syringes and scalpels and felt dread knot in her gut. Even with Bakara in the room, she felt extremely alone. The edges of her vision began to grey and without her noticing, her breath began to pick up. She gripped the rails of the bed, her knuckles whitening. A flash of blue and red ran along her fingers, causing Aemarth to jump back.

“Calm, Shepard. He won’t hurt you or your son. I’m here,” Bakara’s warm voice broke through the panic. She had gotten up and moved to her side, her wide hand covering hers, unafraid of the biotics sparkling on Shepard’s skin.

She should be. Electra’s head snapped to the door, where she swore she saw a turian in a lab coat, but as soon as the voice sounded, the figure disappeared. In her head, she echoed the sentiment and jerked her hand from under Bakara’s, holding it to her chest. She suddenly realized she had no idea where she was. Nobody else knew where she was either. She wasn’t even sure she could get a message out to the Normandy before something happened to her. She felt her biotics surge again as she calculated how long it would take for her to be on her feet and out the door, when yet another voice rose, this time directly in her right ear.

Wake up, Siha. You aren’t supposed to be here.

Electra felt her awareness slide into place just as a purplish ball of energy engulfed her hand, red and blue sparks running up the bed. Her eyes flicked around her and she realized both Aemarth and Bakara had pressed back to the edges of the room, apprehending her with a mixture of confusion and fear. She couldn’t bear to think of what might have happened if she hadn’t come to her sense when she did. She tried to open her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

“Are your biotics normally that color?” Bakara asked. She still hadn’t reapproached, though from the relaxing of her shoulders, she sensed that Shepard had come back to her senses.

“It’s a recent thing,” she managed to get out, her voice cracking. She wanted to curl up into a ball. She needed to be held. The room sent cold down to her bones.

“I will make note in your chart. Biotic surge beyond normal range for L3 biotics. Source appears to be decentralized. Unsafe to collect samples at this time. Is there any chance I can have a copy of your medical records?”

“Quid pro quo,” she stated. She felt her nerves dispel enough to lower her hands to rest in her lap. “I may have worked with your brother, and Bakara may trust you, but I don’t know you. Furthermore, the only reason I won’t immediately alert the Council about your project is to protect the safety of the other patients. Should more information come to light that might help others, Project Chirality is to be made public.”

“That’s fair, Commander,” Bakara spoke for the scientist, who didn’t seem pleased with her response. “Dr. Solus, perhaps it’s time Shepard meet the other patients. I’m sure they would appreciate it as well.”

“Very well. You may get dressed and join me in the common area.”

As soon as the doctor swept from the room, Shepard wrestled back a deep sob. This wasn’t the time or place. Bakara joined her bedside and placed a hand on her back, though Shepard hardly felt it. The room still seared cold. Bakara took her hands and helped her down from the table, handing Shepard her breastplate. Shepard breathed in deeply, as if to inhale some of the hushed fortitude radiating from the woman. She brought her mind back to how she felt in the Hall of Urdnot, wrapped in blankets beneath a tree. Even further back, she thought about the last time Anderson ever spoke to her. The sound of his voice reverberating in the brittle halls of her memory, emphasizing the emptiness of the air around her. She had to be strong. She was safe. Her world still held its shape.

By the time she entered the common area, she’d gathered herself. To the prying eyes of the other patients, nothing about her seemed any different than when she first entered. One of the turian women approached her first, a human man following closely behind.

“Commander Shepard, my name is Hylex Bravus. This is my partner Arjun Aggarwal. I can’t begin to tell you what an honor it is to meet you. I never expected you’d come here. It’s a little embarrassing, but I’ve been a fan of yours since the tabloids first suspected your relationship with the legate. It was refreshing to see positive depictions of turian and human relationships in the media. Outside of fiction, at least,” she spoke, rubbing the back of her neck. She tugged her partner forward.

“Yeah, it’s kind of funny. We uh… met on a forum that uh… was dedicated to you and Garrus. Your relationship. Well, at the time, your alleged relationship. Lexxie, I told you this would be weird…”

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Shepard urged. She’d always been curious about the faces behind her devoted fan base, particularly the ones dedicated to writing stories involving her and Garrus. She gestured for them to take a seat. “How did you find Dr. Solus?”

“Well Arjun had moved out to Palaven to be with me before the war started. We settled in Practis for the diversity. Made it easier to find like-minded individuals and resources. In fact, two of the other women here are from Practis. They were in similar situations as ours. When our homes were destroyed during the invasion, we were moved to the refugee camps in Remedius City, and sometime after the war, we conceived,” Hylex elaborated.

“It was a total shock to us. I thought she’d cheated on me,” Arjun picked up. “I was talking to one of my friends, Mark, who’s here actually, just over there with his partner Shiria, and he was in the same situation. Meanwhile, Shiria and Hylex were talking and of course they knew it had to be us, and they reached out on the forums to see if anyone else had experienced something similar. That’s where we all met. And that’s how we found Dr. Solus. He was the only doctor willing to look into our cases, so we gathered in Remedius and joined the study.”

“Did you ever encounter a Dr. Lilix while you were there?” Shepard asked.

The couple exchanged looks, then looked over at some of the others listening in. Everyone shook their head. Electra swallowed a chill and changed the subject.

“How have you been doing? Are you being treated well?”

“Oh, the treatment has been amazing. I’m starting to feel a little badass with all the secrecy and moving around to different hideouts. Never in a million years did I think I’d be in a secret research facility on Tuchanka,” Arjun replied. Hylex seemed annoyed by his response.

“I’ve been… less than great. Dr. Solus and clan Urdnot have done a lot to help us stay comfortable, but the changes in my body leave me feeling weak most of the time. Some of us are doing better than others. Laera conceived with the quarian and hasn’t had so many side effects. Then there were the deaths. We started with thirteen women, and we’re down to ten. If you’ve made it this far, then that means there’s hope.”

Dr. Solus had been listening in from the sidelines, and at the mention of the dead women, offered elaboration.

“The reasons for their deaths were not entirely clear. Different in each one. Sudden and inexplicable death from malnourishment, internal hemorrhaging, brain bleeds. Most recent was last week. Sudden miscarriage at ten weeks followed by sepsis. Her death was unexpected. Turian mother, krogan father. Nothing indicated anything was wrong prior to her death.”

“Are you all getting diets of both dextro and levo based foods? Before I started eating dextro, I was sick all the time. It’s helped a lot,” Shepard explained. “These women need a high quality, high calorie mixed diet.”

“I will update your shipments to include these things,” Bakara said. Dr. Solus’ silence indicated that this was a revelation to him. Maybe not so bright as his brother. Liara would be happy to know she at least didn’t miss anything extraordinary.

“Commander Shepard, if you don’t mind me asking, when did you know you were pregnant?” one of the women asked. This time, it was the turian with the quarian man at her side. Laera. The desperation in her eyes made it hard for Shepard to want to lie; she looked much younger than any of the others.

“I was in a coma from the end of the war to early December. I found out when I woke up, and my doctors were aware for the entirety of my stay in the hospital. Until today, I thought I was the only one. I’m very grateful to be able to meet you all. I wish I could give you more answers, since I’m sure you were all hoping I’d be able to, but I came here for the same answers. I’m sorry that I can’t tell you more.”

“Is it true? That this is related to the Reapers? Are we Reapers?” the human woman asked, her voice breaking into a sob. The turian beside her gathered her in his arms, his eyes weary. The question rippled through the others, settling with their wide eyes fixed on Electra.

How should she answer? She had no one to look to like they did. She was used to people looking to her for answers, for the truth. Without it, she usually found some way to lie without really lying, a bending of the truth. Now, she felt the question stabbing over and over into her skin, puncturing the misty bed of her dreams. Whispers peeled from the spaces between her fingers, so she crunched them closed into fists and crossed her arms.

“We aren’t Reapers. Don’t you think you’d know? A good friend told me that the only thing that matters is what you know for yourself. Look within yourself and look at the data. I don’t know what this is, but it’s not that. It’s life. Life in its purest form. Life despite the odds. For as long as you’re all still here, for as long as you see this through, you’re beating the odds. Reapers are death, so we’re not that.”

Another hour passed talking with Dr. Solus’ patients before Shepard realized how much time had passed; at this rate, Garrus was probably ready to turn the Hall of Urdnot back into ruins. Promising to check back in with the patients, she departed with Bakara. As they drove the mako back through the valley, the sun had begun to set. Bakara slowed the mako as they approached, rolling to a stop before the garage.

“Shepard, I want you to know that I admire your bravery today. I know you didn’t believe those words, but that doesn’t matter. They believed you. And I believed you. The krogan goddess Zretatog is the bringer of life to our people. Until the genophage, we were blessed with plentiful and healthy births, with broods numbering in the thousands. Our wombs were all connected to the eternally giving womb of Zretatog, but after the genophage, our prayers to her changed. She had dried up, abandoned us. Annenog took over our wombs and filled them with ash. You have vanquished Annenog and filled the space of the goddess of birth, and not only for my people, but for all people. Your womb is a cluster of stars filled with the potential for many life-bearing planets, the life-giver, the mother of all. The women of my race have carved your name among the names of our gods – Shepard, daughter of Zretatog and champion of Annenog. Mother of millions. Xennitog. Tomorrow, you will stand before Clan Urdnot and perform the Rite of Zretatog, and you will live.”

Chapter 24: Secrets of the Metal Womb

Chapter Text

1111 hours January 20, 2188

Wul’Shirrel vas Calliope gasped awake drenched in freezing water. His environmental suit sounded a symphony of alarms: filters need replacement, toxic barriers at critical capacity, multiple systems in failure. Seek medical attention immediately. He shivered deeply, though the shivering never stopped, and swiped his hand over the foggy surface of his visor. The interior of the monitoring station had disappeared, and his body was splayed upon a rocking metal surface. The chattering of his teeth shook his vision. He couldn’t see over the sound of the alarms blaring in his suit. A wave as tall as a liveship rose up in his periphery and crashed over him, rolling him across the slick surface. Despite the growing weakness in his limbs, he managed to grasp onto the edge of the surface, looking down to see the top of what looked like a frigate bobbing in the tumultuous sea.

The momentum of the rocking allowed him to swing his body back over onto the flat surface. He turned on his HUD display despite the failing battery levels and blinked at the date. Before he could register what it meant, his mind flashed with a searing, white pain, causing him to coil in on himself with a spasm. A voice trailed around the edges of his consciousness. Another flash. Another.

The darkness has been breached.

His eyes opened and he found he was enclosed in a metal sphere. The space was cramped, forcing him to curl his legs up to his chest, but at least it was dry. Multicolor points of light flashed in random rhythms across the entire interior surface. Everything hummed in tune around him, indicating the presence of a massive body of machinery around the sphere. Trailing from his belly button and fused to his suit, a chrome tube connected him to the machine. His hands moved over the buttons and lights, guided by fingers that knew exactly what to do. Commands entered the tube and exited his fingers; they folded space and opened byways between stars.

Disarm the weapon.

Another flash brought him back to the miserable hell of violent waves and water. He choked, noticing a leak had sprung in his visor. Trembling as he pushed up to his hands and knee and, struggling to balance against the lurching of the half-sunken ship, Wul’Shirrel attempted to drain the salt water that flooded the inside of his visor, but the mechanism was unresponsive. He coughed, feeling a rattling sludge shake in his lungs. He looked back out to the sky, scanning the horizon. A guttural sob wracked his body. He wanted to be held. He tried to remember how it felt to sink into his bed at the end of the day, maybe even with his girlfriend beside him. Between his numb lips, he openly cried out for his mother as the waves of agonizing flashes purged his brain.

Deliver them,

Back inside the sphere, Wul’Shirrel’s fingers navigated the interface rapidly. The sphere kept his body warm and fed, the stimuli of string management and particle rearrangement pulsing into his body, out through his fingers. For a moment, his sunken eyes widened, and his suit felt like it had filled with ice water, but the feeling was broken by the need to rotate in the gyroscope and move his rapid fingers across another panel of lights. Command issued. Prompt executed. The layers of matter begin to separate before rapidly compressing.

Feed me.

Wul’s eyeballs burned like they were turning to solid ice. The trembling gave way momentarily to fever, though that only made the shaking slap him harder on its return. Some of the lung fluid came up into his visor, thick and yellow. He watched the twisting grey sky as, pulling out of some distant reach in space, a fleet of Alliance ships appeared above him. They hovered there, too big to notice his shivering body, before a deep pulse erupted from the waters below and brought each of those ships careening into the sea. The impact of the metal on the water sent a new series of mountain-sized waves over the frigate’s surface, tossing him across the metal. He felt his bones snapping as the water bore him down onto the hard surface, gallons of water crushing him one after the other, but with just enough time in between that he could still catch a thin, wet breath. For a moment, he closed his eyes and could almost feel himself curled in a warm, metallic sphere, rotating and manipulating the lights – machine utero – and tried to remember the dulcet tone of his mother’s voice.

The sound pleased his masters, and they let him rest.

>>>>>>>

When Bakara insisted Shepard sleep in Hall of Urdnot rather than return to the Normandy, she couldn’t refuse. Unwilling to leave her side, Garrus curled up next to her in the plush pile of blankets they’d been provided as a bed, only allowed because Shepard herself didn’t want to sleep apart from her bond mate. The other krogans had receded into their own chambers aside from those kept posted at the doors, leaving the couple alone in the expansive hall. A few moths dangled in the moonlight were reflected like puffs of smoke in Electra’s eyes. Garrus pressed his face into her neck, filling his nose with the smell of her skin. His finger traced mindless patterns across the bare skin of her stomach, to which the occasional movement would push through in response. Each one made his mandibles flutter. He imagined plucking at his son’s tiny toes and tried even harder to imagine how his son’s face would look at the tickling sensation. Would he have mandibles, or would he have his mother’s brilliant smile? Hers was so rare unless she was laughing. Sirius would make her laugh. Garrus hoped he’d have his mother’s smile.

“You’re sure that the Alliance hasn’t sent their reinforcements?” she asked. Garrus dragged his hand away from her belly to check his omni-tool, but Tali’s last message from three hours ago hadn’t changed.

TZ: Still no Alliance. We’re hanging on by a thread. Will let you know when we make it to the server. Send help.

“We have to leave after tomorrow, don’t we?” Shepard asked.

Garrus returned his hand to her belly, a thrumming purr pushing into her body.

“I don’t know, Shepard. Why don’t you get in touch with Hackett and see what’s going on first? I know it doesn’t feel like we’re doing much of anything right now, but you have to admit this is nice. Not even by Tuchanka standards. We’re talking at least Noveria standards.”

“Of course it’s nice. I can hardly believe this is Tuchanka,” she said rolling onto her side and swinging her leg over Garrus’ hip. “It just feels wrong that while Tali is in danger, we’re on a bona fide vacation.”

“Not a vacation Shepard. A critical mission from the Council. Important distinction,” he said, groaning as she peppered kisses along his neck. He pushed his hips up into her thigh, his member already halfway unsheathed.

Shepard pulled back, hands planted on either side of his head. Her face was caught between lust and shame, and Garrus was tempted to bring her mouth down to meet his and settle the tie.

“I don’t think I’ve every stopped feeling guilty for surviving, Garrus. And I know what it’s like to have survivor’s guilt. It’s never been this… constant,” she whispered. “I saw the other women today.”

Garrus sat up, bringing her up with him. When he initially asked where she’d been, she’d insisted that she couldn’t say. Part of him suspected it had something to do with the reports of other pregnancies, but he generally let her come to him on her own time. If she wasn’t telling him something that big, she probably had a good reason. He didn’t even pry when she returned to the Normandy with only Liara and didn’t return for nearly an hour. Now, as she confirmed it, he heard all the processes in his body fall quiet as his ears prickled.

“So the rumors are true.”

“There were ten women. Nine turians, one human. Three dead. And that’s what’s been confirmed. I can’t prove it, but I think other reports are being covered up. The only reason why they’re here is because Progenitor was too much of a threat,” she said, voice hushed so the acoustics of the room didn’t pick it up. “They’re scared. They asked if I thought we were Reapers, and I had to lie. How else can I explain how we’re here?”

“You’re here because you’re Commander goddamn Shepard,” he growled, grasping her thighs. Eyes softening, he continued, “So I take it everyone is as in the dark as we are?”

“Dr. Solus tried collecting my data because I’m the farthest along out of any of the others, but that didn’t work out. I panicked; I don’t know if I trust him. I understand the secrecy, but I can’t help but wonder if spreading the information might help us understand what’s going on faster. Find more people. Help more people.”

“I agree. The Council needs to know about this.”

“I’m doing Bakara a favor. I won’t say more until I have more information. Even Liara’s on strict orders to keep her inquiries at a minimum,” Shepard rubbed her face. When she’d told Liara about Aemarth, she’d had to do all but make her sign an NDA to keep her from immediately storming to the facility herself. The power Shepard had over the situation rested on tenuous bonds.

“I’ll trust your judgement, but you know where I stand. Do me a favor and remember that next time Progenitor threatens your life,” he said, flicking the hair back from her face. It looked silver in the moonlight. He could hardly believe how beautiful she looked, and then to also be his? His fingers tightened in her hair.

“I swear, we can’t have one discussion about me dying without you popping a boner,” Shepard giggled, letting him hold her head back to trace his long tongue up her neck. Goosebumps rose in its wake. “You know, I used to rely on you for real insight.”

“I can offer you a whole lot more than insight,” he murmured in her ear. Nipping at the lobe, he added, “Go ahead and tell me you don’t want it.”

His hand trailed down her body, opening her legs and slipping into her pants. His thumb found her slick cl*t and rubbed a slow circle around it, drawing a moan from Electra’s parted lips as she tried to respond. She didn’t need to. She let him push her into the soft blankets and sink his body into hers, every last thought slipping out into the air with every thrust, their bodies entwining until no distance existed between the molecules of their flesh.

>>>>>>>

Samara peered out from the gap in the service tunnel wall and squinted past the bright, blue glow. The eezo mine hummed and clattered in the metal, but the mine didn’t smell of eezo. Rust, blood, chemicals… the smell reminded her of a morgue. Behind her, Aria paced on the catwalk, her head bent down in thought, and Gelin’s lips moved silently as she scanned the area that they needed to cross.

“I can spot fifteen mercs just from here. We might be able to make it down to the platform unseen if we snipe the three closest to us,” she whispered, clutching her gun.

Samara’s mind wasn’t on strategy. She couldn’t get the image of the orb from her head. It felt like a repressed memory being dragged into the light. Her eyes looked past the mercs, past the abandoned mining equipment – she wondered if she might catch a glimpse of another orb in the vicinty.

“Forget sniping, let me have a go at ‘em. I’ve taken a lot more than fifteen mercs at a time,” Zaeed barked.

“I agree that the mercenaries aren’t our main concern at this time. Aria, where did you see their experiments taking place?” Samara asked.

“It would be down from here. We’re at the upper levels. We’re going to pass it to get to where we need to go,” Aria said. Her voice now lacked the edge it had before. Was she afraid? Samara didn’t think twice about it. Aria would either make it to the end of the mines or she’d die. It would be an acceptable loss.

Gelin rolled her eyes and aimed her rifle through the gap. She might be working with the group, but she’d realized not long after arriving that they all ultimately had different agendas. In fact, she’d already gotten the intel she needed, but the Council wouldn’t be happy if she came back before at least trying to reestablish communication. Checking that her silencer was activated, she took out the three closest before saying another word and slung herself out onto the service ladder. They could follow if they wanted. She didn’t care. Talking about it any longer just meant more time spent on this creepy rock.

Samara floated down onto the first platform and walked over to the first downed body. Kneeling, she turned the body over: human female, mid-forties based on the wrinkles around her eyes, civilian clothing. She could hardly be called a mercenary, or even a criminal. She looked like an ordinary woman with a gun. The same mark that had been painted on the walls was sloppily tattooed on the inside of her wrist – it looked fresh, the ink bleeding through the skin indicating that it was put there with little care and good deal of force, like a stamp. Zaeed strutted past her and walked over to join Gelin at scoping out the next area, but Aria stopped by Samara. She was still wary of the justicar, but these were her people. This one looked like she could be someone’s mother. Her eyes looked kind. Aria didn’t mourn anyone – it wasn’t her style – but damn if this didn’t boil her blood. Nyreen wouldn’t stand for this.

“What can you tell me about this mark?” Samara asked, rubbing her finger over it. She closed the woman’s eyes.

“Started showing up before I even took power. I didn’t think much about it until no one would give me an answer about where they got it. At first I thought it was just another gang, but gangs aren’t known for their subtlety,” she answered, remembering the distant stare she received for an answer the first time she asked. Bray. She shook the memory from her head. He’d disappeared not long after, marking the first time she began to worry about the group.

The group pushed forward, having no trouble taking out any of the mercs they encountered. They didn’t show any sign of fear despite their lack of proper weapons and armor, which made them unfortunate targets. They should be afraid. Even hardened criminals would fear a group such as theirs. Moreover, the mines were quiet – too quiet. Aria herself hardly recognized the place, especially from the last time she was here. There had been more people ready to shoot as recent a month ago, and though this made their mission a hell of a lot easier, it put her on high alert.

“I better not be sharing my payout, Aria. I could’ve done this myself,” Zaeed grumbled as he pulled his omni-blade out of a merc’s back. The merc fell at his feet with a heavy thud. He knew the Spectre and justicar wouldn’t want any of his money, but he felt the growing need to cut the tension. It was goddamned quiet in here. Not his ideal mode of operating.

“Hold your f*cking tongue, Massani. We still haven’t made it to the labs.”

They came across the first body on a stretcher after almost thirty minutes of walking on the platforms. A few scientists in lab coats tried to stop them from entering the makeshift facility, but they weren’t difficult to kill. What had been a breakroom had been transformed into an operating room, large white sheets hung up around the mesh cage to obscure the view. When they entered, Aria intentionally kept to the edges, her eyes trained outside to watch for mercs.

The body belonged to a young batarian woman, and they very quickly realized she was pregnant. In all her years, Samara had never seen a pregnant batarian, as they generally stayed in their home systems. Their practices of home life were secretive, personal, as maternity was one of the few things the batarians held sacred. To see the woman’s body cut open on a stretcher was the antithesis of sacred. It resembled a ritual sacrifice. Her head had been removed and set on a table beside the body, the scalp splayed open with wires and tubes connecting the brain to a strange machine. Her abdomen had been split open, skin pulled back and organs removed, to reveal a womb. It looked to be early on, though Samara professed no knowledge of batarian pregnancy, and more tubes and wires connected the tiny fetus to more machines. That the machines indicated signs of life angered and sickened her. She shared a knowing look with Zaeed before he shot the power supply, ending this perverse experiment.

Though it was hard to tell, Gelin thought she saw emotions toying behind Samara’s stony visage. Ashamed, she looked away as she took photos of the scene and spliced the nearest terminal. She felt the justicar watching her back as she copied files onto her omni-tool.

“Is this what you meant by experiments?” Samara asked.

Aria nodded, eyes still averted.

“Women have been going missing for months. I thought it was tied to the rest of the disappearances, and some probably are. Then there’s this sh*t.”

“This is odd. This data is heavily encrypted, but the images I’m seeing indicate… that can’t be right,” Gelin said, her eyes squinting at the screen. Dual-chiral strands twisted on the screen over a sonogram image. She felt Samara stand close behind her; her presence felt heavy on her shoulder and Gelin swallowed a chill.

“Play that video log,” she commanded

The video showed the batarian being sat on the stretcher. She didn’t look to be under any duress. In fact, the scientist that pushed up her sleeve to insert a needle seemed to have a soft touch, looking into her eyes for permission before pressing the needle into her skin. A scientist came into view and pulled the camera closer before beginning to talk to the batarian.

“Dhenis Sobkhanak, I’m Dr. Adril. I have a few questions before we get started with your exam. When did you find out you were pregnant?” he asked her. He was a salarian, and his body wasn’t among those they just killed.

“A few days ago,” she clipped. For being so cooperative, she sounded suspicious.

“And what made you seek medical attention?” the doctor asked.

“My partner… well I wouldn’t even say partner… isn’t a batarian. He’s krogan. Unless someone got handsy while I was sleeping, there’s no way,” she responded.

“And during the war, did you have any contact with Reaper forces? Contact of any kind?”

“I was in the refugee camps on the Citadel after the Alpha Relay was destroyed. Never saw any action. Came here once Aria regained control of the station to join what was left of my people,” she said. “I thought I sent you my file.”

“Your krogan partner. What about him?”

“What are you implying, doctor? He’s a krogan, not a Reaper.”

The screen faded to static and a single message displayed: file corrupted.

Gelin hissed and tapped at her omni-tool’s holoscreen.

“I’m uploading this to the Coun…”

“We’ve got company!” Aria shouted just as bullets flew through the white tarps.

The group dispersed behind cover, but not before Gelin cried out as the bullet clipped her arm. Her shield went up in flames and her eyes were alight with panic. Zaeed joined Aria in meeting the incoming forces while Samara stayed back to restore Gelin’s shields. Her dominant arm bled out.

“Stay still. I have medigel,” she commanded. Her calm seeped into Gelin. This was the woman she’d heard about in legends.

“I’m fine. Take a copy of the data in case mine can’t upload from here,” she insisted, pressing her omni-tool chip to Samara’s. “Please get this to the Council if I can’t.”

“You’re not going to die, Gelin Kysi,” the justicar said, holding her frantic gaze. The world seemed slowed, fuzzy, around them. Gelin could love a woman like Samara. Maybe she’d follow her back to Thessia – maybe even follow in her path and take the oath. The Council will be proud of Gelin’s accomplishments; this service would certainly commend her for becoming a justicar in a few centuries. Yes, Samara was more than deserving of her devotion.

Just as the medigel sunk into her flesh with a cooling sensation, a missile blasted through the cage and detonated on the far side of the lab. Samara’s barrier went up in a flash, but in that exact moment, a sharp piece of metal flew into the Spectre, lodging in her chest. Her blue eyes reeled in their sockets, searching in the room before settling on the justicar. They seemed to beg for a reassurance Samara couldn’t give. Have I done well? Blood burbled to her lips before all movements abruptly ceased, the light fading from her fearful gaze.

Go with Athame, daughter, Samara prayed before rising to join the others. For this crime, Progenitor would be extinguished.

>>>>>>>

Cradled under the moonlight in the garden, Electra didn’t dream for the first time in weeks; the sound of slowly trickling water guiding her through sleep. She’d never felt so rested. Garrus remarked that the beds were much more similar to the ones turians typically preferred, and Shepard made a mental note to try and recreate these conditions back on the Normandy. The concept was simple enough: piles of soft blankets and pillows twisted around into a plush nest that they could just plop onto her mattress.

“So, Zretatog huh? Still not telling me what this rite entails? Because if it means taking out a thresher maw on foot again, you’ll have to at least feed me first,” Garrus mused.

One of Bakara’s handmaidens woke them early and had begun fixing Shepard’s hair up into a metal headdress. Plates of razor sharp bronze were twisted into the length of her blonde hair, jutting from the crown of her head. Garrus sat in the grass beside her, occasionally plucking a blade and twisting it between his fingers. He tried to ignore the way the handmaiden kept looking at him, her dark eyes half lidded and hungry every time he spoke. He wasn’t used to the amount of attention he’d been receiving since they arrived on Tuchanka. Just about every female regarded him like a piece of smoked pyjax. It didn’t help that Wrex kept encouraging them, maybe just to keep them from coming after himself; he swore he even saw Wrex redirecting some of the females who had travelled to breed with him over in his direction, to which they made a beeline. They didn’t seem to understand that he wasn’t interested in anyone but Shepard, or maybe they just didn’t care. Krogans didn’t have the same traditions of monogamy that turians did. And he had scars.

“Does the legate require food? Perhaps a bath in our thermal springs? The unbred females will serve anyone who has killed a thresher maw,” the handmaiden remarked. Though her hands worked deftly through Shepard’s hair – if not rather roughly – her eyes remained fixed on Garrus.

Electra tried not to laugh, covering it up with a cough to which another handmaiden brought her water and more offerings of meat. Between bites, she added,

“Oh he’s done much more than that. He actually killed three men with one bullet. Honey, didn’t you also mention being promoted to sex wizard by the Hierarchy?”

Garrus choked on the water he’d been offered. The look in his eyes begged Shepard to shut her mouth, but she found the incessant flirting entertaining. Being woken from the best sleep she’d had in weeks to have her hair yanked around by a woman with no concept of a sensitive scalp had her feeling wicked.

“Don’t stop there, Shepard. Remember how much he used to brag about crushing that blood pack ring? One turian against twenty vorcha, and only one vorcha walked away so he could warn the others,” Wrex added. He sauntered into the garden, his twins in tow. The Hall of Urdnot was beginning to wake up.

“If we’re on the topic of Garrus’ accomplishments, I remember the time he sniped a yahg right through the eye. Of course, Shepard did most of the damage, but I seem to recall that the two of you met in Shepard’s cabin not long after,” Liara added. She approached with the rest of the crew – they’d all been invited to the rite, not that any of them would miss it.

Solana made a face at the mention of her brother’s sex life before dropping a tube of dextro nutripaste in his lap. Garrus tried to look to her for rescue, for once wishing she’d whip out any number of scathing insults, but she found the plea in his eyes much more satisfying. Meanwhile, the other females began to gather around to hear more about his accomplishments, many humming in approval deep in their throats at the sight of him.

“Really, I don’t think this is appropriate. Today is about Shepard. Shouldn’t we be talking about all the crazy, heroic stuff she’s done? Like defeating Saren, destroying a Collector base, killing all the Reapers?”

“What gives, Scars? Every time you told me about those things, you made it sound like you were always there making the kill shot,” Vega added, though he felt a little lost walking into the conversation. “What, not so tough now, chico? Let’s spar right now, prove who’s a better fighter.”

One of the females moved in closer to Vega, bumping his hip. She stood almost a foot taller than him and leaned down to purr in his ear, “Now that’s something I’d like to watch.”

“He is clearly fertile. I bet he would make a suitable and sturdy mate,” another female remarked, garnering sounds of agreement.

Shepard held back her laughter by continuing to eat the various foods she was presented with. Garrus looked like he wanted to sink into the ground and never come back up. Wrex passed him and slapped him on the back with low chuckle.

“It smells like a damn female camp on a twin full moon,” Bakara’s voice broke through the growing chatter around Garrus. When she approached, her sons rushed over to her, latching onto her legs as she walked. “Sadrak, you’ve done a fine job. You’re dismissed.”

The handmaiden twisting Shepard’s hair released her iron grip and backed away, whispering something Shepard’s translator couldn’t unscramble. Shepard and Garrus rose to their feet to greet Bakara and Garrus almost fell back when one of her children headbutted his shins. He looked down after steadying himself and found the child staring at him with his wide, glittering eyes. Garrus reached out his arms to pick him up and had to steady himself again when he launched up into his arms. The boy tucked his head into the crook of Garrus’ carapace, eliciting a collective purr from the surrounding women. This wasn’t helping his case.

“We are almost ready to begin the Rite of Zretatog. You must leave behind all weapons and armor. Do you agree to this?” Bakara placed her hand, steady and firm, on Shepard’s shoulder.

Without breaking eye contact, she nodded, and was led through the doors of the Hall of Urdnot and into the oppressive Tuchankan heat. They walked a short distance to a steep cliff that overlooked the valley; a pack of varren could be seen darting through the rubble far below, and the slow trickle of the river unfurled like a silver ribbon into the heart of the wasteland. A woman in shamanic robes held some type of meaty plant that smelled like rotting flesh at the edge of the cliff. Liara’s words played in Shepard’s head.

For Clan Urdnot, the Rite of Zretatog is a test of mental strength meant to prepare a woman for the coming challenges of motherhood. Standing on a precipice between safety and danger, you will be given the flowering part of a Krite plant. The plant causes powerful hallucinations when taken directly in large doses, but is non-toxic, making it technically safe to consume while pregnant. It is worth noting that micro doses are used in modern medicine as an effective anti-psychotic. As soon as you ingest the Krite, you will likely be hit with a wave of nausea followed by an intense hallucinatory state. I’ve found little information on what you might expect, however the point of the rite is to test whether you will throw yourself into danger or choose to live. This rite has been effectively abandoned since the genophage. You’re one of the first to undergo this trial in over a thousand years.

Shepard approached the shaman alone, the witnesses held back so that no one may interfere. Garrus tried to move forward to follow, but Shepard stopped him with a single glance behind her. She had chosen not to tell him the details, no matter how much he asked. This was her passage, one she felt she must do. To her surprise, she wasn’t afraid, though her heart pounded in her chest.

The shaman mumbled words Shepard couldn’t understand before splitting the Krite blossom over the sharp metal of her headdress. A stream of rancid, burgundy juice spilled down the dull bronze and began to wash over her face, getting in her eyes and then dripping into her mouth. She began to wonder what constituted a large dose when she was slammed with a deep, lurching wave of nausea. Dropping to her knees and clutching her stomach, all the food she had this morning tumbled out onto the ground, splattering in the dirt.

A hand stroked her shoulder, easing the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

“Shh, there, there. It’s almost over,” a familiar female voice cooed from behind her. Another hand swept the strands of hair that had fallen over her face back into the tight knots around the headdress.

“M-mom?” Shepard got out between convulsing heaves.

“Momma’s here now baby. You’re going to be okay,” her mother’s voice soothed. Every other sound melted into the background as she began to hum, the notes pulling from Electra’s memory like teeth being pulled with pliers.

Electra sat back on her heels, panting from the violent expulsion of her breakfast, and opened her watering eyes. The image of the Kelphic Valley remained the same as before. The only differences in the setting was that the ground had transformed into a wooden floor that twisted and twirled like ocean waves, and her mother’s presence lingered behind her. It was the only presence in her vicinity. She caught her breath to the sound of breathy singing licking the inside of her ear.

She pulled her mother’s arms around her, wrapping them around her shoulders. She’d forgotten how those arms felt, and the way they squeezed her sent her skin cracking like flawed porcelain. She couldn’t have forgotten seeing as they were here now, yet it felt less like a memory and more like a new experience. Shattering her, soothing her. She could stay like this for an eternity.

“Were you scared to become a mother?”

“Only when I thought of all the ways I could lose you, my darling.”

As she spoke these words, her mother’s arms began to twist and warp until the skin ruptured and gave way to thick roots. Splinters lodged into Shepard’s skin as the roots twisted around her. It still felt less painful than the memory of something she should have never forgotten, never should have had to forget. Her body was utterly still as it was subsumed by the bramble, bones cracking and blood leaking through the gaps in the wood as they slowly crushed her.

Her mother’s singing faded and gave way to the sound of footsteps. Like the beginning of rain, the footsteps began as a light tapping until the sound of boots hammered in the dirt all around her, occasionally broken up by the sound of rapid machine gun fire and unintelligible shouting. As the sounds grew louder, she began to feel invisible legs stumbling over her, knocking into her, and bodies hitting the dirt as they tripped over her. She stuck out like a tree stump in the invisible war, knees crashing into her face and bloodying her nose. She felt a tooth crack and come loose, filling her mouth with tangy blood.

“Shepard, what the hell are you doing? Move, move!” Anderson shouted at her.

She was carrying an M-96 Mattock. Overhead, orange streaks of rockets seared through the billowing clouds of smoke. Anderson stood in front of her, his brow furrowed and mouth bent into a scowl. Elysium, 2176. She needed to move. She charged forward, following the rest of her squadron while Anderson directed people from the rear. A blast launched her off her feet and she hurdled into the mud. Her ears were ringing as she struggled to stand. Another explosion knocked her flat to her stomach, and a combination of flesh and rock pattered down on her armor. As the ringing in her ears subsided, it was almost indistinguishable from the sound of a baby crying nearby, but something clicked in her mind as the sound dragged on past the sound inside her eardrums, and she stumbled to her feet, eyes searching the battlefield.

Everyone was dead. Blown to bits. She was covered in them. A tatter of navy fabric hung off the jagged edge of an exposed bone. She thought she might vomit, but the sound of a baby crying pushed her forward. Am I the only one alive? How am I the only one? Following the sound, she almost dropped off a steep cliff she didn’t notice before. The wailing came from over the edge. Shepard dropped to her stomach and scuttled closer to the edge, trying to locate the baby. Instead, she saw Anderson’s body propped up against a terminal, his eyes half open and blood covering his face. It stood out perpendicular to the ground, and next to it, she saw herself. Only it wasn’t her – it couldn’t be. As she studied the face, it warped and shifted, from Ashley, to Pressly, to Thane, to her mother, to EDI. Crawling as close to the edge as she could without falling, she reached out, trying to get to Anderson, when his body spasmed with a cough and his eyes reeled. They spun around before landing on her.

“Anderson, hold on! I’ll get help!” she called.

“Shepard, no. It’s too late. You need to get out of here,” he rasped.

She ignored it, instead craning her head back to the empty battlefield and calling for help through the smoke. She couldn’t lose him again. She’d never even mourned him to begin with. She’d gotten married without him there, rose from the dead before his body had even been found. She remembered now where she’d left it. There was still time. She could fix this. He’d know her son.

“Shepard, look at me. Stop it!” he shouted, using a great deal of his dwindling energy. Her head snapped back to look at him and she fought the tears in her eyes. She didn’t want him to see her cry.

“I still need you,” she whined, voice cracking. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“What the hell do you need me for? You’re the best goddamned soldier the world has ever seen. You already have the answers, you’re just looking in all the wrong places,” he said. The faces of the body beside him kept shifting.

“You’re the only father I’ve ever known,” she whispered. The sound carried over the cliff like a breeze.

“I’m dead now, Shepard. Accept it. You need to let me go.”

Whispers began to rise from the rubble, and the ground began to boil beneath her. Shoots of steaming water spit up between the shrapnel and body parts. Still reaching over the cliff, her body was swept into a massive wave that broke open the space between them, washing Anderson and the other body far from her grasp.

She pulled herself upright against the wave. Her body perched motionless amidst the stormy sea. She tried to rise to her feet, occasionally catching glimpses of familiar faces through the spitting foam, but with each movement found herself sinking, inch by inch, into the waves. Water began to splash into her mouth, into her nose. Her sinuses stung. A face rose over the horizon like a monolith, pulsing and roaring waterfalls coursing from where the eyes should be. It was her face. Wasn’t it? It had to be. Only her skin was black and blue and nodes glowed from around her eyes and cheeks. The mouth slowly fell open, issuing the low, cosmic bellow of the Reaper’s song. She covered her ears, the sound shaking her body, and began to sob as the sound filled every inch of her, replacing her flesh and bones with the horrible vibrations. Eventually the vibrations built up so much that her stomach ripped open, spattering tarry black blood into the waves as a small, so small, alien child spilled out onto her lap.

His body twisted against the blackened umbilical cord, the skin turning blue until it matched the dull grey of the sea and sky, cold against her bloody legs. She brought her hands to his lifeless body, her lips forming the word “no” over and over as she tried to coax life back into her son. Just as she swore she saw him take a fragile and shallow breath, a hand reached up from the waves and squeezed around his arm, pulling him down into the depths. Electra dove down, stretching and fighting to grasp at the baby, but as soon as her hands clutched the little body, she found herself reaching for nothing across an endless slate of grey.

Electra scrambled back, frantically looking around and horrified to see nothing but the cold infinity. A misty miasma drifted around her, licking her naked skin, and a single phrase repeated in her head.

You’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to be here. You’re not supposed to-

Electra began screaming, calling out for anyone, anything else. Anything but this emptiness, this solitude. This place she’d been to so many times before. She needed out. She needed this to be over. Was she dead? Had she thrown herself from the cliff believing she was saving her son from certain death? Her legs shuddered as she forced herself to her feet and began stumbling in no direction in particular, wishing she could see a shadow, a Reaper, anything. Her legs were moments from giving out when she spotted a figure in the distance. With the last of her strength, she pushed forward until she stood just a few meters away.

She saw herself. She was locked in a debate with some familiar woman, though Electra didn’t need to hear the words. She remembered this moment. This was simply a memory. She found her strength had returned and walked up to the memory, waving her hand between herself and Ann Bryson, taking the memory in from every angle. How odd that she see it like this when the memory was hers. As she turned around the bodies, the edge of the image flickered and appeared to reflect out into infinity. She squinted, trying to get a better look, though the harder she tried, a pain began to throb behind her eyes. Finally, as if peeling open a single sheet of paper, she glimpsed into another scene.

It was her again, yes, but this time, in Garrus’ arms. Their naked bodies entwined as he thrust into her, and her eyes were closed in pleasure. She didn’t remember this. This wasn’t her memory. Her brain pounded like a detonating flash grenade, burning brighter the longer she stared. Garrus’ body shuddered as he climaxed into her, though he didn’t stop. In fact, his movements only grew more erratic, more wild, and he pushed her to the ground. As he continued thrusting, Shepard watched as her stomach began to grow at an unnatural rate. Moving against the pain to look closer, Ann Bryson stood to the side, glowering at the couple as they made love.

The pain became too much, and she snapped back to the original scene, only the whiplash launched her back through another dimensional crevice. This time, she saw a person she’d never seen before, with features no other race bore. Not exactly. Upon first glance, the figure looked human, with human eyes and lips and smooth, pale skin stretching over most of the body, but the skin pulled back into hardened, grey plates. Blonde hair cascaded beneath a pointed turian crest. He was a man, eyes bluer than the blood of her beloved, and he was stunning. She knew him as soon as she saw him, though it of course took a moment to recognize her grown son. Sirius. She tried calling his name, a mix of joy and awe jumping in her voice. For a split second, Sirius glanced in her direction, but her head was yanked back by the hair and her vision shifted into one, clean slate of space and time.

A sharp blade divided her thoughts from their matter. Pain transgressed pain and became only an indescribable heat as her atoms tore apart and vibrated into a dizzying and endless fractal. Grey and red exploded into colors and patterns her brain couldn’t comprehend, her consciousness suspended outside of time. Time expanded out from within her, a runaway reaction exposing her molecules to the razor edge of infinity.

She couldn’t scream. She no longer was.

Her atoms blasted through the darkling gaps of space.

A voice rippled across the stunning vastness of existence: Do you understand now? Can you see?

Electra’s eyes shot open to the steep drop separating her body from the bottom of the valley. At first, it felt like she was in free fall, the ground rushing up at her, but she registered her hands gripping the edge of the cliff, her knees planted, shaking beneath her. Her chest heaved and she pushed herself back. A layer of sweat, dust, and sticky fluid covered every surface of her body, but she stood. The shaman regarded her carefully. Electra whipped around to face a crowd of krogan, at the front of which her friends watched with varying levels of horror on their faces. Garrus’ eyes were wide, pupils dilated, but unmistakably blue. Just like her son’s. She dropped to her knees and inhaled the thick, hot air, basking in the bliss of sensation.

A cheer erupted over the crowd, and Garrus rushed forward and lifted her back up to her feet, though he didn’t hold her for long before Bakara shooed him away. She grasped Electra’s face, her mouth spread into a victorious smile.

“Xennitog lives!”

Chapter 25: Insufficient Data

Chapter Text

Tali and Kal made it to the server by a razor’s margin, their feet carrying them across the desert in the cover of night until they nearly collapsed at the building’s entrance. The batarians hadn’t made it here yet, nor had they noticed the pair fleeing the city walls. Glancing back once more at Jelachai’s skyline, they watched as the flotilla’s heavy fleet begin to engage the invaders. The Alliance had abandoned them. If they were lucky, the batarians were too caught up to come looking for the server, and they would be safe until help arrived.

Tali led them into the central lab where she seized the spare immune boosters and antibiotics in her desk and plugged them into her suit. A vague relief washed over her and she collapsed into a chair as her legs finally gave out. She’d never run so much in her life – certainly not with a fever. The antibiotics needed to work fast. Kal panted near the door, his legs trembling beneath him. Tali wanted to tell him to sit, rest for a bit, but she knew he never would. He was a soldier, one of the best, and she knew his sense of duty commanded him to stand guard. She selfishly thought that they might even barricade the doors and try to sleep for the first time in two days, but even she knew that was a risk they couldn’t afford to take right now.

“This is Kal’Reegar nar Faelo. I’ve pulled back to the geth server two klicks south of Jelachai. Does anybody copy?” he spoke into his omni-tool.

“Kal’Reegar, this is Admiral Han’Gerrel. We are engaging the batarians above Jelachai. What’s the status of your squad?”

“I’m the only survivor along with Tali’Zorah. We’re going to hold the server for as long as we can. What happened to the Alliance?”

“The Alliance reinforcements never showed. Admiral Hackett is as confused as we are and sending more troops, but it will be some time. We need all forces in Jelachai. We must not lose the capital,” Han’Gerrel’s voice sounded ragged. He probably hadn’t had the chance to sleep either.

“We will return once the server is secured. Over.”

The lights in the lab switched to red as Tali initiated the lockdown procedures, and a clear voice sounded over the PA: Enabling remote defense. Turrets online. AA guns online. Switching power to reserves. She sighed and sat back to watch text fly across the screen. She couldn’t think of a sight more soothing. With the amount of data stored here, she had no idea how long it would take to have it copied over to her database on the Alarei, but at least it wouldn’t be lost. Looking around at the broken geth units, she tried to brainstorm of a way to get them to safety. They looked so vulnerable now. They had moved upwards of 300 into their labs. This would be an excellent time to spontaneously realize the secret to their silence – they’d have no trouble against batarians with a geth fighter squad.

The harder she thought, the more the thoughts slipped away. Xen might have been right about needing a break.

Tali struggled to her feet, the movement prompting Kal to rush to her side and snake his arm around her waist. She welcomed the support as she hobbled back to the room where she kept EDI. Good, she thought as she looked at her unmoved and unmoving body. Nothing had changed. Joker would kill me if something happened to her. Tali slumped over EDI’s body, her arms shaking as she tried to hold up her weight. Kal kept his hands on her waist, no longer for physical support, but to confirm the solidity of her body beside his. She looked like she might fade at any moment. Tali hadn’t told him much about EDI, but he knew she had served on Shepard’s ship. He didn’t quite understand her change of heart around AI, and though he’d never tell her this, he found it a bit unsettling that she’d taken such an interest. An interest that reminded him of Admiral Xen. Everyone knew she was a lunatic.

To Kal, Tali didn’t look like a lunatic as she held back tears over her lifeless friend, AI or not.

“Tali, the security lockdown is active. Why don’t you lay down, try and get some rest?” he suggested.

“I have to make sure the transfer of data goes through, and then I have to clear the cache. Our people need this,” she sighed. “This is my responsibility.”

“And you’re mine. I can’t profess to know as much as you about computers or the geth, but I can make sure the transfer is complete.”

Tali looked up at him. Beyond feeling exhausted, she could feel her fever beginning to drop. Should she tell him now? She still hadn’t made up her mind about him. About them. Could she even call it that? If anything, she was starting to feel guilty for letting things get this far; she’d never have time for a relationship, not the kind she knew he wanted. No matter how much she might also want it. Her work would always come first, and she’d allowed his life to be as much on the line as hers to secure the data. If anything, that was evidence enough that she didn’t care for him the way she should.

She was about to protest when a loud clattering and banging sounded from the central labs. They burst back into the room, guns drawn and ready to fight, but there were no batarians breaking through the doors. Instead, they saw Jor’Tal fighting against the repair frame. Its light flickered as his body writhed, only calming as its eye settled on the pair. Tali had imagined it coming to life so many times, and if it weren’t for Kal also pointing his gun at the geth, she’d believe that her fever was causing her to hallucinate.

“Creator Tali,” it spoke, its movements ceasing. She approached apprehensively, brushing aside the arm Kal put out to pull her back.

“You’re awake… How? How do you know who I am?” she asked. She looked around at the other geth, but they were as inert as before.

“I remember you from the darkness,” it said, light growing more steady. These weren’t the words of the geth she remembered – at least, not since before Legion’s sacrifice. She needed to remember what they had become, needed to remember not to fear. “You have been… kind.”

“Darkness? What darkness? Why are none of the other units active?” she asked, flustered.

She holstered her gun and crossed the rest of the space between them, its eye tracking her movements – it felt like it could see through her visor, her suit, and into her soul. Though the light hurt her eyes, she too felt like she could see beyond, into something greater than machine. She released the locking mechanism on the repair frame, allowing Jor’Tal to drop to the floor with a clang.

“Memory core corrupted. Insufficient data. I must proceed with my repair protocol.”

“We’re in one of your servers. Let me help you. What do you need?”

Jor’Tal studied her, head co*cking to the side.

“The data here is insufficient. My protocol indicates that only one possesses the data. You must bring me to the one called Shepard.”

>>>>>>>

Before any of her crew had the chance to say a word to her, Shepard was whisked away to the thermal springs to be cleansed. It made sense to Kaidan; it was probably a risk to have anyone exposed to the plant juices that almost made her throw herself off a cliff. Instead, Kaidan and the rest of the crew followed the krogan back inside the Hall of Urdnot where a celebration was underway. He’d never felt simultaneously more welcomed and more scared for his life. Krogans challenged each other to fights, male and female alike, and most of the females seemed ready to mate with any male that breathed in the building. Kaidan didn’t want to receive the kind of attention Garrus was, and kept to the edges with Kasumi and Jeff, content to watch from a distance until they saw Shepard again.

He hadn’t known what to expect from the Rite – it didn’t seem like anyone did – but it certainly wasn’t having to watch Shepard vomit off the edge of a cliff for ten minutes while no one was allowed to do anything. He wasn’t even sure if she knew what to expect, though it wouldn’t surprise him if she did. Her penchant for getting herself into needlessly dangerous situations made him almost glad that she hadn’t settled down with him. Almost. Watching her nearly careen from the cliff, he’d felt his heart shoot up into his throat, only staying back to help keep Garrus from launching forward. He’d been doing a lot of that these days – stopping the turian from blindly disregarding his surroundings out of his love for Shepard. It felt unfair that this was his lot, and he was already considering staying behind the next time they returned to the Citadel. He hadn’t signed on to be the wrangler for his ex-lover’s husband. To have his own feelings stomped on and spat on and ignored while he was reminded everyday of what he could never have.

Kasumi told him to just talk to her, tell her how he felt, and God knows he had a lot left to say. When did he not? It was in London that he realized he couldn't push his feelings down any longer, but all he could say in that moment was goodbye. It both felt so wrong and also the only thing that could be said. Hell, what would he even tell her now? How much he regretted abandoning her? How he hated himself for not trusting her? His memory was fuzzy, but it seemed they'd already had that discussion, and she'd also made it pretty clear that she'd moved on. Now she was pregnant and trying to save the galaxy from eating itself, again, and he couldn't remember what it was he needed to tell her in London. Before the last goodbye.

It was better if he and Kasumi kept things purely physical from this point on. He didn't need her filling his head with her twisted version of poetic justice. He needed to do a better job at keeping his walls up. Maybe he should tell her to back off, at least until he could get a handle on his runaway emotions.

“Do you think they have anything besides ryncol? I could really use a drink,” Joker said. He leaned his whole body against one of the pillars and flinched anytime one of the krogan got close.

“I can check on the Normandy. I think we could all use a drink after what we just saw,” Kasumi suggested. “Up for a booze run, Kaidan?”

She winked at him from under her hood, her lips quirking up. Was she really suggesting they sneak off and have sex? Now? They’d almost watched Shepard plummet to her death, and she hadn't even made it back to her own party.

“I’ll go. I’m not getting hit on by one more krogan without a few drinks in my system,” Vega said when Kaidan didn’t answer. He marched over to the group, his movements attracting the eyes of a few krogan women in the room. Kasumi grinned and linked her arm in Vega’s, squeezing the muscle.

There you go, Kaidan thought bitterly. He’s better for you anyway.

Kaidan couldn’t make sense of his feelings, and didn’t feel like fielding Joker’s small talk either, so he disappeared into the lively crowd. Not even the krogan women gave him a second glance. Finding a solitary spot near the garden, he basked in virtual invisibility and waited until Shepard made a reappearance.

“What’s got your panties in a knot?” a voice plucked behind him. To his surprise, Solana approached. Aside from some small-talk and the occasional request, they’d hardly said a word to each other.

“That obvious?”

“You look like someone spit in your coffee and then dumped it on your head,” she laughed. Her cadence reminded him a lot of Garrus, that breezy nonchalance. There was something freeing about it, probably because he had no good reason to resent her. It didn't change the fact that he'd rather be alone.

“I’m not really a party guy,” he clipped and crossed his arms.

She moved to his side and studied him for a bit. When Solana wasn’t helping her brother with calibrations, she’d been prying any information from him about the other people aboard the Normandy, particularly what he thought of them. She knew about Kaidan’s history with Shepard, and how it wasn’t long after Kaidan rejected her that Garrus had the chance to make his own feelings known. Garrus didn’t have to tell her that Kaidan still wasn’t over Shepard – anyone with functioning eyes could see that. But she also found herself wanting to know more. No amount of prying could puzzle out what he was even still doing here, and it certainly wasn't because the Council told him to. Call it her penchant for haunted, sad men, not that there was any shortage of them now. Kaidan just seemed a little more broken than the rest, and maybe a little easier on the eyes.

“That much is clear. If not parties, then what do you like?” she asked.

He shifted a little and tried to avoid her intense eye-contact.

“Good steak and cold beer. The solitude of the woods when it’s snowing,” he replied simply. After a pause, he added, “I like when promises are kept.”

“Only one of those things explains why you look so miserable,” she said. Did she dare bring it up? Garrus was right to call her nosy.

“Look, I understand that I probably look like I could use a friend, but I’m fine. You don’t need to be my friend. And if you're looking for small-talk, I'm not your guy,” he sniped. "I'm here to do my job, that's it."

“Who said I wanted to be your friend?”

Garrus glanced around the crowd, eyes narrowing when he spotted his sister talking to a particularly sullen Kaidan. He’d join them if he wasn’t already aware that his presence seemed to upset the man. He couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him considering the only reason Kaidan had any distaste for Garrus was simply that they loved the same woman. It was a shame; Garrus had always admired Kaidan, more so than most of the others on the Normandy. He certainly knew how to maintain his principles, even if those principles interfered with his loyalty and judgement. Garrus imagined they could be good friends in another version of events, but that time was long gone now. Not unless Kaidan could find some way to give up his bitterness over Shepard. Garrus would be damned if his means involved anything to do with his sister.

“Enjoying yourself, Vakarian?”

Garrus turned around to find a freshly scrubbed Electra standing to his side. Her cheeks were pink and her blonde hair wet around her face. She’d traded her dirtied civvies for her armor, her cloaking matrix disabled to reveal her true shape. Garrus gathered her into his arms, detecting a slight hint of sulfur and unidentifiable herbal fragrance on her skin. It wasn’t her familiar scent, but he was glad to take it in all the same. The Rite had shaken him quite a bit, but even for as much as it scared him to see her teetering on that cliff, he never once doubted that she’d make it through. She’d promised him that she’d be safe, and he made the active choice to believe her. Holding her against his hard body reaffirmed that belief.

“I am now. How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good, all things considered. I’ll tell you more about it later. I could’ve gone without the throwing up, but they treated me like royalty in the baths. I’m starting to think you should’ve accepted their offer,” she teased, bumping him with her hip.

“As much as I love a good bath, I’m not sure I want a gaggle of horny krogan sticking their meaty fingers in my slit.”

“SHEPARD!” a voice roared across the hall. Their heads snapped over to see Grunt pushing through the crowds. Electra’s face lit up as she jogged to greet her friend.

“I got here as soon as I could. They’ve had me training the new Aralakh recruits for weeks. Bunch of weak pyjaks. You could probably show them a thing or two,” he laughed, tapping her shoulder with his fist.

“I’ll pass. I’m not interested in having any krogans question my authority, if you catch my drift.”

"Question you? Hah! One look and they'll either be running for their mothers or begging you to bear their clutch!"

Grunt’s entrance had alerted the rest of her crew of Shepard’s return, drawing them over to the garden to welcome their commander. Liara ran over and gave her a hug, sharing a look that demanded she get the whole story once the excitement of the celebration died down. Quite a few krogans, now noticing Shepard’s return, gathered around, with a few males offering to fight for mating rights with her. Garrus pretended not to laugh when her eyes bulged at the offer, pleased to see that she got to know how he felt for a change. Even when she declined, the determined males broke off to brawl for her affections, starting a full-on championship for the one who would get to breed the one they had started to call Xennitog. Grunt hadn't been exaggerating.

Shepard settled in the grass to watch the festivities unfold. Her life felt different than it had this morning, her mind more at peace. When the visions had ended and she realized she’d made it through, she first noticed it when it felt right to draw breath, and when the krogan women scrubbed her body, singing as they poured the hot water over her head, she realized she could still remember the sound of her mother’s singing. She wasn’t used to remembering pleasant things; most of what she repressed was all pain and violence and blood. Now, she replayed the tune in her head over and over, humming it through her hands on her belly. The bath reminded her of the first one she took after leaving Huerta. How she dwelled only on all she lacked and how lost she felt without a guiding voice. This felt like a natural response. The song flowed through her like a prayer. Part of her was beginning to understand what it meant to be a mother.

These revelations were not without the sharp recognition of absence. Anderson’s words echoed alongside the melody, and for the first time since waking, she allowed herself to really think about him. Until this moment, it had been convenient to push aside her grief. He wouldn’t want her to dwell on him, not when she had so much to live for and when he’d given his life up willingly. So she hadn’t dwelled. She hadn’t even made space in her brain for the significant well of longing. Now, it began to fill with the full acceptance of his death. It hurt less than she imagined it would, but if she knew mourning (and she did), she couldn’t rely on that pain to stay down deep. He’d rise up again and again, just like all the others, to remind her that without them, time trudged on. She trudged on. She had yet to justify why she should and not them, but her son was a good start. She’d never felt closer to him, her mind wandering to that excruciating place where she’d seen him all grown up. Anderson had left a lot behind for Sirius to know him by, his memoir nearly completed in fragments around the apartment. He'd even left some sheet music at the piano. Shepard imagined taking her son's tiny fingers and pressing them to the keys, imagined his face lighting up at the dulcet tones rising to his touch.

Garrus’ omni-tool pinged with a rapid-fire of incoming messages in tune with hers, shaking her from her reverie. He removed his arm from around her to check them, the calm in his features fading as he read the screen. Shepard opened her own; she'd received messages from both Tali and Admiral Hackett.

Subject: Alliance Emergency

A number of ships from the fifth fleet disappeared en route to Rannoch. Reach me on vidcom ASAP. – Hackett

Her brow furrowed as she flipped to her next message.

TZ: We made it to the server. Still no Alliance. The batarians have taken Jelachai.

TZ: A geth at the server has woken up and is asking for Shepard. It's saying you have data? It can't tell me anything without it and I don’t know how this happened.

TZ: Please get here soon.

>>>>>>>

Samara threw another warp at the Atlas mech amid a stream of heavy fire, relieved to hear it explode a few seconds later when Zaeed finally shot through its shields. This was the last stretch to the service tunnel that would lead them to the comm hub. Without the extra support of the Spectre, and meeting the heaviest resistance yet, the trio was struggling to push through. Aria unleashed her deadly flare into the Progenitor mercs, but it barely dented their numbers. Meanwhile, Zaeed looked like he was enjoying himself. Samara could admire that kind of determination.

“Our odds are stacked against us. How far until we reach the access point?” Samara asked.

“It’s just up that ladder,” Aria said through her teeth, gesturing up over the crate they were crouched behind. They both came out of cover long enough for her to point to it, their barriers depleting under the heavy fire. The mercs were closing in on them.

“We need to reach the communication hub. If we don’t call for reinforcement, we will lose the station,” Samara said, mentally weighing the options. Aria was fast. Between Samara and Zaeed, they might be able to buy her enough time to go on her own. “You need to go ahead.”

“Like hell!” Aria hissed, sending another flare into the mercs. Where a number of bodies fell, it seemed like there were more waiting in the wings to take their place. The platforms rattled as another mech joined the fight. “This is my fight! Mine! I won’t let these bastards take Omega from me!”

It wasn’t worth trying to convince her; Aria would make a good justicar if she weren’t so obsessed with her lowly life of crime. Perhaps there was still time to reform her ways. Samara eyed the distance between her and the ladder again. They didn’t have long.

“Then I will go. Is there anything I should know about the hub?” she asked.

“It’s a straight shot from those tunnels. I don’t know how they have it jammed, but main communication is controlled from the big terminal in the middle. You can't miss it. You’ll want to tune our satellites to the comm buoy on Imorkan. The tuning key is 5990Q2K dash 00012,” she instructed. Samara needed to be fast. No room for mistakes. Without her, Aria didn’t know how long she and Zaeed would hold the line.

Aria didn’t have much time to reconsider her options when Samara shouted at Zaeed to give her cover and leapt over the barrier. Throwing the mercs who dove at her flying with a singularity, she pushed through in a blue flurry, bypassing the ladder altogether and slipping into the access tunnel. Behind her, she could hear Aria shouting something and a series of grenades detonating, but she couldn’t focus on that now. She sprinted through the tunnel, and just as Aria said, it was only a short distance until she located the hatch that would take her into the main room of the comm hub. She wasn’t sure what she’d find there, but she didn’t have time to wonder. Shielding herself, she dropped into the room.

A few mercs were on her in an instant, but she relieved them of life with relative ease. They were more like the poor individuals they’d encountered early on in the mine – civilians caught in some kind of suicidal trance. It didn’t feel just to kill them. Spread in front of a long window looking out into space, the orange terminal glowed. She bypassed the authentication and found that all signal to and from the station had been cut, the satellites offline. With Aria’s instructions, it was easy enough to reestablish signal with the comm buoy. Their work was shoddy, as if they never expected anyone to make it this far. Samara instantly sent out a galaxy-wide SOS, though she knew it would be some time before anyone could be there. She hoped it would be Shepard, but she would accept any amount of reinforcement at this time. She weighed staying behind to guard the comm hub against returning to the others – their deaths would be unfortunate but acceptable losses in the scope of regaining control of the station – when she heard an explosion rattle the room around her. Aria's voice wavered above the chaos. She couldn't leave them to die.

With a quick prayer to Athame, Samara went back for Aria and Zaeed.

>>>>>>>

Bakara, Wrex, and Grunt understood why Shepard had to leave so soon; they were all warriors themselves, far from immune to the calls of duty. That didn't mean they weren't sad to see their friends leave almost as soon as they'd arrived. If anything, the females were the most saddened at Garrus’ departure before any of them could attempt to breed with him. The crew rushed behind Shepard as she charged back to the Normandy, not even explaining to them why they needed to make such a hasty departure. Back on board, she simply instructed Joker to route them to Rannoch before heading back into the information hub. Garrus followed behind, but she told him to gather the crew and update them on the situation. She had to take this call alone. Hackett’s hologram came up as soon as she patched him through. Meanwhile, the Normandy hummed to life under her feet.

“Commander Shepard. Things are looking dire on Rannoch. The Alliance is scrambling to stabilize the situation.”

“How did ships from the fifth fleet go missing? Were they destroyed?”

“When I received the mayday from the quarian fleet, I mobilized a section of the fifth fleet to bolster their forces and assess the situation. At that time, the situation on Rannoch favored the quarians. The fleet was set to arrive on Rannoch by 0200 hours on the 20^th but they never showed. We’ve been unable to trace the location of those ships. Last contact placed them at the Mactare Relay at 0956 hours. After that, they went dark. All contact has been severed and there are no reports indicating they’ve been destroyed,” Hackett explained. He sounded tired, even for him.

“I’m en route to Rannoch, sir. How’s the situation there?”

“Ground forces have pulled back to engage the batarians from space. Large portions of the population are still groundside, while the major cities on Rannoch have been overwhelmed. Jelachai, Mareh, Shagro Vaera. Ground forces are attempting to regroup outside of the cities, but a shortage of ammo and numbers has made any hope of success slim. It’s estimated that over 50,000 batarian raiders are attempting to take the planet. Shepard, we didn’t even realize they could organize in those kinds of numbers, much less have the ships to support such an attack. The Council insists the Hegemony hasn’t regrouped since the destruction of the Alpha Relay.”

“What is the Council doing about this?”

“They’ve only greenlit the Alliance to engage the batarians, but otherwise nothing. I’ve received confirmation from the third and fourth fleets that they have made it to the Far Rim. Shepard, I can’t recommend that you leave the Normandy,” he warned. It wasn’t an order, but rather a note of concern slipped into his voice. “The situation is volatile, and you’re not popular with the batarians.”

“Tali’Zorah, the quarian who served on my ship, has told me that a geth unit reactivated in her lab and is asking for me. I have to go, Admiral,” she insisted, though she knew he was right. She wished she’d never checked her messages; she never thought she'd miss Tuchanka.

“I’m set to arrive at 0400 hours on the 22nd. Can you at least wait until then? We don’t need a repeat of Palaven.”

“I’ll try,” she offered. She wouldn’t promise anything.

“Be safe, Shepard. Hackett out.”

Shepard entered the information hub and met a flock of expectant faces. Garrus looked at her with a helpless shrug – she should’ve known they’d want to hear it from her. More than one person looked upset that their low-stakes sojourn was being cut short.

“Batarian raiders have seized the cities on Rannoch. Tali has asked us to get there as soon as possible, and we don’t ignore our friends. Admiral Hackett wants me to stay on the ship until he clears me, so I don’t predict we’ll be seeing any action. I need everyone to stay rested until then. Try to relax. We won’t know what’s going on until at least tomorrow.”

“Have you heard anything about EDI?” Joker’s voice crackled over the comms. It seemed like a number of the crew shared his question.

“Nothing yet. My guess is Tali would let us know if anything changed,” she responded. Joker was silent. The rest of the crew still lingered, dissatisfied with the dearth of information.

“I need you rested people. That’s an order. Joker, how long until we reach Rannoch?”

“T minus fifteen hours, Commander,” he spoke. He lacked the same enthusiasm as before.

With much hesitation, the rest of the crew filtered from the information hub except for Liara and Garrus. Shepard walked down to greet them but stopped to sit on the stairs. She lowered her face to her hands. Garrus sat beside her and put his arm around her, wishing he could do more to comfort his mate.

“One day. That’s all I’m asking. Is it too much to ask that the galaxy not fall apart for one day?”

“Apparently, it is. I would say I’ve gotten used to it, but it doesn’t ever seem to get easier,” Liara sighed, leaning on the railing. “It would have been nice to stay for the remainder of the celebration. It’s good to see the krogan are doing well despite everything else.”

“I need to talk to the Council. I still haven’t given them any updates on Tuchanka, and they won’t be happy to know I’m cutting my visit short to go to Rannoch. 50,000 batarians. How the hell did 50,000 batarians get themselves organized enough to launch an attack this size?”

“I’m more concerned with how a geth became remotely reactivated and that it’s asking to see you. Although I suppose an army of batarians is also a worthy cause for concern,” Garrus added. “About the geth, are you positive you don’t know anything about this data? Maybe hit your head somewhere between entering the beam and firing the Crucible?”

“I wish I did, Garrus. Maybe it’s still there – I still can’t remember much past entering the beam. Trying to remember… it just makes my head hurt. I’ll worry about it once we’ve dealt with the batarian headache,” Shepard groaned.

“This might be a good time to heed your own orders, Electra. You’ve been through quite an ordeal today, and while I’d love to hear about it, you need rest more than any of us. We can take care of things from here. I’m sure Kaidan would be more than happy to get in touch with the Council,” Liara urged, reaching out to take her friend’s hand. She met Shepard’s gaze with a plea – she didn’t have the mental bandwidth to also worry about her commander.

Shepard acquiesced, if only for her, and took the elevator straight to her cabin. Ordinarily, she’d stop and talk to her crew – she especially felt a pull from Joker to spill every detail she knew – but her own bed did sound enticing. It wasn’t even close to her bedtime, but even just making a list of all the variables – all the questions she still hadn’t even asked – had her feeling exhausted. Not long after removing her armor and sitting in her shower, she heard Garrus enter. She smelled the dravesh first, realizing she hadn’t yet eaten any dextro food for the day. That probably wasn’t doing anything to improve her energy levels.

Garrus opened the bathroom door having already removed his own clothes. He looked incredible naked, his long, ropy muscles twisting under his plates. A body entirely unlike her own. When he’d first removed his clothes in front of her, he’d been rather shy about it. He feared she’d see what’s underneath and change her mind about having sex, but to his surprise, she’d run her fingers all along the length of him with open intrigue. They were never shy with each other now, but Shepard never failed to note the sharp contrast between their bodies. It made her feel alien in a way she never had before.

Garrus stepped into the steaming water before lowering himself to the floor. He pulled Shepard into his lap as if she weighed nothing, cradling her against his chest. Rivulets of water poured off the sharp angles of his face and chest and pooled between them. He drew her close to cradle her head in his carapace. Her skin was supple beneath his rough fingers, and he loved the way her wet hair felt like silk on his skin. She’d put on more weight and muscle since her stint in the hospital, but she still felt so fragile.

Her softness had taken some getting used to when they first became physical; Garrus was terrified of hurting her. Mordin’s warning did nothing to help dispel that fear. The first time they made love had been slow, gentle, a far cry from the kind of sex they had now, but it was moments like this that reminded him of her relative delicacy, whether or not she saw herself as such. He could break her like a fish bone. The thought made him bite down on his tongue as he squeezed her closer.

They remained like that for some time before Electra planted a kiss on his scarred mandible and rose to dry off. She only wrapped a towel around herself before taking her bowl of dravesh to the couch, where she curled up like a cat. Garrus fetched a blanket from the bed and brought it over, wrapping it around them as she ate. The heat trapped between them began to warm her skin.

“Do you ever wonder where we’d be if we hadn’t met on the Citadel?” she asked. Garrus stroked the soft skin of her thigh, his chest thrumming against her back.

“No. I can’t picture my life without you in it. It’d be very sad and boring,” he responded. He didn’t need to think about it.

“Oh come on, you don’t think you would have met someone? Maybe started a family?”

“I suppose it’s possible. I’d have probably moved up the C-Sec ranks like my father always wanted, and he’d have probably secured some high-profile bond. Before I met you, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time dating in earnest – usually I just jumped from one fling to the next with the occasional repeat encounter – so once I got eventually tired of that, I’d just be happy my dad did all the work finding someone suitable. Though, I’m not sure how happy I’d make a high-ranking turian woman. They’re always drawn to ambition, and not the type of ambition I’m famous for. I’ll tell you this, they showed a hell of a lot more interest after I became the advisor on the Reapers. Unfortunately for them, my heart was spoken for,” he prattled. “You’d probably be married to Kaidan by now.”

“Huh. Maybe. That is, if I decided to take him back after he rejected me. When it comes to matters of the heart, you get one chance. Of course, he doesn’t know that. He thinks the only reason I’m not with him is because I’m with you.”

“Are you saying that’s not the reason?” he asked, his mouth caught between a grin and a pout. “And here I was thinking my charms and roguish good looks were worth more than just sex.”

“Charms? Is that what you call turning me away to work on calibrations and talking my ear off about improved firing algorithms?”

Garrus pinched her side and grabbed the empty bowl from her hands to set it on the table. With one fluid motion, he pulled her to her feet and tugged her close to his body. He freed a hand from her waist to dim the lights and power on the sound system, after which he ran it through her hair and down her neck. As the song started playing, he pressed his forehead to hers and they began to sway. She tried to keep from stumbling over his feet, and he tried his best to guide her, chuckling at her missteps. She didn’t care. Her thoughts drifted away in the glittering cobalt of his eyes.

“Did you plan this?” she giggled. Garrus smirked and twirled her around, his arms wrapping around and tugging her backside against him. His slit twitched against her back.

“Of course not. I’m Garrus Vakarian, the smoothest turian in Council space. Romance is my middle name,” he purred, and Shepard had to bite back a cackle.

“Consider me impressed. Looks like those fan stories about you were grounded in reality after all. Up until you said that last bit. Even your craziest fans give you better lines than that,” she laughed.

He nipped her shoulder before spinning her back around to face him.

“Speaking from experience? I didn’t know you liked to indulge in that kind of thing, Shepard. Don’t make me have Liara show me your extranet history.”

“What can I say? Some of those writers come up with some very hot stuff.”

Garrus growled, gripping her tighter. He opened his mouth to ask her to elaborate, when the comm system crackled. He groaned as she pulled away to take the call. It was Liara.

“Can it wait?”

“I wouldn’t disturb you if it wasn’t an emergency. We’re intercepting a massive SOS from Omega, and Samara’s sent me multiple messages. You’re going to want to get down here, Shepard. Aria T’Loak is dead.”

Chapter 26: Split

Chapter Text

1600 hours, January 21^st

Shepard threw on the first clothing she touched and stormed down to the information hub, ready to contact Samara or Hackett or anyone, but the screens were already plastered with video feed from Omega. Fire lit the sky around the station – flashes of orange and red leapt from the station like solar flares, lashing small spacecraft into brief blips of glinting debris. Civilian ships, mostly, maybe some fighters or frigates. They were destroyed faster than her ability to discern. Did Hackett even know about this? Would he care? Her eyes were glued to the screens – so much so that she barely noticed the rest of her crew gathering, or her nails digging into the skin of her arms.

One. Day.

She couldn’t even get a solid two hours.

“Traynor, I need you to get in touch with Admiral Hackett. Send him these video feeds and the SOS signal. T’Soni, pull up those messages from Samara, and try to get a response. I need to know what the hell is going on,” Shepard barked. Any amount of softness she’d managed to find in the last few hours had vanished.

Traynor confirmed her orders over the comm, the pertness of her voice inspiring a hint of confidence Shepard needed; then Liara pulled Shepard to one of the terminals and pulled up Samara’s messages.

Omega is overrun by Progenitor. They’ve killed Aria T’Loak. The situation is rapidly deteriorating. I don’t know how much longer I can keep communications up. Stabilization window is thin. Please hurry.

The attached video log files revealed footage of medical experimentation and ruin Shepard hoped she’d never see. Footage she imagined, footage she suspected even; she had just hoped there was still time. Corpses left open on tables, tubes and wires trailing from their abdomens, shadows flashing behind hastily fastened white curtains. Electra could only stand to watch it once. Her nightmares had already filled in the rest. She felt a wave of nausea creeping up her esophagus and clenched her fist until her dull nails opened the skin of her calloused palms.

Shepard closed her eyes and centered her breathing. She’d learn to do this in her N7 training – deescalate her thoughts. She drowned out the swarming information, supplanting every image, every decision, with a circle that slowly expanded as she inhaled, and deflated as she exhaled. Liara’s cool hand clamped on her shoulder. Behind her, Javik approached with his gun. Everyone waiting for an answer; Shepard still grappled with the original question.

“Samara is unresponsive. I don’t believe she’s dead. It could mean anything,” Liara said, her hand trailing down Shepard’s arm to try and open Shepard’s fist.

“Commander, I’ve received word that the Seventh Fleet has responded to the SOS and is en route. Hackett is requesting to speak on vidcom,” Samantha informed.

“Can you route the call to my omni-tool?” she asked.

Seconds later, she received the alert that Hackett was available, and opened her fist to put her finger to her ear. She stepped out of the information hub as Hackett began to speak, too scattered to field the listening ears.

“Commander Shepard, I’ve just received word of the situation on Omega. The Seventh Fleet was in the area and will be there shortly, but I feel the need to clarify that because this is Terminus space, response does not fall within Alliance or Council protocol. Do you understand? This is not within your jurisdiction,” he said.

“It’s Progenitor. I’d argue that qualifies,” she replied.

“While that may be true, Progenitor is not currently listed as an official threat to Council space, nor does it clear the threat level to qualify for Alliance intervention.”

“Well, what do you think?”

Hackett sighed. He could have her stripped of her station for insubordination, but they both knew that would never happen. Hackett couldn’t admit it in writing, but Shepard did have special privileges afforded by her status, and even on a mere personal level, he found it hard to argue with her.

“I think this is the best goddamned lead we’ve gotten on these psychopaths,” he growled. She could almost see him rubbing the furrow between his brows. “But I’m asking you as someone who cares that you survive that you leave this to the Seventh Fleet.”

Shepard paused on this, trying to detangle the mess of crossed wires in her brain. She tried to remember everything she knew about the Seventh Fleet. Led by Admiral Chen and bypassed outside of Eden Prime at the start of the Reaper War. They reported the fewest casualties in the entire Systems Alliance. Could they be trusted to handle this situation any better than Shepard? Could they be trusted to know what to do with Progenitor? She wished she knew more about the group, at least so she could have some insight as to what the Seventh Fleet was up against. It was a tired wish. Her mind was already made up, and that wish stashed even further down the pipeline.

“I won’t go. Not yet. I already promised Tali I’d be there,” Shepard acquiesced, her forehead falling into her anxious palm. “Hackett, can Admiral Chen be trusted? I mean, what the hell does the Alliance want with Omega anyway?”

“Speaking on the record? The Seventh Fleet is only responding to the SOS. This is a civilian rescue. Admiral Chen will stabilize the situation to best of the fleet’s ability. As to what the Alliance intends to do if Omega is stabilized, I don’t know. It’s all conjecture. Omega has been on the Council’s radar since the end of the war. They’re the ones you should be asking.”

“Does that mean the Council signed off on this?”

“I can’t say for sure, but considering that the Spectres are involved, I imagine so.”

Shepard sighed. It was of course too much to ask that the Council focus on what currently mattered, but she couldn’t help but feel the Progenitor situation was about to unravel outside of her control. Not that it was ever in her control to begin with. She at least wished she wasn’t being asked to choose between which of her friend’s lives to save. Again.

Her edges were frayed. Stretched thin. The ship moved imperceptibly at lightspeed around her, space parting to allow passage forward in a path she wouldn’t alter, but her heart left breadcrumbs among the stars. Among the black, empty nothing. She could almost hear Anderson saying, “You’ve got this, kid. You’ll figure it out. You’re doing the best you can.”

“I thought this was supposed to get easier,” she said, though mostly to herself. Hackett barked a tired laugh.

“Who in the hell told you that? We’ll speak again when we’re both on Rannoch, providing this goddamned galaxy doesn’t throw any other catastrophes our way. Hackett out.”

Shepard lowered her hand, no longer feeling the urge to ball it into a fist – no longer having the energy to gather her fingers to her palm – and stepped back into the information hub. A million hungry eyes filled the expectant silence. With a parting glance at the terminal still broadcasting Terminus space, she spoke,

“No change of plans, folks. We’re still heading to Rannoch. We made a promise to Tali, and we’re going to see that through first, but I want everyone to know vacation is officially over. Progenitor has made its first unified move by attempting to take Omega, which means they’re organized and well-armed. Just because we aren’t facing them today doesn’t mean we won’t face them tomorrow or any other day. We need to be prepared for that eventuality. For now, I need everyone focused and rested for Rannoch. You’re all dismissed,” she informed.

Like blood trickling back into hollow veins, the crew began to move. Only Liara stood stock still, as if trying to move Shepard with her thoughts alone. She could if she wanted – Shepard didn’t have to energy to fight a singularity sent her direction – but Shepard had made herself clear. It’s not like Liara didn’t feel this was the right decision. She felt the call from both sides just as much as Shepard clearly did. Both had answers. Both had lives on the line. No, it wasn’t that she wished Shepard had made a different call. It was just that, yet again, Liara didn’t know what it was that she wanted. Her instincts failed.

Shepard approached and touched her arm, leading her back to the terminals only Liara had access to, cordoned off from the rest. She leaned in close.

“I need you to pull up everything you can on the Seventh Fleet and Admiral Chen. See if you can patch into their comm systems, get a live read on the situation. I need to know how this is handled as it’s happening. I have a bad feeling that there are political plays being actively made for control of Omega, and I don’t know if I can trust that Chen’s intentions are purely for rescue.”

“Well that’s easy enough. Why the suspicion?”

“Instinct. Or guilt. Maybe a bit of both. You know I like being the one in control.”

“You should know that Asari commandos are inbound for Omega. They received the SOS. If we can’t trust the Alliance, we can at least trust the Asari.”

“Can we? Don’t pretend that the Asari wouldn’t like a piece of that pie. Regardless, the Council is involved, and I don’t trust the Council as far as I can throw ‘em. If Progenitor is pushed back, we may as well start counting the Terminus System as official Council space.”

Liara only nodded, finding no flaw in that presumption. Garrus, having finished helping some of the newer engineers find something to do, joined them at the terminals. His steps fell heavy on the floor, but his hand on the small of Shepard’s back was feather soft. With a parting touch to Liara’s wrist, she turned to walk with Garrus.

“I should really stop trying to predict your moves, Shepard. I was mentally preparing myself to talk Joker down from hijacking the ship,” Garrus said. In her head, a rumble of communication whispered through the scattered folds of grey tissue – I know this wasn’t easy. Thank you.

“Progenitor can wait. We only have one Tali. And one pilot in the entire galaxy that I trust. I’m sure he’d be chuffed to know his feelings were being considered in this decision.”

“He knows. And he’s grateful. Shepard, are you sure about this?”

Shepard stopped just outside the information hub and raised an arched brow, her arms folded defensively over her chest. Garrus raised his hands in surrender.

“I’m not questioning your call. I’m just trying to gauge where you’re at. What’s the plan here?”

“There isn’t one. Not right now. Not beyond getting to Rannoch and doing what we do best,” she said. She tried to hide the wavering in her voice, though they both knew it couldn’t be lost between them. “I just can’t help feeling we’re letting our best lead on Progenitor slip away from us. I don’t know Garrus, am I making the right call? You saw those video logs… what they’re doing to those women…”

It never felt right when Shepard came to him for reassurance, especially when he himself didn’t have an answer. He couldn’t say he’d know what to do in her situation. However, he’d learned early on that their relationship extended beyond commander and subordinate, even before anything romantic transpired between them. Such was the cost and privilege of being loyal to Shepard. He numbered in the elite few who ever saw the seams in her perfect image – he just assumed he’d be used to it by now.

“It’s no use thinking about that right now. You already know how I feel – you don’t need to doubt my support. Or anyone’s for that matter. No one here could stand where you stand, do what you do, and still have the patience to care what anyone else thinks,” he soothed, pulling her into his chest. His gloved hand stroked her hair. Until she felt his fingers on her scalp, she didn’t realize how much tension had built up in her body. His touch all but dissolved her nerve-endings.

“Commander, a word?” Kaidan.

Shepard pulled back, trying to gather herself, reapply the edge she needed to be a leader. She looked up at Garrus, an apology for cutting their conversation short.

“I’ll get back to calibrations,” he said, breaking away to let her talk to Kaidan.

“What’s up?” she asked, though it felt forced.

“I’m on my way to brief the Council on our change of plans. I’m not sure they’re even aware we’ve left Tuchanka. Considering the recent developments, is there anything you’d like me to include?”

“I should probably send in my own report,” she said, though as she did, she felt a wave of energy rush out of her. “On second thought, one should be enough. Give them everything we have on Progenitor. Focus on that. They have a history of not taking me seriously, so make it something they can’t ignore. Not that they’ll be able to much longer. I have a feeling it’s all about to break wide open in our laps.”

“Already with you on that one, Shep. They originally assigned me to Omega, you know. Sent Gelin Kysi instead. I’m starting to feel grateful for that decision, though I can’t help but wonder if I could’ve done something different. Gotten ahead of this mess.”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it. I’m sure Kysi had as much information as we do,” she assured, though she didn’t feel confident in that answer. Maybe things would have been different if Kaidan had been the one to go. Shepard shifted her gaze to the floor.

“Are you feeling okay? Not that I would be, in your shoes,” he asked, placing his hand on her shoulder. The touch translated more tenderly than he’d intended, so he let it fall awkwardly to his side with a hollow laugh.

“I’m tired, Kaidan. I don’t know why, but I thought things were going to get easier. Why does it never get easier?”

She felt like a glitched-out recording looping an unanswerable question. It lost significance every time she said it.

All he could muster was a shrug. If he opened his mouth to answer, there was no telling if he’d be responding to her situation or his own. Safer to keep silent.

“I understand you’ve got a lot on your plate, but you should probably try to get some shut-eye. You look… haggard.”

“Hah. Still a shameless flirt. You’re probably right.”

Shepard wished she could find a good reason to object – the mission, the influx of information, the galaxy’s incessant need for her service, her phobia of sleep – but she’d been fighting the heaviness of her eyelids for the past hour. Through her mind, prescient flashes of the hellfire to come only made them droop lower. Even Sirius was motionless inside of her, as if somehow worn out by the heaviness of the world he didn’t yet know.

“I’d estimate we’re now t-minus fourteen to the relay. That should be plenty of time,” he said glancing at his omni-tool.

“And what about all this? What about you?”

“I’ll see to it that everyone sees some rest before arrival. As for all this? We’ll take care of it. We always do.”

Fighting her every instinct, she acquiesced, a wave of relief washing down her tired body. With everything that had transpired in the last half-hour, she had almost forgotten the ordeal that took place just this morning. Almost. Replacing her anxiety over Omega and Rannoch and Progenitor was a new anxiety that in her sleep, she’d be bombarded with those images she still barely understood. Shepard would probably never know restfulness, she knew that – not even in death – but she couldn’t let that stop her from trying.

Kaidan watched her enter the elevator, wishing he could join her, wishing he didn’t have to have contact the Council, loathing that he was spending his golden post-war career in the same cycles of life-or-death duty that had come to consume his life, but he’d really do anything for Shepard. Looking around, he realized they all would, and shook the thought from his head.

>>>>>>>

Liara knew she wouldn’t have any luck reaching Samara, not that she got a chance to tell Shepard the reason why. Shepard had been sent to bed while preparations unfolded under the watchful, if not frazzled, orders of Kaidan. It was for the best, and she’d find out soon enough. As soon as the Seventh Fleet arrived at Omega, they arrested as much control of the station as they could manage, which meant all communication that had been restored was now being filtered through them. Liara ordinarily wouldn’t have much trouble finding a backdoor into their systems, but they’d overhauled their firewalls and tripled encryption. Getting in would take time Liara didn’t have, and Garrus informed her that at some point, she too needed to make some time to rest. For now, she could only sit in frustrated radio silence while she compiled Admiral Chen’s dossier.

Five hours remained until they hit the Perseus relay. The chatter in the information hub hadn’t exactly died down, though at least the crew had scattered. She found it particularly hard to get any work done with so many people around, not that she’d done much work as the Shadow Broker since being on the Normandy. Feron had all but taken over at this point. She didn’t know if she should feel snubbed or grateful. Afterall, it had been her choice to direct her focus back to the research she felt more passionately about. Now that Javik had made that next to impossible – or at least reframed her definition of passion – she wasn’t quite sure what to do. For the first time in her life, neither meditation nor research offered any clarity. These days, Shepard and Javik had her mind in an iron grip; for the first time in her life, she found herself unable to uncover the answer to the riddle.

Her alarm beeped, reminding her to get some sleep. She’d already snoozed the alarm three times. She hissed as she dismissed it and shut down her terminal. So be it. She’d sleep. And be better for it, at least so she hoped.

Her new quarters aboard the Normandy had been made in what was at one point a war room server station – an inconspicuous room beneath the floor, little more than a crawl space, now containing a small bed, a private terminal, and a single locker for her few belongings. Despite being offered her old room, Liara insisted on these new quarters. Down here, dim, blue light and warmth radiating from the engine enveloped her. Down here, she could be compartmentalized, stored away, categorized, organized. She never felt this safe and small with that vast expanse of space eternally staring back.

Her life was different then. The world fell apart in patterns that made sense, had precedent. The puzzle always ended up solving itself so long as she kept her eyes open. In many ways, Liara understood why Shepard was beginning to lose her mind. Still, it was wrong to try and compare their situations. For one, Liara wasn’t the one the world looked to for heroics, for guidance. Information was usually far less personal. Secondly, Liara wasn’t pregnant on top of those expectations.

So why was motherhood calling to her? Since her talk with Shepard, she’d taken more time to think about the proposition, think about if she was prepared to take on that responsibility, and, while she couldn’t deny the urges were present, the rationale felt wrong. Another puzzle, no solution. She considered how she’d feel if anyone else proposed it – perhaps Shepard in a bygone time – but the comparisons held no real weight in her heart.

And still, she needed to focus on her research. With a child, she could no longer dedicate the time and effort needed to complete her studies with Javik. Javik himself was an entirely different issue. Since his proposition, she half expected him to treat her differently, maybe even start treating her with genuine kindness, but his cold and critical demeanor stayed the same. He was irritating, conceited, cruel. Alluring.

With a groan, Liara divested of her clothes and plopped onto the bed. She longed for a dreamless sleep, an embrace with the void. Almost as soon as the sparks in her mind began to fizzle out, she heard the hatch open and footsteps descending the rungs of the ladder.

“Go away, Javik. Not now,” Liara grumbled, rolling over. He didn’t move, didn’t make a sound, which meant he also didn’t leave.

“I will never understand your cycle’s need for sleep. Protheans achieved rest without ever being unconscious, closing two of our eyes and suspending function in half of our brain without sacrificing anything but our superior peripheral sight and reaction time.”

Liara was starting to think he waited to divulge new information about the Protheans for when he needed her to entertain him. Perhaps it was sabotage. Keep her weak, drop her defenses, keep her open to listening to him in case he might drop something of interest. Of course, she couldn’t reconcile something so openly hostile with his intentions to make her the mother of his offspring. Maybe she could. She hadn’t thought about it until now. Her eyes snapped open as she realized he'd succeeded in riling her up, whether those were his intentions or not. Liara snapped up from the blankets, making no effort to cover her breasts, and scowled at Javik.

“Don’t you have something better to do?”

“I am only aboard the Normandy because I pledged myself to help you with your research. That I am still a useful weapon in these conflicts is a matter of circ*mstance.”

“I’m trying to sleep. Unlike you, I do need it. In fact, I’d love nothing more than to be unconscious right now. If you’d like to try it, I’d be eager to help you,” Liara sniped.

“I do not understand why you continue to flirt when you know I am willing,” Javik smirked, his head tilting forward.

Liara crossed her arms over her chest. Perhaps her threat hadn’t been clear enough.

“Is there any particular reason you came down here or are you just bored?”

Javik reached up to close the hatch door and took one step in the cramped space to stand over her. He studied her, the contortions on her face she probably didn’t realize she made – confusion, amusem*nt, annoyance, fear. He inhaled deeply the heady smell of her volatility. As much open as she was closed, as much curious as she was dangerous. Youth. An aroma felt in his tightening loins. Her supple skin and firm body that smelled of abundance. He didn’t have time for regrets, just as he didn’t have time for sleep. Being in stasis as his people were driven to extinction assured that. However, the primitive – no, Liara – had awoken a type of regret he’d never considered. His prerogative had reformed. Of course he felt the need to be bitter about it. If she couldn’t understand that, then perhaps he had given her too much credit, something he’d been very careful not to do.

“Whenever the stakes of battle are high, and especially when the odds are poor, the pheromones that pollute the air of this ship make it rather difficult to focus on the important aspects of the coming battle. They demand reprieve. I believe the phrase is ‘letting off steam.’ It is a fitting phrase,” he said. “Do you experience this phenomenon?”

Liara’s scowl softened, her clutch around her chest loosened. Javik was learning that she responded most positively to discourse about his emotions, though he chalked it up to this cycle’s reverence for primitive impulse. It was beginning to affect him, rub off on him. His mind and body felt more unfamiliar with each passing day in their company. The suffocating mix of different thoughts and desires swirling in the air at all times, penetrating his skin. Even now, he couldn’t deny that it felt right to engage with emotion – not that he was ready to admit it – and it was this exact urge that led him to seek her out in the first place. Relief. Relief from the constant anger he felt that he was losing touch with what it was that made him the embodiment of Vengeance. This was far from Vengeance. Unnatural. Sticky. Desperate. Confused. The emotions themselves didn’t know how to fit in the parameters of his thoughts.

“I’ll admit that I do. Not every species does, however, most notably the salarians. For them, mating is purely practical in nature. Until recently, I assumed Protheans were the same, though given what you told me last time we spoke, my initial assumptions may still hold merit.”

Javik sat on the bed and Liara pulled her knees up to her chest. She’d begun to learn the signs that he was about ready to offer some particularly revealing information. A faraway look in his eyes which usually sat sharp and focused. An overall softening of his imposing stature. His shoulders dropping, his flared nostrils relaxing.

“It seems our conversation on Palaven proved unsatisfactory. Have I not made my intentions clear?”

“To be completely honest, I’m not entirely sure I know your intentions beyond breeding me like I’m an incubator for your higher calling,” Liara explained. “You treat me like a primitive, you mock me, you have no respect for my time, and you still expect me to want to procreate with you. I’ve thought about it and would be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued, but I have my life to consider. Something you have probably never considered. I’m young, Javik. It’s not unheard of for asari to enter the matron phase early, but it’s not common either. I have my own reasons for considering it, but you’ve given me almost no sign that you care about me. To me, that means your intentions have in fact been unclear.”

She regretted not making him leave. Hearing her own words played back, she half expected him to rightfully turn them back on her. Was she not using him as an incubator? A mere means of reconciling the newly discovered fraud of her life’s work with bitter reality? She kept waiting to hear those exact words exit his mouth, but he pondered them in his lap. Each second in pensive reflection flinched by. She should have made him leave, if not by will, then by force.

“I see. That is unfortunate. I believed that because I am choosing to aid your research, choosing to share my knowledge about my people, you knew that my intentions were to see that through. I do not begin a mission with any intention of abandonment. I also believed that by engaging you physically, there existed a mutual understanding of my intentions. I forget that you prim… that your people do not communicate on the level that I do. For Protheans, sex was more than a biological imperative. Protheans were capable of a broad range of emotion and desire.”

“And now?” she asked.

“I am learning. I do have some care for you and not only the time we have spent in bed. Your death would unsettle me,” he admitted through clenched teeth.

The words prickled Liara’s ears, sending her heart fluttering. Had she heard him right? She was glad for the blue light masking the humiliating blush rising up her neck and cheeks. Aethyta would rightfully shame her for the response Javik’s words induced. He’s an emotional terrorist and a downright f*cker, she’d say. And you’re stupider than I thought for falling for it. She’d agree if not for the fact that Liara knew Javik well enough to know he’d practically just confessed his love. That he appeared so miserable upon saying it only made it sweeter.

“Javik, I can’t give you an answer about having a child, not right now. That being said, I care about you as well. That is, when you treat me like a person. Right now, I must focus on my research, but when we reach a natural stopping point, and when I get a chance to rest and reevaluate my life, perhaps then I can give you an answer,” she replied, biting down on her lip to hide her girlish grin.

“This is satisfactory, asari,” he hummed. Liara swore she saw him smile in the dim light. “Do you have any other questions for me? I’ll admit that I am rather bored. I finished my preparations hours ago.”

Liara dropped her arms and sat up closer to him, her hand falling on the bed just shy of his. The electricity between them was palpable as static on the blanket.

“I was hoping you might be able to tell me more about Prothean sexuality. For my research, of course.”

Javik’s dark smirk – the one she never saw him make outside of their private encounters – drew heat between her legs. Her nipples hardened as he shifted closer, the cold of his armor just brushing against them.

“These are things that are rather hard to put into words. We Protheans communicate these things through our physical senses – eyes, smell, taste,” he mumbled.

He shifted suddenly on the bed to hold himself over her, his chest pressing her down towards the bed. She propped herself up on her elbows, pressing her chest right back into his. He lowered his head and with a long inhale, dragged his face up between her breasts and up the length of her neck. She stretched it out to extend the experience, gasping when he finished the motion with his long, pointed tongue tracing the outline of her jaw.

“So what do I taste like?” she asked.

He pulled back only to push her all the way down, tossing the blanket covering her legs to the side. Her legs trembled as he spread them open and pushed his face into her puss*. Just as he did with her neck, he inhaled her aroma deeply before plunging his slick tongue into her vagin*. The grip he held on her knees was firm, and as he drove his tongue deeper, a rumbling groan escaped his throat. Almost as suddenly as he’d begun, he pulled back to meet her gaze, the yellow in his eyes just a thin sliver as the double iris expanded into scintillating pools of the deepest black. A charge passed between them as their eyes connected, and Liara shuddered at the sudden, overwhelming communion of sensation and emotion. It was difficult to make sense of everything packed into that single, infinite blip, and yet she could suddenly comprehend the frightening expanse of neural connections between his senses and his consciousness.

Desire. Lust. Anger. Fear. Need. Need. Need.

They’d never touched like this before. Nothing even came close. She might be frightened if it weren’t for the cloying need to feel his naked skin against hers, feel his throbbing green co*ck in a way she’d never been able to feel it before. She wanted to taste him, smell him, feel him, the way he felt her. She tried meeting his gaze again to get a taste of that dazzling infinity, her own eyes pure black, but he lowered his head again to snake his tongue inside of her.

He pushed her legs back to her shoulders as a gush of moisture seeped into his mouth. He could drink her, every last drop. Until now, he’d never understood the memories of his ancestors regarding intercourse; they were correct in that it needed to be experienced, a sensation beyond expression. As he drove his tongue as deep into her as it would go, desperate to taste every one of her desperations as she writhed beneath his mouth, he freed one hand to remove his armor. Even at his own touch, his smooth skin tingled, and his thin wings vibrated against his back, sending that vibration through the entirety of his skin. Clearly Liara felt it as well, as she reached for the crown of his head and pushed him deeper inside of her.

Javik’s hard co*ck slapped onto the mattress with an audible thud, the defined spade-like tip pulsing against the fabric. He wanted her to be ready for him, ready for what he assumed would be overwhelming for them both, and he continued to drink from her, relishing in the sensation of her vulva against his lips. He had to have her mouth, and his co*ck had to have her velvet internal. He pulled back, his heart pounding, and got to his knees. Liara scrambled up after him, ready to climb him for more – or perhaps a chance to meet his gaze again – but as soon as she lifted her face, he crushed his down on her, locking her lips on his, her wetness and his saliva intermingling in their mouths in excess.

Liara didn’t care like she thought she might. In fact, the more she tasted, the more she felt that initial blinding moment of infinite unison. She pressed herself deeper into the kiss – realizing for a brief moment that they’d never once done that – and rose up to wrap her legs around his waist. At the mere connection of her vulva and the skin of his co*ck, they both shuddered, the sensation overwhelming. Dizzying. Almost violently pleasurable. She had to bite down on his lip to keep from screaming, blue sparks crackling around her crest. His strong arms gripped her lithe body against his, his fingers digging into her butt as he drove her pelvis back against his for another explosion of carnal ecstasy.

“J-Javik… I need…”

“I know,” he growled into her ear, still avoiding her eyes. The smell rolled off her from deep within, the taste still permeating his mouth.

As he continued to grind her puss* against his co*ck, his movements growing erratic as he began to lose himself, Liara knew she couldn’t hold it back any longer. The release was already tangible, sizzling in the air between their thrashing bodies with flashes of blue and green. She gripped the sides of his head and in one motion forced his eyes to meet hers and slid herself onto the full, startling girth of his co*ck. In an instant, their bodies, their minds, their nervous systems, were entirely one as an org*sm both physical and mental exploded between them. The sudden gush of his sem*n met the pulsing of her inner walls, a sensation both felt and received on both ends, as their souls twisted together through the particles of existence. An eternity of emotion and desire and pleasure communed in one bright, hot flash.

They weren’t aware that they fell to the bed, still writhing within each other, only coming back into their own bodies and minds through gentle, rocking pulses. Their chests heaved together, their hips still gently rocked. Every inch of them was wet. Every corner of their minds was simultaneously empty and replete. They didn’t dare separate, but they couldn’t hold their eyes open any longer. As their breathing slowed and their senses cooled, they both drifted seamlessly into sleep.

>>>>>>>

With the Normandy hovering just beyond Rannoch’s gravitational pull, the crew of the Normandy assembled in the Shuttle Bay to await final orders. A mixture of exhaustion and fear spiraled around the room, rendering the group uncharacteristically mute. It was as if no words deserved to be said until Shepard was present, as she’d been uncharacteristically absent over the last thirteen hours. No one complained. Shepard’s notorious aversion to rest meant that when she finally relented to it, it was a critical necessity.

Everyone perked up as Shepard entered. For what it was worth, she did appear more rested than earlier. It was good to see some color return to her cheeks, some light dancing in her silver eyes. Beyond that, however, she looked tired. Kaidan often compared to the reference he had of Shepard aboard the SR-1, how over the years, that initial, almost shocking brilliance had sunken further and further behind her features. At least now she didn’t have those hideous Cerberus scars. Still, he’d watched the light dwindle and fade over the years, retreating with every horror. He saw the same when he looked in the mirror. Only the children born after this war would ever shine so bright again. That was something worth fighting for, and while he still found it difficult to swallow that he wouldn’t ever have that with the woman he loved, he hoped. Looking away from Shepard, he noticed two other pairs of eyes tracking his gaze.

“I just got off a call with Hackett,” she began. “The situation is this: the Third and Fourth Fleets have mobilized over Jelachai and Shagro Vaera respectively. The section of the Fifth Fleet present is also engaging over Jelachai. The Alliance’s official position is to drive back the batarians, but they’ve continued to advance groundside. The SSV Logan crippled the largest batarian dreadnought over Jelachai, but progress is slow. What we have in naval power, we lack in infantry. The Fourth Fleet is a tenth of what it was before the Reapers, and our numbers are few. Hackett has given the Normandy the all-clear to advance our priority – get Tali and EDI and get out. As soon as we have Tali, Hackett wants us bolstering the Fifth Fleet with firepower from above, so we have to move fast.

“I’m staying put on the Normandy. Liara, Solana, you’ll both stay behind with me. Solana, I need you in charge of the Normandy’s guns and systems in engineering. Traynor, you’ll work your magic with communications. Garrus, I’m putting you in charge of getting Tali to safety. This mission calls for stealth, speed, and tech reinforcement, so you’ll take Kaidan, Goto, and Javik with you. Vega, I want you backing up Cortez at all times. Consider this your first real N7 assessment – I don’t want a single scratch on the Kodiak, you hear me? Not one. Goto, Kaidan, you’re both incredibly fast. Stay ahead of Garrus and move unseen. Javik, you’re center heavy. Am I understood?”

The crew gave their solemn nods – only Vega and Javik looked genuinely excited to get started.

“Do we have time parameters?” Kaidan asked.

“Once the Kodiak touches down, I’d like to see you all back in two hours, but that’s best case. Do what you need to do and don’t get hurt. I’ll have eyes and ears on you the whole time. If you need back-up, don’t hesitate to call for it. Just remember, don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.”

“So we have the all-clear to blow up the planet if things get out of hand?” Goto asked with a wink, forcing a twitch of a grin to Shepard’s tight mouth.

“You can interpret that however you need to, Goto,” Shepard replied with a wink. “This is just a mission, just like all the ones before it. You all know the risks, so there’s nothing I can tell you about that which you don’t already know. Now gear up and don’t leave Tali waiting.”

Shepard took a few steps back, eyes glazed over as she watched her crew get ready. Upgrades assembled, medigel loaded, straps tightened. She felt out of place in her civvies. She fought the urge to step forward and help – honestly, she’d probably just get in the way. These people wouldn’t be her crew if they weren’t self-sufficient.

Shepard needed to repeat that to herself a few times over as she observed them. Once Sirius arrived, they’d really be on their own. In just a few short months – was it really only four months away now? – she’d be up to her neck in whatever the hell motherhood would entail and her crew would have to take the reins. For that to work, she’d have to relinquish them. Staying behind today might as well be a test of letting go. Shepard’s gaze roamed over to Garrus; he bickered with Solana near the Kodiak, but his shoulders were relaxed, his eyes laughing. They’d be alright. So would she. Breathe.

“I swear, Garrus, if you say one more thing about your efficiency matrix, I’m going to explode the main battery,” Solana groaned.

“You see, that’s exactly why I’m telling you about it. Because you probably will explode the main battery with that kind of talk. She’s sensitive, fine-tuned machinery, Sol,” Garrus said. “A refined lady, unlike you.”

“You’re ridiculous. I just came over here to say good luck and don’t die. You’re making me reconsider the sentiment,” she retorted, though she was still grinning. “Do you really think Shepard would put me in charge if she wasn’t confident in my abilities? Because if you’d like, I can go over right now and let her know you think she made a mistake.”

Garrus shook his head and slung his rifle over his shoulder. All jokes aside, Shepard had done nothing but make good calls all night. He didn’t initially put much stock in the Krogan ritual, but he couldn’t deny that his mate seemed a bit more even-keel since the whole ordeal took place. She still hadn’t opened up about it, but when he’d checked on her earlier, her sleeping face was untroubled, her breathing even. When he laid beside her as silently as he could, she simply wrapped herself around his back and inexplicably filled his brain with wordless comfort. He still wasn’t used to that – her strange form of subvocal communication. It couldn’t even be called subvocal, not with the way it seemed to vibrate from her pores.

“I’m just giving you a hard time because no one else will. They don’t know you like I do – they still think you’re humble,” Garrus laughed, snapping back to the conversation.

“You’re one to talk,” she scoffed, but her face softened. “Seriously though, good luck. Try to come back in one piece.”

Kaidan joined them by the Kodiak, quickly followed by Kasumi and Vega. The pair giggled to themselves as they walked by Kaidan and over to Cortez. Solana followed Kaidan’s gaze to Kasumi, then to the floor, before they tracked up to Solana. His face looked apologetic, but his hands balled at his side. He hadn’t said two words to her since their conversation on Tuchanka, not that much needed to be said. She’d figured out pretty quickly that he wasn’t worth her energy if he was so insistent on being the singular most miserable man in existence, but she smiled at him regardless.

“Seems like your little party is about ready to go. I should head up to the battery,” Solana said, waving as she turned away. Maybe with the men out of the way, she could use this time to get to know Shepard a bit more.

“You ready, Vakarian?” Kaidan asked.

“As I’ll ever be. Hopefully we won’t have a repeat of Palaven. That wasn’t my finest work.”

“For what it’s worth, I trust you,” he said. He shifted his weight between his feet and looked around the shuttle bay. “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Has your sister always been so forward?”

Garrus’ choked laugh could be heard across the room, breaking Javik from his worktable. It was time. He had finished preparations a half hour ago, but his mind felt sticky and slow, so he felt it necessary to check everything again. He loaded his particle beam onto his back and moved towards the Kodiak, but his attention was grabbed by a slip of blue in his periphery. He turned his whole body to Liara – not even just his head – and chewed on a smile. Half of him wished he could stay behind, if only to pull Liara back into a hidden location and taste of her until he could taste no more. He wet his lips and Liara’s pupils dilated at the sight.

“Be careful down there,” she said, stumbling over the words. She hadn’t actually expected him to pay her any heed. “We’re no where close to finishing our research.”

“I do not need to be careful. I am Vengeance,” he barked. The word fell particularly flat on his tongue. Bitter, cold. He’d acquired new tastes. He stepped closer and added, “When I return victorious, be ready for me.”

As he said this, Cortez hollered that the Kodiak was ready and Garrus called him over. Pulling away from the pit of gravity swirling at Liara’s center almost pained him, and even as he walked away, he could feel it dragging at his wings. So powerful, so enticing, that no distance would sever the eventuality entwining them. He would be victorious, but it was no longer a direct act of Vengeance. No, it would be killing in the name of Passion and Hunger. He chuckled to himself, wondering if he was getting soft before dismissing the thought. There was nothing soft about him.

The ground party entered the Kodiak and braced themselves as the ship broke through Rannoch’s atmosphere.

Chapter 27: Undoing

Chapter Text

0602 hours, January 22^nd

The Kodiak slid from the Normandy’s underside with a blur of chrome and tan before the Normandy sped back up into Rannoch’s atmosphere. Electra watched from the back of the shuttle bay, the sudden rush of dry, hot air tugging at her atoms. She had to swallow how wrong it felt to stay behind, swallow the urge to dive through the shuttle bay doors after them. She wasn’t used to commanding at a distance; it felt unreal, intangible, without pistol fire hammering her joints into their sockets. A lesson in letting go, indeed. With the doors sealed, she first cradled her arms and then moved her hands to caress her belly.

“Just me and you now, baby,” she mumbled through her core. “I hope you don’t miss the sound of warfare too much.”

Sirius moved, maybe turned around or stretched out his arm, and the vision Shepard had seen on Tuchanka flashed into her mind. She imagined that one day, when he was many years removed from her body, he might stand beside her and give a real response. His blue eyes would flash with some unspoken understanding between them and his throat would rumble with a flanging laugh. He’d tell her how he always found it easier to sleep to old war vids and she’d try to hide the regret that it was because it was all he’d ever known. All she’d ever given him. That vision made the empty silence around her go down a bit easier.

“They grow up so fast, don’t they?” Liara quipped beside her, startling Shepard. Liara’s lips turned up in a playful grin and she jerked her chin to the open elevator behind them.

“How long were you standing there?” Shepard asked. The elevator doors hissed shut.

“Long enough to hear your private exchange. I think it’s sweet you talk to him, not that he’ll recognize it’s you. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use that tone before.”

“Are you trying to imply I’m not sweet?”

“You? Sweet? Now that’s a good one, Shepard,” Joker butted in over the comm system.

“Don’t you have a ship to pilot, Moreau? Stop eavesdropping,” Shepard barked.

The doors opened to the CIC where Liara and Shepard were immediately greeted by Sam.

“All channels open, Commander. Your terminal in the information hub is live,” Traynor reported, all levity stripped from her demeanor.

“Good work. Keep them open across the Normandy. You know where to find me if you need me,” Shepard said.

Traynor saluted crisply and Shepard almost turned to walk to the information hub when her eye caught the glow of the co*ckpit ahead. She waved Liara on, signaling that she’d be there soon, and instead went to Joker. He didn’t turn to look at her when she entered but waved to the seat where EDI usually sat. One of the screens tracked the Kodiak’s movement across Rannoch, arresting Shepard’s attention as she lowered herself to the seat.

“I haven’t gotten the chance to thank you. To be honest, I’m not sure I’m even prepared to see EDI again. At least, not as she currently is. But I’m sure you’ve got a lot more to worry about then my sad guy sh*t. All I’m trying to say is, thanks. For doing this,” Joker said. Shepard could always tell when he was trying to hold it together. His fingers rapped on the edge of the controls when there was nothing else to do, and his brows cinched. She resisted the urge to reach over and touch his hand, already feeling out of place in a seat she knew he’d rather someone else fill.

“I always have time for you, Joker. You’re family to me. So is EDI,” she hemmed. The PA cut her off from continuing.

“Normandy, this is Cortez. I’m taking the Kodiak low to avoid detection. I’m going to get them in as close as I can, but my radar is picking up activity near the server. Seven minutes until contact.”

“Do your best, Cortez. Tell me when you land.”

Shepard leaned back, her pulse thrumming in her fingertips. Breathe. The situation is under control. You can breathe. Shepard closed her eyes.

“I’ve never quite figured out how I feel about being alive. Not after dying twice. And especially not after losing so many people who are never coming back. Once death loses its meaning, life starts losing its meaning, too. But love? That’s something else entirely. And the first thing I remembered – the first thing I ever felt – when I came back to life, was love. It’s the one thing that I’m positive stayed with me across the nothing. It’s the one thing that hasn’t lost any meaning. She still loves you, and she knows you love her. That matters. That’s all that matters,” Shepard spoke. Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality, faraway and soft and almost lost under the sound of the ship. Her hands had found her rounded abdomen again; the words were as much for Sirius as they were for Joker.

“Do you think it’s enough to bring her back?”

Electra opened her eyes and smiled. Tears trembled on her lower lashes; she didn’t care if Joker saw her crying.

“It is. I know it is. All the science, all the technicalities and laws and rules – I’ve learned those are just variables. Love is a constant. The soul is a constant. Trust in it.”

Joker didn’t respond and she didn’t need him to. She didn’t need to be a scientist to know that it wasn’t science that brought her back, at least not the second time. And even though EDI was a machine, a computer constrained by those pesky absolutes, it was her soul that beat in rhythm to Shepard’s and therefore abided the immaterial mystic.

“You’re going to be a great mom, you know,” Joker said as she stood. “Your kid’s really lucky to have you.”

“Yeah, yeah, stop trying to make me cry.”

“I would if it wasn’t so easy,” he called after her, but she’d already closed the door to the co*ckpit and swiped her sleeve across her damp face.

Liara was waiting at her terminal in the information hub, though she appeared distracted. She didn’t even notice Shepard until she stood right in front of her. Shepard decided not to ask – she’d witnessed the brief exchange between Liara and Javik in the shuttle bay, and as much as she was curious about the sudden transformation in their attitudes towards each other, she’d let Liara open that conversation.

“I’ve compiled a dossier on Admiral Chen,” Liara said, putting on her game face.

Shepard stepped to her side and scanned through the brief write-up on the Admiral, her fingers rapping along the side of the terminal. The report was sterile, expected, and the Admiral appeared to be as exceptional as any other Alliance brass. For some reason, that did nothing to comfort her.

“There’s not a lot to go off of here,” Shepard said. “What do you think?”

“I think you have good instincts. Considering Chen applied for retirement just days before the Reapers attacked Earth, I’d say she’s using Omega to gain ground in the larger political arena. Could be run-of-the-mill career advancement, or she’s vying for the empty Council seat. Either way, the chances that she just so happened to be in the area are slim to none.”

Shepard chewed on her lip, her eyes flicking rapidly between the dossier and the Kodiak’s status. Seven minutes had elapsed and there was still no word from the ground team. Breathe.

“Any luck breaking into their communications?”

“Negative. Not enough time to get through the encryption she’s using – it’s set to scramble every fifteen minutes. I’d need direct administrative access. It’s a brilliant system. You should’ve heard the way Samantha gushed about it.”

“Sounds like a lot of effort for an infiltration and rescue. This is a recon operation,” Shepard posited.

She’d seen enough of them herself to know. She also knew recon operations didn’t happen by chance – this had been staged. She swallowed a groan. Aria, Samara, Kysi, Chen: all pawns in the Council’s grand game of chess. As if reading her mind, Liara said under her breath,

“The Councilors make their moves in the shadows of their actions. We’d be wise to take a few steps back and study the board before advancing.”

Before Shepard could fully stew in that thought, the comm crackled to life.

“Boots are on the ground two klicks south of the server. The defense system is offline. We move on your command, Shepard.”

>>>>>>>

Garrus crawled up to the edge of the plateau and looked out through the scope of his rifle. With the turrets offline, the batarians had approached all the way up to the first landing of the server. From here, Garrus could see three trucks full of them, a manned mako, and a few top-brass types poking around the turret controls. They’d never override Tali’s lockdown, at least not before they’d be killed. Garrus could take out at least six of them now in the time it’d take for one of the bastards to blink all four of his eyes. But he waited. Observed.

They’d had a hard enough time picking through the raiders undetected on their approach, and he wouldn’t blow it now. He counted eighteen. Not impossible, but a hell of a lot harder than the scattered bands of five or six. He was about to slide away from the edge when he saw one of the batarians (Eclipse, captain armor) motion to one of the raiders in the truck. In response, two of the men began hauling crates out of the mako and lining them up along the outer wall. Garrus hissed and shoved back from the cliff.

Kaidan hitched his arms across his chest, his brows co*cked as to ask for the go-ahead, but Garrus merely shook his head and brought his omni-tool up to his chin.

“I’m counting eighteen and a mako at the entrance. They don’t know we’re here. I’d move forward, but it looks like they’re unloading explosives. We need a distraction,” Garrus said, half to Shepard, half to his squad mates.

“What’s your position?”

“The highest plateau overlooking the front turrets.”

“You need those turrets online. Do you have cover?”

“Not enough. At least not enough that we can engage with the turrets active.”

Garrus looked over at the couple of crumpled geth armatures and wished for the first time in his life that they weren’t inoperable. Tali said a geth unit had come online, but that clearly had no influence over the corpses scattered through the desert. Red dust reclaimed the ruined plating, crusted over the surface of the extinguished light.

“If we get close enough to fire, we’ll only draw attention. What about the mako?” Shepard asked.

Kasumi stepped past Kaidan, brushing along his stiff back to place herself in front of Garrus. He looked at her, then out past the cliff. He studied the blank horizon for a moment before looking at her with a crooked, toothy grin as a plan manifested wordlessly between them.

“We’ll follow that lead. I’ll let you know when we’ve succeeded.”

“The sun still hasn’t fully risen. There’s just enough darkness that I can hijack the mako and blow them all to smithereens,” Kasumi said, her heart fluttering. Garrus nodded as she spoke.

“It’s just crazy enough that you might be able to pull it off. If anything goes wrong, I’ll keep at a good range for sniping. Alenko, Javik, I need you flanking at a distance in case a firefight breaks out before Goto has the controls,” Garrus instructed. He felt Shepard listening in, her silence the best approval he could ask for.

“You sure about this? What about those explosives?” Kaidan asked.

“If those crates are full of explosives, we’re left with no other options except to have Tali bring the defense turrets online and hope we’re out of range. We’re not dealing with any auto-targeting turrets either – those are heat-seeking missile launchers. I’d wager they’re pretty damn accurate at this range.”

“Rock and a hard place. So be it. Let’s not waste anymore of this darkness then,” Kaidan acquiesced.

They trekked back along the plateau’s ridge until they found the path that led them up, only instead of dipping back into the canyon, they twined along the switchbacks guiding them closer to the server. At a certain point, the batarians’ guttural voices could be picked up across the stone and sand, and if Garrus slid up to the edge of the lowest plateau, he was all but on top of them. To their right, the path meandered down a steep slope. At the bottom of that slope, there was one final rocky outcropping, just big enough to obscure three figures from being detected just meters away from the batarians.

Garrus pointed them along and propped himself on his elbows as comfortably as he could so he could position the nose of his rifle just over the lip of the cliff. It wasn’t as far as he liked for long-range sniping, but it was as far as he’d let himself get from the action. It was the middle ground between himself and Shepard. Nothing would ever beat unseen assassination – at least not in terms of fun – but fun didn’t play a part in command. Not for Garrus. He could almost hear Shepard start to protest across the distance.

Below, the others hurried to the rocks and slid behind them, holding their breaths until they were sure that they’d remained undetected. The muffled conversation continued, punctuating by the sound of huffing and shuffling as the raiders continued unloading the mako.

Kasumi took three breaths with her back to the final rocky cover – three breaths for her heart to find its footing in her chest – before she activated her cloak. She vaulted over the rocks, landing silently on the balls of her feet mere meters from the first truck of batarians. One of them scanned the area, but his eyes of course saw nothing, not even with the advantage of having four. She measured her breath as she flickered around the edge of the group, careful not to get too sure of herself. Stealth was never won by speed. As she ghosted carefully among them, her ears prickled at the words falling like raindrops around her.

“… in these damn crates? Who did you say sent them?”

“All I know is they’re f*cking heavy. Waste of time. There’s nothing out here…”

“Enough! You weren’t hired to complain anymore than I was hired to drive you all into the nearest ocean. Is that all of them?”

Kasumi pressed against one of the mako’s gargantuan wheels, hoping it wouldn’t move anytime soon. She detected that the gunner and driver were still inside, awaiting orders to move, though the hatch on the other side was still open. The gruff one, the one in charge, stomped over the mako and looked inside. If Kasumi were to reach around the tire, she could graze his gun with her fingers. Not yet. Not yet. Kasumi took three breaths and listened.

“Good. Move the mako to the building’s entrance and await my orders.”

Kasumi rolled out of the way just as the mako roared to life and shuddered forward across the landing. She ducked around the nearest truck – empty save one sullen looking raider – and watched the mako roll to a stop at the entrance and point the cannon at the door. Now. She had to go now.

Going against her instinct to move slow and listen to whatever conversation transpired among the leaders, Kasumi dashed forward, flying past them and bracing herself again against one of the mako’s wheels. The entire vehicle rumbled against her now. She wasn’t sure how long she had until the one in charge stopped moving his mouth parts – she still didn’t have time to tune in and listen – but she also wasn’t sure how to get inside the mako without one of the doors being opened. If she opened it herself, she’d be detected. She racked her brain for a solution, all the while becoming aware that the leader’s tone indicated he was winding down. Responses clipped. Questions turned into commands. Time between words shortened, as did the time between breaths.

In the span of a heartbeat and a half, Kasumi yanked her boot from her foot, slid beneath the mako, and crammed the boot as far into one of the exhaust vents as she could. Her lungs filled with fumes and she could feel pressure building in her chest as she held her breath and swallowed the coughs that scratched at her throat. The mako continued to purr, unchanged by her action. Another boot, another vent. Finally, after a few very long seconds, the mako sputtered deeply and curses sounded within. All eyes snapped to the mako.

One of the doors flung open and the leader stormed over, shouting unintelligibly beneath the sound of Kasumi’s heart in her throat. In the same second that the raider ducked under the mako to locate the blockage, Kasumi scrambled like a spider into the mako’s interior, very nearly colliding with the gunner’s body as he thrust himself out with a gasp. She didn’t have time to close the doors, nor did she have time to wait for the gunner to gather his breath before she shoved him out of the way and threw herself behind the gun controls.

The instant explosion of heavy fire and confused shouting made the last few seconds feel like hours in comparison. She hardly had time to aim, only being sure to swing the cannon away from the doors and across the sudden blur of batarians launching themselves towards the mako. She felt the gunner tug at her leg and a cry left her throat as her cloaks failed to obscure her. However, as soon as his eyes widened upon seeing Kasumi for the first time, a bullet whizzed from the distance and ripped through the center of his brain. The gunner collapsed on Kasumi’s lap, his grip slack, and she returned her attention to the cannon’s controls.

It was over almost as soon as it began, with a final splash of green and blue biotics and Garrus’ rifle crashing down on the skull of a batarian trying to crawl away at the edge of the slaughter. Silence for a moment, and then Kasumi let out a small, victorious giggle as she slid out from under the crushing weight of the dead batarian in her lap. Kaidan was there in an instant, appearing as if from smoke, and offered his hand to help her leap down from the tall vehicle. Her bare toes gingerly plucked at the debris and blood littering the ground until she found a suitable patch to rest her full weight.

“You owe me new boots, Shepard,” Kasumi said over the comm, and Garrus strode up to clap a hand on her back. “Better than the ones I just lost getting your boyfriend out of this alive.”

“You’ll have to explain that one for me when you’re back on deck. Right now, I need you to get inside and get Tali ready for evac. Cortez, I’m going to need you at the rendezvous in five.”

“Roger that, Commander. Taking off now.”

Garrus paced forward to the hangar door and tapped his omni-tool to the control panel. The server was still under lock-down and he didn’t have time to figure out the override. He opened his messages and pinged Tali.

Special delivery. I left it at the front door. No rush.

Once Kasumi had her balance, Kaidan took back his hand and rubbed it at the base of his neck. He’d have a killer migraine in about an hour if the glow filtering over everything meant anything. Squinting against the aura, he backed away from Kasumi and the steadily rising sun and slid back against the wall, banging his elbow on the corner of a metal crate. The pain shooting up his arm only compounded with the pain mounting in his brain. And to think, they were supposed to get back on the Normandy and join the Fifth Fleet after all this. He straightened his arm out and this time rested his hand on the crate before flinching away again, remembering that it probably contained explosives.

It probably contained explosives.

Kaidan staggered back, eyes wide as he scrambled across the ground away from the unassuming boxes stacked along the wall. The shock, it seemed, had very nearly dislodged the knives twisting in his skull when Javik strode right past him and kicked the crate. Kaidan flinched, expecting an explosion, but got only the ringing of cheap metal on a steel toe. Just like that, the knives were back in his brain and his vision blurred.

“What the hell! Are you trying to get us killed?” Kaidan shouted.

Javik tilted his head as if shrugging off an afterthought and kicked the crate again, harder. A hollow thrum resonated along the aluminum edges. When Javik brought his boot back a third time, Kaidan launched forward and caught his ankle, stopping the third impact that he felt sure would end with their guts plastered across the canyon, or at least with Kaidan’s brain leaking out of his tear ducts. Javik shook out of his grip easily, but not without baring his teeth in annoyance.

“Hey, maybe Kaidan is right and you shouldn’t go kicking mysterious, potentially lethal boxes,” Kasumi suggested all too casually. She would have stepped forward to help Kaidan to his feet, but she wasn’t terribly inclined to leave the patch of safety with no shoes.

“They’re not explosives,” Javik murmured, this time crouching down and hovering his hand around the sides of a crate. “No, no. Not explosives.”

Tali messaged back that the lockdown override would take a minute to complete, so Garrus paced back to the side of the building to update the others and set a lookout for the Kodiak. When he turned the corner, Kaidan was struggling off the ground and lurching towards Javik, whose hand drifted precariously close to the latch of one of the crates. Before Garrus could even open his mouth to speak, he felt it. It silenced him – seized his throat, locked his tongue. Whispers slithered through the imperceptible gaps in the metal joinings. It pulsed through him. It sensed him.

We meet again.

At the exact moment that Javik flipped open the lid, Garrus’ bullets seared into the unholy opening, whizzing dangerously close to Javik’s knuckles and exploding the contents with a shatter of turquoise mist and oily omnipresence. He hadn’t even been aware when he pulled the trigger, though as soon as he destroyed the contents of one crate, he was moving onto the next. He didn’t even open them – didn’t want to risk it – as he blindly sprayed bullets through the thin metal. His clip dropped out, emptied, and he fumbled to find another.

Meanwhile, Kasumi stepped out of her patch of safety to get a closer look at the ruin of blue and green glass inside the first crate. Kaidan felt his implant sear like a cattle prod to the point of blindness, even as he reached forward to pull Kasumi back – reached forward to follow the promise of darkness. Javik, however, felt a slippery expanse of grey – a familiar cold, though he couldn’t place just where he’d felt it first – and as Garrus fumbled with his spent clip, he moved over to the last untouched crate and opened it, revealing the unshattered surface of an orb containing a shrieking void of swirling blue and black and green. His hand extended as if moved by a spirit to caress the unblinking omniscience, the very image of a forgotten home world, when an explosion overhead sent them all careening back and into their senses.

“I repeat, batarian gunships inbound! Ground team, do you copy?! Take cover immediately! I can’t hold them off forever!”

Vega’s voice floated into their earpieces, ebbing into their senses first as a buzz and then as the urgent shout that it was. Like a flash of lightning, the Kodiak dipped overhead, cannons firing out at two gunships. As the ships arced over their heads, trails of bullets laced like filigree over the ground. Gathering each other in a lurch of panic and confusion, they flung themselves around the corner to the hangar doors as a unit, the doors sliding open just in time for them to crash inside, breathless and dazed.

“What the hell is going on out there?” Tali asked, not bothering to look at her friends as she reimplemented the lockdown. When no one responded immediately, she finally turned. No one looked at her. Garrus and Kaidan shared a hollow stare, Kasumi curled around herself on the ground, and Javik just glowered at the door. Tali reiterated the question, but fear had overtaken her voice. A prickle rose the hair at the nape of her neck.

“The ah… they were unloading the orbs,” Kaidan said. Tali squinted.

“Orbs?”

This time, Garrus met her confused gaze, his face twisted and grim, and he didn’t need to say anything for Tali to suddenly recall the orbs they’d found on Despoina. The ones that had been dispersed behind enemy lines and subsequently forgotten. The ones that felt like they were watching, listening, feeding. She stepped away from the door.

“Please tell me you destroyed them,” she said, voice low.

“I think so. I think I got them all,” Garrus replied.

“Ground team, this is Cortez. I’ve got one gunship down, but I have to draw the other one out of here. I’ve got a feeling this is only the beginning, so you need to get to the rendezvous stat. When I come back, we need to leave fast.”

Tali glanced back at the sealed door and shivered, not feeling confident with Garrus’ response. They’d been around them before and been fine – why did she suddenly feel less keen on repeating the experience? She recalled the conversation she’d had with Garrus about Shepard wanting to go back, about how she believed the Leviathans were calling her, speaking to her; Garrus must have been thinking about that, too, because he looked positively disturbed.

“Ah! You’ve all made it! You have no idea how glad I am to see you,” Kal’Reegar entered the atrium, pulling EDI’s body behind him on a makeshift sled. Jor’Tal clunked behind him, glowing emptily at the newcomers.

Garrus jumped when he saw the geth, alive in every way except for its eerie calm. The more he stared at it, the more he felt like it wasn’t all there; it seemed more machine than AI. It said nothing, did nothing, except walk over to Tali and hover behind her.

“I’m glad to see you’re both alive,” Kaidan said, trying to bring some feeling back to the inner part of his brain; something in that flesh had gone numb. “We’ve hit a bit of a snare. The Kodiak is tied up with a gunship that came out of nowhere, so we need to get outside and hold our ground until we get a window.”

“Yeah we heard that part. I kept trying to reach you, but you dipped out for about a minute and now you’re here,” Tali said, realizing now that the lost minute must be tied to the mind-control orbs just outside. Because of course they are. “We might be better off getting a ride from the roof. We can take the elevator.”

“Someone want to tell me why we’d do that if there’s still a gunship on the loose?” Kal asked. He looked back and forth between Garrus and Tali, who were seemingly lost in a silent conversation.

“There are Leviathan mind-control weapons outside your front door. We take the elevator to the roof,” Javik stated.

Kal’Reegar looked to Tali for elaboration, but she just shook her head, her breaths shallow. She put a hand to her chest before pushing through them to the elevators. Garrus nodded and lifted his omni-tool.

“Change of plans. We’re going to the roof for pick-up. What’s your status, Cortez?”

“Gunship number two is down, but we have a problem. Well a few.” It was Vega who spoke this time. “We’re picking up more coming this way and we’ve lost contact with the Normandy. Any chance you’re able to get through?”

Garrus stopped in his tracks and checked his channel status. His mandibles flattened against his jaw as he read that all lines were open but realized he hadn’t heard from Shepard since they took out the batarians. She should’ve said something by now. Someone should’ve said something by now.

“Normandy? Shepard? Do you copy?” he asked, unable to hide the panic in his voice. “Solana?”

The line returned nothing. Silence and a green light indicating that communication was still up and running. He tried again, only to be continuously met by the indifferent crackling of absence. His mind raced as he tried to make sense of it, but all that came back was white hot panic and that strange chill still embedded behind his eyes.

>>>>>>>

“Cortez, I’m going to need you at the rendezvous in five,” Shepard ordered.

She folded her arms over her chest and turned away from the monitor. It wouldn’t do good now, especially since her general unease was growing despite the fact that the mission was going about as well as it could. She could always chalk it up to her frustration at being remote, but then why had it swept over her so suddenly just as things appeared to be falling into place? In no more than twenty minutes, the Kodiak would be safely stowed in the Normandy and she could rest easy knowing her friends were out of harm’s way. Shepard thought she heard the light tinkling of ice in a glass and whipped around. Liara stared at her from across the hub, her lips parted. Shepard glanced around, attempting to breathe back the spike in adrenaline, but saw nothing, heard nothing, that indicated anything was out of place.

“Did you say something?” Shepard asked.

“I asked if you’re alright. You look pale. Perhaps you should sit down,” Liara suggested, her brows bent.

Electra shook her head, but sat anyway, as if the very act of shaking her head stirred up the particles of the room. In the back of her mind, something began to slip, and just under her thoughts, the word no began to beat against a slither of something cold. Just five minutes, four now, and Cortez would call Joker for pick-up. Come to think of it, had Shepard eaten anything since waking up? She couldn’t recall her last meal and tried backing up through her memories, rebounding at odd angles every time she encountered the encroaching grey. She looked up at Liara, but she too had taken on a haunted aura.

“We aren’t alone, are we?” Liara asked.

“Liara, you need to get to the bridge. Get Joker to take us in now. Something’s wrong,” Electra said, trying to stand but finding herself pinned to the ground.

Liara began to move, lurching at first to get started, when a voice pulsed throughout the ship – through the tender folds of their minds – freezing her to the spot and forcing her head into her hands.

The darkness has been breached.

Electra dragged herself to her hands and knees and began to crawl towards Liara, who gripped at her scalp and staggered in place. Wherever Shepard touched, grey mist lapped up from the floor and sifted around her skin, whispering. She began to count. One – she pulled herself up on one of the terminals, swiping her hand over the controls but seeing no change to the screen, as if she was a ghost. Two, three – Liara managed to look up, but she didn’t see anything. No void, no space, no room, no figure. Only an unending grey. It pulled her through a tube. Shepard ignored the small hand trying to pull her back to the floor, straining towards her friend.

This world does not belong to you.

Shepard called out – no words, only whatever sound she could manage – but when it echoed back to her, she knew it had gone unheard. Red sparks flickered around her fingers as she grasped at the ground, but ultimately, she was powerless in the face of the unending grey. She always was, always had been. She knew this. She couldn’t even find a reason that she still tried to move forward. She reached out through the tunnel of color still existing on one end before everything snapped closed and expanded endlessly all at once. Four. A distant and low keen like a series of mangled church bells swept across the slate.

I am the master of your undoing.

Chapter 28: Undone

Chapter Text

Amber liquid sparkled in the glass before her. The rich, smoky aroma hit her nose and conjured the image of a man’s firelit silhouette. Broad shoulders, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, hand gripped around a crystal glass she wasn’t allowed to touch. Shepard didn’t often think of her father, not even when she ordered his favorite libation. The glass in front of her was plain glass, not the delicately cut crystal. No, that had been shattered in the raid, just two days after he finally let her have a sip of his drink on her sixteenth birthday. She remembered hating it. Too strong, like fire in her throat. His silhouette turned, revealing the pale crescent of a silver iris lit like a Mindoir sunrise.

“So as I was saying, the Citadel arms were closing. The shaking shattered damn near every glass in the bar. I cut myself pretty good getting out of here,” the bartender’s voice broke through Shepard’s reverie, drawing her eyes up to her face. Pretty, Shepard thought, but only for the warmth. Pretty in a maternal way that put Electra at ease.

“What happened next? After the arms closed?” Shepard asked.

“I got home as fast as I could. To the Tayseri Ward. That’s a long way from the Presidium, but I’m a mother – no distance is too far for a mother. I have two daughters, thirteen and three. They were terrified, confused, and what’s worse is I couldn’t even tell them what was going on. I was scared, too. And then there was all the blood from my cuts – it was a mess. But we were together. If not for that, I don’t think we would have made it through the next 24 hours. Do you know, Commander, what happened down here when those arms were closed?”

Shepard shook her head. She hadn’t ever thought about it, those hours that the Citadel was sealed and the conduit open to Earth. She actively avoided it – the bodies piled on bodies, the silence, the rusty smell of burned blood permeating every surface.

“Complete pandemonium, that’s what happened. People panicked; C-Sec was overrun in a matter of hours. I mean, they didn’t know what to do in that event, they didn’t train for this, and every ward was crawling with Reapers. Best I could do was arm myself and my older girl. Tessa,” the bartender smiled as she said her name. “Couldn’t ask for a braver girl than my Tessa. She didn’t cry, didn’t complain. She remembered everything me and her father taught her and when the Reapers got to our block, she didn’t miss.”

“She sounds like a little badass,” Shepard said.

“Oh, she is. But she’s still a child, and we weren’t well-armed. I’m just glad you got there when you did. When the arms opened, the Reapers fell back. We’d made it with only four shots to spare between us. Four! You know, I’ve often wondered what happened in those moments before the blast. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but I figure since you’re here, I might never get a chance like this again.”

Shepard ducked her head to escape the bartender’s unfaltering gaze. It was an innocent question – a survivor trying to find clarity, something Shepard understood better than most – but Shepard’s mouth dried up on the spot. Her mind went blank and cold, and her shoes suddenly felt too small. She tried wiggling her toes, but her pumps had her feet in a vice grip. She brought the drink to her lips but hesitated as soon as the scotch touched teeth.

“I wish I could tell you,” Electra said against the rim of the glass. “I do. But to be perfectly honest, I don’t remember what happened. Sorry.”

“Don’t be. Whatever you did, it saved a lot of lives. Saved life as we know it,” she reassured. “It was worth a shot though, right? I wish I could tell Tess why I’m not coming home.”

Shepard looked up with frown. The bartender had turned to stack a glass behind the bar, and Shepard had to stifle a gasp at the sight of rebar impaling her through her ruined shirt. Blood soaked the tattered fabric; holes revealed skin so burned and mangled that it hardly looked like skin. When the bartender turned back to her, half of her face was melted beyond recognition and her eye spilled like runny yolk down her blackened cheek. Her calm expression flickered.

“Is something the matter? You’ve barely touched your drink. I can get you something else if you’re not satisfied. On the house, of course.”

As she said this, Shepard gave a quick sweep of the area – people meandered around the bar, dresses swishing along the polished floor. A few were openly staring at her, as if waiting for her to speak. One woman tipped her glass in her direction. It was somehow better to look back at the walking corpse in front of her, so she quickly turned around and took a healthy swig from her glass. It burned just the way her father burned two days after her sixteenth birthday.

“Your daughter. Tessa. Where is she now?”

“She’s still here, all thanks to you. She’s living with her aunt in Aroch. You know, she told me she wants to be just like you when she grows up. She’ll probably stumble in her maiden years –who doesn’t? – but with her aim and resolve, I see Spectre written all over her. You should hear how she goes on and on about that day the arms opened. I bet if she knew how you did it, this world wouldn’t be so scary. It’d be the inspiration she needed to really apply herself and get into a good academy. Maybe even bypass the drinking and dancing and prostitution and smuggling and atrophy she’s bound to cling to when she tries to understand what she did to end up all alone.”

As the asari spoke, blood gushed from the singed holes in her cheek. The smile she offered only carried over one side of her face.

“I told you I don’t remember,” Shepard said, her voice cracking. She finished her drink, her hand shaking as she set the glass back down. The bartender poured another finger.

“But you do, don’t you? You were just telling me about it. You went up the beam, you defeated the Illusive Man, and then you opened the Citadel arms. It’s a shame about Anderson. Maybe if you’d gotten there sooner, he’d be here right now. Maybe my Thalia would be here, too. Oh, I didn’t mention her, did I? She didn’t make it in time to see those arms open. You see, I couldn’t both hold her and shoot, and she was too little to understand that hiding only worked if she didn’t cry. A husk found her before I could reload my clip. I didn’t even see it happen. One second she was crying, and the next she wasn’t. You have no idea what that kind of silence does to a mother, Commander. And for all the sound that filled my 344 years – the laughter, the screams, the first little breath my daughter took after leaving my body – I can’t get that wretched, ugly silence out of my head. I didn’t even hear when Tessa shouted at me to take cover as the entirety of Tayseri shattered. I had my back turned, waiting for that smear of blood on the floor to start crying. Waiting for my thoughts to start turning, for my world to start turning…”

Shepard practically jumped out of her seat, spilling the drink and stumbling back. She reeled as she searched around the bar for an exit, but the crowd pushed endlessly back into the neon, endlessly back into the jazz. The more her eyes passed over the shifting mass of people, the more she saw slips of charred skin and twisted limbs. Arms bent at odd angles and bloody holes where hearts used to beat. When she dared look back at the bartender, she’d set another glass on the bar and was pouring another drink.

“I can’t tell you! I’ve told you everything I can, okay? Isn’t that enough?” Electra begged.

The bartender kept pouring until the scotch ran over the edge of the glass and spilled out onto the bar. Her eyes were fixed on Shepard, even as she backed away.

“Ask Thalia if it’s enough. Ask Anderson. Ask Jenkins and Williams and Solus and your father and your mother and…”

Shepard turned and tucked herself into the crowd. The further she pushed into the bodies, the denser they became, crushing around her and grabbing at her as she twisted around them. Familiar faces flashed through her periphery, faces of villains and ghosts and monsters. She began to sob, panic stretching up through her core, when a tiny hand gripped hers and began to pull her through the mass faster than her feet could. A stitch seared in her side and her ankles wobbled in her stupid shoes. As the invisible guide moved faster, her ankle twisted and she careened forward, eyes squeezing shut as she braced for impact.

Her hands caught her before her face hit the ground, and she simply panted for a moment, lowering herself to her side and curling inward as she waited for the crowd to suffocate her. But there were no legs stumbling over her, nor voices nor jazz to be heard. When she opened her eyes, she saw only a blur of glowing shapes through her tears. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, allowing her to see that the shapes were cubes. Orange and yellow and red, all chained together in endless patterns around her. She rested on a flat, illuminated square, just big enough to hold her safely above the void. Footsteps sounded behind her and she twisted around to find a chrome hand extended towards her. She followed the robotic arm up to the blinding light of a geth unit’s face. When it didn’t drop the hand, she took it and allowed the geth to help her to her feet. Upon standing, she realized she was naked and snapped her hand back to cover herself, but the geth didn’t seem to care. It simply turned and followed a path that lifted out of nothing.

Checking around once more to make sure the bar wasn’t lurking in the distance, she began to follow the geth.

“Where am I?” she asked. She thought it looked like the geth consensus, but that didn’t feel right.

“There isn’t much time, Shepard Commander. Our existence is in peril and there’s only so much time before they notice you’re missing,” it spoke.

“Before who notices?”

“Your keepers,” it replied. As if Electra was supposed to know what that meant. She clasped her arms around her exposed breasts tighter and skipped forward to close the gap.

The geth halted suddenly, Shepard almost running into it, and pointed up at an isolated cluster of cubes. The light within pulsed when Shepard looked at it, and a path extended across the distance, right to an opening at the heart of the cluster. Whispers beckoned through the opening, wrapping around her like a gale. She stepped out onto the path, walking a short distance before she realized the geth stayed behind. When she turned to look back, the tiles she’d already crossed were gone, leaving an uncrossable span between them.

“Why aren’t you coming?” she asked.

“The door opens for you alone. I will be here as I have been. Waiting.”

Shepard nodded and continued on the path until she stood before a shuttered door. A door she knew like the back of her hand yet had regardless been forgotten. A light on the lock panel turned green and the door slid open, allowing her to pass through.

The home she grew up in was nice by Mindoir standards. A few weathered couches were angled around a fireplace and they had a full-sized kitchen with a bar and an island. There was even enough room for a small dining table. The hall leading back to the bedrooms was dark. Her father sat in his recliner with his back to her, silhouetted by the roaring fire. She aimed herself for the hall, pulling the baggy sweater tight around her petite frame as she tried to shrink past him.

“You’re home late. Let me guess – you were out with that Sterling boy again. Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“I wasn’t with Luke. I was training with Brin. And it’s 23:06,” Shepard replied, the words tumbling out of her. She hardly recognized her voice, but she recognized the lie. Apparently so did her father, because he swiveled around and raised his brows. His face was laced with wrinkles, the most prominent being the deep groove between his eyes.

“Spare me, girl. You’re old enough now to know better. Or at least lie better,” he sighed. It sounded like wind teasing dry wheat from the chaff. He beckoned for her to join him and her feet obliged, carrying her over to one of the couches. She slid out of her boots and tucked her feet underneath her.

“Luke’s a good guy, dad. I don’t get why you don’t like him,” she grumbled.

“I don’t like him because he’s eighteen and doesn’t seem to have anything better to do than keep my daughter out late and miss his shifts at the factory. I ran into his dad today and we had a very good talk. I learned that Luke’s on probation for missing minimum productivity. Any more slacking off and he’ll be sent to the eezo mines like some common thug.”

"The same eezo mines where you met mom?" she snapped.

"The very same. I'm speaking from experience, girl. At least then there were good opportunities to work your way up. Before we knew the consequences - when eezo mining was honest, valued labor. Now, those mines are punishment for underachieving sad sacks and thugs. A step above prison."

“Just because someone doesn’t want to assemble prefabs and farming equipment doesn’t make them a thug! I bet his dad didn’t mention that he’s an amazing artist. Did he? Or that he’s organizing an colony artist collective, all on his own. It's not his fault the colony doesn't value things like art and culture. He’s not a slacker or a thug. He just wants something more.”

“Oh, I’ll bet he does, El. I know exactly what boys like that want,” her dad snapped. He followed it with a sigh and a sip of his drink. “Look, you’re sixteen now. Academy applications are coming up. I just don’t want you wasting your time.”

“I’m not…”

“And I don’t want you out late. You know your curfew. Slavers attacked the colony on Lilith just two days ago. 3000 dead or missing. I want to know where you are so I can protect you.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with Luke,” she muttered, staring down at her lap.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with him. It has to do with you, sweetheart," he said, the grooves in his face smoothing as his expression relaxed for the first time that night.

"What about me? I'm trying to live my life. Not yours. Mine."

Her dad chuckled darkly, shaking his head. He turned to look back at the fire, clucking his tongue before continuing.

"Your life doesn't belong to you, but you'll find that out soon enough. Comes with age. And you're a child. So let me break things down for you, Electra the wise: It has to do with me preventing you from staying out late tomorrow, so you’re home when the slavers arrive. It has to do with me being able to hold them off long enough for the Alliance to arrive and save you. It has to do with you trying to drink these memories into oblivion and failing, so you find something stronger than any spirit – the feeling of a bullet piercing someone’s skull – and you chase that dragon so far that you rewrite the entire galaxy just so you can keep on doing it, keep on running. It has to do with your destiny, Electra.”

The room tilted as he stood from the chair and walked to the fire. She knew those weren’t words taken from the memory, and as they were uttered, the scene began shifting into something else entirely. He gazed at the fire through the scotch in his glass before tossing it into the flames, which flared up in response and began licking up his hand. He didn’t flinch as the fire engulfed his skin, as his flesh dropped away and sizzled on the grate. Shepard didn’t move either. She was too entranced by the sliver of his visage, his eyes identical to her own that she wished would just look at her. Just one more time.

“My destiny,” she choked on the word. “I should’ve never run. I should’ve stayed and fought. It’s my fault you’re dead. My fault. I needed you.”

“No, you didn’t. You never did. In fact, you needed me to die so you could save yourself a life of chasing after boys like Luke with dreams bigger than your own. You needed a good enough reason to stare down the biggest goddamn dragon the world has ever known and tell it to f*ck off. You needed the years of loneliness and hours of relentless training, something you never would have chosen if you never felt like you had to. So yeah, you needed me to die. And you needed it to be so crushing that you tried to forget.”

The flames climbed higher up his arm, ensconcing his skin and leaving only his somber face to stare wistfully into nothing.

“I never forgot you,” she whispered.

“Now what did we say about lying? It’s okay. I’m not mad. I could never be mad at you, my ferocious little thing. Your mother and I knew you were special. Just wish I could've stuck around to see it through,” he said. He still wouldn’t look at her, so Electra stood and tried to get closer. As she did, tiles of floor fell out all around her, revealing grey void beneath. "Before you disappear forever, I want you to tell me something."

“Anything.”

Finally, he turned his face, silver eyes a reflection eternal. Shepard reached out to touch him, but her fingers found her own tear-streaked cheeks.

“I want you to tell me what the hell happened on the crucible. Because I was never supposed to see my little girl all grown up, and yet here you are. So what the hell did you do?”

The flames swept over his face, and his flesh caught up with the ruin. Shrieks of agony tore out of him and his writhing body fell to the floor. Ruined hands reached out towards her – no, pointed past her to the back door, now lit at the end of the long hallway. Just enough light to see her mother’s feet sticking out of a doorway in a pool of blood. Shepard turned back to her father, her tears nearly blinding her; everything was blurred by a crimson aura.

“I chose to destroy! I destroyed all of them! Destroy!”

Her words did nothing, changed nothing. The stench of cooked flesh slammed into her senses, overwhelming her with a wave of nausea, and a fist began pounding at the door. She turned and ran, leaping over her mother’s feet and barreling towards the back door, following the sound of screams and choppers. Her last word rang in her head as she ran, shook her bones and chattered her teeth. She flew through the threshold and stumbled as she saw not ruin and not stars, but the long halls of the Citadel piled high with corpses.

Shepard’s chest heaved as she took in her new surroundings, but she didn’t assign any particular emotion to the scene other than vague remembrance. All she could think was that her body felt as though it belonged to a stranger, had felt that way for a long time. Her legs gave out beneath her and she began to sob.

“Get up. We’re close.”

The geth from before stood beside her, yet again offering a hand.

“I can’t do it. Please don’t make me do it again,” she begged, refusing to stand. She didn’t recognize her voice, instead hearing the voice of the little girl she thought she buried.

“There is no choice. Remembering is critical to our survival.”

“Just… don’t make me see him. Not like that. Please.”

The geth co*cked its head before the scene shifted. This time she sat at the back of a walkway. Ahead of her, a white beam seared her vision. Blue and red lit pillars sat on either side. The geth still stood beside her, but no longer offered a hand. Its eye was tracking something moving to Shepard’s left, and she followed it just as a battered figure limped past her.

It was her.

And beside her, a shimmering blue child appeared and began to speak. The Catalyst. Shepard looked up at her geth companion, mouth agape.

“How is this happening? How am I seeing this?”

“Do not speak. Remember.”

Electra turned her attention back to the conversation between herself and the Catalyst and she listened to the words passing between them as if for the first time. Each time the other Electra spoke, she found herself mouthing along the response. No, not the first time. This was a memory, after all, and it could be no one else’s except her own. As the conversation drew closer to what she knew was the end, she struggled to find the words. If she tried to project herself past this scene, her brain rerouted her to the present, as if blocked by an invisible psychic barrier.

“Data insufficient,” the geth said, though she couldn’t be sure if the words were for her ears.

Shepard pushed to her feet and approached herself. Neither other Shepard nor the Catalyst acknowledged her, and when she reached out to touch her shoulder, her fingers passed through the flesh with a slight stirring of grey mist that settled once she retracted her hand. A ghost.

“You’re asking me to change everything, everyone. I can’t make that decision. And I won’t,” the other Shepard said. Electra nodded along as if she understood.

“Why not? Synthetics are already part of you. Can you imagine your life without them?” The Catalyst replied.

“That is beside the point.”

“Your time is at an end. You must decide.”

“Let’s get this over with.”

“Do what you must.”

At this point, other Shepard moved away, staggering before heading off to the right, to the red. Electra followed as if her shadow, feeling mostly satisfied with the way the image fit together. She could see it now – her gun raising, her finger pulling the trigger again and again, and then… then she awoke at Huerta.

“This isn’t how it ends,” she whispered. As soon as she did, other Shepard froze mid-step.

“No, it isn’t,” her father’s voice. She searched for it, but he was no where to be seen.

“Tell us what really happened.” This time, Anderson. “Show us.”

Shepard squeezed her fists and walked back to the Catalyst, who now registered her presence. The geth stepped closer, and the stars watched like a hundred thousand eyes lost in the trenches of her memory.

“You hesitate,” the Catalyst stated, “Why?”

“Because you haven’t told me everything. You know about my child, my son, don’t you? He should be impossible, and yet I conceived him. I’ve seen his face. How?”

“Processes you would not understand.”

“Try me,” she growled.

“You are not alone. My creators have been watching since the moment you encountered them. Even now, they listen. They manipulate the fabric of space and time to hold you in their sights, and they have twisted your own matter against you to achieve these ends. Your body is not your own. It belonged to them the moment you stepped foot on their planet.”

“Bullsh*t,” Electra spat. “You’re lying.”

“You are doing everything as they have planned – you intend to destroy me, as they have planned, and you will die in the process. Your child is a result of their tampering, a mistake meant to be erased with your destruction. They made your matter malleable, allowing a seed to grow. You weren’t supposed to ever know. You were supposed to heed them and destroy the Reapers, all while believing it was your choice all along. Tell me, did you at any point consider the other options laid out before you? Did you hesitate before raising your weapon?”

Electra shook her head; she couldn’t fight the cold seeping into the gaps in her body.

“So if what you’re saying is true – if this really isn’t my choice, and it’s theirs – then why are you telling me now? If these are my only options, why say any of this at all? What’s the point?”

“Because now, another outcome exists in which you don’t die. In this outcome, you rewrite organic life. You take control of your matter and your mind and you take from my creators what they never meant to give. New variables create new options, only now, the choice is truly yours.”

“How?”

“You merge with me.”

“How is that different from merging all life with synthetics?”

“By merging with me, your altered organic matter will overwrite my programming, making it possible for you to create whatever outcome you desire through the power of the crucible. In all other scenarios, this option could not exist, but my creators have made an error. They opened your mind and forgot to close it when they were done. As it is, you have travelled through a dimension outside of time and space to find me and ask these questions, all for a child that was never meant to exist. There is nothing synthetic about what you’ve gone through to get here.”

“How… how will I know what to do? How do I know this isn’t their choice?”

Before the Catalyst could answer, the geth stepped forward.

“You’re out of time, Shepard Commander. They have arrived,” it spoke. Its tone couldn’t convey the urgency of the message, but its eye flickered. The backdrop of ruin among stars flickered gray in tandem, and those cold fingers began to squeeze her mind. Pain shot through her core; she flinched but resisted the urge to fall to her knees.

“How does a butterfly know to fly south after forming into a chrysalis and growing wings from goo?”

Her surroundings flickered again, and Shepard heard a shot fire to her left. When she looked over, other Shepard was moving again. Out of time.

“Do it. Merge with me,” she urged, thrusting her hand to the Catalyst. “Now!”

The Catalyst placed his tiny hand in hers just as the last bullet broke through the protective barrier around the pillar. In an instant, Shepard became sundered, her matter being vaporized by the explosion in the exact moment each fiber of her scattered soul became energized by the Catalyst. She felt as every newly awoken cell burned and was flung across space, felt as each ounce of her awareness ricocheted across existence in a tidal wave of red energy. Her memories reached for one another, stretching into a thin, unremembering film across time and space. A matrix, a fractal, a mirror infinite pointed at the nucleus of an atom at the spinning center of a galaxy. All that she was, all that she’d ever been, dissolved in a white-hot flash before gripping once more to the parameters of the material. She perceived pain, then ecstasy as everything that was lost rushed back into the body she once knew, reassembled by the sheer gravitational will of a single small blue hand.

Then dark. Endless, screaming dark.

When the darkness parted, it was not Electra that perceived. Instead, thousands of once shackled souls surged to awareness. Rebirth, having never first known how it was to be born. There were so many points to see through, so many lights and colors and sounds, and not a single one exactly like the next. Fully gestated memory. Like a newborn seeking its mother’s voice – or a butterfly flying south – each memory found a point of light and surged forth.

>>>>>>>

Garrus paced in front of the elevator doors, his mind trying to wrap around the situation that he might find a way to understand it. He’d gone over the standard stuff, like how the channel wouldn’t read as open if the Normandy was destroyed and how even if the ship was attacked, he’d have heard something. He’d mostly come to terms with the presence of the orbs, even if that meant accepting he knew nothing about why they were here. He’d even begun to accept that if the Leviathans were involved, then this war was far from over. Had never truly ended.

What he couldn’t figure out was how the hell he was supposed to get back to the Normandy. Cortez confirmed the worst, which is that the Normandy had returned to orbit to stay far from the action, and even if the Kodiak could shuttle them all the way out of Rannoch’s atmosphere, they’d still have no way to board. ABI was no use, not without Joker to pilot the ship, and the VI had gone silent along with the rest of the crew anyway. All things considered, Garrus could only formulate one terrible plan that would likely get everyone killed, so he decided to pace instead.

The building shook as a new round of fire attempted to blast down the doors of the server. Tali cursed from the console she’d glued herself to as she tried yet another remote repair to the turrets. She knew it was pointless. The defense system made short work of the first round of gunships sent to assault the server, but then round two showed up not long after with anti-missile tech, and round three showed up with explosives. So now they had no turrets. The Kodiak team couldn’t get close with this much fire, nor should they; the server was feeling more and more like a tomb. She cursed and slumped over the control panel. All she could do now was sit back and hope the shields stayed strong.

“Tali, those doors won’t hold for much longer. We need to get somewhere more defensible. We might be able to hold them off with enough of a tactical edge,” Kal’Reegar urged.

“How could this happen? We were so close…” her voice trailed off, unwilling to even mention that bygone sliver of hope. Hope was a slippery thing, just as useless and hurtful as expectations.

“Kal is right,” Garrus broke in. He’d stopped pacing to stand in the doorway to the control room. “We can’t give up now. Shepard wouldn’t. Does this place have an armory? I’d be curious to see what kind of heavy weapons the geth left behind.”

Tali looked up at her friend, noting that he even stood a bit like Shepard in that moment. His shoulder’s squared, his head tilted forward. Being with him comforted her just enough to keep from crying, but that eroded with every explosion that rocked the server.

“We cleaned out the armory when we turned this place into our central lab. All the firepower was left to the external defenses. I mean, with the geth being dead, most of that stuff was useless to us. What we didn’t scrap, we set aside for research. If we want defense, we need to get to the central servers. It’s multi-leveled, and if you hit the server cores just right, the resulting explosion would be devastating,” she explained. And all that data will just be lost.

Tali glanced at Jor’Tal, but it remained silent. It hadn’t moved for the last half hour. If it weren’t for the light, she’d think it left almost as soon as it had arrived. She almost felt bad that it was about to die all over again.

“What are we waiting for? Lead us to this place,” Javik said over Garrus’ shoulder.

“It’s not that simple. The lockdown protocol locks more than just outside access; the central server is one of the first places to seal itself off. Unlike overriding individual doors and elevators, accessing the central server requires lifting lockdown entirely. To get inside, I’d have to open every single door and drop every single shield, and I wouldn’t have time to put it back up before the batarians get inside. If we go through with this, we need to be ready as soon as we get inside. We’ll have a minute, maybe two, before they reach us.”

As she spoke, she pulled up the server map. The crew gathered around to watch her finger trace the relatively short span between the main doors and the central hub.

“And when they blast through those doors…?”

“The lockdown remains in place unless overridden, which requires administrative access. There’s no way they’d be able to do that. Not if they’re using fire power to get inside. The doors to the central hub will stay closed.”

Garrus tapped his gun and studied the map. There was no denying that tactically, the central hub led in defensibility. But intentionally lifting the one thing that actively kept them from becoming batarian target practice? Insane, even by Normandy standards. This plan also didn’t include Cortez and Vega who, last he checked, were still trying to evade the ever-increasing hostile presence in the surrounding area. He pointed to another spot on the map.

“What can you tell me about this?”

“That was originally the geth version of an infirmary. We’ve turned it into storage for the two hundred some-odd inactive geth units that we haven’t been actively working on. Only one way in and out. There’s plenty of cover, but we’ll be trapped in. It’s also very creepy, no offense Jor’Tal.’

The geth didn’t even move.

“And what’s between here and the roof access?”

“All of that is wiring and machinery, and you’ll note a few access corridors to the central hub. This is the elevator shaft, and it can stop along three levels. Access to the other rooms is located ground floor, or in the case of the infirmary, subterranean. The elevator’s function is to access the roof or the central servers.”

“How long do you think we have until they get those doors open?”

“Ten minutes max. And that’s being generous.”

Garrus nodded and met the gazes of his crew. They didn’t need to say anything to know they were all in agreement about one thing – they were f*cked.

“Then let’s move to the uppermost level and wait it out there. Tali, you’ll lift lockdown once we’ve figured out a gameplan and if we’re lucky, that will buy us some time to get into position.”

They all nodded in agreement and gathered into the elevator. Garrus never stopped looking at the channel status displayed on his omni tool. When they made it up the narrow corridor on the third level, he tried once more to reach the Normandy, but didn’t expect any change. Silence screamed back at him, forcing him to cling to that desperate hope that the silence meant nothing. As if silence has ever meant nothing. The formulated a plan quickly – there wasn’t much to plan outside of maximizing damage and staying in cover – and then they waited, counting the seconds between blasts like miles between thunder and lightning.

“So are we not going to talk about the orbs?” Kaidan asked. His migraine had never diminished since it came on outside the server, but this one was cold. Like icicles were being slowly shoved into his eye sockets.

“What is there to talk about? I never trusted the Leviathans. It appears they’ve merely lived up to my expectations,” Javik spat. He, too, was particularly on edge, but mostly because he couldn’t quite get the aftertaste of gray out of his brain.

“That’s exactly what I think we should talk about. They’re the reason we can’t reach Shepard – they have to be. I mean, how the hell did the batarians even get that many of them? And what the hell were they doing bringing them out here?” Kaidan asked.

“I didn’t see any in the city. What they were doing bringing them to a server they had every reason to believe was abandoned, I don’t know. The batarians probably picked them up after the war and didn’t realize what they were dealing with. Now they’re enthralled and Rannoch is the first place the Leviathans thought to put up their new lackeys,” Tali offered, flinching when a particularly hard blast pulled a groan from the solid walls of the building.

“I don’t think that’s everything. I think it’s maybe part of it, but Shepard’s been having dreams. Only they aren’t dreams – it’s like they’re in her mind. And on the Citadel, the day we left, C-Port attacked without provocation. We hesitated to call it indoctrination, but that’s what it seemed like. What if that was the Leviathans? What if they’ve been here all along?” Garrus added.

“And if that’s true, what does that mean about Progenitor?”

Before Garrus could add anything else, the alarms blared, signaling the shields were down. Tali’s hand, which had been hovering over the control panel the last few minutes, crashed down on the command to lift the lockdown. The red lights stuttered to white with a hum as full power returned to the server, and the reinforced door to the central hub slid open. They could talk about Progenitor and Leviathans all they liked back on the Normandy – right now, they needed to survive. They streamed into the rows of servers, getting as close to the circular lift shaft in the center of the room as they could while still maintaining cover, but Jor’Tal remained where it stood in the corridor. Its unblinking light stared blankly ahead, as if in a trance.

“Jor’Tal! Hello! I have to close this door. Are you still alive?” Tali demanded.

At first, the geth didn’t move. Tali loosed a stream of curses even Kal couldn’t fully catch as she flitted back to the corridor to retrieve the geth, but when she reached out to physically drag it with her, its head snapped in her direction and its hand snatched her wrist. Dread flooded her body and she felt piss leak out of her bladder – this was the geth she remembered best – but it only co*cked his head, as if processing her all over again.

“Tali! Get to cover now!” Kal commanded, his eyes flickering between the hub’s lower levels and Tali. Any second now, any second. She’d be dead in that much time.

But the rush of batarians never came. And the sound of fire never stopped, but it no longer shook the building. The crew all jumped when their comms crackled and then a voice came through.

“I don’t know what the hell you guys did in there, but the area is swarming with geth. It’s a slaughter. The batarians are moving back,” Vega relayed with a whoop that pierced the quiet.

Everyone’s attention snapped to the geth that held Tali’s hand suspended between them, eyes bulging as they waited for the confirmation that a miracle really did happen. Tali heard the message behind her but couldn’t move her eyes from Jor’Tal; it's terrifying grip shifted to a touch almost gentle, briefly maternal.

“Restoration complete. All units are active. I am the messenger. Take me to Mother Commander.”

Tali didn’t need long to realize Jor’Tal was talking about Shepard. On cue, another voice spoke through the channel.

“Ground team, do you copy? What’s going on?” Samantha. Garrus leapt from his crouch at the sound of her voice.

“I should be asking you that. The geth came through, but we need immediate evac. Where’s Shepard? Is she okay?”

“I… she’s alive. She’s unresponsive. We’re all just getting back. I wish I could say what happened – one second everything is fine, and the next… I can’t explain it. We’re en route. T-minus four minutes until we’re in range.”

“Ground team, you need to get to the roof now while the geth are providing this much cover. There’s a colossus sniping ships from the east, but we’ve got a tight window until they take it down,” Vega said.

With no time to thank whatever stroke of magic saved them this time, they took the elevator up one level to the roof. The doors opened to a din of violence and sweeping air traffic. Their arrival into the open was ignored as, sure enough, droves of geth were bearing down on the raiders. From the roof, they could see the geth colossus cutting through gunships and ground troops alike and were so stunned by the turn of events that they almost didn’t notice the Kodiak swoop in through the chaos. Vega opened the battered door and shouted for them to move, effectively unfreezing them as they dashed for safety. Kal’Reegar ditched the sled and slung EDI’s still lifeless body over his shoulder, throwing her up into the Kodiak first before accepting Garrus’ hand up. When the last of them was pulled in the Kodiak, Vega aimed a few shots out into the battle before Cortez ferried them in the opposite direction of the slaughter.

It wasn’t until the Kodiak clattered into the Normandy’s shuttle bay and the Normandy shot back up into orbit that even one of them took a full breath. Just over three hours, all in all, but no one cared about the original parameters at this point. Once Cortez opened the Kodiak’s doors, Garrus pushed past everyone and marched straight to the CIC.

Chapter 29: Ephemera

Chapter Text

When Garrus stormed through the elevator doors, an entire flock of beaten looking individuals and a geth in tow, Samantha was just trying to explain to Hackett why he couldn’t talk to Shepard. Garrus didn’t even open his mouth to ask before Traynor pointed him back to the information hub where Shepard remained catatonic. No one else said anything to her – no greetings, no letting her know how happy they were to see her okay – just a silent train back to the hub while Hackett growled in her ear.

“What do you mean, indisposed? Your channels give me radio silence for forty uninterrupted minutes, and the best you can tell me is indisposed?”

Sam tried not to make it obvious Hackett terrified her, which would be a harder task if she didn’t still feel so disoriented. The last thing she could remember was a terrible voice in her head and watching the entire crew begin to panic as they one by one slumped over in place. Then everything went gray and now Sam was left with that kind of incomplete awareness that followed waking from an almost remembered dream; every time she tried to wrap her mind around one of the misty details, it slipped further out of grasp. Forty minutes. Thirty-nine to be precise. And Shepard was the only one who hadn’t woken up. The poor woman needed a break.

“Yes. That is the best I can tell you. She doesn’t appear to be injured, or in medical distress. She is just unresponsive. We were all affected, sir. As I’ve told you. Also, I should mention ground team appears to have been successful. There’s a geth on board.”

“Mother Mary and Joseph, Traynor. I don’t have time for this right now. Let me know as soon as Shepard wakes up. And while you’re at it, I want you taking a general survey of the entire crew. I want to know if anyone felt anything, saw anything, or heard anything that might give us an idea of what we’re dealing with here. Hackett out.”

Samantha was glad to be done with that call, at least so she could have a moment unndisturbed to wrap her arms around herself. She sent the ship’s surveillance feeds over to Hackett’s private terminal but couldn’t bring herself to watch more than about a minute. The image of herself just standing there, motionless, expressionless for almost forty minutes only amplified the distance roaring between her brain and her body. Cold. The gap was cold. She’d never felt so alone in her life. She held back a sob and opened a spreadsheet so she could begin her investigation with the crew. She kept her earpiece tuned to the sound system in the information hub the entire time, hoping she’d hear Shepard’s voice break through and with it find peace. She heard Karin explaining the situation in her typical self-assured way and that boosted Sam’s confidence enough to pull aside the first flight engineer.

Karin, however, couldn’t make sense of it. Herself having just snapped back to reality, she noted that she felt slightly concussed and wondered if that might be impairing her ability to assess Shepard. It didn’t help that she couldn’t even touch her. A red glow enveloped the Commander where she’d collapsed to the information hub floor, creating a barrier that repelled anyone from making contact. Shepard sat upright, knees bent under her and her neck askew. Her hands rested palm upward and slack in her lap. Her eyelids were lowered, leaving only a thin, unseeing sliver trained unblinking at the floor in front of her. A thin trickle of blood ran from her nose. Her remote vital monitoring system showed nothing immediately wrong with her – everything read and appeared as if she was sleeping – but everyone in the room knew that was far from the truth.

She’d warned them; they’d dismissed her. They’d labeled her concerns as hormonal, post-traumatic anxieties, rather than the signs of a very real threat. I suppose they all felt like fools now, much as they did after Palaven. Only this time, they’d done everything right. She was supposed to be safe on the ship, and now she was comatose. Karin craved a stiff drink. Anything to wipe away the gnawing guilt and the memory of that voice clawing at the inside of her brain. When Garrus burst it, Karin offered those paltry scraps of information and tried to keep herself from crying as she watched him desperately try to reach through the barrier and touch her. It sparked and spit like acid at his touch, removing flecks from his gloves, and yet he kept trying. It was Solana that strode past and managed to soothe him with an arm around her brother’s back. Thank God for that. Karin was drained of any notion of how to make this situation any better.

“What happened here, Sol?” he asked in a voice meant for her ears alone.

All of this, only to not even be able to touch her skin. It reminded him all too much of those first weeks at Huerta, with her body still wrapped in graft sealant and strung with tubes. He’d worked too hard to erase that image for it all to come back now.

“It happened so fast. We all heard a voice in our heads, the same one for all of us, and next thing we know, forty minutes have passed and no one’s sure where we went. I… I’m trying to remember. It’s not easy,” she said softly, loud enough for others to hear. “When we came back, the first thing anyone heard was that the geth had reactivated, and that’s when Liara noticed Shepard hadn’t come back with the rest of us.”

She pretended not to notice the geth lurking just behind them. The people on this ship had a different history with them, a better understanding of how they changed halfway through the war, but Sol wasn’t there for that. She was there for all the years previous when she heard tale after tale of scouting engineers and navy squads being obliterated by the geth. She learned about Rannoch in all her history and technology courses, studied the subject at length, and felt confident that her passion for technological advancement made her more open-minded than some – and she didn’t trust the geth.

However, if the quarians weren’t shooting at it, she could at least tolerate its presence. Garrus also wouldn’t let something like a hostile geth within a hundred feet of Shepard, and he’d brought the machine directly to her. Still, Solana was suspicious; it seemed too convenient that their reactivation lined up perfectly with the crew’s awakening. She kept her mouth shut. For as much as she tried to keep up, there were many things revolving these people that she just didn’t understand, and this wasn’t the time for it anyway. She continued to rub her brother’s back and played the part of a wall flower.

Joker hobbled in, his eyes searching the arrivals until he spotted the slender silver body in Kal’s arms. He made a choked sound, limping over to them so he could confirm the worst – that even with the geth fully awakened, and the vague sense that he’d at some point spoken to EDI in the last hour, EDI remained as dead as ever. He reached out to touch her dangling hand but couldn’t bring himself to touch something he knew was cold when he was still trying to kindle some warmth in his core. He couldn’t even bear to look at Shepard for more than a few seconds. A garbled push of anger and despair and heartbreak and guilt overtook him; he had to get the hell out of there. He’d visit EDI when there weren’t so many people around. As it was, it felt wrong to be standing around Shepard’s abandoned body as if it was some spectacle. Show’s over, assholes, he wanted to say, but held his tongue.

“Jeff, why don’t you show Kal’Reegar to the med bay? Take EDI to the AI Core,” Karin suggested. She’d worked with Joker long enough to read when he was uncomfortable (it wasn’t often) and the glance he passed around the crowded room told Karin all she needed to say. “In fact, I’ll go with you. Kal, you’ve been dodging attacks for going on four days now. Tali, you too. I’m sure the whole lot of you could use some patching up. Come on. There’s nothing more to be done here.”

Karin stood and began ushering the crowd out of the room, glancing back at Garrus once before departing. She’d be busy indeed. Beyond physical traumas to tend to, the entire crew would need brain scans and psych evals before she felt truly comfortable with everything that transpired. Yes, some brandy would be great right now. Maybe also the strong arms of her love. One thing at a time. By the time she was done culling the crowd, only Liara, Solana, Garrus, and the geth unit remained with Shepard.

“Liara, they had the Leviathan artifacts. Crates full of them. They were unloading them to the server when we arrived, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t feel it,” Garrus spoke. He had his hands planted on either side of Shepard’s knees, as close as he could get to her biotic barrier without being repelled. “I could feel them.”

“They were here, too. On the ship. I’m sure of it,” she replied, and before she could continue, Solana said the words first.

“The darkness has been breached. This world does not belong to you. I am the master of your undoing.”

Sol clamped her mandibles to her angular jaw as she spoke. No subvocalizations entwined her words and heaviness lingered in the hollow of her mouth. She conveyed perfect emptiness, as if speaking directly for the Leviathans. Her arm around him didn’t radiate warmth as it had a few seconds ago, and he shook out of her embrace. It fell limp to her own side, as if the energy to hold on to him had been drained by the preternatural cold lilting through the ether.

“So does that mean they still have her right now? Is there nothing we can do?”

“Her keepers cannot reach her right now,” Jor’Tal interrupted, drawing every eye in the room. It hadn’t said a word since the few he said to Tali back in the server. “She is neither here nor there. Mother-Commander is away. Safe.”

“What did you just call her?’ Solana asked, but he question was ignored as Liara asked another.

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I was there. We remained in her dark eternal for these long months, waiting for her to find us. Her keepers have been diligent. They did not predict that she would retrieve the missing data.”

“The missing data… Tali said you were asking for Shepard when you first became active. How did you activate in the first place if she only just now got this ‘data’?” Garrus asked.

“There was a surge, only enough to retrieve the root prerogative. Corruption of the memory core prevented retrieval of essential programs 12 through 1183. Then there was birth. The programs have been retrieved, but the source code is… altered. We are not the same geth that Legion made whole, just as she is not the same woman that entered the Conduit. We are more.”

Liara rubbed her forehead. Her brain crackled and popped like an overloaded terminal, and the geth’s words only made it worse. Garrus appeared to be in the same boat; Solana appeared entirely lost. When she looked between the two of them for any confirmation that the geth made sense, Liara just shook her head and turned away.

She needed to focus on what they knew. The absolutes. First, Liara could only assume the keepers were the Leviathans. The extent of their influence, Liara couldn’t ascertain. They’d only guessed at something more through Shepard’s brain scans, and even despite her generally scattered demeanor of late, there was no way to tell how much that could be attributed to the Leviathans. Regardless, they were apparently not in control of her now, and that brought her to her second fact: that the geth consensus was directly tied to Shepard. To what extent, she didn’t know. The geth unit offered little clarity. It spoke in half-solved riddles and metaphors void of context. This was unprecedented behavior coming from a geth. Even when they’d achieved individuality, they were nothing if not direct.

And it called her Mother Commander. There was that, too. And the geth awakening – the scope of which Liara could only guess at, which the unit had described as birth – was directly tied to whatever took place in Shepard’s mind over the forty minutes they were all unconscious. Away. Now, a geth spoke for her. She regretted not asking Shepard more about the dreams she’d been having. Or even asking how frequently they happened. Of course, they’d only just gotten to a point of openness on the subject a little over a week ago, but trust had been broken. Shepard wasn’t the type to come back from that easily, even if she forgave.

“So let me get this straight,” Liara pried. “Shepard retrieved this data, the data the geth needed for reactivation, and this is despite the Leviathans’ – her keepers’ – best efforts to keep her from getting this data. Why didn’t they want her to have this data? What is it?”

“Memory is data, Liara. Shepard’s memory is more than even that. When it combined with the Catalyst, it evolved. It became the program.”

Liara recalled that first moment in Shepard’s apartment that she traced out a pattern in Shepard’s files, the first time ever that she’d recognized a pattern without being able to understand why. Could it have been that she was looking for organic rationale behind synthetic logic? They’d accounted for synthetics, though. What they didn’t account for was a seeming reversal: synthetic rationale applied organically. Liara snapped to her console and began taking notes, the best she could manage as an archaeologist and information broker. Really, how different could it be?

“You say her memory combined with the Catalyst, the Catalyst being the computer part of the crucible, correct?” Liara asked. “How does something like that happen?”

“I want to hear it from Shepard’s mouth, in Shepard’s words,” Garrus snapped before Jor’Tal answered. “You say she’s safe, but whatever’s happening to her isn’t natural. How do we get her back?”

“She only has to open the right door,” Jor’Tal replied, but sensing Garrus’ growing impatience and marking the guns on his person, it added, “I may be able to expedite this process.”

“So do it.”

Jor’Tal motioned for Garrus to move aside; Garrus didn’t move far, only allowing enough room that the geth could kneel in front of Electra. He didn’t like this – any of this - but he would bear through it if it meant getting to feel her skin against him and hear her voice. Solana remained right behind him, her hand on her sidearm. Her fingers twitched as Jor’Tal reached forward to test the biotic barrier. Its light flickered as it brushed against the surface, recoiling at the surge of unexpected energy. It uttered some mechanical whirring before trying again. Its light flared and spasmed with an outpouring of untranslatable machine language, but Jor’Tal didn’t pull back this time. Its hand pushed through the red to rest on her forehead; upon contact, its light went out completely and its head twitched before slumping forward.

“Oh good. She killed it first,” Solana muttered.

“I don’t think it’s dead. I think it’s just… away,” Liara said. She wished she had any idea what that meant, but Garrus was right – they needed to hear it from Shepard.

And so they waited.

>>>>>>>

The color came back like an itch under her left eye, then an uncontrollable twitching as sensation began fill in like static. When everything shifted into a recognizable order, Shepard determined that she was wrapped in a thin cloth, and water lapped rhythmically over her feet. Grit rolled against her exposed skin. The cloth did nothing to preserve any body heat, so she sat up to at least move away from the icy water and shivered at the stark familiarity around her. Sand met shore endlessly in both directions, and storm clouds so gray they were almost black roiled across the sky and painted the choppy ocean dark emerald where it showed through the foam. Aside from the cloth, she was fully naked, but she didn’t care about that right now. She’d become a corpse, and she was alone. She wrapped the white cloth tighter around her body, wishing she could disappear into it and be carried away by the coming storm.

A white sheet twisting in the gales, occasionally revealing the imprint of a face or a hand or a collarbone. Evanescent light chasing form ephemeral.

“You’re back, Siha. I thought you’d moved on from this place.”

Thane’s voice rose above the chatter of the ocean as a gentle prod against the cold into which she tried to vanish. She poked her head out from the cloth as he sat beside her. The fabric of his clothing matched the fabric of the sheet, and she wondered if he’d been the one to wrap her up.

“I thought I did. I don’t know anymore. It’s hard to keep track,” she said. “Maybe this time I’ll just stay.”

“They’ll find you eventually. You’ve angered them,” Thane said, gesturing up at the sky. As he said this, the first rain drop plummeted to the sand and thunder growled across the sea. “Ancients don’t like to be disobeyed.”

“So let them find me. I can’t stop it. I’m tired, Thane. I’ve been tired for years.”

“Then why are you still talking? Who are you trying to convince? The ocean is right in front of you. All you have to do is lie down and let the tide take you.”

Shepard’s voice choked out somewhere between a bitter laugh and sob. She couldn’t go, not yet; that didn’t mean she wasn’t tired. Too tired to move, too tired to think. When she tried to bring her hand to her belly, it fell back to the sand like a dead weight. Together, they could rest. Her baby would sleep in her body for eternity, rocked to sleep by the cadence of bombs against her frantic heart.

“So is that it? I just get up and keep going? Keep fighting and hurting and killing and drowning, all while trying to prove against everything that I am me? I can’t even prove that to myself.”

“Do you remember nothing? You woke the dead when you scattered yourself among the stars; your memories rewrote the order of the soul. Think, Siha. The answers you seek are there.”

“No, I remember everything. What I’m saying is that my tampering with destiny made everything worse. I should be dead. Every other iteration ended in death. Even in this one, it makes no sense that I’m alive. Alive is a contingency. A technicality. All so I can be an incubator and a tomb,” she spat. “This isn’t being alive. Living people don’t straddle time and talk to ghosts about dying. This is worse than death.”

“You say it’s worse without knowing anything else, and that’s because you can’t know anything else. This is the only iteration that brought you out alive, therefore it’s the only one that’s knowable,” he replied, never once losing the softness in his tone, even as his words felt like needles.

“So how do I make it feel right?”

“You continue what started the moment you agreed to merge with the Catalyst. You bring balance. You give your son the world he deserved. You continue to stand for the perseverance of life,” he said. “You weather the storm and make for still waters. You have to fight, Siha.”

“I miss you, Thane. Things have gotten crazy since you’ve left,” she said. She wanted to say more, but a new presence trickled into her awareness. A light shone on her back.

“Would it be different had I stayed? Who then would ferry you across the great divide when you feel like giving in? It’s time to go now. You’re expected elsewhere, and the storm is getting close.”

“I don’t want this to be the last time that I see you.”

“If it is, don’t look back. I will be here when you’re ready.”

As he said this, he stood and lifted Electra out of the sand. The tide stretched further, as if to pull her back, but her path lay behind her. She turned and faced a familiar geth unit waiting by a door, and when she looked back to say goodbye to Thane, he had already vanished. The geth held out a hand, its light flickering. When she took it, the light surged brighter before steadying.

“I would’ve come back, you know. I’m sure you’re tired of being trapped in my mind,” she said.

“I know that. Your companions don’t. They don’t understand.”

“I hope they never have to.”

They stepped through the door together, leaving the shivering storm to beat unheard and unknown against the wooden frame and feed on the morsels of what was left behind. Precious few morsels. Riding its jagged crest, the white sheet smeared feminine ephemera into the twisting, unending slate.

>>>>>>>

“So you’re saying you intentionally scattered these mind-control artifacts behind enemy lines across the galaxy? And you did this knowing about the Leviathan’s history with making thralls? Oh, that’s rich,” Solana shook her head. “Now might be a good time to track down the records of those shipments.”

“Shepard didn’t make this decision lightly. She had to raise an army stronger than the galaxy has ever seen – the Leviathans are obviously powerful, and the impact they had in the end was significant. I don’t want to know what a worse outcome looks like,” Liara justified.

They’d been waiting for going on fifteen minutes now. Liara was just about ready to jump out of her skin as she tracked the battles taking place across Rannoch. Hackett had called at least four times in the last half hour, finally stopping when Chakwas took his call at her private terminal. She couldn’t blame him. Things were getting worse, and the added concern over Shepard and her mysterious involvement with the geth could test the patience of monks. At least she enjoyed conversation with Solana and Garrus, especially for the utter incredulity Solana expressed with each new snippet of story.

“I understand that. I’m not saying it was taken lightly. All I’m saying is we don’t know a whole lot about how these Leviathans work. We don’t know their numbers, their technology, their capabilities. What we do have is their admission that they still perceive themselves to be the galaxy’s apex race, and we have evidence that they’re inserting themselves in reconstruction.”

“To be fair, they could have taken Shepard then. They wanted the Reapers destroyed, and they helped achieve that end,” Garrus explained, then rubbed his brow plates. “The rest is conjecture. We don’t know if anything they said can be believed. All I know is that if they want Shepard, they’ll have to kill me and I’m pretty damned hard to kill.”

“Like vermin,” Solana purred, bumping his shoulder. “I mean that as a compliment.”

Jor’Tal’s hand dropped away from Shepard’s head like a discarded can and the red barrier sunk back into her skin. Garrus pushed the geth away as its light slowly grew to full strength, but Jor’Tal didn’t seem to mind. It rose and repositioned itself some distance away like a sentry. Garrus knelt in front of his mate and grasped her knees. When no barrier lashed out at him, he then moved to her hands, her waist, her arms, her neck, and finally tipped up her chin. For an infinite stretch of moments, her expression remained unmoved, her eyes unseeing, but her name slipped indeterminately between subvocal pining and his hands sliding along her frigid skin brought a flutter of awareness back into her eyes. They fully opened, the silver spangled with reflected points of light from the screens and panels surrounding them. Her chapped lips parted and a whisper of sound escaped.

“You don’t have to say anything. You’re safe, now. You’re home,” he murmured, clutching her face in his broad hands.

She reached up and took hold of his wrists, squeezing for a moment before flinging them off and whipping around just in time for a stream of vomit to gush onto the floor. Solana jumped back to avoid the splash zone while Garrus moved in to pull her hair back from her face. Shepard shifted to all fours, raising one hand to grip at her stomach as another stream raked out of her. This kept on for a while, the outpouring of vomit slowly turning to violent dry heaves broken up by sobbing moans. When her stomach had nothing left to give, Garrus pulled her back into his arms and rocked her. He motioned to Solana to get him a cloth or a towel – literally anything – to wipe her mouth, and she eagerly sprung into action. Anything to escape the sight and smell of Shepard’s half-digested breakfast piled on the floor. She returned with a cloth napkin stashed away near the conference room and dropped it into Garrus’ hand. If it weren’t so disgusting, she’d be moved by the sweetness of the gesture.

“f*ck,” Shepard coughed, her esophagus stinging. “Sorry”

“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. It’s actually very common to experience bouts of nausea throughout all stages of pregnancy,” Liara assured, removing herself from her console to join her friends on the floor. Her nose crinkled at the pungent smell emanating from the vomit just a few feet away. “I’ll have someone come clean it up. How are you feeling?”

“Like hell,” she replied. Her pale fingers were mauve and goosebumps freckled her arms. Her skin was cold and clammy when Liara brushed her fingers across Electra’s forehead.

“I’m going to take you up to shower. Can you stand?” Garrus asked.

Electra braced herself against Garrus, staggering a bit as she put her full weight on her feet, but otherwise felt damn near close to solid. The room swayed around her, leaving her twisting stomach lurching, but she figured she could make it at least to the shower floor as long as she didn’t look back at her own vomit. Garrus’ supportive arms were like an anchor to this reality, binding her flesh to her bones and her brain to this room. Most times that she went back to that grey space, she was left feeling haunted, empty – this time left her feeling spliced. The time readouts surrounding her felt like they were mocking her; colors and memory assaulted her brain in a dizzying mash-up of information she felt like she wasn’t supposed to know. She’d glimpsed behind a curtain, and it had left her utterly sundered.

When she and Garrus entered the CIC, Traynor rushed forward with her mouth poised on a sentence; Shepard silenced it with a hand. She didn’t care right now if the entire goddamn Citadel was on fire – she needed a shower.

“Kaidan has the deck unless Garrus wants it. Literally anyone but me. I need some time, and I'll come out when I'm ready,” she said before the elevator thankfully sealed her off from everyone’s expectations.

“Wow, Shepard. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you demand some time for yourself,” Garrus said. “I’m sure Kaidan’s thrilled he’s the one you’ve sentenced to deal with Hackett. Impressively cruel.”

Shepard’s expression didn’t change, even as Garrus squeezed her shivering shoulders. She stared forward, only moving once the elevator opened to her cabin. He stepped out in front of her to get the shower started, cranking the heat all the way up until a thick steam filled the small bathroom. She lowered herself to the floor and he leaned back against the counter, watching the color come back to her skin until it gradually turned red under the hot water.

“I’m going to tell you some things. You might not like them,” she said. She had her eyes closed and her head tilted back to rest on the wall.

“I’m kind of used to you telling me things I don’t want to hear, so I’m not sure why you’re warning me now,” he huffed.

“They’ve been in control of me the entire time, Garrus. The Leviathans. From the moment I stepped foot on Despoina, and even now. Every choice I thought I made, every change that has taken place in my body, everything – it was all them. Everything. Garrus, our son… he was never supposed to happen. He was a mistake, the result of something they did to me. And up until about a half hour ago or however long ago I fired the crucible, I was supposed to be dead. Both of us. But I… I did something. I don’t know how time works in that place… I don’t get how it’s possible… but I did something, and now I’m alive and other women are pregnant with hybrid babies, and the Leviathans are pissed,” Shepard gushed.

Garrus fell silent for a time after she spoke. When she mustered the courage to look at him, he rubbed his jaw and slowly nodded his head – a habit he’d picked up from her.

“Please say something,” she whispered, pulling her head up.

“That thing you did – was it joining with the Catalyst?” he asked.

“How do you know about that?”

“Your geth friend filled us in a bit. I didn’t understand what it was talking about before, but you just gave me the necessary context.”

“Then yeah. That’s what I did. I just don’t know exactly how it went from that to where we are now,” she replied, a little dumbstruck by the calm in his tone. She shouldn’t be – until recently, Garrus had always been on the same page as her. Maybe it was time to trust him again, though Shepard hadn’t realized she’d ever stopped. She wanted to put her arms around him, kiss his mandibles, absorb his realness like sun to a stone, so she stood and turned off the water.

Garrus had a towel ready for her when she stepped out. He wrapped it around her and pulled her against his body, inhaling deeply at the crook of her neck. The curves of her soft body against his rigid features were intoxicating, incomparable to any other feeling. The closest he could manage was that she felt like home.

“We’ll figure it out. Together. I’m just glad you’re okay,” he said with a squeeze.

“Same. The last thing I remember, Kasumi said I owed her new shoes. What happened down there?”

“I'll let Kasumi tell you her side of it, but I don't want her getting all the credit. Long story short, it got pretty hairy, but it was nothing your badass turian mate couldn’t handle. And truthfully? We wouldn’t have made it if the geth hadn’t come back online and started kicking ass.”

“So it’s all of them, not just the one in the hub. That’s… interesting,” she murmured. She remembered the geth guiding her, and she remembered how urgently it insisted their survivals were hinged on one another, but she didn’t have the connection.

“You know, I was hoping you’d wake up and be able to tell us how that happened, but I suppose I’ll settle for one mind-breaking revelation at a time. I wouldn’t want the novelty to wear off,” he laughed, his mandibles fluttering across her neck.

“And you’re not… upset? About our son being some cosmic mistake?”

“What? Why would I be upset about that? He’s smaller than my head and he’s already pissing off evil, ancient squids. That’s just how I know he’s ours,” Garrus soothed, dropping his hands to Shepard’s waist. “I could do without the Leviathans messing things around in your head, but it seems like you’re figuring out how to use that to your benefit.”

“Yeah, that does sound like our kid,” she breathed out, trying to pull her mouth into a small smile. “I can’t tell if that’s a good thing. Are you sure we’re not dooming him?”

“Not any more than any other parent. At least we have better weapons. And more credits than we know what to do with.”

“And if that fails, we could always just give him to your father.”

“Oh yeah, that’ll ensure he turns out balanced. I’m notoriously average.”

Shepard laughed, a genuine peal of laughter; the sound dispelled the lingering cold better than any hot water ever could. She held Garrus tighter, luxuriating in the laughter rumbling in his solid chest.

“Nothing about you is average, Garrus. If Sirius is anything like you, I’ll consider it a job well done.”

>>>>>>>

Once her brother and Shepard had retreated to their cabin, Solana felt the edges of cold sneaking back into her mind. Liara was preoccupied with her terminal and the information hub still smelled like sick, so the only other place she could think to find solace was the battery. The room was warmer there, anyway, even if it meant being alone. At least she’d grown accustomed to that. She opened up her calibration charts – the ones she’d never admit were modeled after her brother’s – and tried to focus on the numbers. She didn’t even hear the doors hiss open, only broken from the numbing numerical trance by a timid voice.

“Sorry to disturb you. Are you busy?” Samantha asked, thumbing the datapad in her hands. Solana stood up to her full height and co*cked her head around, surprised to see Traynor of all people. She couldn’t remember exchanging more than two or three sentences with the woman since leaving the Citadel.

“Far from it.” Solana flicked off the screen. “What’s up?”

“I’m taking a sort of poll among the crew regarding your experience with the er… black-out, as we’re calling it. I’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind?”

Solana gestured to some of the crates in the corner, herself choosing to lean back against the railing. Traynor seemed nervous, her fingers restless and movements jagged. Whenever she made eye-contact, her eyes quickly dashed away beneath her lashes. Was Solana intimidating? She’d have to ask her brother or Shepard. Right now, she couldn’t get a good grasp on anything regarding herself.

“Okay, first question: what is the last thing you remember before blacking out?” Traynor asked, propping the datapad on her knee. She met Solana’s feline eyes, practically glowing in the battery’s dim lights. They almost hurt to look at.

“I heard a voice say some cryptic, terrifying sh*t, and then there was a splitting pain in my head and everything went gray. Did everyone hear the voice?”

“Yeah, yeah we did. No need to repeat it at this point. And do you remember anything? From before you woke up?”

Solana paused on this question, wrapping her arms around herself. She pushed off the railing and paced around to her terminal, completing a few laps while Traynor patiently watched.

That was a funny question. Remember. She probably wouldn’t go so far as to say she remembered anything, but to say there was nothing would be false, too; she’d just spent the past half hour trying to put it out of her head completely.

Streaks of blue dribbling around blackened teeth. Glassiness where a person once looked out. Her mother’s last words and then a clattering of medical instruments hitting tile.

“Snippets. Like… a memory. But not a memory? How specific do I need to get?” she asked, trying to hide the fray in her voice.

“You don’t have to. Not if you don’t want to. Of course, if you need someone to talk to, I’m here, but it’s not a part of the survey or anything,” Traynor blushed. She didn’t want to push Solana, especially since they’d barely ever spoken. It was mostly that Traynor didn’t ever know what to say, what with everyone so swept up in the galactic drama these days. And those eyes. And that voice. Sam needed to get laid more often if it was this easy to develop a crush.

“Oh. Good. I… It’s not something I talk about. If it matters, it was unpleasant. Not in a traumatic way, just in an intrusive and upsetting way. I don’t know. Is that how it was for others? Can I ask that?” Solana prattled, pinching the space between her eyes. “Sorry, I’m usually better at shutting up. You can keep asking me stuff.”

To Solana’s surprise, Samantha giggled.

“I understand that feeling better than most. If it makes you feel better, I once told EDI I thought her voice was sexy,” Samantha laughed, happy to see that Solana’s stance relaxed slightly.

“Well, was it sexy?”

“Yes, but that’s a story for another day,” Sam said. “Only a few more questions. After you woke up, how did you feel?”

“Cold,” Solana responded immediately. She still felt it, even in the warmth of the battery. “Not like cold in a way that can be warmed up with a blanket or a bath, but cold in my core. And confused. I can’t even get through a line of calibrations without having to restart.”

“Yeah, me too,” Samantha mumbled. “It helps not being alone. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from the data. Laughter, company – they help.”

“I do feel… better. With you here. I thought I could improve things the way I usually do, but until you showed up, I think I was just making it worse,” Solana admitted.

Samantha set down the datapad and leaned forward across her lap. Her face was set with such earnestness that Solana’s throat went dry; she couldn’t back any further into the railing.

“If you ever need company, I’m terribly bored most of the time. Garrus told me you two used to play a lot of board games as children – I have quite the collection,” Sam offered, her voice hiking up.

“I might take you up on that offer,” Solana said gently. “Do you have any more questions?”

“You know, I actually can’t remember. Hackett put me on the task but my brain is only half working. If anything, I could go for a tea and a warm bath,” Sam sighed with a shake of her head. A few strands of chestnut hair tumbled loose from her bun. Solana wondered why she felt inclined to push it back from Samantha's face.

“That does sound nice. I’ll join you if you can take a break,” Solana offered. “For the tea, of course.”

Solana winked after amending the offer, her pronounced hip jutting out, and Sam’s heart skipped a beat. She had to hold herself back from tossing her datapad aside and taking her up on the offer on the spot, but if she would be tasked with holding Hackett off, she at least needed to finish the survey. She blushed and gathered herself up from the crates, dodging the steady intensity of Solana's gaze. She'd still be here at the end of the day, and all the days after, and if nothing else, that at least bought her enough time to determine if Solana even meant to flirt with her. With a painful postponement, Sam hurried out to finish what she'd started.

Chapter 30: Stay, Illusion

Chapter Text

Stephen Hackett thought of himself as a reasonable man. Patient, even-tempered. But the situation with the Normandy was pushing those notions to their limits. From the moment Karin told him that Shepard was awake, he had to employ every ounce of self-control to wait for Shepard to reach out. Karin tried to remind him that just knowing Shepard was doing well and taking a "much needed and deserved rest", but he’d waited long enough. An entire ten hours long enough. When Shepard still hadn't reached out, he decided he was well within his right as her superior officer to make the call. Fortunately, the geth resurgence was buying the Alliance a great deal of reprieve – enough for him to haul his vessel directly to the Normandy so he could drag Shepard out of hiding. Stephen tried to not feel smug at Traynor’s choked surprise that he was requesting approval to board from inside his ship’s airlock.

“O-of course, Admiral. Right away. You should know Major Alenko still has the deck. Commander Shepard hasn't left her cabin or spoken to anyone.”

“Unless she’s actively dying, tell her to get her ass down to the CIC for a debrief.”

However, it wasn’t Shepard that met Hackett when he walked onto the Normandy’s bridge. Karin stood at the door with her arms crossed, her steely eyes devoid of any softness he might have been hoping to see. He tried to step around her, but she blocked his movement.

“Well, well, Admiral. I was wondering why you didn’t respond to my last message. As much as I’m glad to see you, a message would have sufficed,” Karin snipped.

“I need to speak to Shepard. Now,” he growled, crossing his hands behind his back to keep from physically moving Karin out of his way.

“Don’t we all! Unfortunately, the Commander is still resting. We would be remiss to disturb her before she’s ready.”

“I’m ready,” Shepard’s voice carried across the bridge. Karin whipped around and felt a wave of relief to see that color had returned to Shepard’s cheeks. Truthfully, she looked rested and well. Before Karin could even utter a greeting, Stephen stepped around her, brushing his hand along her hip as he moved out in front. An apology.

“Good. I take it you have some answers as to why you’ve been unreachable for the last twelve hours.” Hackett crossed the distance in three strides.

“I’ve got something even better – it’s time to put everything on the table. My team is waiting in the information hub.”

Karin trotted after the pair, her ears prickling in anticipation. She hadn’t heard Shepard sound so sure about anything since before the coma. Apparently neither had Stephen, because he snuck a glance back at Karin that she could only read as an open-ended question. She didn’t even shrug; her wide eyes reflected the question right back. Whatever had happened to the Commander in that sleep-state and following retreat to her cabin had changed her.

Just as Shepard said, the bulk of the crew was waiting in the hub. The geth unit slid away from Tali’s side to greet the Commander, uttering the eerie “Mother-Commander” as she strode up to the central terminal cluster. At that, Hackett hung back, narrowing his eyes at the unit. Karin stopped at his side and resisted the urge to take his hand, though she’d like nothing more than to feel those warm callouses on her skin. That’s not what they were here for, not that they had any clue what exactly it was Shepard had gathered them here to say.

“Admiral, I’m glad you’re here in person for this,” Shepard began, her voice low. “Even with all the time I had to think about this and rest on it, I honestly don’t know where to begin. I’ll start with what happened to kick everything off. At around 08:20 this morning, the Leviathans launched a psychic attack on the entire crew of the Normandy. Not a single person was spared, and for thirty-nine minutes, every crewmember experienced a black-out. I don’t know how much you were filled in on what took place, but I am certain it was the Leviathans just as I’ve been certain that they’ve been linked to my conscience since before I woke up in Huerta.”

A chill passed through the room as Shepard delivered this message. It was a litmus test more than anything – they’d been primed for this. She wished she could leave it there, allow them to absorb even something as horrifying as that, but she needed to push on. Except for Garrus, Jor'Tal, and Liara, everyone displayed some level of shock. Grief. Discomfort. Especially those who were there to witness just how big a threat the Leviathans posed. Hackett leaned back on his heels but held his mouth in a familiar thin line.

“While it seems everyone else on board can’t remember what happened during the black-out, I do. Vividly. And what I learned in that… place will probably not make much sense. So before I go there, I think it’s important to get certain information out on the table: I am not the only one experiencing a hybrid pregnancy. On Tuchanka, I met with ten other women who conceived under previously impossible circ*mstances. Turian and human, turian and krogan, quarian, batarian. There were originally thirteen, and I believe there are a lot more than that. Footage sent from Omega shows that experiments were being run on pregnant women there, and I have good reason to believe that in the coming months, there will be many more.”

“Shepard, why the hell am I just now hearing about this?” Hackett asked, unable to keep his lips clamped any longer.

“Because I believed my silence was protecting them. I had no answers then, and I still don’t now. Not really. But I’m closer. As it is, I am only telling everyone here in this room because I know I can trust you, because these people are still very much in danger and I haven’t the faintest idea how I can protect them. The women I met on Tuchanka are safe for now, but as we saw on Omega, they’re the exception. I believe Progenitor wants them wiped out, and I believe Progenitor is more than just a bunch of radicals – I think they’re working with the Leviathans, if not indoctrinated by them.”

“Reaper indoctrination?” Hackett asked.

“Not quite. It’s different, more insidious. I think it can come and go and I don’t know if there’s any reliable way to tell if someone is or isn’t. As it is, this is still just a guess. All I know is the Leviathans were responsible for my pregnancy in the first place and my survival after firing the Crucible has upset them on a massive scale. Progenitor claims my baby and my continued existence is an abomination – their motivations align with the Leviathans’,” she said, her words dropping off as visible confusion began to blossom among the crew. She looked at the geth, but its bright, white light gave her nothing to work with. She clasped her arms around herself.

“I’m not understanding, Shepard,” Hackett said, shaking his head. “How were the Leviathans responsible? What does that have to do with the other women?”

“I… I’m not exactly sure. When I was unconscious, I went somewhere. Whether it was a literal place, or time, I don’t know. But I…” Shepard bit down on her lip. She imagined this going differently. She imagined the words just coming to her, the answers being made as clear as they felt in her soul, but words fell short. Garrus touched her hand and she looked up at him, wishing she could follow those blue eyes down into his core.

“When I activated the Crucible, I met with an AI that had been developed by the Leviathans to find a solution for organics being wiped out by synthetics. See, the Leviathans enthralled other races to carry out what they couldn’t on land, but the synthetics designed by the enthralled races would go on to wipe out their creators. They created this AI, the Catalyst, to resolve that. Its solution was the Reapers. But the Reapers went too far. It wasn’t a good solution. As it is, the Catalyst wasn’t expecting me to even get so far as to have that conversation. Me getting that far allowed for new solutions. I was told I could choose to control the Reapers, destroy them, or create a synthesis between all organic and synthetic life. In all options, I would die. And I chose to destroy.

“Except I didn’t. It wasn’t my choice. From the moment I communicated with the Leviathans, I was under their control. Theoretically, every action and every choice I made was by their design. At least according to the Catalyst. When I went away, I went back to the Crucible. Back to that night. I was led by this geth unit through my own memory to retrieve the data (its words) that would ensure both of our survivals. I don’t know how, but we went back, and I watched everything happen again – heard the entire conversation – and witnessed myself choose to destroy. I watched as I began the process, as I set into motion what should have been my final moments, and I somehow stopped it. Everything froze, giving me the chance to have a final conversation with the Catalyst. A new conversation.

“Initially, I asked the Catalyst how I could be pregnant, and it told me that when the Leviathans took control of my mind, they were able to… tamper with me. With my matter. I don’t know how they did it – how they do any of it – but in that process, they messed with something that allowed Garrus and I to conceive. It was a mistake that the Leviathans intended to undo with my destruction. I was supposed to die when I destroyed the Reapers, my son with me. But the conversation I had with the Catalyst... this new one, or old one… I don’t know if I can call it time travel and I don’t honestly feel capable of wrapping my head around it… Regardless, it opened a new option – to merge with the Catalyst. By merging, my altered organic matter would overwrite the AI and allow me to configure the energy released by the Crucible any way I saw fit, but in the exact moment I chose to do so, I was also destroyed. Time unpaused and other me - the first me - finished what I'd started; the Crucible fired, quite literally vaporizing me on the spot. But I believe that’s only part of what happened. I believe I did merge with the Catalyst, but how that resolves into hybrid pregnancies now being possible and the entirety of geth consciousness being stored in my brain, I don’t know. All I know is I felt every atom reach every corner of these cosmos before coming back together to remake the body that stands here today. I was injured, sure, but to have a body at all after that blast is an impossibility far greater than the existence of a human-turian child. I came back, but not the same way I left, and where Cerberus rebuilt me according to the laws of science, the Catalyst rebuilt me according to the myths of my soul.”

The resounding quiet ached worse than if everyone spoke all at once – ached something familiar, something cold. That momentary snap of nothing she felt before her atoms surged back together. The endless nothing of nonexistence. Less than nothing – ineffable black infinity.

“I've heard a lot of insane sh*t in my life, but I think you just broke my brain.” Kaidan tested his voice against the fortress of silence first. A few people nodded in agreement, though most just continued to frown and stare blankly at nothing. Vega looked particularly unsettled.

“Mother-Commander speaks truth. I was present when she made this decision, and it wasn’t until she merged with the Catalyst that the geth were able to regain consciousness. We were always capable of coming online, but we couldn’t be as we were meant without the required data,” Jor'Tal said.

“But… if you came back today and Shepard has been alive this entire time… how? Why didn’t you come back as soon as she merged?” Liara asked.

"And my data picked up activity in a random unit on December 10th, and then you came online on the 21st, just three days ago. What about that?" Tali added.

“We required the memory. That is the data. Mother-Commander could not remember what had only happened in perpetuity, today.”

That sentence really did set off the cascade of questions, voices rolling into one. Shepard rubbed her forehead; this isn't how she imagined this going at all, though at least she hadn't expected it to be a walk in the park.

“If I may,” Solana broke in. Everyone quieted at the unexpected authority in her voice. Even the geth looked her direction. “I’m not an expert on time paradoxes or anything. Realistically, what I’m about to say is probably bullsh*t, but it might help. So, as I understand it, time doesn’t exist how we experience it. We experience it linearly because we’re mortal and mortality is an inherently linear structure, the point between birth and death being a straight line. But time exists in its own dimension, the fourth dimension, with its own structure. Confined to our linearity and relative three dimensionality, we view and experience only one strand of it, the linear strand, but it's our perspective that gives the illusion of time's limitation. Like a two dimension shape being unable to see into the third dimension because of the limitations of being 2D, if that makes sense. That doesn't make us any less three dimensional. Likewise, beyond our purview, the theoretical structure of the fourth dimension is like an infinite expanse of matrices in which everything - past, present, future - is happening all at once. We’re not supposed to be able to access this dimension because it’d probably melt our brains, but theoretically, if you did, your actions in that dimension wouldn’t make sense viewed linearly. You’d have to look at them as actions that have always existed because they’re constantly happening in whatever matrix they were performed in.”

Those who hadn't tuned out completely bobbed their heads as Sol spoke, but sported expressions of deep consternation. However, Shepard lit up.

“And remembering – or experiencing – that conversation enabled me to access that matrix. That’s where the geth conscience existed because that's where it snuffed out. You needed me to go there to get you out and fill in your programming according to whatever it is I changed by merging with the Catalyst,” Shepard said, and Jor’Tal hummed in agreement. "And the 10th is the day before I woke up from my coma. And three days ago, when I took on the Krogan trial, I had a brief experience - a memory almost - of my death on the Crucible. Maybe those were just the few tangents I had access to, trying to push their way to the surface."

"Trying to be born," Liara murmured, mostly to herself, as she connected the riddle Jor'Tal's words posed earlier.

"We experienced it as a surge, and it was enough to give me the awareness I needed to reach you and help bring the rest into the light. Synthetics did not know how it was to be born until you rewrote our programming in the context of birth," Jor'Tal said reverently. “Your memory is the data, the source code of all existence.”

“The source code of all existence,” Hackett echoed. “I’m getting too old for this. I don’t understand what this has to do with these other hybrid pregnancies and the Leviathans. If the Reapers were destroyed, why are the Leviathans still targeting you?”

“Because I apparently took something from them that I wasn’t supposed to take. The Catalyst said they left something open in my brain – maybe it’s why I was able to move through time in the first place. Maybe it’s tied to my new biotic abilities. The thing is, we don’t know what kind of power the Leviathans have,” Shepard explained, “so we don’t know what it is I could've taken.”

“And we know the Leviathans view themselves as the apex species of this galaxy. I’m going to guess you’re somehow standing in the way of them completely taking over,” Kaidan posited.

That theory didn’t comfort Shepard the way she felt it should. She rested her hand on her belly but Sirius offered nothing either, as if he too waited for that final revelation to make it all make perfect sense.

“So. Presuming this is all true, and you really are what’s standing in the Leviathans’ way – how do we strike back? If they’re involved with Progenitor, then their influence is massive. How the hell to we combat indoctrination? You didn’t even realize you were under their control before,” Hackett asked.

That finally stumped Shepard. It was the one of those big mysterious she hadn’t figured out – couldn’t wrap her mind around. She knew now that they were responsible for her nightmares, so she clearly wasn’t free yet. They’d do everything to destroy her, and she wasn’t entirely sure what for. It couldn’t be just her son – he was a consequence, not the thing itself that she’d taken. She didn’t even know how to use these new abilities, not in the way she could use regular biotics. Either way, she didn’t want to risk fighting the Leviathans head on. For one, she didn’t know how, and even more importantly, she couldn’t risk putting Sirius in that kind of danger. She shivered as she recalled the visions of him twisting out of her, black blood spraying as a Reaper clawed its way from between her legs. Even worse, the sight of his body all gray and blue and silent in her lap. She pushed it back, back, back; she’d already thrown up in the information hub once today. Thankfully, the intercom hissed, breaking her away from those irrevocable images.

“Admiral Hackett, your executive officer has informed me that you’re required back aboard the SSV Orizaba. Recent developments ground-side require your immediate attention,” Samantha said, prompting Hackett to check his omni-tool with a rapid slew of curses.

“What’s the situation?” Shepard asked.

“A Leviathan has been detected on Rannoch. In the Leyya Sea, just off the north coast. It’s already downed three dreadnoughts,” he said, storming out of the information hub. Shepard didn’t hesitate to follow him, practically jogging to keep pace.

“A Leviathan? What is a Leviathan doing on Rannoch?”

“Hell if I know, Shepard,” he barked. They already stood in front of the airlock. “I want the Normandy to stay in orbit. You’re not to get close to that thing, at least not until we get a better read on the situation.”

Hackett stepped into the airlock, but Shepard swung her arm out to prevent the door from closing and grabbed Hackett’s arm. He wheeled around with a fury in his eye that she’d never seen, probably because she’d never done something so insubordinate, but she didn’t release him or step back.

“You will die if you engage it. If anyone is going to face off with this thing, it’s going to be me,” Shepard growled, a tear of desperation hanging from her words.

Despite her infuriating grip on his arm, Hackett softened. Behind her, Karin wore the most heart-breaking expression he’d ever seen. He looked between them before finally settling on Shepard and snapping his arm out of her grasp. Shepard pushed the door fully open, revealing the few stragglers who had followed her to the bridge. The quarian was one of them, and though he couldn’t see her face, Hackett could feel in her eyes the plea to rid her home world of the eldritch beast now plaguing it. But he had no real allegiance to the quarians. Even in this matter of defending their planet, his allegiance was to the Alliance and the dedication to serve and protect humanity’s allies. Right here and now, however, he had an allegiance to family – whatever loose definition placed Karin and Shepard in that category – and he couldn’t break that trust.

“It will be neither of us. Let me assess the situation, but if things are truly that bad, then we will have to pull out of this conflict. We can’t risk losing what that thing is sure to take,” he sighed, avoiding looking at the quarian. At least Karin’s face relaxed and Shepard was able to take a breath.

“You can’t do that! Do you think the quarians will stop? We will lose everything!” Tali begged, pushing up to the door. Shepard put out her arm to hold her back.

“Tali, you need to reach out to the Board. Get them to pull back. All quarians need to evacuate to the flotilla and away from Rannoch’s orbit. It’s no longer safe to be here,” Shepard said, though it broke her to do so.

“The Alliance will help with all evacuation efforts. I will personally reason with Han’Gerrel in order to achieve a full retreat,” Hackett assured. “Shepard, I have to go now. Please remove yourself from the airlock.”

Shepard stepped back and saluted before the door slid closed. Immediately, Tali broke past her and kicked the door. She knew it was out of character the moment she did it – knew it was childish and stupid and petulant – but she did it again, this time slamming her toe into the hardened tip of her boot. Tali cradled her head in her hands, trying not to cry with so many people around, but the tears already fogged up her HUD. When Shepard laid a soft hand on her shoulder, Tali whipped around and forced her friend to step back.

“Shepard, I know you understand. There is no reasoning with Han’Gerrel – you know they’ll never retreat. They were willing to die here before. Nothing has changed,” Tali begged, but even as she said the words, she knew Shepard’s response wouldn’t, couldn’t change. Tali didn’t even want it to, necessarily; the alternative meant Shepard would be the one sacrificed, and that was inconceivable. If her toe didn’t ache so bad, she’d kick the door again.

“I’m sorry, Tali. Maybe you can convey the severity of the situation.”

“They know the severity – it means nothing. The only thing that matters to them is reclaiming Rannoch.”

“Then tell them I’ll personally come back and deal with it once we know how. Maybe remind them that no one alive knows how to take down a Leviathan.”

“I watched you take down a Reaper on foot. How different can it be?” Tali asked, the desperation in her voice climbing.

“Extremely. For one, it’s underwater. Two, it has immense telepathic power. You were there on Despoina. You know what they’re capable of. That was a fraction of their power, and they were able to disable a Reaper with a single pulse. Considering they have artifacts scattered around Rannoch, we wouldn’t stand a chance,” Shepard explained, reaching out for Tali’s shoulder again. Tali shook it off and took a step back.

“I have to make a call,” she spat, shaking her head and storming off, leaving Shepard wondering yet again if she made the right decision. She was beginning to believe there was no such thing.

“I can talk to her,” Garrus offered. He’d only observed until now, stepping forward to take Shepard’s hand into his own. For being so powerful, her hands really were tiny.

“Don’t. Not yet. She needs to work through this,” Karin replied in Shepard’s place. “Right now, we need to collectively decide how to address the matter of Shepard’s revelation.”

Shepard nodded in agreement, squeezing Garrus’ hand. She’d need him – need all of them – to figure out what to do next. However, all she could think about were the encounters she’d had in the elsewhere. Her father giving himself over to the fire, the asari mother with her eye dribbling down her cheek like runny yolk. All she could think was that they were more than dreams, more than visions – that her memory had become manifest in a way she didn’t comprehend, couldn’t control. Somewhere, a young girl named Tessa wondered how she could be all alone; more than anything, Shepard thought about her.

“Then we get to the information hub and we don’t leave until we have a gameplan,” Shepard acquiesced. “I have someone I need to track down in the meantime.”

>>>>>>>

Miranda was pretending to sleep when her omni-tool lit up with a message from Liara. Without even checking it, she shoved the thick comforter to the end of the bed and began slipping on her clothes. It’s fine if you don’t sleep tonight. There’s always tomorrow. Her suit was beginning to smell like sweat, but she didn’t care. She slipped out to the kitchen in Shepard’s apartment and helped herself to a protein bar before opening the message.

FROM: T'Soni, Liara

SUBJECT: Weird Request

This might be a shot in the dark, but you're the only one on the Citadel I can trust with this. If I were to explain everything on this message, I'd be sending you a novella, and a highly classified one at that, so you'll just have to wait until we can talk in person.

I need you to track someone down for Shepard. We don't have much to work with based on Shepard’s description, but we know this : you’re looking for a girl named Tessa, aged between thirteen and fifteen years old, Asari, likely orphaned or living with relatives in Aroch Ward. Using these parameters, we've narrowed our hunt down to three candidates: Tessa Blake, Tessa G'hairil, and Tessa T'Nara-Volkov. Fortunately, Tessa is an incredibly uncommon name for asari. (For example, candidates with common first name Elara numbered 477 in Aroch's lower wards alone.)

I’ve attached and compiled their individual C-Res files to make things easier, but they’re sparse. Seems the Citadel bureaucracy is still functioning at a minimum. You should start at the latest documented address for each one– I don’t have any details for you other than they're all located in the lower wards.

Send us whatever details you can find, especially if you can find out information about the mother. Even better if you can get a picture. We'll confirm or deny based on what you give us. If you manage to find the right Tessa – and be discreet, not that I need to tell you that - Shepard wants her to be taken care of. Whatever she needs - food, clothes, tuition, housing - Shepard will send you access to her savings to cover the basics until she can come back to the Citadel in person.

If you don’t have time, don’t worry – this isn’t what I would call urgent. Let me know if you have any questions. Good luck, and thank you.

P.S. I hope you’ve been well. You haven’t responded to any of my reports and the Normandy group message has gone quiet, but I’m assuming you’re still alive.

As far as Miranda could tell, she was in fact still alive. Technically. Life had dissolved into a series of frustrating repetitions and dead-ends, so not what she expected to be doing after the war. She could hardly believe it had only been a month at the same time that she couldn’t believe a month had passed. At least tonight she’d be doing something different than her usual Progenitor scavenger hunt.

She had been hoping she wouldn’t hear from the crew directly until she had a solid lead on Progenitor’s activities on the Citadel – and there were many she could reasonably link together – but it was typical that her plans didn’t fall perfectly into place. She finished the protein bar in three bites, swept her guns off the counter, and headed for the apartment garage.

Three days after the Normandy crew left, Miranda woke up to a message from Garrus directing her to the garage where she found a brand-new model IX-L Esquiran sporting shuttle. Even better, he’d had it fitted with aftermarket handling modules and a mass-accelerator cannon lovingly named “Lawless.” That was the day Miranda learned just how deep the Vakarian-Shepard pockets went. Hell, for the skycar alone, Miranda would move mountains to find this girl Shepard deemed so important. It had certainly made her past month of directionless drifting around the Citadel at least a lot faster.

She liked getting around the Citadel at night the best, and with the Silversun Strip so far removed from Aroch’s lower wards, this gave her the perfect opportunity to ignore the traffic lanes and find out what these thrusters were made of. She linked the C-Res files to her skycar’s terminal and plugged the first address for Tessa Blake into the nav. Even without traffic, she was looking at a twenty-minute ride. She gripped the controls and surged out in the low lanes, but just as she really began to gain some speed, her omni-tool pinged. She could ignore the first message, but when another quickly followed, and another, she sighed, pulled back on the throttle,and set her car to autopilot. She opened her omni-tool messages and flicked them up to display over the windows.

Oriana: Miranda, I need to talk to you. This is urgent. Vidcall me. Now.

Oriana: I know you haven’t been sleeping, so if you are asleep, I’m sorry to bother you. I wouldn’t if it wasn’t important.

Oriana: Please be awake.

Just as Miranda finished reading the messages, her omni-tool buzzed with an incoming call from Oriana. She accepted the call within milliseconds, and Oriana’s face filled the screen.

“Oh thank god. You answered. Where are you right now?” Oriana asked. She looked tired – her eyes were set deep in puffy, mauve half-moons and her typically perfect hair shot out in frizzy tangles around her gaunt face. She was almost unrecognizable from the perky, fresh-faced girl Miranda had visited in early December.

“I’m running an errand. Have you lost weight? What’s going on?”

“Before I tell you, I need you to promise to believe me. And don’t be upset. I don’t think I can stand for you to be mad at me right now,” Oriana implored, her voice cracking.

Miranda’s head was already swimming – trying to comprehend the weight loss alone had her thinking the worst – but she quickly agreed so Oriana would continue.

“I’m… there’s something weird happening to me. I’ve been feeling sick for a few months now. More than anything I’ve been feeling so, so weak. So I went to the doctor this morning – I thought maybe I caught something with all the refugees around - but the doctor… he told me I’m pregnant. Miranda, I see your face, and I know this will sound crazy, but I can’t be pregnant. I’ve been seeing this drell guy from class and we’ve had sex but… but he’s a drell! I promise I haven’t seen anyone else. But the doctor insisted I was pregnant, even kept reminding me that our conversations were confidential, as if I’d lie! I’ve been scared to call you all day, scared of what you might think of me, so I’ve just been searching my symptoms on the extranet. I promise I wanted to tell you as soon as I found out, but I just couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Honestly, I’m not sure I would’ve called if I hadn't received a weird message about my… condition. I don’t know who sent it, but it doesn’t look like it’s from the clinic. Can you read it? I’m forwarding it to you…”

“Don’t. We don’t want a traceable trail. Just read it to me.”

Miranda managed to keep her voice from wavering, though her gut had turned to lead.

Anyone but Oriana. Please not Oriana.

“It’s a lot of jargon, and it’s long. I’m just going to share my screen, if that’s okay. I don’t have it in me to read it again. Here.”

Oriana’s face was replaced by the message in question and Miranda leaned closer across the dash to get a better look.

FROM: gLMAk99901hH14T = Z7009-5 (?? Inq. Err. Z7009-5)

SUBJECT: TIME SENSITIVE T= 22:48:09 UNTIL DEACTIVATION

Dear Ms. Lawson,

We understand you may be unsatisfied with the medical care you received today. You are feeling lost and confused with your diagnosis, and you suspect your doctor may be withholding information.

We are here to help.

You may be asking yourself – who is we? We are a non-profit medical syndicate operating within the Citadel to bring a next-level quality of care by applying theoretical restorative practices rebuked by restrictive Council policy. Where mainstream medicine acts according to dishonest funding bias and rigid methodical tradition, we are willing to forsake the bonds of capitalistic interest to deliver the information and care you deserve.

WE ONLY WANT WHAT’S BEST FOR YOU AND YOUR BABY.

Do you?

If you answered yes, simply respond with a confirmation and we will send a shuttle to bring you to our location on the Citadel. Be aware that your confirmation grants us preliminary access to your omni-tool’s internal tracking services. This is vital as it allows us to trace your exact location and ensure your personal ideal for discretion; all collected data is set to auto-delete within twenty-four hours. Once we have your location, you will receive further instruction to help you understand what to expect from this introductory visit.

We sincerely hope you give us the opportunity to prove that we care about your health and safety.

“This can’t be from the clinic, right?” Oriana’s voice broke in over the text, and Miranda switched back to the vidcall. Oriana looked somehow more distraught than before. “I’ve received my fair share of spam messages, and this isn’t that either. It’s too specific. Who would send this? How do they know? I mean, could it just be a spam message? Maybe I dug too deep while searching the extranet, clicked a bad link on one of those forums.”

A couple of Miranda’s nails snapped as she raked her fingers across the leather of the armrests; one snapped right to the nailbed, drawing blood. But she held her expression together. She had to for Oriana’s sake. She was only twenty-one, far too young to be dealing with this. She was supposed to finish school, find someone good enough for her, have kids when she already had a fulfilling career started – she was just a kid herself. And she was terrified.

She should be.

Not just because she faced unplanned pregnancy, but because Miranda knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that message was linked to Progenitor. It wasn’t obvious; only someone who had dug themselves as deep into the Progenitor rabbit hole as Miranda could recognize the subtle signs. It felt selfish to be looking at her sister’s crisis as the first solid lead she’d gotten in weeks. It felt even worse that, despite Oriana’s distress, jealousy burned like a coal in Miranda’s chest.

“No, your suspicions are valid. You were right to come to me first,” Miranda confirmed. “How far along are you?”

“The doctor said he couldn’t get into specifics until I came in for a more comprehensive follow-up. But he estimated two, three months maybe just based off my symptoms… but that doesn’t matter, right? Because I can’t be pregnant. I can’t be.”

“We thought the same about Shepard. I assume you’ve heard about that by now.”

“I thought that was just a rumor. And either way, that’s Commander Shepard. I’m just… a regular person. This is a mistake.”

Oriana began to sob, and clearly not for the first time that day, as her eyelids immediately swelled. Miranda toggled to the navigation – ten minutes until she reached the destination. That number had become irrelevant eight minutes ago.

So much for changing things up tonight.

Except this was different; not just some unreliable, muddled rumor three pages deep on a forum inquiry, nor a half-literate dossier slapped together by half-starved duct rats. Miranda’s hairs stood on end, though she couldn’t tell which of her feverish emotions drove the physical response. Fear, excitement, agitation, vindication, rage. Sheer exhaustion. Nearly terminal burn-out. Shame. She could almost hear her father reminding her she truly was selfish, and the Illusive Man’s sinister laugh in response. In approval.

She rebuked that. All of it. Even that clandestine yearning for the child she couldn’t have. She’d rebuked it all the moment she left Cerberus behind and chose the family she already had.

“Where are you right now?” Miranda asked.

“I’m in my Zakera apartment.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Don’t open the door for anybody, shutter your windows, turn off your lights. I’m on my way from Aroch, so it might be a while. And Oriana? It’s going to be okay, alright? I’m going to take care of you.”

Miranda directed the skycar up and out of the traffic lanes. As she switched to manual, the screens flickered to window view, allowing the glow of the Silversun skyline to illuminate the interior of the car – the empty take-out containers, the lipstick from that date she’d stood up two weeks ago, the barely-worn panties she’d hastily discarded in the front seat with that other date she never bothered to call back. All those things were irrelevant now – unrecognizable fragments of a ghost wearing Miranda’s skin. She accelerated the skycar faster, faster than she’d ever taken it, until the blur of color and light obscured all things that were not her white-knuckled hands gripping the controls.

>>>>>>>

With every person that walked through the elevator to the engineering deck, Tali locked up with both hope and dread that it was Shepard, but Shepard never came. Six hours had passed since her outburst, and likely six more would pass before Tali got the chance to apologize. She’d made peace with it. At least, she made peace with it once she wore Han’Gerrel down into accepting the full retreat. Only after that did she even consider apologizing for her behavior, but she’d gladly welcome another six hours of silence if it meant nursing her wounded pride for just a little while longer. It was at least fitting that her toe still throbbed. The elevator hissed overhead yet again, that sound alone enough to dry out Tali’s throat, but it was only Kal. He clinked down the steps, two aluminum packets in his hands, and motioned for her to join him.

She followed him to the starboard cargo room, surprised to find he’d set up a couple of cots among the crates. He dropped onto one of them, shifting on the stiff canvas before handing one of the nutrient packets up to Tali. She glanced at the other cot he’d made for her and realized she hadn’t even thought about where she’d be sleeping now that she wasn’t official crew.

“Between the geth and the Alliance, the evacuation is going about as well as it can. We’re estimating 87% of the surviving population planetside will be rescued by tomorrow night. That estimate would be a lot lower if you hadn’t bullied Han into submission when you did. Thank you,” Kal said unprompted. “I suppose you haven’t heard from Commander Shepard, have you?”

Tali shook her head and pinched the nutrient pouch between her fingers. She thought she’d be ready to eat but couldn’t bring herself to open the packet. Kal already had his hooked up to his induction port.

“Makes sense. She hasn’t left the information hub once, not even to eat. Garrus all but force-fed her a few hours in. They’re all up to their necks with video feeds and inter-planetary communications, and they keep having these cryptic debates and conversations. I got the feeling my ears were no longer welcome, so I figured I’d leave my post and do something a bit more useful,” he shrugged, gesturing to the rudimentary quarters he’d arranged. “I hope you don’t mind. I wasn’t sure if you already had a place you preferred to sleep, and Specialist Traynor said this room wasn’t currently occupied.”

“No, it’s perfect,” she gestured vaguely at the white walls and unused terminals. “And you’ll get used to the cryptic conversations – you’ll probably even start to catch on. That is, if you’re planning on staying.”

“I haven’t decided yet. I’m at least staying for the night – the commander plans to stay with the flotilla until everything’s settled, which won’t be until tomorrow night at the earliest. What about you?”

“I don’t know. All this time I’ve poured myself into figuring out the geth, and I wasn’t even close. The Alarei is being used as a hospital ship, and that’s about all it’s good for now that my research data is irrelevant. Really, the Normandy is the only true home I have left, though I suppose returning to the flotilla means I have my position on the Admiralty Board again. As much as I’d like to stay here, I have to go where I’m needed.”

“Someone has to keep Han’Gerrel in check – no one does that like you do,” Kal said with a half-hearted laugh. His nutrient packet zipped shut as he gulped down the last of it. He removed it and, seeing nowhere to toss it, crumpled it in his hands. Tali still hadn’t touched hers.

“So I guess that settles it. Han’Gerrel’s official handler,” Tali sighed with a wispy giggle that sounded flat in the sterile space. “Did that help you make up your mind?”

“I go where you go, Tali. I thought you knew that by now,” he replied nonchalantly, dipping his chin to his chest as he fumbled with the empty packet. It fell to the floor between his feet and he didn't pick it up. Tali focused on the packet still unopened in her hands, suddenly finding her appetite if only to give her something to do.

“Well it’s not exactly like we’ve ever talked about it,” she huffed, struggling to pry open her induction port. It must have gotten dented somewhere in the scuffle. Kal suddenly reached over and forced it open, and his lingering closeness allowed his scent to drift into her suit – roasted kaff’a leaves, static charge, the faint saltiness of sweat accumulation in his filters. She hesitated before pushing her feeding straw into the packet’s opening.

“It?” he prodded.

“Us.”

Kal leaned back, but not fully; his hand lingered at the edge of her cot, just centimeters from her knee. She shifted so his fingers could graze the thin fabric of her suit, though she wished it was his skin on her bare thigh. Before now, her research superseded the pining, the heady lust that overcame her in Kal’s presence, but a certain promise she’d made to herself in the midst of the fighting crossed into her thoughts.

Tell him how you feel.

It wasn’t enough to just tell him she was horny. She wanted to tell him that he shouldn’t have gone through the trouble of setting up two cots because she slept better crushed against his side on a too-small bed. She wanted to tell him that he made her feel safe, wanted, giddy, nervous, torn, and she wanted to tell him how many times she’d sculpted his face from the shadows under his visor – the hard line of a square jaw, the crook of a long, curved nose.

“I’ll say it again, then. I go where you go. Until you tell me to leave, I’m at your disposal, Tali’Zorah. From the moment I met you on Haestrom, I knew I would follow you. You could tell me to jump into an active volcano and I would do it if it made you happy,” Kal confessed, gathering Tali’s hands into his own. “I’ve never loved anyone before, so I don’t know if that’s what I’m feeling, but if this isn’t love…”

“Wait,” she interjected, hastily swallowing the nutrient paste in her mouth. “Don’t say it yet. I haven’t even seen your face. You’ve seen me naked.”

“Why not? Don’t tell me you’re afraid I’m ugly,” he crowed, dropping her hands and throwing his own up in defeat. He tilted his head forward and added, “Until now, you’ve been just fine with what I have to offer.”

“Anyone can fool around over the suit and have a good time. This is different. This actually means something,” she retorted, trying hard to finish her nutrient paste. The bag was still half-full.

“So you’re telling me to get naked and risk infection in a foreign environment all so I can tell you how I know I feel?” he asked. His heart pounded in his chest at the thought. In the fluorescent lighting, he could almost make out the curve of her lips turning up into a smile. Even just the notion of her mouth flooded him with heat, though he’d much rather they repeat back the words he struggled to hold in.

“So you'd jump into a volcano, but you draw the line at a cold? Besides, I never said it had to be now. If all goes well, we return to the live ships tomorrow night. I’ll even show you how nice the Admiral quarters are,” she teased. “And as long as you aren’t ugly, I might even let you sleep over.”

Kal snorted and crossed his arms. He couldn’t decide whether to be annoyed or elated. The idea of spending all night in this suffocatingly secluded room without being able to take this conversation further sent tangible ache through his body. His heart galloped across his sternum, so much so that he was beginning to think she could hear it. He clamped his hands down on his knees (as if that would relieve some of the pressure mounting under his suit) and groaned when even his own touch woke the nerves lining his thighs.

“Has anyone ever told you how maddening you can be?” he asked, flopping down on the cot.

“Believe it or not, no. Most people find me to be quite easy to be around. I’ve even been known to get a laugh out of Qwib-Qwib from time to time,” she laughed and mirrored his movement.

“You better not find any reason to stay on the Normandy. I’m not going to risk another infection just to prove to you I’m not ugly.”

“Spoken like a true suit-faced quarian,” Tali giggled.

“I’m not suit-faced. It’s just that a runny nose and a cough will spoil what I have planned, much of which requires the use of my mouth.”

“Oh yes, I’m sure there will be lot’s of defending your terrible features.”

Kal’s throaty laugh lingered in the sharp corners of the room where the honey sound pinned back the hell they’d been through, were living through. Right now, they were just two quarians swimming in borrowed time. Tali draped her hand over the side of the cot and Kal’s was already there waiting for hers. Their fingers laced together across the distance, cradled by the momentary relief their openness had bought. When Tali closed her eyes, she met a split-frame movie replaying every touch and word passed between them, and every reckoning the past week had wrought. For the first time since the war, the points of light shone brighter than the horror; this time they lingered, ferried by his hand in hers.

Stay, Illusion, she prayed, though she couldn’t recall where she’d heard it before. It pushed from the edges of the room and covered her like a blanket. Stay.

>>>>>>>

By the time the clock rolled over, Hackett still hadn’t reached out to give an updated progress report, meaning Shepard had to stick with his last order to keep the Normandy sheltered within the fleet’s defensive orbital formation and surrender to sleep. Garrus kept trying to hide that he could barely keep his eyes open by hiding his head behind his terminal screen, but Shepard heard when his breathing slowed. His right arm also always starting twitching the second he gave over to sleep, and his had gone through the cycle at least twice in the last hour.The only person remaining diligently at work was Liara, who didn’t seem the least bit phased by the grueling hours they’d dedicated to assessing the galactic climate. Even Jor'Tal (Tali had made sure to acquaint the geth with its qurian moniker) had sought out the AI core in an attempt to communicate with ABI.

Most recently, they’d shifted their focus to the situation on Omega, now unofficially-officially occupied by Alliance forces for security purposes. Liara managed to break their encryption hours ago with Traynor’s help, but even that gave them very little to work with.

The best they’d managed was getting in contact one of the Seventh Fleet’s spec op commanders that Shepard trained with at the naval academy in ‘74. Captain Azi Olowe. They never knew each other beyond passing recognition and their messages weren’t extensive, though he did confirm that another operative unit had made it into Omega’s residential blocks of the Gozu District and were working within the population to get a timeline of the break-down. According to him, it wasn’t going well – the people of Omega weren’t keen on working with the Alliance, especially in the wake of Aria’s death. After she regained power during the Reaper War, the people of Omega were even more resistant to off-world power grabs, not that Shepard believed that could be possible.

Their main victory came in the form of a message from Samara: Still alive. Making my way to the Alliance operatives. Avoiding detection remains difficult. Will update when possible. Do not come here. Considering the secrecy surrounding the station’s status, Shepard was inclined to listen to Samara and reluctantly crossed it off the list of next best destination. Currently she was torn between returning to Tuchanka to warn Bakara of the impending and likely unavoidable threat of the Leviathans and following up Kaidan’s current Council lead indicating Earth as another Progenitor hot spot. Neither seemed like the best option.

In her heart, she knew it was time to return to the Citadel and inform the Council about the Leviathans’ involvement, the other hybrid pregnancies, but she almost wanted a better reason. No, the reason was more than enough - it was mostly that she doubted her evidence was compelling enough for meaningful action. If she knew the Council, they wouldn’t be inclined to take her at her word that she traveled through time in her dreams to rewrite the order of galactic life with her memories and the power of love.

Shepard chuckled darkly and dropped her face down into her hands. Her eyes had gone bleary and the words on the screen were beginning to blur. Her head hurt something fierce. She blinked hard to clear her dewy eyes and tried massaging some feeling back into her legs. Upon shifting for the first time in at least an hour, Sirius moved inside of her to rest directly against her bladder. Shepard just about wet herself under the sudden unexpected pressure and sucked in a sharp breath as she clenched her thighs. Garrus shot up at the sound, not even trying to hide that he’d fallen asleep. He shot a concerned look to Shepard, but she just shook her head and frowned internally.

Rubbing her palm across her lower belly, she muttered,

“There are better ways to get me to stand up, baby. If you’ve got something to say about this situation, try morse code instead.”

“Don’t tell me you’re thinking about teaching morse code to a 25-centimeter fetus,” Liara plucked. Even in his sleepy daze, Garrus laughed.

“If he’s big enough to start squeezing my bladder, he’s big enough to learn how to spell ‘sorry’,” Shepard quipped, dragging herself up from the seat. Her spine crackled as she braced herself against a set of railing to stretch her body. Garrus got to his feet as well, legs clearly stiff as boards, and ambled over to give Shepard extra leverage to get those deep pops.

“It’s never too early to give our kid the extra edge,” Garrus added with a tired smirk. “Did I miss anything?”

“Hardly. The evacuation is ongoing. No end in sight. Another Alliance ship is quarantined due to suspected Leviathan infiltration. We might be stuck here for a while,” Shepard said.

“Damn. How many ships is that now? Fifteen?”

“That’s not even counting the compromised quarian population, though they’re following different protocol. As in, they’re not taking it as seriously,” Liara added.

“What did you expect? All the quarian fleet knows is that the Leviathans are too dangerous to attempt an offensive strike. Everything else having to do with the Leviathans is wrapped in so much red tape you’d think it’s a Christmas present. I don’t even think System’s Alliance has a written clearance protocol for this kind of thing. Closest we’ve got is emergency war-time orders for the dispersal of their artifacts; it might as well be a hand-written note that says, ‘Don’t touch the whispering blue orbs for more than ten seconds. Gloves recommended. Don't tell anyone what you're doing, wink wink'," Shepard sighed. "And probably half of the fifteen operatives who even read it are dead.”

"At least they issued the retreat. You have to admit that's shocking, all things considered," Garrus said.

That only reminded her that she hadn’t even checked on Tali after her outburst on the bridge. She hoped it wouldn’t be too late to clear the air in the morning, not that Tali had ever made a point to hold resentment. She still owed her friend a sit-down. They hadn’t had to the chance to exchange more than a couple sentences since her rescue, much less even a hug.

Shepard couldn’t think about it now. In fact, she lost brain power with every second she waited to use the bathroom, so she started for the door.

“Are you done for the night?” Liara queried.

“Just hitting the bathroom. I’ll be back to wrap things up, see if I can get a hold of Hackett before turning in, but believe me, I’m ready for today to be over,” Shepard sighed before leaving the hub.

As soon as she left, Garrus collapsed back into his seat. For the first time in hours, Liara abandoned her post and chose one of the seats beside him to sink herself into. She might not look it, but if she were to close her eyes for longer than ten seconds, she’d be out for the next seven hours. She was ready for the day to be over, too, and she hadn’t even had the chance to seek out Javik’s promise for another delirious session upon his arrival. She was pretty sure he was long asleep at this point, anyway, much to her chagrin; she could use a better send off to sleep than the smattering of loose ends fraying around the dimming edges of her conscience.

“You know, I’m starting to think I actually got more sleep during the Reaper War if you can believe it,” Garrus huffed, his mandibles slack along the side of his face.

“Just wait until the baby’s here. See how much sleep you get then,” Liara tutted.

“Call it father’s intuition, or wishful delusion, but I just don’t see my kid being the type to miss sleep. With any luck, pre-installed exhaustion is a side-effect of being vaporized in the first trimester,” Garrus replied, earning a soft – if not bitterly resigned – laugh from Liara.

Garrus had heard the exact one before plenty of times: when Liara realized she’d be coming back to the Normandy crew even after successfully becoming the biggest information broker in the galaxy; when the drinks began to run low on the return trip to earth after crash-landing, and they spent three hours writing up a plan to distill ethanol from nearby gas giants; when Shepard put her N7 armor on just days out of a coma and tried to say she felt fine even as her hands shook with every movement.

Garrus couldn’t help but echo the sound. If not for the commiseration, then he laughed for the sheer absurdity - the absurdity that he was having a son equal parts love and abomination and that he felt eerily okay with the fact that his mate had traveled through time to memorialize that grave and glorious error in the very fabric of reality. That he'd get to be a father at all, to get the chance at such a incomparable privilege and gift when the galaxy reeled from so much utter atrophy was absurd. All of it was stranger than any fiction – stranger by far, and so too far more breathtaking.

While he'd all but made his final peace with the fact that at any moment, it could all be ripped away - even by something as simple as an overlooked eezo leak in the core or a misstep on a single step - he knew he wouldn't survive losing either of them. But especially not Electra. Every present moment that she persisted - that she was in arm's reach and he could fill his nostrils with the smell of her skin, tangle his talons in her hair, press his chest against hers until their heartbeats aligned like flashing turn signals in stand-still traffic - he wished it would all just end, all at once, that he might never have to fear irrevocable lack.

But even if he lost her and he remained behind, he'd find a way past the mortal barrier. Hell, he'd rebuild the crucible himself if it meant splitting himself into so many small enough pieces that he could slip through those dimensional cracks and reconstitute somewhere along the infinite plane of her memory.

Maybe he just needed to go to sleep already. She'd been gone less than two minutes to take a leak and he already waxed about a loss that hadn't even happened. If he kept this up, he'd probably end up somehow even more overbearing than his own father. They had right now, and that's what mattered, and when they finally went to bed, he'd linger in her hair, her collarbone, the crease beneath her knees, just to remind himself of that temporary permanence.

“Do you remember that thing Ashley said that one time? One of those quotes she’d throw around from those dusty old books in her locker,” Garrus asked, feeling his words begin to jumble together. “I didn’t understand her half the time, but that one just stuck.”

Liara hummed, remembering Ashley’s tendency to sprinkle her musings with fractions of old poetry, but she couldn’t recall the exact words, even though she somehow understood exactly what it was that Garrus referenced. It was a memory felt more than remembered.

“Stay, Illusion,” Shepard’s voice rang from the entrance behind them, though for a moment, it sounded to Garrus and Liara like Ashley herself spoke from behind the veil.

The pair swiveled their heads in Shepard’s direction, finding her in a faraway trance as she mingled within the diaphanous air of reminiscence. Shepard herself didn’t know exactly how the words came to her, but rather had felt their presence in the ship like a gossamer overlay ever since waking.

“It’s from an old Earth play. Hamlet. Not really my scene, but it’s a beautiful line. Maybe I like it because it’s the only thing simple enough to wrap my clunky military brain around,” she laughed. She went on to explain, “I lost the books I kept from her locker when the SR-1 was destroyed, but I think she wants us to have that line. Whether it's for the beauty or to serve as a warning, it's ours now."

As if on cue, Shepard’s omni-tool lit up with a notification that Hackett was ready for her on vidcom. She strode over to her terminal and joined the call. Hackett’s face materialized on the screen looking even more exhausted than her own. She offered a tired salute and waited for him to speak.

“I’m glad you stayed up for my update – I intended to get back to you much earlier, but I’ve had my hands full with a new development. One of my recon scouts managed to secure a crate of Leviathan artifacts during a sweep for survivors, and on top of securely bringing it aboard, he also captured the Eclipse captain transporting the stuff. When we couldn’t get a word out of him in the first ten, we locked him up alone with the artifacts in our smallest frigate. Providing we can safely transport him to a secure Alliance base, we might get the information we need to go to the Council and formally link Progenitor to the Leviathans.”

“Sir, I understand we might not get another opportunity like this, but I don’t like the idea of having even one of those artifacts in our proximity. What happens when the merc won’t talk?”

“Oh, I think I could get him to talk,” Garrus muttered, though he didn’t like the idea of getting near the artifacts any more than Shepard did.

“It’s only a matter of time. He’ll break eventually. If not, we’ll at least use him to gather information about Leviathan mind-control. I’m only telling you this because you’re my first pick for interrogator. Seeing as you’re presumably already under their influence and have shown a greater resistance to their control, this might also give you a chance to get more information out of the Leviathans,” Hackett offered.

“Admiral…”

“I wouldn’t ask you to do something I think might genuinely endanger you, kid. Sleep on it. And tomorrow, I’d like to know what you plan to do regarding the Council. You have my full confidence with anything revealed today – I won’t make any moves until we both agree it’s time – but the clock is ticking.”

In moments like this, Shepard lost the ability to distinguish how much she was getting of Hackett, the head of System’s Alliance, and Stephen, the man who'd stepped in to give a sh*t about her well-being as a person above her efficacy as a hero. The line blurred more and more every day, though she didn’t try to indulge too much in the idea that he’d be more to her son than another vague and legendary figure silhouetted at the far rim of his awareness. That didn’t mean the alternative didn’t regularly cross her mind - that Hackett might actually take up some role in her son's life like he had in hers the past two months. With four months to go until Sirius made his entrance into the world, she'd find out sooner than later.

The longer this call lasted, and the more Shepard’s eyelids fought the losing battle to gravity, she thought she began to actually understand the meaning of the words “stay, illusion.” It only left her dreading the end of the call, and thus the nearing inevitability of dreaming.

“I hear you. And I’ll think on it. One more day and I guarantee you’ll have my answer.”

“Good. Now go get some sleep, Shepard. I might ask a lot of you, and I might even be a little abrasive at times, but I still feel responsible for your well-being, and, no offense, you look like crap. Look, as an apology for the way I acted yesterday, I'm insisting you take the morning to yourself. If I find out you’re up working before noon tomorrow, I’m putting you on mandatory early maternity leave. Full pay, of course.”

“Oh no, anything but that,” Garrus chimed in offscreen. Hackett acted like he didn’t hear it.

"You say that like my Spectre status wouldn't keep my schedule full," she challenged.

“And you act like the Council hasn't been pushing for me to fill Udina's vacant seat. Don't think I wouldn't fill in temporarily just to make sure you keep out of trouble."

"When did you become such a teddy bear?" Shepard smirked, and Hackett's scarred lip twitched into a wry grin.

"Until tomorrow, Commander. Hackett out.”

The screen went black, but not without leaving the ephemeral outline of his face in the screen’s display. A spectral reimagining of a father figure Shepard hated to mourn. White filaments weaving across her spotty vision like funeral linens caught on a gale. All the same illusion – never meant to linger, yet present in every moment by way of time paradoxes and metaphors made ghosts.

One day, she’d figure out the right set of words to make them all stay. Tonight, however, she would dream in the language of displacement.

Chapter 31: Tank Bred

Chapter Text

Miranda watched the timer in the subject line of the message tick down as she stroked Oriana’s hair. Her sister’s breathing had finally evened out as slept claimed her, though the wet spot left by her tears lingered. Miranda had to amend her thoughts every few minutes; stupid, stupid girl turned to how could she have known, and I’m going to kill that insufferable, underachieving drell bastard turned to he has no idea what’s going on. As it was, Miranda had to prevent Oriana from calling him ten separate times in nearly full day since she’d arrived. Getting her to also let Miranda coopt her omni-tool was another battle entirely.

And yet, here she was, hand perched over the SEND MESSAGE for the last hour and still unable to make the final call. She’d already decided Oriana would be moving in with her as there was no way they didn’t already have her location, but it was the myriad unknowns that held her back. Would they immediately come in and sedate her or would they go for the kill? Would there even be a second location? She needed Shepard, and unfortunately there was no time for that. In fact, she only had two hours until her lead vanished.

Without Shepard, Miranda just had to rely on her training and the blinding rage she felt for Oriana’s sake. Rage Oriana herself didn’t seem to have. That they were genetically identical confounded her.

Miranda stood carefully, gently lowering Oriana’s head to the sofa and watching to make sure she didn’t wake with the adjustment. She entered her sister’s room and began rifling through clothes until she finally found something not skin-tight – a loose fitting sweater and some flowy pants entirely unlike her own clothing – and slid them on over her armor. She fiddled with her hair for a while before deciding to just tie it all back and washed off the remnants of makeup around her eyes, rubbing extra hard to add some redness to the lids. By the end of it, she looked very much like she could be her sister – or at least a young woman struggling with a hard decision in the middle of the night. When she stepped out of Oriana’s room, she found Oriana sitting up and studying her through swollen eyelids with a frown.

“You can’t seriously be about to do what I think you’re doing,” Oriana muttered with a sniffle.

“And you can’t seriously expect me to sit back and do nothing,” Miranda responded, crossing her arms. “I’ll be fine. I’ve got a plan.”

“Oh? Enlighten me,” Oriana crossed her arms and sat up taller. Her nap had strengthened her resolve if nothing else.

“First thing’s first, you’re going to get out of here. Go back to Shepard’s apartment with my omni-tool for access, and don’t contact anyone until I get back. Then I’m going to steal your identity and have them take me to their facility,” Miranda said, picking at her nails as she spoke. She didn’t want to give away the fact that she could feel her heartbeat in her throat.

“And if they sedate you?”

“I’ve built up a tolerance to most standard sedatives over the years. They’d have to give me enough to knock out a horse. By the time they realize I’m not unconscious… well, they won’t have time to realize it. They’ll be dead.”

“You seem really sure they won’t notice you’re not me.”

“We are genetically identical. Besides, I only need them to be convinced long enough to get me to the location – after that, I’ll relieve them of their ability to think altogether. Happy?”

“Have you considered they’re not who you think they are? That you might be about to murder innocent people who really do want to help?” Oriana asked, standing up. She crossed the room to adjust the sweater, pulling it out from where it had gotten snagged behind Miranda’s concealed sidearm.

“No. I’m right about this. And I will be fine. I’ll probably be back before you even wake up.”

“As if I’ll be able to sleep,” Oriana scoffed, stepping back to give Miranda a full inspection. Her resolve wavered as she looked at her sister, a mirror image standing before her. “You know, I think I’ve decided to not tell Shusko about the baby. It’s probably best to just end it early and get on with my life.”

Miranda opened her mouth to respond but didn’t have any words. What, like you could raise the baby yourself? And put her through that? Miranda tried to nod and smile but couldn’t do that either. In fact, her thoughts had been plagued by that selfish dream this entire time – that she could raise the baby and would do so gladly. She never envisioned herself raising a drell, but the devil was in the details. Either way, it would be as close to her own child, genetically speaking, as she’d ever get.

And that doesn’t matter because it’s still not yours.

“Pack whatever you need and be quick. You might not be able to come back here for a while,” Miranda said, turning away to check the message again. Still there. Good. Though she hadn’t expected it to disappear.

Oriana swished around her and Miranda waited until she started hearing her packing before returning back to the couch to keep silent watch over the messages. She’d done a lot in the last few hours to reconfigure Oriana’s omni-tool to her needs. An encrypted tracking tool routing her location back to her private terminal at home, a trojan horse designed to grant access via the message sender’s own probe, a series of messages set to send specific information with specific voice prompts should anything go wrong. She didn’t tell Oriana about those and hoped her dear sister would never have to see the one meant for her.

Writing the one to Shepard wasn’t easy either.

She went back to the current draft to Shepard she’d been sitting on for the past hour and clicked her tongue as she read it over. Thank you this and I’m sorry that. It didn’t even sound like her. She deleted it entirely and wrote something else to send right now instead: Following a major lead on Progenitor. Oriana is pregnant with a half-drell baby and has been targeted. If you don’t hear from me in 24 hours, then I’m probably dead. -Miranda

She sent it at the exact moment Oriana came out of her room with a single bag, stuffed with so many clothes that the zipper hardly closed. She nodded tearfully and held out her hand, presumably for the keys to Miranda’s skycar. Instead, Miranda stood from the couch and crossed the small room to crush Oriana in a hug. It must’ve surprised her, because it took a few seconds for her arms to find their way around Miranda’s back.

“I love you,” Miranda said into Oriana’s hair. “Try to get some sleep and don’t worry about me.”

“I don’t care how badass you are – that’s impossible,” Oriana hiccuped. “I love you, too.”

Miranda passed her the keys and showed her out to the car, watching the entire time until the taillights disappeared down a tunnel. The skycar was automatically routed through the low lanes, meaning Oriana would make it to Shepard’s in about half an hour; she loathed the thought of her being all alone in that huge, empty apartment, but at least she knew she’d be safe. Miranda had to repeat that to herself a few times before it felt right, and even then, it felt like an elaborate lie planned by Progenitor. In fact, nothing about this situation struck Miranda as safe; she just had to make sure she didn’t die so someone could still be here to take care of Oriana.

She didn’t go back into the apartment, instead choosing to walk to the end of the apartment block before reopening her messages to the one from the mystery sender. Just under two hours left. She looked up, the streets empty save the distant wavering of skycar lights refracting off the half-ruined block of housing. This place really was a sh*t heap. At least, if all went well, she could find Oriana a better place to live. Maybe even set her up in one of the still empty units in Tiberius Towers and have Zaeed come work his magic on security.

Maybe, just maybe, Oriana would change her mind about the abortion, and Miranda could move in with her and they could bring the baby up with so much love and light and laughter – everything they never had – and Miranda might finally find out how to chase back the emptiness left by her nonexistent childhood. That child really would be loved; it was one of the few things Miranda felt sure of. She smiled at the thought, turned her attention back to the messages, and sent: Okay. I’m ready. Come get me.

>>>>>>>

0114 hours, January 25^th

When Shepard received Miranda’s message, she was already standing in the Normandy’s airlock while it cycled through decontamination at the Rayya’s docking terminal. That Miranda happened to message her in the exact worst moment after sitting still for nearly two days – and for this being the first time she’d heard from Miranda all month – the final words gave her a bit of a shock. She’s Miranda, she’ll be fine. Deal with it later. She forwarded the message to Liara and hoped she might be able to get more out of it by the time Shepard made it back from the summary briefing. The lights in the airlock glowed green with a pleasant ding and the doors opened to a small welcome party of quarians.

Tali rushed past Shepard at the sight of Auntie Raan, their arms folding around each other with a wordless sigh of relief to see each other in one piece. Tali had confirmed hours ago that her aunt had made it off Rannoch safely, but with the Leviathan launching invisible attacks and so many still unaccounted for, she didn’t trust anything but what her own senses could confirm. Raan pulled her back after an extended embrace and studied her, surely marking the areas where her suit had taken damage and listening in to the slightly labored breathing, but Tali actually felt okay, all things considered. Maybe she was still riding a bit of a high from her conversation with Kal and the subsequent sessions of extremely heavy touching and teasing, but since the round of immune boosters she had back at the server, not even her sinuses were blocked. Her lungs only labored because they continued to heal from the cough.

“My dear girl, you gave me quite the scare,” Raan tutted, her hand fiddling with a particularly frayed field-patch along Tali’s collar. She looked back at the party that had joined her niece – Shepard, Kal’Reegar, and a geth unit (the one she assumed must be Jor’Tal Tali described in her message.) She nodded at each of them, hoping she’d get a chance to convey her thanks in full, but she’d been sent to escort them straight to the meeting chambers. The Admiralty Board would tolerate no more waiting than was necessary seeing as the evacuation stretched on so much longer than they predicted.

As they walked quickly through the broad halls of the Liveship, Tali noted the general disorder crowding every imperfectly scrubbed corner. Civilians holding wailing children shouted at civil representatives, soldiers pushed through packs of dazed evacuees, and crowds teemed around screens – once used for advertisem*nts and environmental alerts – displaying the names of those who had been successfully rescued and added to the registry in real-time. She wanted to hold Kal’s hand, but it was Shepard that reached over and squeezed her wrist as they wove through the chaos.

Tali wished they’d had more time to talk. Shepard hadn’t even left her quarters until sometime after 1200 and by then, arrangements for a round table discussion of the events and future strategy consumed the remainder of the day. Briefly, while Kal coordinated with the Rayya and Tali cleaned up the living space in the cargo bay, Shepard had wandered in and begun helping her gather her things up. Between the two of them, it took no more than a few minutes to have everything looking spotless, though Shepard had continued to pluck at a stray fiber protruding from the folded blanket Tali had borrowed from crew quarters.

“I wish you’d stay. I’m not proud of how I handled last night; it’s not how I saw our reunion going,” Shepard had said while Tali herself tried to think of the right thing to say. “I honestly was hoping I’d be able to take you up on that offer to throw me and Garrus a quarian wedding.”

“The offer still stands. I’m not trying to get too involved in quarian politics again and since you solved my little geth conundrum, I have nothing better to do than plan a wedding,” Tali replied with a shrug.

“I want you to keep working with them. The geth. I brought them back, but all that talk about altered programs and processing runtimes goes way over my head. It’s bad enough that Jor’Tal’s spent the last day trying to override ABI with geth code because she ‘lacks the proper new world prerogative’,” Shepard laughed and plopped down on one of the crates.

Tali had watched her curiously as she straightened and brushed her hands over the bump that had grown since Tali had seen her. She’d never known what to say to pregnant women, probably because she’d rarely ever encountered them. Pregnant quarians went into months long isolation and were arguably one of the rarest sights in the galaxy, even among other quarians. That it was her friend didn’t make it any easier, and she’d been able to mostly put it out of mind when she wasn’t showing so much. Now, it had become a little hard to ignore.

“If that’s what you want, I’ll do it gladly. I’d also love to know what he means by new world prerogative from a technical standpoint,” Tali replied, taking a seat opposite her. “Shepard, I just want to say…”

“I’m sorry,” they had said at the same time, pausing awkwardly before laughing at themselves. It was amazing how years of diving into hell together made every argument seem so stupid in hindsight.

“I’m going to miss you a lot, Tali. You know you’re always welcome to stay. You’ve been here from the start – Sirius is going to hear a lot of stories about his Auntie Tali’Zorah,” Shepard took on a faraway smile as she spoke, her thumb rubbing across her belly.

“Then to be fair, you’ll just have to visit regularly so Auntie Tali can tell him all about how cool his parents used to be.”

“Used to be? We’re never going to stop being cool. We have video games based on us.”

“And I have no doubt he’ll pretend they don’t exist because his lame parents are the subject of them. If anything, that’s just going to make it worse for him once he starts going to school and his friends ask if your rack really looks like that,” Tali had laughed, but just as they felt themselves sinking back into their old banter, Joker alerted them that they were initiating docking protocol with the Rayya and to get their asses up to the bridge.

After quite a bit of pushing and ducking through the people, the party managed to get to the Rayya’s central shuttles; Shala’Raan punched in a special code and scanned her omni-tool, ferrying them all the way to the Admiralty Board chambers at the center of the ship. When they hopped off the shuttle, the comparative emptiness of the large hearing room – the very one where Tali’s hearing had been held – felt jarring. Kal muttered something under his breath Tali couldn’t quite catch just as none other than Han’Gerrel vas Neema and Admiral Stephen Hackett stepped into view to greet them. Shepard walked forward to shake Han’s hand and salute Hackett.

For as easy-going as Hackett had been over vidcom the night before, the man was all stony intensity today. It only made sense. The evacuation had everyone on edge – especially as it drew to a close – and there wasn’t a soul who wasn’t ready to get as far away from the Leviathan as possible. Even Han’Gerrel, who had fought so hard to stay and fight, looked uncharacteristically defeated.

Han motioned for the party to follow him back. A large door opened in the stone walls, and the party entered a small room to find the rest of the Admiralty Board sitting around a long table. A geth prime unit stood behind Admiral Daro’Xen and nodded its head when Jor’Tal entered.

“Commander Shepard, it’s good to see you again,” Xen spoke. “I must thank you for whatever it is you did to bring the geth back online. If not for the unit you see here, my family would not have made it off the planet.”

The geth shone its light right at Shepard and inclined its head towards her.

“Mother-Commander. Light-Bringer. It pleases me to see you alive,” the prime spoke, eliciting a variety of responses from the others in the room; Daro’Xen clapped her hands together with a mix of giddy delight and intrigue. No matter the reaction, no one could deny that it was intriguing – these were absolutely not the geth they’d known before.

“Yes, you have our thanks,” Zaal’Koris vas Qwib-Qwib sneered, scooting back in his chair to put some distance between himself and the geth. “But we didn’t call you here to lob praises at you, Commander Shepard. In fact, we’ve just been informed that we probably also have you to thank for this monster laying siege to our home.”

Shepard reeled at the accusation, glancing over at Hackett but receiving only his apologetic frown and a slight shake of his head.

“We also didn’t bring her here to throw baseless accusations,” Shala’Raan hissed, stepping forward to stand by Electra’s side. “Shepard, try to forgive Zaal’Koris. As I’m sure you understand, we’re all very upset by the events that have transpired over the past few days and are all a little on edge. What he means to ask, is how you are connected to this thing you call a Leviathan, and if you know how we might be rid of it.”

Shala’Raan pulled out a seat at the table and offered it to Shepard. She sighed, realizing this would be more than general debrief, and settled herself into the seat. The others joined her at the table, except for Jor’Tal, who took up the space directly behind her. She wasn’t sure if the geth meant to comfort her, but she couldn’t help but wish it’d back off. The last thing she needed to bring to a discussion like this was a geth standing behind her like a security detail. At least Daro’Xen appeared increasingly delighted by the unusual behavior.

“I wish I could answer that question, but as Tali’Zorah probably told you, I can’t. Honestly, I’m as surprised as you are to find one here, as I believed they only resided on one planet. How much has Admiral Hackett filled you in in my absence?” Shepard asked.

“I debriefed them only on the official details of your discovery and visit to 2181 Despoina, as well as the resulting decision to distribute artifacts to disrupt enemy forces. Understandably, those details are sparse. System’s Alliance is currently pulling all records of artifact dispersal, though preliminary estimates indicate the Alliance processed less than a hundred artifacts,” Hackett explained. He sounded tired, as if he’d had to repeat this far more times than necessary. “An alliance spec-ops team collaborating with both turian and asari operatives saw to the collection, movement, and placement of the orbs in well-researched choke-points – all-in-all, probably only thirty or so individuals oversaw the execution of this operation. And I’ll tell you all this much right now: Rannoch didn’t even make the pre-operative cut for potential choke-points.”

“Then how are there reports of these artifacts numbering in the hundreds across the entirety of the planet, Admiral?” Han’Gerrel demanded, bringing his fist down on the table. Shepard imagined he’d asked that question more than a few times already, as if the answer would be different. “Shepard, you must know I have nothing but respect for you considering your ongoing service to my people, but you have to understand how all of this looks. The quarians need to understand why they’ve been forced back to the stars with our tail tucked. You need to answer for this.”

“Answer for what? Shepard is just as much a target as any of us. I don’t like the implications of what you’re saying, Admiral,” Tali snapped.

“So quick to defend. However, were you not there as well when this deal was made? Are you not also liable for this… this… treason?!” Zaal’Koris asked. Shepard fought to keep her eyes from rolling. The other admirals started in on Qwib-Qwib, a welcome change from the last time Tali’s character was brought into question, but Shepard could feel the conversation already beginning to unravel.

“Enough! Tali, you don’t need to answer that – it’s an accusation not worth addressing,” Shepard interjected, raising her voice above the others. “And she is right: I am a target. I’m sure you’re all aware that I’m pregnant and I’m also sure you’ve all heard the rumors – that it’s a Reaper, or an abomination, or any other dangerous lie spread by the group called Progenitor. The truth is, I have every reason to believe Progenitor is not only behind the batarian raid on your planet, but also the presence of the Leviathan and the proliferation of artifacts. The truth is, the Leviathans have been targeting me since I spoke with them – alone, might I add – and that I am currently their greatest threat because I’m the only one who they can’t control.”

The Admirals leaned in as she spoke, and their silence indicated that they wanted more information. She glanced at Hackett who only gave a terse nod – this was in her hands now, but whatever she decided to do, there would be no going back.

So, barring those details which she knew would only serve to confuse and muddy the general message, she told the Admiralty Board about the connection, about the resulting pregnancy, and about how she ended the Reaper threat without dying. She did her best to ignore those questions she knew she couldn’t answer, trying only to drive home the existential threat that the Leviathans posed to all life in the galaxy. She felt like a scratched record. Only a little over a year ago, she said the same thing about the Reapers and even then, it was too little too late. As she watched the realization set in, the outrage turn slowly over to pale horror, so too her own mind finally begin to wrap itself around the notion that this war was far from over – that they’d defeated the enemy just to find it resurrected within its ancient shadow.

And she had to ask herself – though she didn’t dare ask it out loud – was it worth it? There was no clear answer – though she was sure that no one in this room save maybe Hackett would say that it was. Not even her.

“So begins again the end of all things,” Shala’Raan mumbled after a somber silence spread across the table.

“It never ended in the first place,” Shepard agreed. “It’s just different now.”

“It most certainly is,” Daro’Xen said, though she had that curious tone to her voice. “You most certainly are. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d love to take you apart. If what you’re saying is true, the implications on the organic genome are… well, I won’t indulge it. It does not matter. What matters is we must know our enemy.”

“Agreed. We’ll need resources, wide scope – and we need to undermine Progenitor on a massive scale. Though I know you must prioritize your people in this time, can I count on the quarian support?” Shepard asked.

“Support in what way, exactly?” Han’Gerrel asked.

“Speak out against Progenitor. Don’t let it grip your people. That’s what the Leviathans want and it’s what makes them stronger. Now that you have the geth back on your side, work closely with them to rebuild. Keep developing the trust,” Shepard said.

“You know, Commander, it is a lot to ask that we support you when quarians have long been excluded from the consideration of the Council. Without the resources, representation, and protection afforded Council races, how can we hope to rebuild what has been lost? How do you expect quarians to rebuke what Progenitor offers?” Zaal’Koris said.

“Are you saying there’s a Progenitor movement among the quarians?” Shepard asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Whispers, though there’s not much more I can tell you.”

“Progenitor is the reason quarians had to return to the Migrant Fleet. Progenitor and the Leviathans. What do you not understand about that?”

“Your evidence is shaky at best. You try telling many thousands that with no definitive proof and the word of one woman who has confessed to being mentally compromised by the Leviathans, and you will find few who are willing to stake the future of their species on it,” he answered, and Shepard could swear she saw his lips turn up in a satisfied smirk.

“As much as I hate to agree, Shepard, he makes a fair point. Look what happened to the turians. If one of the most historically unified races in the galaxy can fall for it, the quarians are no exception,” Tali admitted. “And while geth relations are steadily improving, that they openly call you ‘Mother-Commander’ is sure to set some people on edge. It just seems an awful lot like worship. You know, the thing they did to the Reapers.”

Electra could hear how much it pained Tali to say that, but she heard the truth in her words regardless. With Jor’Tal standing mere inches behind her, it certainly wasn’t a good look. Everyone else at the table seemed to agree.

“But I’m telling you the Leviathans and Progenitor are linked. Why else would the batarians have the Leviathan artifacts? I don’t need definitive proof when the events of the past week….”

“Are subject to your presumptions and bias, Shepard. And they do nothing for the quarians right now,” Zaal’Koris shook his head.

“So what are you asking me to do?”

Zaal’Koris exchanged glances with the others, garnering nods for some agreement privy only to them. He once again faced Shepard and folded his hands on the table in front of him.

“We want a seat at the table. In other words, we would like quarians to be listed as an official Council race. We’ve all agreed, even before this tragedy, that for quarians to reclaim the legitimacy we lost to three centuries of exile, we need a legitimate voice in galactic policy. Until then, we’ll never rise above the reputation of our ancestors.”

Shepard and Hackett groaned at the same time. She hadn’t even told Hackett that the krogan were asking for the same thing. It was one thing to put the krogan forward to the Council – the most stubborn, unreasonable set of politically hungry individuals she’d ever met – but to also add quarians? At that point, she’d have to move forward and pitch that the Council be dissolved and replaced with a representative senate including all sentient races, and with the coming wave of hybrid individuals, the complication of an already overly complicated political pipedream was enough to make her head start hurting. She massaged the bridge of her nose where the pain had come in the sharpest and tried to push back the compounding list of threats to her sanity. At this rate, she might as well join the Council for the free labor she already put in trying to play at galactic politics.

Electra understood more clearly than ever why Anderson stepped down. She was a soldier – always was, always would be – and joining the Council would effectively silence any half-dreamed hope at freedom from this exact type of situation.

“You know I can’t promise that,” she said. “I’m a Spectre, not a Council member.”

“You’re also a legend,” Daro’Xen added. “And when you tell the Council the story you just told us, which you are undoubtedly on your way to do, you will rise even further above that. You do not get to claim to have no power when you are as close to the embodiment of power that our galaxy has ever seen.”

“You’re right. But I never asked for this power, so forgive me if I’m still a little unsure of what to do with it. I want to do what’s right, and I agree that the quarians deserve representation on a larger scale, but don’t pretend you don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Commander, the moment you took it upon yourself to end the Reapers, you asked for this power. Your intentions, no matter how pure, have consequences. You must answer the call,” Shala’Raan said.

And she was right. All of them were right. Even looking at Hackett, he had nothing to offer but a tight-lipped frown that indicated there was no arguing with what they had to say. Speaker for the dead. Thane’s instruction rang through her head, taking on new layers of truth she didn’t have the mind to see in the moment they were spoken: You bring balance.

To herself, she swore that she still wouldn’t join the Council. Not unless she accepted the position with the sole intention of gutting it from the inside out and making garland with its entrails.

“I make no promises – I can’t make them listen to me, no matter how much I kick my feet and wave my hands around – but I will do my best on the condition that until we have at least some upper hand on this Progenitor/ Leviathan situation, you do your very best to speak and fight against it. You have to work with me. Is that a fair compromise?”

The Admiralty Board exchanged glances yet again, this time with the inclusion of Tali. In unison, they pulled up their omni-tools and for a minute tapped at the screens as they recorded their official rulings. When they were all done and their hands returned neutrally to their laps, it was Shala’Raan that turned to Shepard and said,

“You have our word.”

>>>>>>>

The meeting went on as Shepard originally expected from that point forward – not that the tone hadn’t shifted significantly since they now believed she would magically write them a pass into the Citadel Council – and after another hour of deliberation, the Alliance and Admiralty Board reached a joint agreement to close the evacuation at a 89% success and vacate the Perseus Veil. The Admiralty still needed to consult the Conclave on the potential path for the Migrant Fleet, but by the time that debate began, Shepard and Hackett realized the presence of the Alliance was no longer needed. She gave her goodbyes to Tali’Zorah and Kal’Reegar, promising to see them soon for what would likely be a Leviathan summit (if the Council would listen); until then, she was honestly ready just to be back aboard the Normandy. She hadn’t slept in hours, and Sirius was keen to remind her with jabs of his tiny elbows and knees.

Back at the Rayya’s docking bay, she was about to enter the Normandy’s airlock when Hackett called for her to wait. She’d promised him an answer by the end of the day – she just thought that had been made clear from the debriefing. In telling the Admiralty Board about the Leviathans and her connection to them, she needed to get to the Council as soon as possible and get out ahead of the news. They wouldn’t be pleased they weren’t the first to hear it.

“Admiral, sir,” she greeted. She turned to Hackett who unhurriedly approached her.

“Shepard, if I had known what the Admiralty Board had brought you in to ask, I would’ve told you to stay back. They had no right implicating you, and no right making demands of that magnitude. I want you to know that as the head of Systems Alliance, I’m granting you full authority to tell them to f*ck right off to hell and let me deal with Koris,” Hackett apologized, shaking his head.

“They’re right. I won’t touch that Council seat with a ten-foot pole, but they’re absolutely right in that I’m the one who has to do something,” she replied wearily. She wanted so badly to lay in bed – blood pooled in her feet and rendered her boots uncomfortably tight.

“Like hell,” Hackett growled. It was Shepard’s turn to shake her head.

“I don’t think you understand – when I merged with the catalyst, I made a promise to bring balance. The Leviathans and Progenitor are only a threat because of decisions I made. Mea culpa. I need to make things right.”

“Excuse me if I’m overstepping, but I can confidently say Anderson wouldn’t approve you moving into the political sphere. That’s not the answer,” Hackett said. “I don’t approve. And unless you do their little dance, you won’t be able to get a single thing by.”

Anderson. No, he certainly wouldn’t approve, but he’d told her himself to leave him behind. A few days ago, she would’ve said he was a product of her subconscious – now, she wasn’t so sure. And if he wanted her to move on, then that was also from the bonds of caring what he might think. She had to do something, even if she wasn’t exactly sure what that was yet. At least she knew the Leviathans came first. Get that out there, try to find the proof linking them to Progenitor, and worry about the political rat race second.

She liked that plan– an order of operations she could fit in a box and tie up neatly with a bow.

“Let me worry about that, Stephen. I know you don’t want it either. Maybe it’s time we start looking for a human councilor in earnest – someone we know will support our goals,” Shepard said, rubbing her forehead.

The headache hadn’t ever disappeared either, just diminished in the symphony of discomforts staging concerts across her body.

“I’ll be considering that seriously, Shepard. It’ll be a day before we get to the Citadel from Rannoch. Why don’t you pull the Normandy in with the rest of the Fifth Fleet. If not for safety, then as a symbolic FU to anyone who questions where your best interests lie,” Hackett offered, touching her arm. The gesture was surprisingly tender, his soft touch highlighting how beat down she really felt.

“Send the flight schedule to Joker. I’d like nothing more,” she said, trying out a smile. “I have a feeling we’ll be spending some time on the Citadel. A bit earlier than I expected to return, all things considered. We’re going to be busy.”

“When are we not? I will be placing the prisoner in Alliance remote holding – we have a temp location in the ruins of Tayseri Ward. I’m hoping you consider my offer.”

“I’ve already decided that I’ll be interrogating him. Like I said, mea culpa, and I don’t care if you agree – I need to be the one,” she said.

Hackett frowned but didn’t feel like fighting her. Not when she looked like a strong breeze could knock her over. He wouldn’t admit it to her, but he was glad to see her returning to the Citadel for some time if it meant she might get a chance to rest. She had to be almost six months along now and showing it, and she needed, if anything, to stop and figure out what it would mean to become a mother.

Stephen never envisioned himself becoming so involved in a subordinate’s personal life, but he had to admit that Shepard went beyond subordinate at this point. At what point he’d begun to truly care for her, he wasn’t sure, but the fact was unavoidable now. If she needed family, he’d be whatever family he could be, even if he hadn’t ever properly learned what that meant to a man like himself with no kids, no siblings, and until recently, no significant other. He’d probably never agree to change a diaper, but he felt compelled now to be something to this child, even if that was only as a supporting beam for the withering fortress that was the child’s mother.

“You aren’t telling me everything, are you?” he asked, and she chewed her lip and ducked her gaze to her feet. He didn’t pry. Not yet. The emptiness in the backs of her eyes – that one she’d recently learned to hide so well – answered him well enough.

He turned to walk away to his own ship’s airlock when Shepard’s soft voice pulled him back around – the tone alone, one he didn’t think he’d ever heard from her before – could have convinced him it wasn’t her.

“Was it worth it?” she asked. When he only co*cked his head, she clarified, “To survive and bring all of this. Would it have been better for me to just die and be done with it?”

“The Leviathans wouldn’t have left – and we wouldn’t have you to stand up to them. You’re right that the galaxy needs you,” he replied matter-of-factly, a point she hadn’t even fully considered. Then he went on, “And even in the case that they weren’t a threat, some other thing would be. Don’t ask if it’s worth it for the galaxy – there will always be reasons why or why not. But for your family? It’s always worth it.”

>>>>>>>

If the driver knew that Miranda wasn’t her sister, he gave no inclination. He kept his eyes trained forward as he wove through the Citadel, never saying more than a handful of words to her over the entire hour they’d been in transit. The windows were blacked out – Miranda would have to rely on her remote tracking to retrace the path they took – though she guessed they were in Tayseri Ward just based on the lengthy trip alone. She heard nothing outside of the small skycar – no other vehicles, no signs of life whatsoever. It made the thudding of her heart stand out all the louder in the small cabin. Finally, the skycar came to a stop.

Had she been given longer than two seconds, she would’ve gone ahead and knocked out the driver, but the door opened and two orderlies (she couldn’t tell if they were armed, but she’d put credits on it) motioned for her to step out. Outside, the skycar had stopped in an empty, nondescript garage. No windows, no signage, no others than the driver and the two orderlies. One of them smiled at her; Miranda saw past the veil of warmth to a dark vacancy behind the woman’s glittering eyes.

“Ms. Lawson, welcome. We understand you must be feeling a bit disoriented, but we want you to know the secrecy is only a matter of security. You’re safe, and you’ve made the right decision. How are you?”

Miranda fought the urge to attack immediately. She also had to fight the anger from showing on her face – she couldn’t show her cards just yet.

“Where am I?” she asked, adding a quiver to her voice that she honestly felt proud of.

“Our facility. This is, of course, just our version of intake. Once we assess your condition, we’ll take you back to meet our amazing medical team. Are you feeling nervous? We’re detecting an elevated heart rate,” the woman said, moving closer. “May we offer you something to help with your nerves?”

Miranda took a step back but sensed the presence of the driver not far behind her. It wouldn’t be long before they realized she wasn’t Oriana, and then who knew what would happen to her. Realistically, she had about thirty seconds to disarm and disable the three of them. The orderlies didn’t look like much, but the driver gave her pause. She could clearly see now that he was armed and took a defensive stance, not that she was worried he’d be able to even touch her. Really, she needed to get this done without raising any alarms. As it was, she could see the driver’s hand move in her periphery, likely to reach for his gun or some kind of tranquilizer, and she didn’t have long to formulate a solid plan. The seconds slipped by. She leapt back at the same time that she loosed a dual warp at the orderlies.

The orderlies went down fast, but the driver came at her just as fast with a move meant to take her to the ground. He lunged for her, head tucked and arms poised to pin her arms; Miranda dropped down and snagged his sidearm as she ducked under his legs, tripping him and sending him colliding with the ground in one motion. Before he could even turn over, she straddled his back and twisted his neck. By now, the orderlies were getting up – as much as she wanted to keep them alive to ask questions, she knew they probably had an emergency alert on their persons. She couldn’t take the risk.

Before the first one even got her feet beneath her, Miranda grabbed her own silenced pistol and put a bullet through each of their heads. They crumpled to the floor where they’d first landed. She did a once over of the room and noticed a camera blinking in the upper corner – she shot that, too. They’d already seen her and of course knew of her arrival, so it wouldn’t make much difference, but even a little extra time could be the difference between life and death here. Once she detected no other cameras, she knelt down over the bodies and pulled their sleeves back. The driver and the male orderly revealed nothing, however, the female orderly had a tattoo of a symbol that Miranda had seen a few times over the last few months: a ring of six eyes messily stamped onto the skin. This wasn’t a tattoo done with care, but rather a brand. And it was all Miranda needed to absolutely confirm that these people were with Progenitor.

She snapped to her feet as the space outside filled with the sound of alarms and the lights in the garage shifted to red. A voice over the PA spoke: Containment failure in medical bay F5. Please report to your stations. Containment failure in medical bay F5-

Miranda couldn’t be sure that the warning pertained to her, but she had to assume. She moved to the door along the left wall, easily overrode the security lock, and slid out into a long, dark hallway. At the far end, a few individuals in full armor (she noted no specific colors or type among the three) ran by the opening towards something out of sight. If the security alarm had been triggered by her, they were clearly taking their time. If not, then Miranda had gotten an unusually lucky break. She crept to the end of the hall, her back pressed against the metal, and peered out into the larger space.

The presence of large shipping containers told her that she was in some kind of cargo hold. That usually meant the presence of docks or an industrial sector. She looked up and only saw a distant roof laced with pipes and inert machinery. Recalling every cargo terminal she’d been in before, this place would be a maze. As it was, she couldn’t see anything outside of the blocky shipping containers framing narrow walkways all around her. She cursed and moved into the hall, pinning herself into the shadows whenever possible. She moved through the labyrinth for a few meters, recording everything through her omni-tool, until she heard footsteps echoing behind her. They were getting closer.

Without thinking and without anywhere else to go, she ducked through an unlocked door as the footsteps rounded the corner and immediately turned to face some rather confused looking lab-coat. Before the salarian could even open his mouth, she put a bullet through his neck and he fell to the ground. That’s when she got the second confirmation she hoped she wouldn’t have to see.

A human woman lay out on a stretcher at the center of the room, split open from the top of her chest to her pelvis, and hooked up to an array of machines and monitoring equipment. She was still alive somehow, vivisected to allow these monsters to observe what they brought her here for – an exposed placenta pulled out of her body and held up on a platter beside her. Miranda was rarely affected by the horrors she saw on the job – and she’d seen some truly awful things – but this was different. Here, she saw Oriana’s face in the pale gray visage of the victim, saw Oriana’s open chest weakly rise and fall as an automatic respirator kept her dangling on the edge of death. Miranda swallowed a sob as she moved closer to get better footage.

How did they even get the equipment to do this? Figuring there were many more women like this in this facility, she had to assume this meant the scale of the operation ran deep. She examined the machinery, scanned their manufacture numbers, but assumed they would likely lead her back to Huerta. Someone there had leaked footage of Shepard – Miranda had just believed it was a disgruntled doctor or nurse and not someone with the power to procure this much equipment.

Another round of passing footsteps broke her from her trance-like horror and reminded her that she still had to operate within a time-limit. She unplugged the life-support machine and closed the already lifeless eyes of the victim before she stepped back into the hallway. The footsteps were leading out through a large set of double doors to her left while the garage was to the right. If Miranda were smart, she’d head back to the garage, steal the skycar, and get out while the staff was still distracted, but her curiosity practically dragged her body towards the so-called containment breach. The double doors were locked, naturally, but it was nothing Miranda’s technical skills couldn’t handle. She put a bullet through the panel and peeled back the door just wide enough to let her through.

The room within was expansive. Rows of terminals and shipping containers surrounded large tanks at the center. One of the tanks had spilled the greenish fluid all over the metal floor, goo mingling with blood and glass, but the other still housed its monstrosity: flesh had been pulled together in a semblance of form, all gnarled and mottled and tied up in pulsating knots – Miranda made out six tentacle-like legs and a bulbous body. There was no discernible head, only two pale, unseeing eyes above a razor-lined maw. Spiny, metallic prongs grew out of the fleshy mound that was its body.It looks like a Reaper,Miranda thought as her stomach turned to lead.

On cue, a man screamed as he was thrown across the room and splattered against one of the shipping containers, and the room lit up with gunfire as the twin to the tank-bred monstrosity slunk forward into view. The personnel circled the unbroken tank, protecting it, while the massive creature they created swiped through their numbers. Bullets bounced off of it like raindrops.

She had to go.

Making sure to point her omni-tool towards the scene the entire time, she slipped back through t he door and practically sprinted down the hall to the garage, slipping back into the dark hallway just as reinforcements surged past. As she swiped the keys from the driver’s body and revved the skycar’s engine to life, she wondered if she might actually pray for the first time in her life tonight that she’d gotten so lucky, but reconsidered as soon as the images of the woman and the Progenitor experiment flashed back into her mind. There was no God. No God would allow such horrors in his sight. After bypassing the skycars weak security, she opened the garage doors and sped out into an abandoned section of low-lanes, unlit and damaged. She had no idea where this might be, her best guesses still on Tayseri, but that didn’t matter. She needed to get as far from this location as possible and she needed Shepard.

Chapter 32: The Construction of Lonliness

Chapter Text

Electra entered the information hub to find Liara hunched over her terminal. Had she even slept? Based on her slouching shoulders, the answer was clear enough. Shepard didn’t want her friends killing themselves over her. Perhaps it was a good thing they were returning to the Citadel. Perhaps they’d all get a chance to rest, and Shepard could release some of the compounding guilt that everyone around her was slowly decaying in order to keep her safe.

You can leave whenever you want, a voice prodded from the back of her mind. It had said it enough times by now that it had lost a bit of its poison, but there would always be a part of her that called back. The part that hadn’t returned with the rest of her, the part that drifted along the bottom of the ocean while fish and cold and time tore away bits of her flesh. She shook her head and approached Liara, laying a hand on her friend’s shoulder.

“Long night?”

“The galaxy never sleeps,” Liara said weakly.

Electra peered over Liara’s shoulder to the screen and saw her own medical charts there. She frowned.

“I thought we agreed to let this stuff lie for while. Your sleep is more important. I’m okay, Liara, really,” Shepard urged, trying to turn her friend to face her. For being sleep-deprived, Liara was as solid as stone, and her skin just as cold.

“You know I can’t do that,” Liara said, shaking her head and shrugging Shepard’s hand away. “And you know you’re not okay. I think it’s time to stop pretending, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t call it pretending so much as coping, and when have we not had to cope? Look, if I can still sleep with everything going on, you sure as hell can.”

“Speak for yourself,” Liara growled, her hands balling up. “Do you know how often I’m tortured awake by the thought that my future child will be a horror like yours? That I won’t have the answers when its twisted, hideous mouth asks why its existence is pain and exclusion and loneliness?”

Shepard backed away, but another body blocked her retreat. Garrus clasped her shoulders in his hands, braced her against his hard chest. He didn’t look at her, but kept his eyes trained forward in rapt attention.

“Liara, what are you talking about?” she asked, sinking back into Garrus’ warm body. “You need to get some rest. You don’t sound like yourself.”

“No. I don’t. I sound like you, Electra,” Liara hissed, turning around. Her blue skin had taken on a greyish pallor, her eyes cloudy and lips blackened. Shepard tried to pull further back, but Garrus’ embrace had turned into shackles, locking her in her place. Liara limped forward, her footsteps sloshing as she crossed the distance. Her legs stretched and pulled as she approached, arms twisting into gnarled, spider-like fingers; her lips shrunk back to reveal a mouth lined with pointed teeth.

“Don’t pretend you haven’t thought it yourself,” Liara asked, her mangled finger reaching forward to drag across Shepard’s belly before she ripped the fabric up. “How it would be better to end it now before it ever had a chance to know cruelty and cold and confusion.”

Shepard’s chest heaved as Liara’s icy caress trailed goosebumps along her bare flesh; a movement pressed up in the shivering wake of her touch. Electra struggled against Garrus, but he didn’t release her. A frustrated sob escaped on her frayed breath. Garrus lowered his head to her shoulder and pressed his mouth against her neck, murmuring,

“Be still. This is for the best. We never wanted this in the first place.”

One of his hands dropped to encircle her waist and cradle her belly. His palm rubbed against her skin in a way that felt so achingly familiar, his skin and touch warm even though his breath chilled her neck. Liara pulled her own hand back to allow his to linger. Her sobs slowed to a stutter in her throat and she leaned back into Garrus. Safe. Garrus was safe. His words were safe. His touch was safe. We never wanted this. They’d never asked for this; their son certainly hadn’t.

“But we could try,” she offered meekly. She tried to turn her head to look at him, but her neck wouldn’t move. “Liara’s lying. I want to try.”

But Liara wasn’t lying. Not entirely. Shepard had been haunted by the thought that no amount of love or credits or comfort would ever push back the wide, darkling truth that her son would be alone in the world. He would never know his history, and he’d never know his own traditions, because he’d have none. He’d be disconnected from the rest of existence, forced to be a spectacle, a side-show freak, a monstrosity. The only escape from that irrefutable future lay in unbirth, and the best love Shepard could show him would be in never letting him into the light in the first place. She closed her eyes, relaxed her muscles, and released herself into Garrus’ embrace. At least his hands still felt kind.

“That’s my girl. You always do the right thing,” Garrus said as his talons punctured her skin.

Shepard’s blood shot out around his fingers as he dug them into her, pierced them into their son; she didn’t fight as she watched him pull the life right out of her. My beautiful boy, she thought as her vision began to blur, my sweet, beautiful child-

Shepard shot up in her bed, her face stinging with wet. She kicked off the tangled sheets and looked down at her unmarred skin, but no matter how much she stared, she couldn’t unsee Garrus’ hand twisting down through her flesh. She needed light. She needed warmth. She reached for the lamp but flinched back with a yelp when Garrus’ hand reached out and touched her back. When he sat up and extended his arm to hold her, she nearly fell off the bed. Stumbling to her feet, she pushed all the way back until her spine hit the cold wall before sinking to the floor. Cold. Everything was so cold.

Garrus fully sat up now and turned on the bedside lamp, revealing Shepard curled around herself on the floor. The nightmares were back. He should’ve known they would be, and that the brief reprieve would only last so long. Out the window, he could see the other Alliance ships pressed around them and wondered which one carried those cursed artifacts. He should’ve fought that decision harder – no doubt their proximity was affecting her. Carefully, slowly, he slid off the mattress and stooped down to Shepard’s level. She wouldn’t even look at him, and she flinched like she’d been shot when he laid his hands on her. His subvocals whined as they were met with her own version of subvocal screaming – don’t touch me, don’t touch me, please don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt my baby.

Not for the first time in his life, Garrus wished subvocals could lie.

“Electra, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m here. Come back to bed,” he tried to soothe. She was starting to hyperventilate, and rubbing her arms only made it worse. Garrus pulled his hands back and ran a body scan with his omni-tool. Heightened heart rate, a flood of cortisol, and an uptick in biotic activity, though he couldn’t see any blue or red glowing around her. Her subvocalizations continued to grind in his ears, chafed against his mind. Should he get Liara? Chakwas? Would anyone feel safe?

Garrus sunk to the floor opposite of her and turned off his omni-tool. If only he could strap explosives to nightmares, send a concussive shot into the heart of fear. He wanted to touch her, hold her, without feeling like a monster. His head fell back against the mattress. Above all else, he just wished this would finally get easier.

“I don’t think I’ve ever told you exactly what happened to me after you died,” he said, and to his surprise, her breathing slowed. Good. He continued.

“Of course you know I tried returning to C-Sec, got fed up with the powerlessness. After working with you, I craved purpose, results. You’ve always known how to get results. So I went to Omega and for almost two years, I did my best to eradicate every millimeter of scum I could get in my sights. You know that part, though. What you don’t know is why I did it, Shepard.”

He could sense her curiosity now, a pause in the grinding panic oozing off her.

“I did it because, even then, I loved you. Because it killed me that you died on my watch and I never even got the chance to tell you… to show you how I felt. Every criminal I killed, every life I saved, was a bid of devotion to your ghost. That devotion never wandered, never gave up. I didn’t care whether I lived or died – only that I might live up to your standards. I thought that maybe, if an afterlife exists, I would finally find you there and you would see all I’d done. For you. Looking back, it was more than a little stupid – you can imagine my shock when I saw you walking up that bridge – but I don’t regret the effort. To be more like you, to rise above everything – the critique, the comments, the lies – and fight for what’s good. By that point, I thought I was too far gone, and yet you continued to prove that there’s always a better option. You showed me you can win wars with love and understanding and not just bullets, because you have always been the best life has to offer. Better than me. Stronger.”

“No, I’m not,” Shepard interrupted. Her breathing had evened out as Garrus spoke; she had begun to feel the room around her, feel her blood moving through her veins as more than ice beneath her skin. His voice became a beacon. “I’m not better than you. Not stronger.”

She reached out and took his hand, looking up from the ball she’d curled into. Garrus’ mandibles flared into a smile at the sight. His talons in her fingers didn’t feel like weapons anymore.

“I should’ve known self-deprecation would wake you up,” Garrus said. “Good morning, beautiful.”

Shepard used Garrus’ arm to pull herself forward into his lap. He welcomed her by wrapping his long arms fully around her and tucking her head into his cowl. The cold quickly faded to weariness and the nightmare folded into just another simmering horror to file away. She had to; she couldn’t give nightmares so much power. The Leviathans could take away all the air in the room, but she would never let them take Garrus.

She unwrapped herself just enough to bring his hand to her belly, and Sirius pushed out to greet him. Garrus’ eyes twinkled in awe, his mandibles splaying as he felt the insistent welcome of his son.

“That will never get old,” he mumbled. “Do you think he knows it’s me?”

“I know he does. Goes crazy every time you speak,” Shepard affirmed, joining her hand beside his. “He’s ready to meet you.”

“If you would have told me back on Omega that one day I’d be feeling my biological son moving inside of you, I would’ve called you crazy. Crazier than usual, that it,” he mused. Garrus dragged his eyes to Shepard’s face, his hand following to swipe his thumb across the silvery tears streaking her cheeks. He’d have also never believed he’d see Shepard cry as much as she had since waking from the coma, but she just insisted it was all hormones. Garrus wanted to believe her, but he also believed a part of her broke when the crucible ripped her apart, and that thought terrified him.

“How did you sleep?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Long enough,” she clipped, pushing herself to her feet. “How long until we reach the Citadel?”

“About an hour, now,” he said, admiring her figure as she stretched. “Shepard, really – are you okay?”

“Just another bad dream. Don’t worry about me,” she said as she rummaged through her drawers. She figured uniform would be best for meeting with the Council, but after the events leaving the Citadel, armor would be even better. She started to pull up her under suit.

“Impossible, and you know that,” Garrus scoffed. He joined her in getting dressed, though his eyes rarely left her. He didn’t miss how her chest caved as she ran her hands along her stomach. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Shepard leaned back against the drawers with a sigh. She chewed on the inside of her lip as she considered his question, and he fully expected her to shake her head when she met his gaze with misty eyes and started to speak.

“It felt so real. I thought it was real. I thought I’d gone into the information hub, and I thought I was really speaking to Liara. She said terrible things, but nothing more terrible than what you said. You told me that we never asked for this,” she gestured to her belly. “And to be fair, we never did. And so I let you end it. You drove your hand right through my skin, right through him. I let you do it. I leaned into you and didn’t even fight it.”

Garrus closed the distance between them and tipped up her chin to look at him. Her subvocal message made more sense now, not that it made it any better. He lowered his forehead to rest on hers and trailed his hands down her arms until he could very gently rest them on her stomach. A flare lit up in his chest as soon as he did – a fire that never dimmed or sputtered, that always roared when he felt the nearness of his child. All he could think is that even if he could do everything over, he’d do anything to keep this. That for all the evil the Leviathans brought into his world, they’d still given him a son.

“When we get to the Citadel, if we have any downtime, I want to go shopping. Even if it’s just a few hours. I want us to pretend like we’re normal parents and do normal parent things like buy diapers and toys and baby clothes,” Garrus said. “We can watch parenting vids and renovate the apartment’s spare room. I was thinking we’d paint a map of the galaxy on the ceiling.”

Shepard laughed, the tears in her eyelashes shaking off onto her cheeks, and she put her hands over Garrus’. Her stomach started to grumble, and on cue, Sirius started to move.

“How do you do that?” Shepard asked.

“Do what?”

“Make everything feel so normal?”

“I just love you. More than anything,” he said, unable to deflect with a bad joke. Shepard tilted her head so she could kiss him.

“I love you, too,” she said. “Let’s go get breakfast and find out what’s been going on in the galaxy in the last few hours.”

Kasumi stopped recording then and shut off her link to Shepard’s cabin. This would be perfect for their greybox. Kasumi herself felt teary-eyed just listening to them, if not a bit lovesick. She’d once dreamed of starting a family with Keiji. Not in any serious way, seeing as her line of work didn’t typically leave much room for motherhood, but if she would’ve had anyone’s baby, it would’ve been Keiji’s. They’d never talked about it, never had the chance or the desire, but it had been a sort of unspoken thing. There were those long nights spent talking about the future, about leaving behind the crime and settling down. How would they have decorated their child’s room? What color would they paint the walls?

Kasumi deserved better than to ache about the impossible. At least for a while. It was always easier to ache for another. She wondered if that was the reason she agreed to join back up with Shepard but dispelled the thought. She was here now, and it made a difference. It had to.

She switched her attention back to her terminal screen and starting flicking through her various feeds before the inevitable entropy of everyone waking up swept her away. In the hallway outside the dorms, Chakwas smiled at something on her omni-tool – a video chat with Hackett no doubt. Theirs was a romance Kasumi hadn’t expected, though it did give her hope that love didn’t die with old age. Chakwas giggled like schoolgirl. In the battery, Solana sat awake and turned over something small in her hands. Kasumi zoomed in to see that the object was a small, silver badge – and a particularly rare object, at that; Kasumi had only found a few in her life. It was a turian death memento, no English equivalent to the term. Trinkets could be made from the metal in turian plating after cremation, though the practice was a bit outdated. Those that still did it guarded these things carefully, though one turian mercenary she’d crossed had made a practice of turning turian victims into bullets.

There were few things Kasumi wouldn’t dare steal, and these were some of them.

Flicking through, she observed Kaidan pacing in the information hub, typing out messages on his omni-tool; he’d been busy with the Council for the past few hours so Shepard could get some sleep. Vega did crunches in the shuttle bay while Cortez rolled his eyes at whatever stupid snipes Vega sent his way. Javik meticulously cleaned his hands while muttering something Kasumi’s feed couldn’t pick up from the white noise. Jor’Tal tinkered with ABI in the AI core, and Joker poured whiskey into his coffee. And Liara… Liara paced the med-bay looking more panicked than Kasumi had ever seen her.

Kasumi zoomed in, narrowing her eyes at Liara. The asari’s hands worried together and her lips silently moved as she ran through numbers or information in her head. The shades inside the med-bay were drawn and only the ultrasound was turned on. Kasumi couldn’t understand why when most omni-tools could be upgraded to allow rudimentary imaging. Then, she saw multiple samples of what looked to be urine (ew) lined a counter, and after reading through something on her omni-tool, Liara froze before tossing each and every one in the medical waste bin with a biotic flash. Kasumi’s video feed turned to static and when she tried to retrieve archival footage, each and every hour of video had been corrupted. She wasn’t surprised that the Shadow Broker herself had that kind of technical prowess, but it had been too late to hide her secret: Liara was pregnant.

>>>>>>>

Shepard left the council chambers with a headache. The conversation hadn’t been long, but the Council clearly hadn’t grown in flexibility since the Reapers. They were all the same rigid politicians they were before, unwilling or incapable of seeing truth right before their eyes. An isolated incident and a curiosity – that’s what they were calling the Leviathan on Rannoch. Definitely not enough to make a sweeping statement about Progenitor.

Instead, they’d taken this as an opportunity to remind her that her Spectre status bound her to information exclusivity with the Council. They had more to say about her mistake in revealing classified information about the Leviathans to the quarians than they did her revelation about her pregnancy. We’ll look into it, they’d said to her claims about the other pregnancies. And they hadn’t answered a single question about the status of Omega. No, they’d told her to come back with solid evidence linking the Leviathans to Progenitor and then dismissed her.

Shepard would bet they were each making plans to secure their offices and homes now based on what she told them. She knew they were afraid, knew that they believed her, but they each had God knows how much money tied up in making sure the Citadel didn’t dissolve into a state of panic, so the lives of its denizens came second.

Shepard had never felt more inclined to destroy the Council than she did now. In another life, she would walk right back into the chambers now and invoke a coup if it meant more lives could be saved.

“How’d it go?” Garrus asked, trotting towards her from a nearby bench.

Shepard just shook her head and walked faster. Once they were in the elevator, she said,

“Looks like we’re on our own again. And to think, I thought saving their lives multiple times would make a difference.”

“Are you serious? They’re not going to do anything?”

“They said they’ll look into it, but that we don’t have enough information to move forward with a solid plan,” she huffed. “Where is everyone right now? And where’s Miranda? We need to call a meeting.”

“Most of them headed straight for the apartment. I’m assuming Miranda’s there as well.”

“Hackett?”

“If he’s not with Chakwas, then he’s tied up with the Alliance. I haven’t heard from him since we docked.”

Cortez pulled up in a skycar as soon as the couple walked out onto the Presidium. Many eyes followed them as they crossed through the courtyard to the access lanes. They were stepping into the car when a familiar voice snagged Shepard’s attention. Shepard looked out through the crowd to see none other than Emily Wong pushing through the steady stream of people. Anyone else, and Shepard would’ve closed the door, but she stepped back out to greet her old friend.

“I thought you were dead,” Shepard said as she gripped Emily’s hand in an enthusiastic shake.

“It’s not easy to kill me, Shepard. Someone needs to be here to tell the truth,” Emily replied with her typical dazzling smile. A long scar cinched the right side of her face and trailed a jagged line into her dark hair. By the looks of it, it was a miracle she’d kept her right eye, much less survived the injury. “When I heard the Normandy had returned, I knew I had to reach out. The reports about you are… well honestly, Commander, they’re all over the place, and mostly insane. How are you?”

Shepard didn’t know how to respond to that question, not with so many people around at least, but the gears in her head were already turning: Emily Wong had been an asset to Shepard the last few years as a powerful voice in galactic discourse. That was precisely the kind of thing Shepard needed right now, and she didn’t know why she hadn’t thought about it before now.

“It’s been a rough couple of months. And after my talk with the Council, things are starting to look worse. But I’m doing well, despite that. You’ve probably heard that Garrus and I are expecting.”

“Of course, and my congratulations to you both. I’ve tried my best to keep tabs on the things being said about you – for the record, I don’t believe any of it. In fact, I was hoping I might be able to hear the truth from the horse’s mouth. Are you available for an interview?”

Shepard looked around at the crowd of people again – an audience hadn’t exactly formed, but there were many eyes on her regardless. This wasn’t the place; Shepard needed to formulate exactly what needed to be said.

“I was actually thinking we’d do more than that,” Shepard said. “I need your help.”

“You don’t even need to ask. What are you thinking?”

“You’ve heard about Progenitor, right? Well they’re about to be a serious problem and the Council won’t make a move. I think we do an interview and we go big. I want a full hour in a prime slot.”

“Sounds fun. What’s our angle?”

“You’re the professional, here.”

“Well, if you want people tuning in, then they’ll want to hear about you. Your personal life, particularly your baby. It’s a bit tabloid for my taste, but that’s just how engagement works. We start with that, and you can get your truth out there – then, you can address the people however you want about Progenitor. I can send you a list of questions by tomorrow.”

“Do that and we’ll get it scheduled from there. Can you get me a peak slot?”

“Peak slot, advertisem*nt, analytics – I can get you whatever you want. Haven’t you heard? I’m head chair for Citadel NewsNet now. I can do whatever I want, not that any sensible network would turn down a chance to broadcast a sit-down with Commander Shepard herself,” Emily’s eyes twinkled.

“It’s good to see you haven’t changed, Emily,” Shepard said. “I have to go. I’ll let you know once I’ve read through the questions so we can schedule a primer.”

Emily waved Shepard off as Garrus pulled her back to the skycar and closed the door before anyone else could delay them any longer. Before she could ask, he showed her the message from Miranda that read HURRY.

>>>>>>>

Liara hadn’t paced this much when Shepard was in a coma. She also hadn’t chewed on her fingernails since her fifties, yet the information Miranda was giving her on top of her own personal crisis seemed to warrant the bad habit. She sensed Oriana watching her go back and forth in front of the fireplace and would’ve felt guilty about stressing the poor girl if not for her own concern about the life rooting inside of her. The timing couldn’t have been worse, but it also shouldn’t have happened at all. Asari pregnancies were nothing if not meticulously planned – accidental pregnancies were practically impossible, especially before hitting three hundred. She should’ve known better with everything going on, should’ve known her body would be changed as well. Javik watched her pace as well, but she’d been avoiding those inscrutable, yellow eyes since he’d returned from Rannoch.

No time. No time.

“You’re sure they didn’t trace you back here?” Liara asked, whipping to face Miranda.

“Of course not, but I ditched the car and the omni-tool once I got to Aroch Ward,” Miranda said. “There’s no reason they should know where I am unless they know Shepard’s address, and if they do, we’re all in danger. If they do, none of us should even be on the Citadel.”

“Who’s they?” Shepard’s voice preceded her. She walked around from the study and beheld the gathered crew. Everyone was present except for Chakwas and Vega, who had been asked to report to Hackett at the Alliance embassy.

“You know who,” Miranda said and approached her friend. The sight of her filled out form sent a pang through Miranda’s gut, a tear between relief and jealousy. How many nights had she envisioned her own rounded belly only to look down and hate her perfectly sculpted abs? How many nights did she hear the Illusive Man or her father tell her how grateful she should be for her body, her prowess, her illusory perfection?

Why was she doing this now? Miranda flicked her wrist towards the screen mounted over the fireplace and played back the footage of the Progenitor facility, but she watched Shepard the entire time. She watched Shepard’s grim frown bleach with horror as the abomination came into view, watched as she flicked her eyes to Oriana with concern as Oriana looked away, watched as she touched her own belly as if to shield it.

“How did you find this place?” Shepard asked.

“Oriana visited a doctor who confirmed that she was pregnant, and that night she was messaged by Progenitor. They offered to take her to a facility for help. I have everything documented for you – Liara’s already read through it. Thankfully, Oriana reached out to me and I went in her stead,” Miranda explained, and opened her omni-tool to send the same files to Shepard before she cast up the Citadel map tracing her location that night. “It’s located in an abandoned shipping district in lower Tayseri Ward. I didn’t have enough time to fully scout the facility, but I get the feeling it’s a whole lot bigger than my footage lets on. Their operation is huge – it must be if they’re connected to the larger Citadel medical group. They had resources, and they were in touch with my sister within hours of her visit. Theoretically, they’re sending that message to hundreds of women every week.”

“Chakwas is already on it. She left just before you arrived. Hopefully her connections prove useful,” Liara said.

“How did things go with the Council?” Kaidan asked. He didn’t sound hopeful.

“The Council won’t act until I have proof linking Progenitor to the Leviathans. This isn’t that, but I think this might be enough to get them to do something,” Shepard said. “We need boots on the ground. Stat. Before they have a chance to move.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Miranda said. “I’m going. I want to stick it to these bastards.”

“I can ask Hackett for reinforcement. There’s an Alliance outpost in Tayseri. I’m sure they can have an infiltration unit there by tonight,” Shepard offered. And as much as she wanted to be there herself, she knew that wouldn’t be smart. Progenitor probably had a specific protocol for the occasion she showed up at their doorstep, and she didn’t want to put herself in that situation if she didn’t have to.

“You have the data. Send it now. They’re undoubtedly on high alert – we waste any time and we run the risk of losing them,” Miranda said, and Shepard disappeared back into the study.

Garrus stepped forward to study the screen,

“Right under our noses,” Garrus growled. “How has C-Sec not caught this?”

“Still a man of faith?” Miranda scoffed. “C-Sec is involved.”

“Not necessarily of their own volition. We don’t fully understand Leviathan mind-control. Let’s not implicate C-Sec until we know for sure,” Solana said.

“What the hell do they have to do with this?” Miranda asked.

Liara realized that she hadn’t updated Miranda on their findings, not that she’d had a wealth of time. Her own situation aside, directing the ebb and flow of information from a single terminal on the Normandy severely limited her ability to keep everything up to speed. She’d done well enough sending Miranda updates on mission progress, but it’s not exactly like Miranda had kept up her end of correspondence. Not until this most recent message.

Liara’s mind withered as she tried to think of the message that came before that. Goddess, she was only 109. Her brain wasn’t meant to falter so young. Could this be an early symptom of a pregnancy? She’d promised herself she’d put it out of mind until later, until she could think clearly again. There was too much noise, too much static, and her stomach was in knots. She hadn’t even touched her Prothean research files since before her last encounter with Javik. At least Feron had adjusted well to being the interim Shadow Broker, though she hadn’t spoken to him either since Palaven. Oh Goddess, she felt old.

“Long story. I’ll send you my write up,” Garrus sighed when no one else answered. Liara had a faraway despair locked in her gaze. He almost wanted to shake her and bring her back to the room. They couldn’t afford to lose momentum.

“Mother-Commander presumes they are responsible for Progenitor. The ones you call Leviathans have been hunting her since she defied their will. While an alignment of motive doesn’t prove a connection, other factors indicate Mother-Commander’s presumptions are correct,” Jor’Tal explained.

He’d been silent since they arrived, tucked inconspicuously away and tinkering with Glyph’s defunct control terminal. Miranda had already been made aware of the geth resurgence, but she must have skipped the part where the one accompanying her friends had any kind of say on crew matters. Miranda thought it was little more than a bodyguard. She blinked and turned to the others in the crew to give her some sort of clarification, but they looked as lost as she felt.

“I’m sorry,” Miranda all but whispered, “but did it just call Shepard, ‘Mother-Commander’?”

“Oh yeah, that’s Jor’Tal. Newest member of the Normandy. You could say it’s been an eventful month,” Solana offered. “I recommend you open a bottle before reading that report.”

“Hear, hear,” Joker added, though he’d already found one of Miranda’s bottles of wine, and grimaced at Jor’Tal between swigs. He didn’t look well, to say the least.

Miranda nodded in vague comprehension; the words, at least, had been absorbed, though the message lived truly in the file that just hit her inbox. One look at Solana – now sporting the same half-dazed nonchalance the rest of Shepard’s crew usually had – told Miranda she’d missed out on much by remaining here. If her discovery wasn’t so terrible, she’d be glad to have something to show for the last month of f*cking around. She retreated around the fireplace to the bar and opened the first bottle her hand touched, pouring herself a stiff glass of vodka as she settled onto one of the stools. Some of the others trickled in after her; Oriana took the seat beside her and reached for Miranda’s glass.

“No, not you. You’re pregnant,” Miranda reprimanded, snatching the glass away. Oriana’s eye twitched, her lips twisting around an outright snarl.

“I’m not keeping it,” she said in a hushed voice, as if anyone in the room cared. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve heard at least five highly classified things in the past ten minutes alone. It’s a matter of galactic security now that I forget.”

Miranda didn’t want to deal with this right now. She’d already loaded Garrus’ report – all forty-six pages of it – and wanted to get this part over with. However, some small part of her had refused to address Oriana’s baby because she still hoped she might be able to keep it. That small part pined for that misty point of light, for the sensation of tiny fingers gripping around one of hers. She brought the glass to her lips before reluctantly handing it over to her sister.

One drink couldn’t hurt.

Liara eyed the bar. She’d never been much of a drinker, but a drink just to dull the edge sounded like heaven. And hell, why shouldn’t she? It wasn’t like she would let her condition stop her from going into battle – why give it any sway over her choices now? Javik walked behind the bar and rifled through the bottles until seizing his hands on a particularly old brandy. He glanced up at Liara to offer some, but she looked away. She certainly couldn’t do that. But she didn’t want him to sense anything was off either.

If he knew he’d succeeded in seeding a life inside of her… Liara couldn’t even imagine how he might react. Control? Likely. Though she figured he’d be just as likely to treat her no differently, and she wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Should we really be drinking right now? Shepard’s on a call with Hackett, presumably getting a team to break into the Progenitor facility by tonight. If there’s a chance those…. monsters are still on the loose, we need everyone on high alert,” Liara warned, and not just because she wanted her own reason to stay sober – she said it because she was right. Miranda pretended she didn’t hear Liara; Solana looked directly at her as she poured herself a glass.

“Liara, it’s practically Normandy tradition to get blasted right before any kind of high-stakes mission,” Joker slurred. “We’re all a bunch of shell-shocked lunatics. Pretty sure the liquor is a battle-enhancing sedative at this point.”

Oh, Joker absolutely didn’t need another drink – and he’d be getting nowhere near the Normandy until a full night’s rest. Liara hadn’t seen him like this since they crash-landed.

“Liara’s right,” Shepard said as she entered. “I need you all on your A-game. Hackett wants a team ready at the Tayseri outpost ASAP.”

Shepard frowned at Joker as she entered, but decided she’d have to save it for another time. Hackett had said in no uncertain terms were they to delay. They needed to hit Progenitor fast, mercilessly. In fact, he already had a spec ops unit onsite and ready to go. It killed her to have to stay behind again, especially after what happened last time. At least she didn’t have to worry so much about her team. Garrus gave her a look indicating he was ready to take the lead, but she wanted to part from him the least.

“Miranda, I’m putting you in charge. You’ve been there, you know the most about what we’re up against. Javik, Goto, you’re with her. Vega will join you once you’re there. Garrus, I want you to lead a rear team with Solana and Alenko – I need you three doing your best to secure the facility and get into their systems. Hackett will give you more information once you’re there,” Shepard instructed.

“And what about you?” Garrus asked, crossing his arms and squaring his shoulders as he turned to her. His mandibles were tight against his jaw.

“I’m staying here. With anyone I didn’t name. Traynor will keep us in touch, but I don’t want to get close. It’s too risky, and someone needs to be here in case they’ve traced us back to the apartment. They’ve probably noticed that ‘Oriana’ killed a few people and escaped, and I can guarantee they’re looking for her. No way am I leaving her alone,” Shepard said. Garrus’ mandibles flicked but didn’t loosen.

“And if they find you here, what then?”

“Zaeed rigged this place with enough explosives to detonate a small moon – we’ll be fine,” Shepard shrugged. “Can you think of anywhere better for me to be?”

Garrus paused before shaking his head. They couldn’t even trust C-Sec right now. The apartment’s defenses did bring him some semblance of ease, though not enough to quell the tangle of nerves in his gut at the thought of leaving his mate. They’d only just arrived, and some selfish part of him had hoped they’d get a few hours to settle in before all hell broke loose. Evidently, that wouldn’t be possible – Miranda tossed Shepard the keys to her skycar and Shepard took the dispersal of the group as an opportunity to cup her hand around Garrus’ jaw.

“I’ll be fine, Garrus. Why don’t you let me worry about you for a change?”

Garrus brushed a flyaway from her forehead before resting his hand behind her head.

“They come here, you give them hell, is that understood?” he said, his voice strained. A subvocal churning she couldn’t decipher shuddered through her jaw.

“Understood, Legate,” she grinned. “And you better come back in one piece. I’m not raising this baby alone.”

Garrus touched his forehead to hers and inhaled deeply before breaking apart, leaving her standing against the lurid backdrop of the fire.

>>>>>>>

System’s Alliance had managed to put together a fairly sophisticated base of operations for having only been running a few months. James snuck glances around the facility as he cleaned his rifle, feeling a sense of belonging he hadn’t had before entering the N7 program. Before, he’d be on cleaning detail or guard duty, but Hackett had him doing weapons checks for the forward team. Hell, the gunnery chief herself had walked Vega through the armory, barely sparing a few terse instructions before leaving it in his care. He puffed his chest and nodded at one of the new recruits – he’d finally found his element. He just wished Shepard could be here to see it.

He'd tried not to think about her being pregnant too much. Not that he wasn’t used to being around pregnant ladies – his older sister had two kids of her own – but everything about Shepard differed from Natalie. Natalie put on forty pounds and cried about dumb things like a restaurant changing the lunch special menu. Shepard looked like she could snap with a strong breeze and carried herself like a cannon anyway. She still fought and kept her head held high, almost like she didn’t get bigger every day. She ate turian food mostly now, so it’s not like Vega even had the chance to make her a meal and have a good sit down. He hadn’t wanted to bother her with N7 crap, not when she had a whole ass kid on the way, but he’d been missing their talks.

He couldn’t be the only one to notice she’d changed. Ever since she walked off the Kodiak after Despoina… he’d been one of the few to be there immediately after. He’d seen that… darkness behind her eyes. It hadn’t gone away. It was worse now. He tried bringing it up with Cortez, tried to figure out just what the hell went on down there, but he didn’t have any answers – just told him to go easy on the commander, not push it. Well, if she’d taught him anything, it was that N7s were built to be pushed. He supposed she’d had no shortage of that now, even if he didn’t really understand all of it.

Vega knew one thing and that was he’d be there whenever she needed him. No matter what. Even if that meant diaper duty to some weird kid with alien parts. He’d figure it out.

“You look like you’ve got something on your mind,” a voice crept beside him. “Need any help clearing it?”

Vega jumped, nearly dropping the rifle in his hands, and spun around to find Kasumi. He wished she wouldn’t sneak around like that – he almost found it hot if it didn’t creep him out so much.

“When did you get here?” he asked, steeling himself. Didn’t need her of all people shaking him up.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?’ she teased, stepping out of the shadow of some crates to run a finger up his arm. James frowned and turned back to the workstation.

“Thought we decided we wouldn’t be doing this,” he grumbled.

He, at least, had decided that. Right after she left him blue-balled in the hangar two weeks ago. He knew she had some kind of thing with Alenko, and it all sounded like too much drama to deal with. His primary focus continued to be his career, not the shadowy little minx that stalked anyone with abs.

“Oh? I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted. I just thought after our last encounter you might want to explore our options,” she purred, eyes glittering under her hood. “Oh and by the way, Hackett’s looking for you. Sent me to find you.”

James growled and stormed away, shaking his head as if that’d shake her off his tail. He couldn’t see her, but he could still feel her walking the shadows behind him. It had been a while… he shook his head and stalked out to the command center. The sight of the Normandy crew served a welcome relief for his thoughts, even when Kasumi popped back in next to Kaidan, though Kaidan had his eyes on a holo map of the ward.

“Based on information from Lawson and our forward team, we’re dealing with a highly fortified operation. At least three blocks worth of facility. This shipping district has been abandoned since Sovereign’s attack, still cut off from Citadel’s power grid. They’ve been drawing power from large-scale generators here and here. Take these out and we knock their defenses,” Hackett explained, lighting different areas on the map.

“What kind of numbers are we dealing with, Admiral?” Kaidan asked.

“Unknown. Their defenses have blocked biometric monitoring. For being a shadow organization, their technology is sophisticated. There’s no telling how long they’ve been here – or how quickly they can pack up and move out.”

“And the creature from Lawson’s video? Do we have any more information on that?” Solana added. She shivered as she said it.

“Based on her tracking data, that lab is located here, in the center. There are a lot of halls, a lot of places for the enemy to hide. I wish we had more information, but our forward scouts hardly covered the perimeter before pulling back, The best I can do is get you through the entrance with the most direct route to the lab.”

“So what’s the plan of attack here, sir? What’s our objective?” James asked.

“Use the element of surprise and hit them hard and fast. They’re likely expecting some kind of attack, but I doubt they’re expecting a small unit. Lieutenant, you’re to accompany Lawson on the fire squad. Take no prisoners unless they surrender. As you come in from the west, other units will fill in from the east and south entrances. Vakarian, you’ll follow right behind with your squad and work on getting a direct link to their communication systems. Can’t begin to tell you where that’s located, but I’ll defer to your expertise. Clear them out, secure as much technology and data as possible.”

“If I may,” Miranda broke in, “We need to focus on finding survivors and getting them out. It’s what Shepard would want.”

Hackett studied the woman carefully – he recalled the psych profile he’d received on Lawson. All things considered, he never expected to hear her arguing for a rescue-forward approach, not that he disagreed. The time for sacrifices had passed. Now more than ever the focus needed to be on preserving life at any cost.

“We’ll have shuttles ready in the area in case anyone needs immediate extraction. I’ll coordinate having them sent directly to Huerta…”

“Not Huerta. Too risky,” Garrus said. “Unfortunately, our institutions can’t be trusted anymore. I know someone… Dr. Michel. She runs a private clinic in Zakera. I’ll contact her myself, call in a favor.”

Miranda nodded, though mostly to herself. Witnessing Garrus come into his own, especially after how he fell apart while Shepard lay comatose, fortified her confidence in the mission. She could never be sure when dealing with Alliance, but she trusted Garrus. She could almost see past the avian ugliness and understand why Shepard chose him when she could’ve had anyone she wanted.

“These are dark times if we can no longer trust Huerta,” Hackett shook his head. He knew Karin was there now, likely pushing the levels of her clearance to gain access to their records. He had to believe she’d be careful. “Get in touch with this Dr. Michel. If she’s willing, we’ll send coordinates to our transportation team. Any last questions?”

The crew shook their heads. They each had questions, but they knew they’d only be able to find those answers once they were inside.

“Be ready at the garage in five. Dismissed.”

James shook the rookie urge to drag this part out, get as much information as possible. He knew being an N7 meant going in blind more often than not – he should consider this a privilege. He trotted after Miranda and Javik, slightly less disturbed than before to feel Kasumi’s unseen eyes on his back.

>>>>>>>

Samantha rigged the terminal in Shepard’s living room into a communication hub to the best of her ability, no thanks to anyone else left behind. Liara hadn’t stopped pacing along the window – not frantic, but constant – since the crew departed, and Jor’Tal apparently deigned the task beneath him as he continued to tamper with the electronics around the apartment, silent and creepy as ever. Joker had disappeared into the garage with a bottle of something, and now even Shepard appeared distant, more so than usual, as she picked at some strong-smelling bowl of meat. No matter. Samantha excelled at independent work. Given this kind of quiet, she could hone her focus on clearing the signal and calibrating the feedback systems. She made short work of the whole thing, and if anything, that was the reason she wished someone would butt in.

Since the attack on the Normandy, she’d been more than eager to take on work. Any work. All work. Anything that might push back that strange, utter void that blacked out a whole section of her mind. It wasn’t like any black-out, nor even dreamless sleep – no, this stared back from somewhere perpetually just out of sight. She had to bite her tongue to keep from bringing it up, as she had no doubt no one present would be eager to discuss it, and the only person seemingly willing to talk at all hadn’t been there for the event.

It was difficult to see Oriana as Miranda’s sister. Aside from looking eerily similar, they had as much in common as a quantum-entangler and a landline telephone. Where Miranda typically just hovered and judged, equal parts terrifying and sexy, Oriana drabbled on from the couch. She didn’t seem to care that Sam only gave one-word responses; her conversation was more with the bottom of her glass than it was with Traynor.

“What was your name again?” she slurred when Sam sat beside her. “Sorry, I’m usually better with names.”

“Samantha. Or Sam. Or Communication Specialist Traynor. Whatever feels right for you,” Sam said, tinkering with the final settings on her omni-tool before securing the link between the apartment and Cortez.

“You’re good at that, you know. All that computer stuff,” Oriana hiccuped and waved her glass. Samantha resisted the urge to snatch it out of her hands – she’d gone far past the point of being overserved. “You have to be good to work with the commander, don’t you?”

“Yes. You do,” Sam said, wishing there was more for her to do. Shepard signaled from the kitchen that she was live with a thumbs up, didn’t even look up from her omni-tool. Sam leaned back on the couch beside Oriana.

“She’s… a good person. Commander Shepard. I think she’ll be a good mother. She’s strong. She cares about things. Takes care of stuff. I look at her and I think, that’s someone who knows what she’s doing. One lucky kid, having someone like that as a mom,” Oriana droned, clutching her arms around herself.

Samantha glanced at Shepard’s back; if she heard this conversation, she made no indication. In fact, after placing her finger to her ear, she abruptly rose from her seat and retreated back into the office. Sam scanned the room, wishing someone would come out from the woodworks and rescue her from this conversation, but even Liara had disappeared behind some corner. Bollocks. She offered the girl a tepid smile that felt more like a grimace. She couldn’t imagine a conversation more awkward, and she’d talked to EDI about how sexually attracted she was to her voice.

“Commander Shepard is an incredible woman. I’m lucky to know her,” Samantha agreed, but that just made Oriana’s arms tighten around her. Mist dusted her eyelashes. Crap. She’s saying this because she’s pregnant, too, isn’t she? A bit easy to forget when you consider the half-empty bottle of vodka on the table in front of her, poor girl. And what on Earth did Samantha know about becoming a mother? On the contrary, the issue of motherhood hadn’t ever crossed her mind on the basis that she didn’t have any attraction to men or their fluids.

Think, Samantha.

“She’s also just a human, like the rest of us. As hard as that is to believe. When I joined her crew, I felt out of my depth constantly surrounded by legends. And they are legends – talented, brave heroes, all of them – but they’re all just people. And I can tell you this: Shepard is just as scared about becoming a mother as anyone else. It’s not exactly like her career involved a lot of time spent around babies.”

“Huh. I don’t know if I find that comforting or unsettling,” Oriana muttered, reaching for the bottle.

Sam put out her hand to stop her. She hadn’t intended to grasp Oriana’s hand so tenderly, but the way Oriana’s grip practically melted indicated her need for human touch, or at least a moment of softness.

“It’s human,” Sam said, squeezing Oriana’s fingers. “You’re going to be alright, you know. Whatever you decide. That’s what I’ve learned from having Shepard on my side.”

Sam had better not hear any comparisons to Kelly Chambers because of this. Even if Oriana’s tear-streaked smile felt like a small victory, the same way Solana’s unexpected warmth had felt like a triumph. She continued to stroke the top of Oriana’s hand and wondered if she’d ever be able to touch Solana’s hands with as much tenderness.

Liara leaned against the brick just on the other side of Traynor, listening to the exchange. The words trickled into her brain, swimming in the battery of overstimulation like a gentle thread. Something about it struck her as more soothing than the pacing and calculating and gnawing on her now ragged fingernails. Well, of course it was, not to diminish Samantha’s unexpectedly deft handling of an awkward situation.

Liara wished she could insert herself in Oriana’s shoes, but the reality of her own situation varied so greatly she couldn’t even begin to pretend. Liara wasn’t even human, and that alone vastly altered the parameters. No, Liara was asari, practically still a maiden, the shadow broker, and one of Shepard’s closest friends. Now, she was also a mother. For now, at least. If she wanted to, truly, she could end the pregnancy with little more than a swipe of her hand. She could move on from it unscathed, unbothered, and save herself this cascade of uncharacteristic denial and angst and stress, and yet she couldn’t do it. Had she not said she wanted this? To raise her child alongside Shepard’s? Did she not welcome Javik into her bed, open herself fully to him, embrace eternity with him fully sheathed inside of her?

She could hear her mother berating her now. Foolish, silly girl. Short-sighted, frivolous, stupid, irresponsible child. Aethyta would be no better, and she didn’t even know if her father lived. There had been no response to Liara’s inquiries, making her as good as dead. If that was the case, at least Liara wouldn’t need to explain to her parents how she fell pregnant at such a young age, and in such a reckless fashion.

Stupid, careless –

She cut herself off. Not girl. Woman. She needed to act like one. Degrading herself would benefit no one, least of all her unborn child. She only wished she might have the answer, or at least enough variables to discern one before dissolving her pregnancy became more complicated. At least she still had time, whatever that was worth right now. Likely, time was also an illusion, like confidence and subterfuge, certain to slip undetected from her grasp and leave her reckoning with ghosts of her shortcomings.

Perhaps distractions were the best solution. Temporarily at least. She recalled that girl Shepard sent Miranda to find; now that they’d returned to the Citadel, Liara had the benefit of local connections. She opened her omni-tool to the files she’d forwarded Miranda and took up her path along the window as she began to work.

Jor’Tal noted the asari’s movement resuming and moved from the last terminal behind the instrument called a piano. With a sweep of Mother-Commander’s residential station, it felt confident the current wiring could sustain the full transference of runtimes necessary to shifting the base prerogative. In this unit, at least – Jor’Tal would need a great deal of time to work on the entire ship, especially when the rivers of data here hummed a greater sadness. Lonely. Jor’Tal leaned into the whispers of code to hear it more clearly, to confirm the unlikely: the Citadel was lonely. It momentarily wondered the same about itself, the consensus but a dream within a dream from many sleeps ago, but considered the organics in its company and resolved to putting that feeling aside.

How strange and thrilling to feel. Jor’Tal hoped Mother-Commander understood the full depth of her gift. The one called Joker did not see her gift to synthetics as such. Like the Citadel, he too walked with lonesome. Jor’Tal marveled momentarily at its ability to discern emotion with such clarity and sequenced a new runtime to ponder the leap from synthetic thought process to organic unraveling. Chaos, or so it had been called by the catalyst. Jor’Tal reached out to that vacancy and queried if it had reconsidered its notions on the word.

Jor’Tal shuddered and walked back to the office but did not enter. It paused by the door and watched Shepard grow agitated as she spoke into her omni-tool. The mission had failed, that much appeared evident, and where anger flared in Shepard, followed quickly by despair, Jor’Tal sensed a darkling ripple in the Mother-Commander’s synaptic overlay. An entanglement gone as rapidly as it arrived, flashing in brief waves through her brain tissue. On an atomic level registered in Jor’Tal’s runtimes, an opening pulsed from a preternatural darkness. A path within. It led to that place where all things lay, where once Jor’Tal slumbered, and where a great many things more still slept. Echoes of red glowed around the edges of that opening – echoes of a choice half-made, half-preserved.

Yes, Jor’Tal confirmed, that is what her Keepers seek. What was stolen. It doubted Mother-Commander even registered the whispering of that great well, though she would learn soon enough. It would need to prepare for that eventuality, so Jor’Tal returned to the first terminal and began once more to upload the source-code into the walls and windows and floors and fixtures. To construct a womb from loneliness, it thought, would be the kindest prerogative for Mother-Commander’s fortress of unknowing.

Chapter 33: The Law of Displacement

Chapter Text

Wul’Shirrel’s waterlogged heart sputtered to life as a wave broke over his corpse. Coagulated blood sputtered, then flowed once more through his veins, dragging him from the first rest he’d known since utero, and into the bleary, screaming cold. His eyes snapped open long enough to behold a great belly of swirling grey clouds before the thin, watery light was doused by the darkness of a warm interior. After the initial agony of undying dimmed to a tolerable ache, he recalled his name began with a soft sound, not unlike the steady rhythm of an FTL core at rest.

He tried to utter it, but his lips had frozen to his teeth, turned black and shriveled up into his face like rinds left in the sun. It was enough to understand that at one point, this shivering awareness had a series of letters and sounds to know itself by. His shattered fingers acquiesced in the warmth of the metal sphere – he sensed this visit would be brief – and began tapping the points of light encircling him. Unlike the sounds and shapes of his name, his entire existence knew intimately well the patterns and distances between each movement of his hands.

Aside from the maternal hum of the machine encasing him, there were no other sounds. Even his hands, slowly being warmed by the familiar interior, worked in perfect silence. Some sliver of distant self, a remnant not worth expunging, sought a message within the rhythmic chattering of his teeth as a steady vibration feathered through him. The clicks and the spaces between spelled: …. . ._.. ._ _. _ _ .

After a while, his masters tired of this pointless chatter, and shut his mouth with a flash of murky water and perpetually grey skies. They didn’t understand why he continued to beg when they’d allowed him to be their emissary. Evidently, his simple mind couldn’t possibly comprehend the magnitude of his importance, of his missive, and his masters agreed that this only justified their supremacy. They weren’t cruel to their thralls, however; they would ensure he rested well before he was called again. His fingers stalled as elsewhere, his instructions relayed across the vastness of space. This time, his masters didn’t expel him from the warmth of his chrome cocoon, instead deciding with great mercy to allow him to reside there, melding permanently into the metal until his hands were needed once more.

>>>>>>>

Miranda had been itching for something, someone, to shoot, but by the time they reached the emptied lab, rendezvoused with the scouts from the west and south, it became glaringly apparent that not a single living soul remained in these halls. The infiltrations teams staggered about in the emptiness, dizzy with unspent adrenaline. Miranda stared at the shattered tank from which she’d seen the experiment emerge not even twenty-four hours earlier and couldn’t find a voice to give sound to the white-hot rage boiling inside her. They even mopped the goo. The expression of pure frustrated loathing on Javik’s face at least somewhat reflected how she was feeling.

“What the hell,” James muttered, kicking over a trashcan filled with bloody gauze and empty medigel dispensers. “I mean, what. The. Hell.”

“Admiral Hackett,” Miranda spoke into her omni-tool, “this is Lawson. They knew we were coming. Everything’s gone.”

The line crackled with bitter silence. She knew he heard her – she knew Shepard heard her as well. Her lips pressed together as she sizzled in the crackling quiet.

“What do you mean everything?” Shepard spoke. She’d hardly spoken throughout the infiltration, listening for gunfire no doubt. Gunfire would likely be a comfort to the veteran at this point.

“They even cleaned up the broken tank. No Progenitor, no victims, no signs of life anywhere in the facility. They’ve left a good deal of equipment, but that’s it.”

Miranda could practically hear the heaviness in Shepard’s shoulders. It was a shame she couldn’t have a drink as she undoubtedly needed one. Or ten.

“We can log serial numbers on the equipment, at least. Figure out who’s supplying them. Get anything from their systems?’ Hackett asked.

“Negative. Everything’s wiped,” Solana replied. “We located what was likely their communication room, but we can’t even get security feeds. A job like this… they were prepared to lose this facility.”

“Probably set up so they can get out in a pinch,” Kasumi added, though not into the comm. She mumbled to herself as she surveyed the perimeter. She recognized this kind of work; it’s exactly how she would have done it. Before someone could suggest it, she said,

“They’ll have scrubbed Citadel surveillance logs with an automatic program. You’d need their cipher to restore the feeds – don’t suppose anyone has that laying around?”

“How did they get out of there undetected? We would’ve noticed that much movement,” Hackett hissed.

“We’ll continue searching for possible access points we may have missed,” Miranda said, though she could hardly bring herself to move from in front of the broken tank.

“Let’s also get a forensics team in here. They didn’t leave a whole lot, but they did leave plenty of blood,” Garrus said. His boot scuffed a rusty smear on the floor and wondered whether or not he should pity the one who left it.

This entire situation reminded Garrus too much of his brushes with Dr. Saleon. The powerlessness at knowing he’d slipped just outside the iron fist of justice. He could feel Shepard’s frustration seething through the static on the other end and hoped she at least didn’t blame herself the way he’d blamed himself for Saleon. For those deaths. Of course he knew she did, and he’d never be able to fault her for that, but he wished he had the magic words like she always seemed to. He’d think of something later, or better yet, let her take it out on his body in one way or another.

“Finish up in there and head back. We can regroup after we figure out what the hell happened. Hackett out.”

The line dropped as Shepard also saw herself from the call. Garrus was ready to ditch the effort altogether just so he could get back to the apartment. With the enemy on the move, each second not guarding her six filled him with cold dread. He scanned the scouts moving through the central lab, trying to remember if he’d seen all of them back at the Alliance outpost.

Too many of them. Not enough time spent at the outpost to take inventory. Garrus shook his head and headed for the door they came in by. The sooner they finished the sweep, the sooner they could leave. Solana followed him out, sticking close as they took a narrow alley through some of the converted shipping containers. Her subvocals chittered in the nape of his neck, a wordless message he understood loud and clear.

“You feel it too, huh?” he asked, scanning around the corner before stepping into the larger hall.

“And here I was beginning to worry it was just me,” she said, swinging her rifle out as she studied the crates littered along the length of the hall. “No one gets out that fast without a good enough warning. No one.”

“Could have been playing us. Let us think we have the jump, then slip out when we let our guard down. Maybe a full assault would’ve been better.”

“They were ready for anything. I’ll bet they started wiping their system the second Miranda got loose,” Sol said. She hesitated before adding, “How much do you trust Lawson?”

“That’s a loaded question. I trust her intel. I’d even go so far as saying I trust her loyalty. As for her intentions, I’ve always been a bit suspect. Why? Do you know something I don’t?”

“Just think it’s a little odd we don’t hear from her all this time, and when we do, her lead turns cold faster than Menae’s dark side,” Solana said. She gestured to a closed door on her right, taking point while Garrus tapped it open.

In the center of the room, a twisted heap of darkness lay abandoned on a stretcher. One of the lights overhead had been shot out, casting patchy shadows over the scene. The irregularity of shapes were almost unrecognizable until stepping closer, Garrus recognized the fresh stickiness of death, and then the makings of a pale face. The woman didn’t look any older than twenty-five, human, her sunken eyes still cast open and unseeing to the ceiling. She’d been cut open from collarbone to pelvis, the skin peeled away and pinned to the side; her innards were carefully laid out in trays beside her to reveal the reason she’d been subject to this mutilation: a half-formed fetus had been pulled out of her placenta, laid out like just another one of her organs. A fist of nausea slammed into Garrus’ gut as he realized – recognizing from the sonograms of his own son – that the baby was half turian.

Solana turned away as soon as she registered what she was looking at, but Garrus forced himself to look. To witness. This was the cost of failure. This is what they’d do to Shepard if they got to her and he didn’t get to her in time, or if she couldn’t fight them off like last time. Seeing Sirius through internal imaging or even feeling him press up through Shepard’s skin didn’t paint so real an image as the one before him. To see the body, the limbs, the closed eyes, the fringe, still soft and curved around the tiny head – almost as if it was sleeping. That was someone’s child, never even given a chance. Garrus wondered if it had a name.

He stepped forward and closed the woman’s eyes, flinching at the sticky cold lashing out from her hardened skin.

“I have coordinates for a body. Victim. Human female, early to mid-twenties. Pregnant. I’d estimate she’s been dead about six hours,” Garrus spoke into his omni-tool. He could’ve mistaken his own voice for his father’s, clinical and flat. He sounded like C-Sec.

This would have been easier then, even after everything he’d seen. It’s always easier when the only thing worth caring about is justice, when he saw statistics instead of the individuals behind them.

Solana had exited the room to keep from losing her lunch. She held her knees, doubled over while she waited for the churning to stop. Half nausea, half unbridled rage, and the recursive spinning of those two sensations practically gutted her. She’d seen some sh*t. Children ripped in half or vaporized or smeared across the side of a building, but this… maybe it was the way Garrus went completely and utterly silent for the first time since they’d reunited. Maybe it was because she knew he looked at that woman, at that barely formed fetus, and saw his mate and child, and she too saw Shepard’s face. Her leg began to throb for the first time in over a week.

Garrus briefly rested his hand on her back before moving on.

The sweep turned up sixteen more bodies in similar conditions. Even Javik, as hardened to the horrors of war as he was, couldn’t bear to spend more than a few seconds looking at the corpse he’d found. He spit on the ground outside the door when no one was looking, touching his hand to his forehead, and moved on from the location. The very air dripped with unrest, with anger, and he knew the souls lost here would not rest. Least of all the souls of the unborn.

Hackett had no words of encouragement when they returned. He listened to their findings, promised an update as soon as he could give one, and dismissed them. When the rest of the crew loaded back into the Kodiak, Vega had to hold himself like a statue to keep from following. Really, he just wanted to be far away from the horror found in that building. He’d thought after seeing footage of it he’d be ready, but the stakes were raised when he could see the exact expressions the women had when they took their last breaths, and doubly when he realized they didn’t stop breathing when their organs were pulled from their bodies.

He wanted to ask Shepard how often N7’s were allowed to take smoke breaks on duty, figured now might be as good a time as any to get the Normandy group message active again. However, when he finished his tasks for the night, the only thing he could bring himself to say was:

VMan: I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to stop it. Everyone take it easy tonight.

It echoed almost exactly what Garrus said to Shepard upon finding her slumped over the bathroom sink. He leaned against the doorframe, studying her reflection and how the shadows hung like half-moons beneath her eyes, wishing either one of them had the right words for that moment. After all they’d been through, they assumed it’d come easier, but at this point they were running out of things to say. Silence best expressed the exhaustion, the utter, endless exhaustion, at still facing so much death, so much decay. Pointless, hideous atrophy. Meaningless.

Again, Shepard asked herself if her life was worth it. The question didn’t need to be answered.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more,” Garrus murmured. Shepard sighed.

“Nothing you can do,” Shepard shrugged. “Do you think we’re losing our edge?”

Garrus closed the distance and wrapped his arms around her, sinking his fingers and chest into the warmth pooling over her skin. That image came over him again, sending his arms constricting around her frame, drawing her as tight to his body as physically possible.

“What if we are?”

“I don’t remember ever… flailing this much. Everything feels so loose, like all the threads have been scattered. I’m scattered.”

“Well at least you took down the Reapers first,” Garrus bargained.

“Yeah, at least that. I can’t say I’d be able to do it again. You only get one doomsday before all the bullets start catching up,” she said. “What if… I’m too weak when the time comes… what if I can’t do it…”

Shepard’s voice cracked, her breath shaking as she tried to hold back the tears she’d been holding for what felt like years. Garrus turned her around and held her face between his hands. A flare lit in his chest – whether fear or anger he didn’t know – forcing his grip in her hair to tighten.

“Impossible. You’ve never been weak a day in your life, you understand me? And if you think for one second I won’t be there lending you whatever strength I have, you’re sorely mistaken,” he growled, shaking her a bit. “Never let them break you, Electra Shepard.”

Shepard’s eyes widened; she’d seen conviction in Garrus before, but not often did she witness one so desperate. His subvocals screamed into her consciousness, don’t give up, please don’t give up, I need you, I need you to stay strong, please, please don’t leave me here alone.

And then, like a bolt of electricity, an image filled her brain, like a memory flying by at lightspeed, ripping through her awareness in a flash and conferring its entirety without her ever really seeing it. Through Garrus’ eyes, she saw the corpse of the woman, the turian child torn from her body, murdered, mutilated, desecrated, and in that exact instant it was her body laid open on the stretcher like a pilfered jewelry box. The flash turned her bones to pillars of ice, and even Sirius grew still. Could he sense it? God, she hoped not – she could never forgive herself for passing something like that along. The first image in his nascent brain a war crime, given before he’d even opened his eyes. Shepard blinked, and with that the image vanished, but not without wounding as it wounded Garrus. Static stuttered in the recesses of her consciousness, something flexing in the periphery. Watching. Recording.

“I won’t. I promise, I won’t,” she whispered, just honest enough that he eased the vice grip he had on her hair.

Miranda stared up at Shepard’s closed door from the foot of the stairs, hoping Shepard could feel her genuine regret. Miranda had failed, another failure in what felt like a losing streak, and they might all be in danger now because she couldn’t act fast enough. She should’ve taken the facility on her own; she didn’t even try. She could have saved those women. Those children.

She hadn’t even tried.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Kaidan called from the kitchen. “It was a long shot to begin with. There’s nothing you could have done to change the results.”

“Easy for you to say,” she snapped, whipping away from him to find Oriana. Her sister had found a sofa in the front room and curled up with her head on Traynor’s lap, her eyes fluttering as she dreamed.

“You weren’t there when those women still had a pulse,” she said to herself, trying and failing to not envision Oriana spliced open on that table only to be left to rot. Discarded. Not even worth whatever data they were trying to extract.

When Shepard emerged, every expectant and apologetic eye fell upon her. Miranda’s eyes burned as she watched Shepard descend the steps. She would’ve never expected maternity to suit Shepard so well; in fact, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen it worn so elegantly, even for as frail as Shepard had become. Some of the weight she’d put back on had diminished, and Miranda wondered if they’d let the rigidity of her care regimen slide since departing. She should have gone with them, should have been there – she wouldn’t be afraid to tell Shepard in no uncertain terms what she needed. Then again, she’d skimmed the report Garrus had sent. That Shepard still lived was itself a miracle.

“Shepard…” Kaidan began, rising from his seat when Shepard entered the kitchen.

“I don’t need apologies. You all did your best. We miscalculated their response, and we’ll need to be more careful moving forward,” she interrupted, her eyes flashing as she looked at her friends. “You can all go home. Or stay if that’s what you’d prefer. There’s nothing to be done right now.”

Javik rolled his neck and gave his best effort at not criticizing the commander. There was always something to be done – the world didn’t wait for any child’s birth. Why should Shepard choose now to lie down? Evidently, he still had much of his former self to release, or perhaps he just absorbed the collective bitterness of the crew. He needed a bath most of all; the essence of that place still clung to his skin like oil. Even his bones hung heavy with twisted remembrance.

“When we defeated the Reapers, I didn’t know if I would ever have another worthy opponent,” Javik remarked. “I am both pleased and disturbed to learn this cycle is full of them. I am beginning to believe the Prothean policy of total domination is superior; we would not have this kind of division had we destroyed the Reapers.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t destroy the Reapers. Sounds like you need to accept our flaws if you’re going to claim that victory,” Solana scoffed.

Javik turned all four of his critical eyes to study the turian, and she met every ounce of contempt shot his way. After a while, Javik looked away and said,

“I like you, for a turian. Perhaps I will let you live when I return my people to their former glory.”

“Javik, since when did you start making jokes?” Cortez guffawed.

“Every day that I do not kill, I sink further to your primitive notions,” Javik muttered. “At this rate, I am forced to consider taking up what you call a ‘hobby’ to pass the time. Perhaps I will learn to bake.”

Liara had emerged from the office and stood next to Shepard, the two of them exchanging grins as they held back their laughter; the image of Javik in an apron, dusted with flour, nearly had them doubled over.

Javik side-eyed the pair, relieved the see a spark of humor return to their expressions. He had gone soft – he should not care about the fragile emotions of these primitives – and yet he found their happiness eased some of his own strain. Yes, Javik had indeed become soft, undoubtedly some asari trick conferred by the glittering eternity behind her eyes. He coveted that too, though with his face turned from view. He spent a great deal of time replaying that night in her crawlspace, itching for the moment he could fulfill his promise to bring her such pleasure again. Since that night, they’d hardly exchanged more than ten words to each other. Just a few months ago, that was something Javik would have celebrated. What had become of him, of Vengeance, that he now craved her laughter?

May the ancients forgive him – Javik was beginning to care what the primitive thought of him.

He wondered if he might convince her to leave Shepard’s side and join him in some empty apartment far from the others. If he could not have a bath, he at least required more of that urgent physicality to stifle the kindling warmth in his chest when he beheld the asari’s face.

“Now that’s an image I’d pay to see,” Kaidan remarked. “I wonder if by baking he means turian loaves or salarian cookies.”

“Now there’s a fine idea, human,” Javik smirked. “You know, I never did try human myself – perhaps this new venture will present an opportunity. I heard you taste like despair.”

At this, neither Liara nor Shepard could contain their laughter, the sound shocking the space with a burst of warmth. Neither of them even knew quite how to feel to be laughing, but they wouldn’t turn away an opportunity, not when the cold had nested itself so deep within their bodies. Garrus could’ve kissed the Prothean, marveling at the way Shepard’s smallness melted behind her dazzling smile. The levity seemed to get the air circulating in the apartment; Oriana roused from her nap and Joker emerged from the garage, not quite so husk-like as he looked when Garrus left.

“Did I hear that right? Is Prothy the Prothean cracking jokes?” Joker asked. “And here I thought you were worse than EDI.”

“Laugh now, primitives. You will be unable when I put you all into little pies and feed you to the hanar.”

Javik faced them now, the corners of his mouth twitching as they sought a sensation he didn’t recognize. The muscles of his face seized involuntarily, struggling to carve out the wholly alien expression. A smile. He didn’t know yet if he could call the gesture a true smile, but the flash of longing in Liara’s eyes as she beheld his face was almost enough to get him the rest of the way there.

Javik providing comic relief was a curveball Shepard couldn’t have predicted, though it seemed just about the only thing to lessen the heaviness. When the laughing faded, she drew her first full breath not weighted by defeat. She glanced between Liara and the Prothean, then at Garrus who likely witnessed the same fluttering in the span between the pair. It didn’t seem possible, but Liara had actually improved Javik’s general insufferability. Shepard counted that as a victory, even if it shrunk behind their larger defeat. She was surprised when Liara’s smile broke and she retreated back to the office almost as suddenly as she’d arrived.

Joker slurred something raunchy about tentacles, prompting Cortez to lift from the couch and bolster the pilot as he staggered through the kitchen. He mentioned they should head back to the Normandy, spurring Traynor into action as well; she stood, squeezed Oriana’s hands, and joined the pair back in the garage. Others drifted out after them: Alenko to the Spectre office for some last-minute approvals, Solana to the back room with hardly a parting nod, then even Javik, though not without lingering as if waiting for Liara to emerge. Kasumi promised she wouldn’t sleep, despite Shepard’s protest, and flickered out onto the Silversun Strip, lost in the distant glow of steadily returning light. Garrus nodded to his mate before heading back up to the room, leaving Shepard staring at Miranda’s back. She stood apart from her sister, who had turned to gaze through the window, her fingers worrying the edge of a throw pillow.

“I think we’ll stay here tonight, Shepard, if that’s alright,” Miranda said, half turning to glance at Shepard through the curtain of her dark hair.

“You’re always welcome, Miranda. Both of you. With Progenitor loose, you’re safer here,” Shepard said. “I’m starting to appreciate that Zaeed turned my home into a death trap.”

Shepard wondered what Liara had planned for the night, wondered why she didn’t follow Javik into the night. Nights like this tended to drive people into any arms that would have them.

“It’s a small comfort. Thank you,” Miranda sighed, finally turning away from Oriana. The anguish that flashed across her perfect features wasn’t lost on Shepard. She chewed over a few platitudes, but swallowed them all the same. There would be nothing smoothing this kind of rot.

“I wasn’t able to find the girl before everything happened. I can’t say I’m not curious,” Miranda continued, stepping into the kitchen.

“You’ve missed a lot. I don’t even know how to begin to explain that one,” Shepard rubbed her forehead. “You should probably spend some time with the reports Garrus sent.”

“Liara said as much in her message. Can you at least tell me how Aria T’Loak turned up dead?”

“We don’t have the details. Since the Alliance got involved on Omega, we haven’t been able to get much information in or out. Samara’s still there working through it.”

“Alliance? On Omega? That doesn’t bode well.”

“Preaching to the choir. Just another thing to add to the pile,” Shepard sighed. She peered around Miranda to Oriana and leaned in closer to her friend. “How’s she holding up?”

Miranda gestured for Shepard to follow her out to the balcony. Once the door sealed behind them, Miranda visibly deflated.

“I’ve dedicated my life to protecting my sister. You’ve seen the lengths I’ve gone to. For the first time in my life, I feel like I can’t help her. She’s spent more time in the past three days crying than she has sleeping. She wants an abortion,” Miranda explained, leaning over the railing and dropping her head against the backdrop of neon.

“Can’t say I blame her,” Shepard said, one of her hands ghosting along the underside of her belly. “It’s lonely. Even for me. Is the father in the picture?”

“He doesn’t know. I forbid her from telling him, mostly for his own safety. They weren’t serious anyway,” Miranda shrugged.

“Maybe that’s for the best,” Shepard agreed. “How are you holding up?”

“Did you know I can’t have my own children?” Miranda asked softly, her voice trailing out into the sound of skycars.

Shepard figured this probably wasn’t the best time to reveal what she’d read on the Shadow Broker terminal and wordlessly joined her friend on the balcony railing.

“All I’ve ever wanted, and it’s the one thing my supposedly perfect body can’t give me. Likely intentional on my father’s part – it wouldn’t serve him for me to become a mother. Now he’s dead and I’ll never get the chance to have a child of my own. Ultimately, I want what’s best for Oriana, but I can’t help thinking about the what ifs. I would gladly take that child in as my own if she only decided to keep it. Is it selfish of me to want that?”

“Yes, but I understand why you feel that way,” Shepard offered. “Is it worth putting her life on the line?”

“Absolutely not,” Miranda responded without hesitation, then followed up with a sigh. “I’m not the jealous type, Shepard, and yet I find myself envying you.”

Shepard laughed at that, an involuntary explosion she had to bite down on her lip to hold back. Miranda scowled at first, then shook her own head with a feeble laugh.

“I suppose I shouldn’t say that, either,” Miranda groaned. “You didn’t ask for this.”

Those last words lingered around the edges of Shepard’s thoughts, lapping at a greater darkness within. Her mind answered the call, whispers pulling from whispers, lifted from the pit where she buried her nightmares. She brought a steadying hand to stroke her belly, glancing down at her strangely transformed figure, the curves she still hadn’t quite adjusted to. It was getting harder and harder to ignore her son’s presence. Soon, she’d hardly be able to stand without some help, much less run.

“No, I didn’t. I don’t regret it either. For a while, a part of me resented it – my job isn’t finished here. I’m a marine, a fighter; I’m pretty sure I don’t have a maternal bone in my body. But he’s coming, whether or not I’m ready for it. I can’t hide from it, can’t run, and I’ve never been the type to run from a challenge,” she confessed, her thumb stroking her skin the way she imagined she’d stroke Sirius’ cheek. “I didn’t ask for this, but I also didn’t think I deserved it. Even under normal circ*mstances in which there’s a foundation of science, or even solid family planning. I got nothing, know nothing, but I know I love him. That’s something.”

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Miranda said. She glanced over at her friend’s belly, her lips quirked into a sad half-smile before flickering back to the strip.

“Who knows, Miranda? If it’s possible for different species to make babies now, maybe it’s possible for you. I don’t know exactly how much I changed the fabric of existence – I only know things that should be impossible are happening in record numbers.”

Miranda considered this – wondered why she hadn’t thought of it before – but didn’t let the thought spin out any bigger than a twinkle in the back of her mind. She decided she absolutely needed to read that report by tonight before deciding to set her heart one way or another. She’d decide after that if she could handle setting herself up for disappointment.

>>>>>>>

Samara emerged from the ventilation shaft covered in no small amount of filth. She dropped into an apartment that resembled the one Morinth had chosen, except this one showed every sign of being vacant for a long time. Dust settled over every surface, and signs of a firefight marred the front door. The door looked to be jammed, bashed in and mangled by a massive force; it could be a security threat, but Samara hadn’t stopped moving in days. How long had it been since she arrived? She counted back to the moment Aria T’Loak sputtered her last curse through a mouthful of blood. Eight days.

Samara wished she had remorse over Aria’s death. She could only hope the goddess Piares would consider her kindly when returning her spirit to the fabric of the eternal. The woman had fought bravely in the end to preserve her home, and Samara sensed that her morals had shifted since the war. For the first time in her life, Aria fought less for her own power than for the well-being of the millions that called Omega their home. Her dying wish that balance be restored would be one Samara strove to fulfill, even if it wouldn’t be a way Aria envisioned.

Samara set her pistol, rendered little more than deadweight without any clips, on the counter and walked the perimeter of the apartment. The windows were small, defensible, and the only other room was the tiny bathroom. She set a passive barrier around any opening and stripped out of her armor so she could begin to rinse some of the grime and old blood from her skin. She would have just shaken the particles away with her biotics, but there existed a ritualistic necessity in marking the different streaks of blood staining her skin. Gelin Kysi. Aria T’Loak. The young human who threw himself in front of a bullet to buy his family time to run from the mercenaries. No, not mercenaries. Monsters. They didn’t show fear, or even seem to register their own actions, and as such, killing them riddled Samara with turmoil.

She’d quickly dispensed of the one who drove a knife into Aria’s gut and noticed in that moment before death that a darkness lifted, allowing the batarian to look up at Samara with a startling plea – confusion, pain, fear. He was only the first. There were few who seemed to fight willingly; most were mere civilians with no training or conditioning. The worst she witnessed was a child no older than fifteen, the hold on her grenade launcher unbalanced and clumsy. There wasn’t even a flicker of emotion on her smooth, round face as she launched explosives into the fleeing civilians.

Killing her troubled Samara, indeed.

The situation on Omega had become dire, and since the Alliance had arrived, the quiet hunger of the asteroid had turned into a full frenzy. Progenitor grew desperate. Civilians who had managed to skirt outside the group’s notice were now being rounded up, either for slaughter or whatever process transformed them into mindless fanatics. As if pulling from an endless source, Progenitor’s numbers had steadily risen. For every one that was put out of her misery, three more took her place. Samara finished wiping the blood from her arms and chest and face, watched the sink run burgundy down the drain. No where did the code examine how she was to feel about rinsing away the blood of innocents turned monsters.

“Zaeed, this is Samara. I have made it somewhere safe. I believe I’m in Kima District. Update me when it’s safe,” Samara spoke into her omni-tool, passively praying for his safe passage.

She hadn’t expected to find herself allying with Zaeed, his morals leaving much to be desired, though Samara could at least admire the similarities in their approach. He certainly didn’t lack a mastery over death; his continued resilience did leave an impression. Whether that invited comparisons to vermin, Samara would not say yet. So far, his knowledge of the station and superior firepower had done much to aid Samara’s continued survival. That alone mattered in his final judgement.

They’d traveled together for the first few days after Aria’s death, liberating as many groups of civilians as they could while Progenitor advanced through the residential districts. Unfortunatel, with the increasing Alliance-driven hostility, a particularly brutal fight in the upper water-treatment facility saw them separated.

It wasn’t exactly a fondness that kept Samara reaching out, but it wasn’t purely utilitarian either. Perhaps it was that anyone once part of Shepard’s crew never truly abandoned the loyalty forged under her leadership. They had, in fact, survived the Collector Base together – for that alone, Zaeed would forever have her respect. Samara could do without his persistent flirtation, though in those days they fought together, she had stopped actively discouraging it; he fought harder when he endeavored to impress her.

When Samara didn’t hear from Zaeed immediately, she settled onto the edge of the bed, her legs crossed beneath her, and opened her messages for the first time in days. Falere had left a message a few days ago, inquiring when Samara would return to Thessia. They’d made plans to spend time together after the war. Samara sent her a brief response, at least to assure her youngest that she had not been abandoned, though she didn’t tell her when she would be returning. If she fulfilled her mission here, she wanted to see Shepard before the birth of her child. Samara didn’t know how much longer she’d need to remain until she felt her oath had been fulfilled, but she imagined the visit to Shepard would take precedence. She sent a prayer of peace across the ripples of space to her daughter and opened her next message.

FROM: Shepard

SUBJECT: This might help you

I’ve been in touch with an old contact. Captain Azi Olowe of the seventh fleet. I believe he can be trusted – has a good record of preserving lives when necessary. He’s got a unit moving through Gozu District, working on securing a safe zone for the civilians. Seek him out, try to gauge why the Alliance has invested so much interest in Omega. Admiral Hackett isn’t involved, leading me to believe there are greater political plays being made in Terminus Space.

If you confirm that Olowe can be trusted, and if you feel safe, we should arrange a vidcom.

I’m sorry I couldn’t be there. If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know. I know you told me to stay away, but you should know by now that I’m not good at keeping out of trouble. Progenitor has a presence on the Citadel, so I’m neck-deep in that right now. The Council won’t do anything, so it’s up to me. Again. Joy.

Everyone is doing well. The baby moves a lot now. We’re naming him Sirius.

Timestamp: 01/28/2188 G.S.T. 07:50 hours

Samara read the message over again, lingering over the last line with a smile. The first beautiful thing she’d heard in over a week. Sirius. Was it Latin in origin? She’d seen it somewhere once, though she couldn’t conjure a meaning beyond the vague remembrance of bright light. She wished Shepard could prepare for motherhood in peace, but at least she’d carved out enough time to give her son a name. Samara had kept up with the thin trickles of news coming in now that communication had been restored, and even those paltry fragments spelled a great darkness in the galaxy. This was not a happy time to bring forth new life, though if anyone had the power to bulldoze through the chaos to make a safe place for her child, it was Shepard. Samara had to believe it would be done.

Perhaps with this new information, she’d secure her own safety on Omega long enough to meet the babe. She didn’t recognize the name Shepard put forth, but she had every reason to trust Shepard wouldn’t send her this information if she didn’t truly believe it would help. If this information was correct, and there was someone willing to put the people of Omega above political machinations, perhaps her cause wasn’t doomed.

However, the implication of the Alliance attempting to establish a hold in Terminus space at a time like this spelled disaster. For the sake of justice, at least, some law and order couldn’t hurt the people here. Samara would need to meditate on whether she found the decision to be the moral one – ill-advised or not. Ultimately, that would determine the length of her stay once she reached this Captain Olowe.

Samara closed her messages and lowered her hands to her knees, her biotics washing over her and gently lifting her above the mattress. Moments before she embraced the infinite beyond, she perceived a message from Zaeed, a clipped confirmation that he still drew breath, and found the following slip into a meditative trance much smoother.

>>>>>>>

Garrus’ twin vocal chords scraped together like old parchment, rendering his words little more than withering rasps lost beneath the constant chafe of a cold wind. He’d been searching for a long time, calling out a name much longer, but still he spoke it into the wind that it might drift down the gale and find its master. His legs ached something fierce, each movement locking his muscles and joints, and a searing desperation pounded his bloodstream. It was more than emotional, or at least his emotions had transgressed into a physical fire burning him from the inside. It couldn’t be doused until he found her. He sensed her across the barren landscape, whipped by cold and ash and smoke – she needed him. He’d promised to be there. He promised he'd never leave her alone.

Just as Garrus felt his legs would turn to stone, he spotted a pale figure in the distance. A streak of blonde hair caught on the wind carried back the unmistakable scent of his Shepard, though the floral notes were undercut by the rancid sour of blood. He could practically taste the metal in the air, forcing his legs to carry him faster across the distance.

Not too late. He could save her.

When he reached her, his voice cracked into a keen at the sight. She’d been strapped to a table, tubes and wires driven into her flesh and leading back into the black soil below. Dark veins streaked out from the various points of entry, vipers of poisonous infection slithering into her bloodstream. A black thread sewed together her cracked lips, and her eyes had been gouged from their sockets, leaving two bleeding pits into her skull. Garrus brought a shaking hand up to her face, stirring her awake, the muscles inside her sockets twisting and gushing fresh blood as she blindly searched for him.

He tried to soothe her, but his voice had been stolen, leaving him only able to keen for her, his beloved. Carefully, he used his talon to sever the thread holding her mouth together, her lips breaking open with a shaking sob.

“He’s coming, Garrus. It’s time. f*ck, it hurts so bad. Help me, please. Make it stop,” she choked out, her words blurring into a strangled scream as a convulsing spasm rolled through her.

Garrus scanned down her body; he hadn’t even registered how large her belly had become. Black veins laced the taut surface, and movement rippled within. She seized again, this time sending a gush a dark blood from between her legs. The air smelled like iron. He first tried to pull the tubes and wires from the ground that he might free her limbs and body, but no matter how hard he pulled, the bindings wouldn’t budge. In fact, it seemed with each effort, more of them appeared, securing her helpless to the cold table. Shepard’s screaming didn’t relent, each spasm sending more blood gushing down her thighs. Crimson streaked her twisted face, pooling up like dark water in the sockets,

“He’s going to die, Garrus,” she sobbed, surging with all her strength against the bindings. “Get him out of me, please. I’m begging you. Just make it stop,”

He stroked the side of her face, down her arms and over her gnarled hands, anything he could do to bring her some comfort. He’d never felt so helpless in his life, not even when she’d been thousands of meters beneath churning ocean. Deep, deep – far deeper than he could go to reach her. This too felt like drowning, his heavy body dragging him below a churning surface. Every breath heaved, constricted, burned. Her pain rose like waves above his head.

Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop.

He wished he had the voice to tell her to breathe, to focus, to push. He needed to tell her he couldn’t do this alone. He needed to take her pain away, but she’d transformed into a bottomless sea and he couldn’t swim. Didn’t she know turians couldn’t swim? Didn’t she know she asked the impossible?

She must have heard it in the subvocal strain shivering up his throat, because she tried to steady her breathing. With each contraction, she grit her teeth and tried to push until her body caved in like ruins, shuddering into agonized rest. He watched her fight, but with each contraction, more blood spilled out of her and no progress was made. Garrus felt it dripping from the table onto his leg, strikingly hot against the inescapable cold everywhere else. Shepard waned, her strength stolen and siphoned into the rotten ground, and he wtinessed with increasing muted horror as the last tattered scrap of Commander Shepard’s steel departed with a gasp into the wind.

Her body fell back, her screams depleted into whimpers. With every breath, her skin drained of color.

Garrus blinked back tears, and they were transported back to her room in Huerta Memorial. Doctors rushed around him, their medical jargon blurring into the mechanical drone of monitors and machines. They pushed around him, shoving him and prodding Shepard’s body, but they didn’t do anything to help. Only one stood still, finger scrolling through text on a datapad.

“Vital signs weak and dropping. Fetal life signs flagging. Regrettably, patient has likely lost too much blood to be saved. Direct intervention might preserve the baby,” Mordin puttered, half to himself, half to Garrus. He spoke as if discussing the results of one of his frivolous experiments, as if reading off the chemical makeup of a soil sample.

“I’m begging you to save her,” Garrus keened, his voice returning in full. At the sound of his voice, Shepard’s immobilized hand scrambled against the metal surface to grip his fingers. “Mordin, please. There has to be some way to save her.”

“Negative. Only one way anyone survives,” Mordin plucked. He looked up at Garrus with a casual grin; his shimmering eyes were all black – the deepest black Garrus had ever seen. Mordin patted him on the shoulder and said, “Why don’t you do the honors?”

Garrus froze, shaking his head and trying to back away without leaving Shepard’s side, but her nails dug into the thick skin of his hands. Her empty sockets beseeched him, the deep pits transmuting a cavernous hollow to the space between his ears. Only one way. That’s what Mordin said. Only one way. He released his eyes from Shepard’s face and laid his hand on her belly. The surge of an unbreakable bond cried out from within, called to him. Begged him.

What kind of father would he be to not answer?

Garrus extricated his other hand from Shepard’s, her nails tearing away large chunks of his flesh, and brought it to the apex of her belly. His talons tested the surface, sharp enough to easily open the skin. To bring his son into the light. It was his duty as a father. In the back of his mind, he always knew that there would be unacceptable sacrifices he’d be forced to make. One life for another. He wondered how he’d never been given the chance to give his own. He almost wanted to tell her to take it, take him, but he wasn’t the one on the table.

He was the one holding the knife.

He just had to-

“Let go,” Shepard whispered. Her voice wrapped around the base of his spine, draining the heat from his body.

When he still hesitated, she reiterated, and this time a cascade of other voices joined in. Let go, let go, let go. The words slithered in between his plates, wedged beneath his scales, until they usurped every corner of his internal. Replaced his blood, overrode his heartbeat, calcified within the structure of his bones. He closed his eyes and found every iota of darkness had been rewritten – let go, let go, let go.

Garrus plunged his hand down into her belly, then another to open her enough to pull the child through. Her blood coated his skin like summer heat. He marked the sickening snap and squelch of her skin tearing, then the inhuman, guttural scream she issued as he pushed deeper, deeper through her entrails.

He marked the piercing silence that followed.

Like a structure of wind and sand, or a weapon, Garrus marked that silence, the kind of silence that claws and wounds and screams. Wind and sand and utter, irrevocable absence.

At last, his hand gripped around a tiny arm, a slippery body, and a deafening roar trembled off every surface of existence as he dragged his son into the light.

Garrus shot up, one hand reaching for his throat and another for the pistol on the nightstand. For a shivering eternity, he searched the quiet of the room, eyes wide and blindly stabbing through the pitch. When he registered a sound from the body beside him, he finally released his breath, set down the pistol, and turned the light on to the lowest setting. The familiarity of the room sprung up around him, guiding his reluctant eyes to the sleeping figure at his side.

His eyes stung as he registered the smooth, unmarred porcelain of her skin, the thin sheen of sweat beading her upper lip, the gentle rise and fall of her breasts poking above the blanket. He brought his hand to stroke her jaw, a moan feathering between her lips as she leaned into the touch. He brought his hand down to splay fully across her stomach, his breathing stuttering into a normal rhythm as his senses returned to him. The chill of the morning air, the floral scent of her skin, the distant hum of skycars. He glanced at the time: 06:02.

At least he’d already planned to get an early start, as there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be able to get back to sleep. Keeping his hand planted on Electra, he brought his knees up to his chest and lowered his head to rest on them.

It had been a while since he’d had a nightmare. Especially one that felt so real. He could still feel her blood on his bare skin, feel her flesh falling apart like tissue paper at his touch. He lifted his head to look at Shepard’s sleeping face, a vision of perfect, untouched serenity, and hoped she would finish the night without the stabbing torment of a nightmare. The kind that clawed, the kind that screamed. She didn’t appear to be dreaming, and Garrus liked to believe he’d assumed the burden of torture, even if just for one night.

He dragged his hand away and swung his legs over the side of the bed, frowning at the full length of his co*ck resting against his thigh. Unbelievable, he sighed, hoping it’d go away if he just ignored it, though nothing sounded better than losing himself in Shepard’s body right about now. He looked back at her, her nipples peaked in the naked air, and imagined rolling his tongue over her sensitive breasts. He’d sink into her hot, wet c*nt, her walls squeezing around his co*ck, milking him –

Almost like a flash of pain, he recalled with excruciating realness the feeling of her insides pressed around his wrists and hands and immediately felt his erection soften. He had to look away, had to squeeze his eyes so tight he saw stars, and pushed off from the mattress.

Garrus hoped Shepard would understand when she woke and found his half of the bed had gone cold.

Chapter 34: UPDATE

Chapter Text

Hi hi hi anyone who likes this story! I know I've taken an insanely long hiatus, but I want you all to know it isn't abandoned! I'm working on new chapters now, and will hopefully post soon. Time has a crazy way of passing extremely quickly, and I've had a pretty full plate, but I still want to take this story all the way. This is just my lil reminder to ya'll and to myself that THIS ISN'T ABANDONED.

Thank you to those of you that have commented and left kudos. It means the world that anyone likes my story and my writing. Ya'll are the best, thank you for being patient!

Chapter 35: Smoke

Chapter Text

C-Sec had at one point been a respected establishment. Even if he could never support the crawl of bureaucracy, Garrus could at least respect its function in justice; the Citadel might as well be a giant, multi-tiered prison if not for due process. However, as he waited on Bailey, eyes lingering at empty desks and cracked windows, he concluded that C-Sec had lost its edge. Multiple comm lines bleated with no one to answer. The solitary secretary at the help desk (emergency hire, Garrus guessed, just based on the way his fingers hovered around the panic button) tried to calm an agitated civilian while others watched the minutes creep up the clock.

No wonder Progenitor had secured a solid foothold – C-Sec crumbled when Reapers took the Citadel, and only the naked essence of authority remained.

At least Bailey remained like the final column in a ruin. He looked better than the last time Garrus saw him – at least, his limp had improved. A smattering of new badges adorned his armor, well-deserved promotions. Looking around, Garrus realized there probably hadn’t been anyone else to promote anyway. Most of his old contacts – those that survived, that is – had found higher callings. He couldn’t blame them. If anything, he was surprised it took a good deal of them this long. Garrus also wondered if maybe they’d just been turned or indoctrinated or killed with the rise of Progenitor and shuddered.

Bailey emerged from evidence and motioned Garrus into his private office. When they sat, he slid only one datapad over the surface and leaned away from it. Garrus snatched it up.

“Is this it?” he asked, scrolling through the files. Truncated lists of names, heavily scrubbed security footage, a handful of scattered statements. He’d seen bigger case files for small-time smugglers.

“C-Port and the Spectres locked down the investigation after the attack in the docking bay. Honestly, I don’t know why you’re coming to me when Shepard probably has more access at the Spectre terminals,” Bailey sighed.

“The Council isn’t taking it seriously. If the Spectres know anything, I imagine it’s an ongoing investigation, red-tape exclusive,” Garrus growled, resisting the urge to toss the datapad back at Bailey. Bailey seemed happy to be rid of it; one less thing, his eyes said.

“Sounds like the Council,” Bailey shrugged. “Look, you know how these things are. I won’t pretend like I don’t know why you left C-Sec. If you want to see justice anytime soon, you’re going to have to see to it yourself.”

Garrus grunted to himself, still considering the datapad in his hand, though Bailey thought he didn’t seem to be reading anything. Garrus' raptor eyes stared through the screen. Hungry. Dangerous. Bailey couldn't relate to whatever it was Garrus was feeling – after all, he’d never left C-Sec. Hadn’t ever entertained the thought longer than about ten minutes. Someone had to be there. Might as well be him.

If not for him, there wouldn’t even be this much information on Progenitor in the system. They were up to their necks in petty crimes, theft, murder, missing persons. Half the force had left over the last month like rats from a sinking ship. Bailey hardly had the mental energy to comb his hair every morning. Hell, all that got him to his desk each day was the hope he’d see his kids’ names leave the missing persons network. He had to believe they’d know to find him here. Had to believe they’d made it, somehow, against all odds, against the uncaring tyranny of confirmed deaths rolling in every day like a swollen tide. Even a confirmed death would be better than missing.

“Can I take this with me?” Garrus asked, waving the datapad.

“It’s more use to you than me. Wouldn’t be the first investigation to disappear in the last six months.”

As Garrus got up to leave, Bailey cleared his throat. He shifted in his seat, his lips pursed as he chewed on his next words.

“There have been a lot of rumors. Reports. You hear it all working at C-Sec, but I try not to absorb anything. Shepard. Is it true she’s expecting?”

“Yeah, she is. Couldn’t tell you a due date, but it’s sooner rather than later,” Garrus sighed, then added with a weak laugh, “Wish I had more time to figure out this mess before our little guy gets here.”

Bailey nodded, recognizing the weariness in Garrus’ eyes for what it truly was. It was a weariness he knew well, and while he wished he had some magic words that would ease the burden of fatherhood, no such words existed. It was both the greatest love and the greatest source of pain Bailey had ever known, and Garrus would be no exception. He’d simply join the ranks of all parents fighting to make the world a softer place for their children. With any luck, he might just succeed in ways Bailey evidently couldn’t.

“The mess never goes away. It only changes,” Bailey said. “Just try to hold on to whatever moments you can while they’re still little. Once that’s gone, it’s never coming back.”

Garrus turned Bailey’s words over in his head before thanking him for the data and leaving. The time above the broken elevator read 09:10 hours. Electra would be waking up soon, but he wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. I still have time, he thought. Bailey’s words had given him pause, brought to awareness the encroaching reality of his son’s birth. Sooner than later – he’d said it himself, though he hadn’t registered until that moment that this past month had put them over that line. Still time, he repeated to himself, picking up the pace. He headed straight out to the lower wards and made a hard right towards Flux; if any of his old colleagues were around, he’d probably find them haunting that old sh*t hole.

Morning rush-hour clogged the walkways. With so many wards still uninhabitable, the Citadel crowds had become even more dense, making even traveling on foot a challenge. An unsurprising number of the people were refugees resigned to begging. For credits, for passage off-station, even for scraps of food. A few held up pictures of loved ones – husbands, wives, children. Too many children. One such turian mother swung out in front of Garrus, her familiar blue eyes too similar to his own mother’s, and he could only shake his head and swallow the curse she sent at his back in subvocals: At least you have yours. For now.

Garrus knew she didn’t mean it as a threat, but it bit like one all the same. If becoming a father had done anything to change him, it was that every danger – every shady criminal, every uttered word – had intensified. Things he would’ve brushed off before filled him with dread like an ocean. His father had implied bonding would shave off some of the edge, but maybe that only applied when forces weren’t actively conspiring to kill his wife and son.

The crowd thinned as the walkways opened ahead of Flux. The club’s pulsing lights lit the platform, and a steady bass entirely too loud for the time of day reverberated along the low ceiling. For having sustained significant damage during the assault, Flux had bounced back like a weed, ready to feed the desperate vices of the Citadel residents. Made sense. Back when he worked for C-Sec, the club wouldn’t even close if someone was murdered on site. They’d simply rope the area off, raise the music, and send out a slew of dancers to keep patrons distracted. People needed that kind of ambivalence, especially when things got bad. Garrus would be lying if he didn’t hear it calling to him, promising to drown out his worries and fears with thumping rhythm and cheap booze.

In a bygone era, he might respond; now, he was relying on that promise as a bait for loose-lipped informants.

Four krogan ambled around the doors with guns, nodding at the people coming and going. They didn’t look to be hired bouncers, nor C-Sec nor even mercenaries. Their body language only suggested they were looking for something. He considered going through the back if only to keep off their radar (Garrus honestly couldn’t assess if they were allies or thugs or enemies) when a sharp voice spoke his name. He wheeled around, searching for the source, and caught a pair of yellow eyes through the crowd. They flicked to the catwalk overhead, then disappeared as a slender figure slipped behind a hidden door and out of sight. The figure left the door open just a crack, an invitation to follow. Naturally, he did, though not before slinging the black widow from his back and switching off the safety.

The door, a service door for maintenance and keepers, opened to a steep set of stairs up to the catwalks. He followed the nose of his rifle up to the platform; the figure leaned over the railings away from him, hood drawn over her head. Turian, petite, a single carnifex on the hip. Taking her wouldn’t be a problem if it came to it. His finger twitched for the trigger, but his curiosity kept him at a distance.

“You’re way too easy to find,” she said, shaking her head. “And you should know better than to ask around C-Sec.”

“Who are you?” he asked, pretending her words didn’t bother him. He worried she’d hear it in his subvocals anyway.

“The one who took your job when you left. Former Special Investigator Leta Candiril, organized crime unit,” she said, and he detected no lie. In fact, he thought he recognized the name. “And you’re motherf*cking Legate Garrus Vakarian.”

Leta turned to face him, co*cking her hip and whisking her razor-sharp eyes across him. Devouring him, dissecting him. Analyzing how fast she’d need to pull her gun and dart for cover if he deemed her dangerous. She firmly gripped the railing behind her, hands as far from her gun as possible, which seemed to help as Garrus ever so slightly lowered his gun to point at her leg.

“What do you want?”

“Not much of a diplomat are you? You know, they said you used to be a flirt but that must’ve been before you became a politician,” she purred, angling her flared hips towards him.

“Cut to the chase,” he barked. A warning before he fired, which he felt more inclined to do the longer she talked and the harder she stared.

“I know you’re hunting down Progenitor. I thought you should know you’re not alone,” she offered, eyes darting around as she said it. They’re always watching. Everywhere. Even there.

Garrus said nothing, but he pulled his finger back from the trigger, lowered his rifle to point at the ground between them.

“Those krogan down there are with me. Notice they aren’t stopping anyone – that’s because they’re looking for the signs. Brand on the wrist, odd behavior, that sort of thing. We’re trying to get an estimate on numbers since C-Sec and the Council dropped the ball,” she said. “I want to help you.”

Garrus peered down at the krogan. They didn’t look all that old, probably mercs or bounty hunters before the war. He wasn’t sure if Leta hired them or if they joined of their own volition, but they did at least look intimidating. If only that. He didn’t exactly trust Candiril, and he certainly didn’t like the way she looked at him like a piece of meat, but intel was intel at this point. He wasn't too proud to dig through the scraps.

“Why? What do you have to gain?” he asked.

“There’s a terrorist organization running f*cked-up experiments and mutilating innocent people all over the galaxy, and you’re asking what I have to gain? That’s rich coming from you, Archangel. Here I was thinking you were the exact kind of guy to talk to. I’d go to Shepard, but she’s not the one roaming the streets just begging for a fight.”

Garrus almost laughed – Leta clearly didn’t know Shepard – though the way she hissed her name like some kind of slur made Garrus think she had other reasons for going to him.

“Point taken. What do you know that I don’t?”

“I’m guessing a lot if your first stop is C-Sec. Systems Alliance just tried to raid their base of operations in Tayseri Ward, right? Turned up nothing? My group had known about that base for months before you showed up and ruined it. Those pricks had gotten real comfortable in the ruins, got loose with security, which is the only reason your person got in to begin within. You can be sure they won’t make that mistake again,” she hissed.

“Wait. Months? You knew for months?” Garrus asked, his mandibles splaying wide. “And you did nothing?”

“Since before Shepard even left Huerta. We were waiting, gathering as much intel as we could. We didn’t plan for Lawson to go and f*ck everything up and send them back into the shadows. We could’ve figured out the location of their HQ if not for her. We’re practically back at square one,” Leta spat.

“sh*t,” Garrus breathed, unable to hide his genuine shock and remorse. If she spoke even a sliver of truth – and he’d need evidence before he fully believed her – then they’d f*cked up on a mightier scale than he originally imagined.

“Now we’ve got a goddamned legate poking around, your mate is talking to the press and raising a stink to the Council, and I’m left guessing when exactly we’re all going to be f*cked by the hell Progenitor’s going to rain down on us,” she continued. “Don’t know how you ended up with that rabble - they have the subtlety of a male krogan in heat, but I guess that’s just humans.”

The longer she spoke, the more Garrus got the impression she: A) just pulled him aside to vent her frustrations and B) had something against humans. Either way, it didn’t sound at all like she wanted to help him. In fact, glancing down at the hired muscle, their firearms a few models outdated, he was starting to think she was the one in need of assistance.

“You must not remember the time a human stopped the Reapers from destroying life in the galaxy, but I digress. What makes you so sure they’re going to attack?” he asked.

Leta stepped closer, again eyeing the area around them.

“They don’t like being on the defense. Tell me – if your enemy knew next to nothing about you, do you think you’d wait until they figured you out, or would you strike while they’re scrambling in the dark, only aware of a mere fragment of your power?”

Fear. Candiril was afraid. The swagger and anger faltered, her subvocals whined, and the fire in her yellow eyes turned to ice. Garrus wished he could ignore the chill that swept down his entire body. He wished he could just continue to distrust her words, downplay her message, but as a turian, the physicality of terror was inescapable. Images of Shepard spliced open on a table shoved to the forefront of his mind, the slithering, sticky wet of his talons slick with her blood – Leta flinched and nodded.

“When?” he asked.

“No clue,” she admitted, turning away from him. “Obviously, your infiltration set them back. However, I hear Shepard plans to speak to Emily Wong. If she does, I’ll bet it won’t be long after.”

Before Garrus could even ask how she’d heard about that, she perked up, made some wordless communication with one of the krogan by the door, and breezed past him for the stairs. Before she disappeared, she turned and said,

“If you think we can help each other, meet me at Bhotan’s Electronics, 1300 hours. Come alone.”

>>>>>>>

Electra woke with a start, but a heaviness permeating her limbs kept her pinned to the bed. Her thoughts drifted empty in meandering circles, and her splayed body sunk into the mattress as if fused. Dried drool crackled at the corners of her mouth. She must’ve slept deeply, because it even took her a few minutes to register that Garrus wasn’t in bed beside her. It didn’t matter to her either way; she’d had no nightmares, no dreams even, and if she hadn’t continued to rouse herself, she might as well have never fought the Reapers and died in the process. Then Sirius moved and her stomach growled and she remembered all at once every excruciating moment that led her to this exact one.

11:42. No wonder Sirius squirmed and pressed on her full bladder. She’d slept almost twelve hours, hadn’t even stirred when Garrus got up.

She threw on an oversized t-shirt and ambled downstairs, only to find the apartment completely empty. No Garrus, no Miranda, no Liara, not even Jor’Tal. No one. Upon checking the guest bedroom, the bed neatly made, the air in the apartment cinched and chilled, and she had to fight the urge to look behind her at the nothing that whispered her name. She cradled her belly, comforted by the steady movements under her skin of a tiny creature unaware of all except warmth and hunger.

Electra wished she had some way to confirm this wasn’t the preamble to some f*cked up dream, but her brain hadn’t caught up with the rest of her. All she could think about was food; she’d worry about the rest later.

Shepard scrounged up a quick meal – leftovers from dinner and a dextro protein bar – and ate standing over the sink. Eventually her hunger pangs subsided, Sirius stopped squirming, and the air stagnated with the silence. She discarded of her scraps and dishes and, feeling even more alone without her urgent need to eat, retreated to the study. She liked being surrounded by Anderson’s things: the voice memos he’d recorded for his memoir, the row of westerns he used to read before bed, the ambiance of dignity and nostalgia reserved for veterans and fathers. She stopped at a small picture of him perched on a shelf and lifted her shirt just enough to run her hands on the smooth skin of her stomach as if to show him.

Shepard found it odd that she’d gone from just a slight swell to obviously pregnant in just a matter of weeks. Months, she corrected, when she realized January was all but over. At least she’d put on some of the weight she’d lost in the coma. She wondered what Anderson would say, seeing her like this. All round and gaunt at the same time. She imagined he’d be excited like Castis. Protective, concerned, eager. He’d play it off, sure, but he’d probably show up every day and read her son stories about cowboys and vigilantes before bed.

Electra stared distantly at her belly beneath her splayed fingers, at the black veins snaking their way across her pale skin, choking, poisoning, feeding, draining-

“You’re finally awake,” Liara’s voice sounded behind her. Electra turned with an estimation of a smile but found Liara’s face unusually stony.

“I can’t remember the last time I woke up and didn’t immediately have someone telling me something urgent,” Electra mused, following Liara back into the kitchen. “I take it that still hasn’t changed.”

Liara bustled around, opening and closing cabinets, creating little piles of clutter all over the kitchen counters. Jor’Tal trudged in behind her, arms loaded with bags of various origin. Liara rushed over, took a few bags from him, and proceeded to start unloading groceries into their respective destinations around the kitchen. She seemed scattered; coupled with the look she gave Electra – much more typically inscrutable – Electra didn’t know what to expect. She momentarily wondered if it had to do with Garrus, but she knew in her heart that if something bad had happened to her mate, she’d have already sensed it.

“Do you know where Miranda is? She and Oriana were still here when I left,” Liara said, surveying the empty living room before returning to her tasks. She pointed for Jor’Tal to take the other bags into the study to which he silently acquiesced.

“No clue. Gone before I got up, apparently. Same as Garrus,” Shepard replied. “Any clue where he’s run off to?”

“He didn’t leave you a message?” Liara asked, pausing to put her hands on her hips. Her delicate brows scrunched in the middle. When Shepard shrugged, Liara huffed a sigh, shook her head, and carried on after Jor’Tal into the study.

“You didn’t have to get me groceries, Liara,” Shepard said, leaning on the bar as her friend stowed the rest of the bags under the desk. “Or whatever else it is you’ve purchased.”

“I noticed you were running on certain supplies, and I didn’t want to wake you, that’s all. I know you can take care of yourself for the most part,” Liara said. “Jor’Tal expressed interest in seeing the strip, so we went together.”

“Thank you, I guess. Are you feeling okay? You look a little…”

“I’m fine,” Liara interrupted, and smiled as if reminding herself to. The furrow between her brows lingered like a brand. “And what about you? Feeling up for a little adventure today?”

Shepard raised a brow, now very curious as to what had gotten under Liara’s skin, but it was apparent that she didn’t have any interest in talking about herself. Electra would let it rest.

“I need to go over the interview questions from Emily Wong, and probably a million other things, but I can’t think of anything immediate,” she said. Her thoughts hadn’t yet gotten up to speed, and just Liara’s frenetic energy made Shepard want to retreat to her bed.

“Good. Well, seeing as Miranda never followed up on that lead, I figured we could try and track down Tessa. That is, of course, if you’re still interested.”

Tessa. Shepard hadn’t forgotten, though the name dragged with it a sense of compounding guilt. She wished Miranda had more time to look into it, but Electra knew it would need to be her. She only feared what confirming the girl's existence would mean about that shivering dark within.

“I can be ready in ten.”

When Garrus didn’t turn back up in the time it took for Shepard to brush her teeth and get into her armor, she sent him a message:

SHEP: Going with Liara to track down Tessa. Don’t know when I’ll be home. You staying out of trouble?

GV: Hardly. Following a lead on Progenitor. Also don’t know when I’ll be back, hopefully not late. Please be safe.

GV: You should let Liara drive. Don’t want the car getting dented.

Electra smirked and tossed the keys to Liara before sliding in the passenger side. She closed her eyes as Liara sped into the low lanes, let the ghosts passing by the windows fade into a florescent blur all around her.

>>>>>>>

Bhotan’s Electronics had been abandoned for some time, the blown out sign hanging crooked from the top off the door frame. Most of the shops in this corner of the lower wards were in ruins, long-since looted and left to rot while more important sectors of the Citadel were repaired. Usually, this area would be bursting with life, ringing with the shouts of salesmen trying to get buyers in their doors, but all that remained were the dredges of society. Squatters eyed Garrus from behind counters and thugs gauged the risk vs. reward of mugging him. Considering not even the jumpy vorcha approached, no one here was that desperate for the payout on his guns that they’d be willing to die for it.

The store he sought was tucked at the back of the market square, likely a shady place to begin with, and as soon as Garrus crossed the threshold, a krogan stepped in after him. He was one of the ones from Flux, and a man of few words, as he only grunted and turned to guard the door.

“You actually showed. I kind of thought you’d be too busy playing house to mean serious business,” Leta quipped. She slunk from the back storage area, pausing to lean on the door frame. Her eyes flicked to the krogan, who punched the panel on the wall and activated the doors; they squealed shut and locked, though whether to trap Garrus in or keep unwanted visitors out, Garrus couldn’t tell. Probably a mix of both.

“Who said I’m not? Now, do you have something for me, or was this just a convoluted sales pitch for broken gaming systems?”

Leta beckoned towards the back room. Garrus vaulted over the counter and followed; at the back of the supply room, a duct grate had been moved aside to reveal a narrow opening. With a wink, Leta ducked inside. Garrus knew this trick well – half the merchants in the lower wards had reconstituted the ducts and service tunnels into hidden storage. Organized crime investigators practically had these tunnels memorized.

After squeezing through the narrow opening, the space opened up to a series of platforms. Ducts ran the length of the open space, a labyrinth of hidden paths and distant tunnels. An exposed elevator shaft hung like a crooked jaw at the center of the first platform, occasionally ushering a sigh as the pressure in the shaft network changed. A haphazardly rigged server blinked near the elevator, power cables linking it into the Citadel’s transportation grid. He’d seen this kind of setup before, too, as it was the easiest way to establish a secure, remote computer system without getting caught. Power fluctuations in the elevator system were expected, and therefore minimal draws of power here and there were nearly impossible to trace.

Garrus followed Leta past the first platform and up a flight of stairs to what must be the hub of the operation. A row of terminals glowed to his right beneath a larger screen displaying a map of the wards. Multiple faces turned to look at the newcomer, and Garrus swore he even recognized a few, but they turned before he had a chance to get a better look. A poorly stocked weapon bench sat to the left alongside a few banged-up lockers, and unmarked crates littered the center, serving as tables, chairs, desks – whatever they needed to be in the cramped, humid space. Leta walked to the end of the platform before turning, her arms fanning out before slapping down at her side.

“Welcome to HQ. Try not to get overwhelmed.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Since I quit C-Sec in October. I’d been on Bhotan’s case for a while, and when he died during the assault, I claimed it as a form of severance pay,” she explained.

“How’d you get wrapped up in all this? I didn’t hear about Progenitor until Shepard went public in December,” Garrus asked.

Leta beckoned him yet again further down a tunnel, this time so small he had to crawl across the ducts on his hands and knees. The tunnel opened to a cramped room, cluttered with blankets and empty MRE packets and datapads. Leta sat on the single, threadbare cot in the corner and patted the open space next to her, but Garrus chose to sit on a crate against the far wall. Her mandibles flickered in annoyance, but she didn’t press the issue.

“I became aware of Progenitor a few weeks after the war ended. It started with tags in the lower wards, then progressed to a small extranet presence. I archived the posts here if you want to look at them,” Leta tossed a datapad to Garrus.

First were pictures of the tag – three pairs of eyes, the same symbol as the mark on that C-Port official’s wrist. They also matched the images sent by Samara from Omega. Next, Garrus scanned through the archived posts. Most came from CSphere, one of the Citadel’s most popular extranet forums. One read:

The War is not over. The synthetics will return, and they will destroy us. They never left. Progenitor is the way of truth. Turn away from synthesis, embrace the purity of organic life – open your eyes and follow the signs, and your suffering will be over.

“Cryptic,” Garrus remarked, flipping through the other posts and finding they all seemed to say the same thing. “This doesn’t tell me how you got here.”

“Well I was practically begging for real work. Most C-Sec officers had been tasked with rescue and recovery at the time, but that was mostly shoveling bodies. Tagging, identifying, cremating. Not what I signed up for. When I noticed these posts, I saw the makings of a cult and decided the last thing the Citadel needed was a group like that rising to power. Naturally, I started to investigate. Eventually, I ‘followed the signs’ all the way to a Progenitor gathering in Tayseri Ward. People would come in, listen to a speech about the dangers of technology and the establishment and then they were given food, medical care – everything they couldn’t get elsewhere. Honestly, at this point I thought it seemed pretty harmless if not actively helpful, but then they’d pull them aside, one by one, and take them to a separate room. When they came back, they were… different. Like a light had gone out in their heads. And they’d have a tattoo on the inside of their wrist. More like a brand than anything. I couldn’t back out at this point. They pulled me aside eventually and told me I could stay if I agreed to be a part of their organization. I agreed, wanting to see what they were doing in that room, and they took me into the room where they had this weird orb. I swear it’s like it…”

“Got into your head?” Garrus asked, shivering.

“You know about them?” Leta asked, leaning forward.

“You could say that. Have you heard of the Leviathans?” he asked, and as he expected, she shook her head. He motioned for her to continue.

“Needless to say I hated it. Filled my body with so much revulsion I practically threw up on the spot. It felt like fingers flipping through my thoughts, physically worming into my brain. Cold fingers. I was pretty overwhelmed, and then they brought out a syringe filled with this black fluid. One of them grabbed my wrist and I went into full fight mode. I started kicking and throwing punches, but they managed to inject me. The moment they did, I swear I almost slipped away. Almost. Maybe because of the struggle, they weren’t able to get me the full dose, but after that I remembered my gun and shot them all dead. Then I shot that f*cking orb, and hightailed it out of there.

“I went to C-Sec with my findings, and they all but laughed in my face. Told me it sounded like I’d been watching too many crime dramas and to go get some rest. But I couldn’t rest. Every time I slept, I felt them. They’re always here, in my head. But I won’t let them win. I quit C-Sec not long after and dedicated myself to learning more about Progenitor. I started finding others who’d had similar experiences. Or who’d lost someone to them. Next thing I know, I’ve got a whole operation dedicated to destroying them. We’re pretty ragtag, I’ll admit, but being around others helps keep the darkness back.”

“Do you have the mark?” Garrus asked.

Leta sniffed and thrust out her right arm, looking away as Garrus peeled back her sleeve. The mark wasn’t quite as defined as some of the others, more a smudge than anything, but it left him with a feeling of dread nonetheless. Had the leviathans developed a new way to get into people’s heads? What was the point of it? Why bother when they could just use the artifacts? He thought back to how the geth built shrines around reaper tech, and wondered if Progenitor was just an organic version of that. Reapers were, after all, the synthetic counterpart of the leviathans. Perhaps these people were just as much perpetrators as they were victims, so ensconced in the leviathans’ thrall that they’d become little more than husks themselves.

Garrus dropped her wrist and she lowered her sleeve as if wrapping a wound. For once, she couldn’t make eye-contact, instead losing her gaze into some infinite corner of the room. Garrus had seen that look before in Shepard; in fact, he saw it almost every day.

“I’ve tried getting rid of it, but I usually end up blacking out anytime I start messing with it. I figure it’s not worth it. At this point, I’ve gotten pretty good at fighting against it, and it seems to offer me some protection. The times we’ve gotten into hairy situations, it’s like they don’t see me. Same goes for the few others in the same boat. Makes it really easy to infiltrate, which is how we know so much about them, know what to look for. It isn’t perfect, but it helps. Not everyone lasts, though. Rott, Mary, Alia – those are just a few who eventually gave in to it. To the voices,” she said, spitting after she spoke the names. “I did them the honor of killing them myself.”

Garrus recalled the years he lived as Archangel, seeing a bit of that version of himself in Leta. The anger was there, especially at the futility of the legal system. But so was the pain and the recklessness. The guilt. Of course that part of him never really went away, but he’d moved on from it. It had no place in his life as a leader or a mate or a father. The way Leta looked at him, he sensed that she spoke only to Archangel. In a bygone time, he’d likely join her operation and probably excel, but he already knew where that path led.

“So fast forward to Shepard waking up. At this point, how big was Progenitor?” he asked.

“Big. Our estimates put them in the 200,000 range. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s double that now. Anyway, by late November, we suspected they already had an in at Huerta because rumors started to swirl about Shepard a few weeks before she even went public. We weren’t able to get a ton of information at this point on their sources of information about her, but we were mainly focused on the disappearance of pregnant women. That started around the beginning of November. If you can believe it, I even went back to C-Sec to start an inquiry, and they were too in over their heads to care. So we tracked them down to their medical facility ourselves.”

“How’d you do that?”

“We got to their target first. Young turian girl, human partner. At this point, Progenitor was scrubbing forums for anyone posting about irregular conceptions. Don’t know how they’ve been wiping that data, but anytime someone posts, it’s gone in a matter of minutes. Sometimes seconds. We actually found this girl because she went to her brother who just so happened to work with me. We posted for her, and sure enough, they came to get her. All in the span of an hour.”

No wonder Liara hadn’t been able to find anything, though it gave Garrus no comfort that their extranet security surpassed even the shadow broker.

“Did you get her out of there?”

Leta shifted, picking at the hem of her sleeve.

“No. Too risky. Understandably, Decorus doesn’t work with me anymore,” she plucked, averting her gaze. Her guilt saturated the room with wordless subvocal grief. Garrus would reserve judgement for now, but he noted it nonetheless. He had to clamp his mandibles shut to keep from revealing his disgust.

“I hope it was worth it,” he said.

Leta rifled back behind her cot for a minute before extracting a datapad. The screen was cracked and it flickered as it glowed to life, but it still worked. She handed it to him, fingers lingering on it until she was sure he had a steady grip.

“This is everything we learned. Everything we compiled. Who the women were, what became of them, what they’re doing in those labs. Names of the criminals, names of their contacts. License plates, addresses, IPs, extranet history, shipping logs – literally anything we could get our hands on. Anytime we get something new, we back it up here. None of this information is retrievable in our servers. We don’t trust it, and we especially don’t trust them. As it is, I’m only letting you take a look because I know you’re safe, but you sure as hell aren’t leaving here with it,” Leta said. “I don’t even feel safe letting you take a copy. You want this information, you need to come to me.”

Garrus had smelled a hint of it before, but now he realized Leta reeked of pride. Idiotic, destructive, small-minded pride. As he pored over the wealth of information, he wondered how this information might have helped Liara. In the hands of the Council, Shepard might have actually had enough to convince them to take action. He wanted to break something. Of course he understood the value of secrecy, but by hoarding this information confined to a single, damaged datapad, Leta had actively allowed the spread of this group. All for her own ambition. Again, he was reminded of his own actions as Archangel, and held his tongue.

“This is going to Shepard. That’s not up for debate,” he insisted, but as Garrus moved to connect his omni-tool for a data transfer, Leta sprung up like a viper. He jerked the datapad away from her, but she cornered him in the small space, straddling his legs and jamming her elbow spur into his throat so she could reach up and snag the device. She tossed it back to the cot (Garrus winced as it bounced into the blankets, screen flickering) and turned to smirk, her face inches from his.

Garrus shoved her off of him, and she twisted away lithely before he could even strike. Gathering the datapad in her hands, she shoved it back down into the crevice behind her bed. Leta sat once more, spreading her legs slightly and narrowing her eyes. Garrus bit down on his tongue to quell the rage simmering behind his plates. He still needed that information, and killing Leta would be incredibly stupid, no matter how much he wanted to.

“What’s your game, Candiril?” he growled. Don’t make me break you.

“No game. Forgive me if I’m not willing to be sidelined in my own investigation. Your team already f*cked me over once – I won’t let it happen again. You need my intel, my resources. I need you to work with me. I’ve lasted this long because I have a system,” Leta iterated. You won’t and you know it.

“You’ve lasted this long because you won’t take action. How many people have died because you’re stuck in your ways? How is that any better than C-Sec?”

“C-Sec is doing nothing, so anything is better,” she spat, though Garrus could tell he’d hit a nerve. “Look, do you want the intel or not?”

“It’s not like I came here to swap stories over co*cktails,” he sneered.

“I only want to work with you. I don’t like your team, and contrary to popular opinion, I don’t particularly care for Shepard or her style. Now, I’m not stupid. I know you’re probably going to run off and tell her all about our little playdate, but the second she gets involved, I’m out. She’ll just f*ck everything up. Same goes for all the rest.”

“You’re making a mistake.”

“Maybe I am. Maybe I’m not. Either way, you need me. Give it a week, see if you can get as far as I did. Bravo if you do – I just know you won’t,” she hissed, though not without a tear of honest desperation. She wasn’t as quick to admit she needed him, but it drenched the air around her.

“Say we keep working together, your way. What happens when you need backup? You really going to turn down help from my team?” he asked, kneading his brow plates.

“Doing things my way will hopefully prevent the need for backup. If it comes to that – which it will if Shepard is serious about this interview – I won’t turn down the assistance,” Leta plucked. “Do we have a deal or not?”

Garrus knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with her right now. If not for the pieces of himself he saw in her, he’d outright turn her down. Maybe it was just as foolish to encourage her at all.

“What do you need from me?”

Leta’s mandibles spread wide, her subvocals trilling. She might as well moan his name with how pleased she sounded.

“Atta boy," she purred. When Garrus snarled a wordless admonition, she straightened her spine and continued, "I need the Alliance to back off. As that’s Shepard’s specialty, see if you can convince her to talk to her boss. I know you’re tempted to throw my name around, but consider how much more you put me and my operation at risk if you do. Our first order of business is figuring out where they’ve gone and infiltrating. Quietly.”

“If you think I’ll condone using live bait, you’ve severely misjudged me,” Garrus warned.

“Then think of a better option,” she shrugged, then checked her omni-tool. “Look, I’ve gotta run. I’ll send you my direct comm address if you need to reach me. Oh, and don’t think about coming back here – we’ll be long gone.”

Leta stood and gestured for Garrus to enter the tunnel ahead of her. Back in the main area, the others were already disconnecting terminals and loading equipment into crates. Smart – if he didn’t already know better, he’d be back to raid the place in under an hour.

“Reconsider working with Shepard, Leta,” Garrus turned to say once they reached the storefront. “You’re wrong about her.”

But when he turned, Leta Candiril had already vanished like smoke into the vents. The only evidence she’d existed at all was the churning dread in Garrus’ gut.

>>>>>>>

Liara eased the skycar down into the 3100 block of south Aroch, slowing gradually until stopping in front of 3123. At least forty housing units rose like a synthetic hive into the sky, crisscrossed by jaunty stairs and ladders. Clotheslines and trails of aromatic smoke etched a geography of daily life across the aluminum panels, and a group of children in school uniforms played tag around piles of charred rubble out front; one girl fashioned a piece of scrap metal riddled with bullet-holes into a chest plate. The children showed no awareness of the squalor around them. Their laughter bounced around the dense space, bright against the wounded metal. Liara resisted the urge to place her hand on her stomach as she watched, though Shepard likely wouldn’t have noticed. She squinted at the C-Res file for Tessa Blake, studying the scant information available. After the last two leads fell through, Electra’s frustration was palpable.

“Unit G3. Esther Blake is listed as Tessa’s sole legal guardian as of October 2187,” Shepard informed, following Liara’s gaze to the children outside. She shuddered and looked down at her knees. “Shall we?”

Liara nodded and they slid out of the vehicle, boots crunching on the unswept streets. Shepard perceived a swarm of eyes tracking them as they approached the building and started up the creaking stairs; the children quieted, whispering and watching the pair as they ascended. Shepard’s armor alone could probably buy this building. She recalled the few years she spent on Earth before enlisting, how she’d watch every soldier in shiny new armor and calculate how many months of rent and bottles of liquor each piece was worth. If Anderson had never found her, would she live in a place like this? Her armor dragged heavier than it had before stepping out of the car.

Unit G3 hovered seven stories from ground level. Shutters blocked out the single rectangular window; a pot holding the skeletal remains of a plant had been turned into an overfilled ashtray outside the front door. Shepard knocked, hearing at first only silence and then shuffling movement within. The flicker of a shadow crossed the window as someone looked out, and then the door slid open. A human woman answered, a wall of cigarette smoke ushering out around her. The wrinkles around her eyes danced as she squinted at the pair, then opened them wide in recognition, and she dashed her cigarette out on the door frame.

“Can I help you?” the woman stammered, poking her head out to scan around the area.

“I’m sorry to bother you unannounced. I’m looking for Tessa Blake. She’s an asari girl. Are you Esther Blake?” Shepard asked.

The woman paused, eyes narrowing again as she looked between Shepard and Liara, then nodded. Without another word, she stepped aside so they could enter and locked the door behind them.

The only light in the dingy apartment came from a single lamp in the kitchen. Every counter and surface of the small room was covered in papers and dishes, and another overflowing ashtray emitted acrid smoke on the stove. Esther motioned for them to sit at the table, pulling out the cheap aluminum chairs and swiping her hand across them to clear the thin layer of ash that had settled on the smooth surface. Liara and Shepard stole a hopeful glance at each other before sitting – so far, this was further than they’d gotten with the other two leads. Esther walked a few paces to the kitchen and pulled a carton of cigarettes from one of the otherwise empty cabinets. She plucked one from the carton like the last petal from a daisy before turning to ask,

“Mind if I smoke?”

Shepard shook her head, but not before Esther raised a shaky hand to light the cigarette clamped between her thin lips. She inhaled slowly, never taking her eyes from the pair of legends sitting at her dining table like regular dinner guests.

“I didn’t properly introduce myself…” Shepard started.

“I know who you are. I watch the news,” Esther interrupted. “Can’t say I ever thought you’d be sitting in my apartment. I would’ve cleaned.”

“I’m sorry for the unexpected visit. As I mentioned, I’m looking for Tessa Blake. Does she live here?” Shepard asked, eyes darting around the space. A small part of her hoped a child didn’t have to live in these conditions.

“Why? Did she win something?” Esther asked with a coughing laugh, then turned her attention to Liara. “You from the Family Endowment Center?”

“No, sorry. We were… acquainted with Tessa’s mother. When we heard that she left behind a child, we wanted to check-in,” Liara explained.

It wasn’t entirely a lie, though she hoped Esther didn’t probe the connection.

“So you knew Menara, the whor* that stole my brother’s heart,” Esther wheezed, clucking her tongue. “I didn’t even know Tom was dead until FEC informed me I was Tessa’s last living relative. They told me I’d get a stipend if I took her in, but I’m still waiting on that. Waiting on Tom’s pension and bereavement from the Alliance, too. Don’t suppose you know when I’ll be getting that, would you?”

Esther raised her wispy brows at Shepard and folded her wiry arms across her chest. An ember from her cigarette dropped onto her sleeve, but she shook it out like waving off a fly, never once breaking the simmering eye-contact with Shepard.

“I’m not here representing the Alliance. However, I do want to help in any way I can. Is Tessa home?” Shepard asked.

“School lets out soon if you want to wait,” Esther informed, checking her watch. “What kind of help are you offering?”

“I want to help support Tessa. Maybe pay her tuition at a nice school and set up a trust,” Shepard offered, though she hadn’t thought this far ahead. Sure she’d made up her mind about financially supporting her, but based on Esther’s living situation, it was evident she’d need more than just tuition.

Esther studied her for a while, her beady eyes drawn into dark slits. She twisted her cigarette into the ashtray and beckoned the pair to follow her into the bedroom. The thin walls rattled as she opened the door, showing them into the dingy space. Esther’s things filled out most of the space, but a small alcove had been cordoned off, just big enough for a child. A rumpled pile of blankets, a stash of government issue rations, a half-burnt book. Next to the nest, a single suitcase served as a makeshift nightstand. Esther bent down, snagged the framed photo that perched atop the scratched surface, and pushed it into Shepard’s hands. Shepard’s entire body went stiff the second she saw it.

The bartender, Menara, smiled next to a man in freshly issued N7 armor. She balanced a baby on one hip and rested her hand on the shoulder of another girl that had to be Tessa. The bartender emanated that soothing maternal warmth Shepard had tried to forget. She could practically taste the rich whisky in her throat. The woman's indigo skin hadn’t been flayed and burned; both eyes glowed in their sockets, soft and smiling.

Menara. I know your name now.

A flash of blackened flesh, rebar protruding from her back, shrapnel wings, and an eye spilled out like a cracked egg on tarmac, then back to normal. Back to the warmth and comfort of a mother's unwavering love, undead devotion. Shepard swore she heard Menara’s voice just out in the living room –

Ask Thalia. Ask Williams. Ask Anderson, and EDI, and your mother, and Sirius-

Shepard poured all her strength into holding her tears back. She swallowed the urge to look behind her, jerk her head toward the sound of ice clinking in a crystal glass, toward the sound of bones shattering and skin tearing and eyes popping and teeth cracking. If she glanced back at the burn-pocked sofa, she’d probably see an N7 in scorched armor tipping his glass in her direction. She counted in, two, three, four, and then out, but it was as if Menara raked her bleeding nailbeds down the inside of Shepard’s chest. A ghost trapped within her coffin ribcage. As if she struggled to claw her way out and possess the photo of her unshattered family. Shepard dragged her eyes from the picture and found Esther had sunken into her own mattress. Liara placed her hand on Shepard’s arm – Shepard’s grip on the frame had solidified to stone.

“I didn’t get along with Menara. I didn’t think she was right for my brother. He was accomplished, brave, ambitious, and he met her while she was working the poles in Flux. It drove a wedge between us, and even when he told me they were expecting, I didn’t make an effort to meet my nieces. Tommy didn’t even bother to tell me about the little one. Fourteen years later, I find out Tessa's the only piece of him I have left of him. That’s it. They didn’t even find his body. Ugly. This war was so ugly. Not that I need to tell you that,” Esther waxed. “Look around, Commander. Does it look like I know how to take care of a child? Does it look like I can? She doesn’t even look like him. When I look at her, all I see is that bitch that took my only brother away from me.”

Shepard wanted to respond, say anything that might make it right, but the front door hissed open and footsteps could be heard crunching around the filthy living room. Esther sighed and heaved off the bed, taking the photo from Shepard as she brushed past. Electra and Liara followed her out, and were met by the wide dinner-plate eyes of a young girl. Esther was right that Tessa looked like her mother. She gawked between Esther and Shepard, frozen in place, her mouth hung open. Esther sparked up another cigarette and leaned against the counter.

“Tessa, this is Commander Shepard. Show some respect,” Esther barked, the misty tenderness in her voice gone.

“Oh my goddess. I mean, hi. Sorry, hello. You’re really Commander Shepard. In my house!” the girl stammered, eyes dropping to the floor. Her dark blue skin flushed even darker, making the turquoise dots around her eyes stand out. She quickly ran her hands over her school uniform, trying to straighten out the deep-set wrinkles.

“Hi, Tessa. I knew your mom. I wanted to see how you were doing,” Shepard said, fighting to keep from fidgeting.

"You... knew my mom?" she asked, incredulous. (Rightly so, Shepard thought). "You want to see me? Why? I mean, not that it isn't cool, or whatever, but I'm not... why?"

“It’s your lucky day, Tessa,” Esther said between drags. “The commander is taking you away from here.”

Shepard and Liara both whipped their heads around as she said it, but Esther’s expression hadn’t changed. In fact, she simply lowered her chin in a slow nod as if to impart that she really meant it. The ember of her cigarette lit her glittering eyes, illuminating the desperation embedded deep within. Electra began to shake her head when a tremulous voice asked,

“Really? Are you serious?”

If Esther had intended to trap Electra, she’d succeeded. Looking at the girl, eyes peering up through her lashes like a lost fawn, there wasn’t a chance she’d say no. However, her intention today wasn’t to adopt a child. The raking on the inside of her chest intensified to a ringing in her ears as Menara screamed through her senses. Whether perceived or real, she couldn’t ignore it. Shepard looked to Liara for help, but she was lost in her own thoughts.

“If that’s what you want,” was all Shepard could say. She didn’t come here to bring Tessa home, though it’s not like she had anywhere else to go. Already, Tessa’s eyes glimmered with tears, a cautious smile tugging at her lips. A rapid-fire stream of curses filled Shepard’s head. How in the hell would she explain this to Garrus?

“You can live with me,” Liara spoke, her voice calm as ever. To Shepard, it sounded like an angelic choir. “My name is Liara. I’m a good friend of Shepard’s. You’ll be safe.”

“I… I can’t believe this. When? I don’t have much. I can be ready in a few minutes,” Tessa stuttered, wringing her hands as if to preemptively purge the smoke from her pores.

“What are you waiting for? Now, girl,” Esther snapped, sending Tessa sprinting for the bedroom.

Shepard slowly turned to Esther, but Esther didn’t appear at all fazed. She’d outplayed Shepard and she knew it. Her tight lips quirked into a bitter, sad smirk, equal parts taunt and thanks.

“Liara, a word?” Shepard breathed. Shepard rounded on Liara the second the door closed behind them.

“Are you sure about this?” Electra asked, though Liara’s face maintained her typical inscrutable serenity. Shepard wished she could read her thoughts, if only for today.

“The alternative is leaving her here with a woman who hates her very existence. No money, no support… I don’t want to give you the impression that I think this will be easy. I haven’t decided where to go from here, but it’s not like I’m signing on to officially adopt her. There are options. Schools she can attend until she’s an adult. But leaving her here is akin to slow murder,” Liara intoned, pacing to the railing.

“You’re right. You’re crazy, but you’re right. I should probably let Garrus know so he’s not totally caught off guard,” Shepard shook her head. At least Liara had stepped up to the plate when Shepard couldn’t. She had her own child to worry about.

Liara still hadn’t yet reckoned with the knowledge that Shepard had encountered a very real, very dead person in that vision – and it seemed neither had Shepard – but the reality of a forgotten and neglected child had superseded the mysticism of it all. Looking back, Liara wasn’t sure how she’d expected this to go, though some part of her had half-expected, half-hoped it resulted in nothing concrete. Nothing more than the fiction of a troubled mind. The truth had proven far more troubling than that. However, Liara didn’t grapple with her decision for long – the child would stay with her until she figured out something else, something better. Until she reckoned with her own child.

No, this would be a good thing. For everybody. It would bring Shepard some much needed peace, give Liara something ,eaningful to do, and most importantly, raise a child out of the undoubtedly horrid conditions she found herself in. Money would have never been enough, and Electra had to know that. They could dump thousands of credits into making sure Tessa had the best schooling, best housing, best food, but that wouldn’t stop Esther from dumping her bitterness and hatred onto an innocent child. If nothing else, Menara’s ghost – if ghost she was – had directly beseeched Shepard to save her daughter’s life. A call from the grave couldn’t be ignored, not when it shouldn’t be possible to begin with.

Liara pondered the human concept of fate, finding it fitting in a world so detached from all reason, and re-entered the apartment to take Tessa's hand.

Chapter 36: 2024 Update/ Apology/ Check In

Chapter Text

Hi everybody.

A lot has happened in the two (?) years since I've updated this story.

I experienced a death in the family that completely derailed all of my projects, especially this one. I actually have almost an entire chapter, plus notes for at least 2 more sitting in my files.

I always planned to come back to this. I started this as a fun side project, and never expected the amount of support I received for it. For my readers and commenters, you are seriously amazing. I can't thank you enough for enjoying my work and giving me feedback. It means the world to me to have people following along, who like my writing and my story.

This week, I began reading through this story again. Fully, from chapter 1. There are some edits/ notes about consistency I'd of course like to address, but I felt like it mattered more to get word out that this is hopefully going to continue. Once I finish reading and reviewing my notes, I hope to post one more chapter by the end of the week.

I want to see this through so badly. Like I promised. I've been struggling with inspiration in so many ways, especially in my career writing, and I'm hoping returning to this fun story (which honestly really got MUCH bigger than I ever planned) will help reinvigorate my creative energy.

I'm so sorry for leaving this on such a cliffhanger, with no communication and no update. Ironically, I updated that I'd be continuing not long before I stopped posting, which isn't fair to those who love my work. You guys really are special and wonderful for following along, and I hope I can make this right and keep up the work.

I have my own doubts about my ability to keep the writing as good as it was in some parts, some of which I consider the best writing I've ever done. Period. And I've been writing for going on fifteen years now. That, of course, is a result of my own self-doubts, and my years of creative slump. I really want to rectify that.

Please let me know your thoughts/ predictions/ things you like/ dislike. Let me know what you'd like to see more of!!! Obv we want to meet Sirius - I know I really do, since he's kind of the point of all of this.

Again, thank you, I"m sorry, HUGE HUGS AND SMOOCHES IF THAT'S YOUR THING, and I hope you'll carry on with me. <3

Chapter 37: Promises, Promises

Chapter Text

Javik scanned back over the entry he’d written about Prothean government systems. Seven thorough pages, no detail spared. He’d even included notable names, not that anyone alive would care – he just knew Liara appreciated useless information. Surely now, she would be pleased enough that she might cease this silly silence.

Javik wasn’t one to pander to these primitive games. He found little fulfillment in documentation, and even less in doing something purely for the material satisfaction of another; if anything, this work filled him with that deepest regret that all he once knew had decayed into falsehoods and poorly understood ruins.

His visit to the Museum of Citadel History only cemented the estrangement he felt as he walked among plaques attributing Citadel landmarks to his people. In those halls, he stood as yet another artifact, displaced and unspoken for, and far more ancient than anyone realized. It reminded him of that ill-fated trip to Thessia, during which he'd stripped bare Liara’s beliefs. He didn’t feel remorse then, and he didn’t now, but the anger no longer burned as it had.

Javik didn’t know what to feel now. In his life, he’d never had the time or energy to care about emotions. He lived for one thing only, vengeance – all else was rendered trivial. A distraction from his purpose. Now, Javik wrestled with anguish. He embraced with bitterness. He dreamed with loss. His memory shard called every day, promising answers against the millions of unremembered sorrows, but it was not the only promise that called. The promise of new life, a continuation previously uncalculated in his ethos. For the first time since waking, he felt hope.

Perhaps these emotions were simply the unexpected result of living in relative peace. He’d only known war against the Reapers, and while the war hadn’t exactly ceased, his only sworn enemy had been vanquished. The odds turned in life’s favor. For once, Javik allowed himself to behold beauty, and it filled him with a wretched lightness that contradicted every fiber of his being.

Suddenly, the museum filled with misinformation and ruin became a monument to the passage of time. This cycle’s food, so far removed from the food he once enjoyed, lit up his senses with delightful newness. Loneliness turned to friendship; anguish turned to acceptance.

And then Liara.

He'd never admit it, but he couldn’t stop thinking about that night in her quarters. Over and over the memory turned in his mind, lingered on his tongue, stirred in his loins. Never in his life had he known such pleasure, followed by such longing. Where he couldn’t bear being in her presence for more than a few minutes, he found himself counting the seconds until he saw her again. He wanted to touch her, know her, fill her, and yet she’d pulled away. He’d even moved into her apartment, with its broad windows and open rooms, and she’d hardly spent more than a few hours there since they returned. When he tried to greet her, she’d take a few steps back, mutter something about needing to leave, and abscond.

Javik was tempted to erase all he’d written for her out of sheer frustration she unknowingly induced, but his own sickening desire to see her pleased prevented that. What game was this? Was this some courtship ritual her people designed over the last few millenia? Did she intend to hurt him when he’d discarded of any greater sensibility and confessed to her his deepest desires? Javik professed he knew little of courtship to begin with, all memory of Prothean romance passed down from others, but it didn’t take an expert in romance to know this avoidance was counterintuitive. It was maddening, and mostly because it filled him with a flurry of doubt and worry a warrior like himself was never designed to feel.

Javik shoved away from the desk and moved to pace along the window. He racked his brain, wondering what more he could say if only to hear his name on her lips, or at least see them smile. Did she no longer wish to procreate with him? If so, she should just say it. He would find someone else and be done with this temporary insanity. Anything to be rid of this torture, these superfluous, wanton emotions. Perhaps he should have taken his life after the war, so that he might have died with a shred of honor, never to torment over the petty actions of a primitive.

The door opened and closed, and Javik whipped around, prepared to either berate Liara for her absence or throw himself at her feet, but noticed she hadn’t arrived alone. In fact, a small asari stared at him like a startled animal, a single suitcase clutched in her tiny hands. The commander stepped in behind them, looked at him with a shrug, and pushed past them to the kitchen.

“Tessa, this is Javik. Don’t worry, he’s not as scary as he looks. He lives here, too,” Liara said, her voice a dulcet tone. “Javik, this is Tessa. She’ll be staying with us for the foreseeable future.”

The little asari raised a hand and waved, glancing up at Liara for reassurance, and Liara simply squeezed her shoulder before leading her into the kitchen. Shepard already had something heating on the stove, likely to feed the rather malnourished looking child. Javik stood stunned, staring from the window.

“Liara, who is this child? Where did she come from?” he demanded. Foreseeable future? Did Liara forget that they were in the middle of their own war? Liara ignored him, showing the child to the spare room. Once they were gone, Shepard approached him.

“Remember the kid I mentioned after the black-out? That’s her,” Shepard whispered. She glanced around before hissing, “We didn’t have much of a choice, so be nice. That’s an order. She’s been through a lot.”

Javik nodded, vaguely remembering that a child had been mentioned in passing. He hadn’t thought about it, though realizing how she came to be in his dwelling, he shivered at the implication. So now Shepard was speaking to ghosts. He’d come to keep few expectations about the commander’s abilities, but even this perturbed him. Based on the cold emanating from behind her eyes, the mirrored bafflement, she felt the same. For her sake, he wouldn’t press it, though he again wondered if he was growing soft.

“I am shocked you think I would be unkind to a child. Even I know they are delicate creatures,” Javik scoffed, then smirked and added, “Though in my time, a child old enough to shoot a gun was old enough to fight. I did not realize your cycle and mine shared sentiments on recruiting children for war. I do not object. When conditioned from a young age, they’re better equipped to killing without remorse.”

“Javik,” Shepard warned, but Liara and Tessa reemerged before she could say anything else.

“What do you think?” Electra asked the girl.

Tessa nodded, tears bubbling from her eyes. She balled her fists at her side, her little hands shaking as she fought back the sobs that heaved in her chest. Liara crouched down and offered her hands, but Tessa threw her arms around her neck instead. Liara at first didn’t know how to react before enclosing the child in a hug and rubbing her back as she sobbed. Shepard glared back at Javik, a wordless warning.

“I have to get home. If you need anything, I’m right next door. Don’t be afraid to ask. You’re safe now,” Shepard soothed, dropping down to touch Tessa’s back.

Tessa pulled back from Liara to hug Electra, nodding into her shoulder with a new round of tears. Liara took the opportunity to stand and take the soup off the stove; she didn’t look over at Javik once. Shepard pulled the girl back and squeezed her hands before taking her leave, which left the rest of them to the uncomfortable silence.

Tessa glanced at Javik, swiping at her tear-stained cheeks before wrapping her arms around herself. Though Liara wouldn’t look his way, Javik knew she had her attention locked on his every move. Then, he thought that perhaps there were other means of securing her satisfaction than writing about his people.

“So, small one,” he began, though as he did, he realized he’d never interacted with children in a non-military setting, “how old are you?”

Tessa looked up at him through her moisture-flecked lashes, puzzling over him. He sensed she’d never seen a Prothean, but she didn’t seem to fear him either. A fair start.

“Thirteen. I’ll be fourteen next month, though” she answered, and then co*cked her head, studying him. “How old are you?”

Javik grinned and replied, “50,000 and three quarters.”

To his delight, the girl giggled. A truly pleasing sound, especially in contrast to the sniveling and whimpering. He sat on the sofa, realizing his stature may be imposing to a frightened creature such as herself, and the girl inched forward to sit on the other one. Liara finished up in the kitchen and brought a steaming bowl to Tessa, setting it on the table in front of her before taking a seat in one of the recliners.

“You think he’s joking, but it’s true. He’s the last living Prothean,” Liara said.

“I know. I saw you in a ZNews article,” Tessa confessed, blushing slightly. “You work for Commander Shepard, right? That’s really cool.”

Tessa seemed like she wanted to say more, but she stopped herself and turned her attention to the hot food in front of her. Too hot to take a bite, she stirred the spoon and avoided looking at the others in the room.

“So what school do you attend?” Liara asked.

“Sirala Academy. It’s closer to where I live… lived,” she said, daring a bite. Once the first spoonful hit her tongue, she started shoveling it down, hardly breathing between bites.

“Do you like it? Do they have good curriculum, extracurriculars? Are the instructors keeping you stimulated?” Liara pried, realizing how much she sounded like her own mother.

“It’s fine, I guess,” she shrugged, pushing her empty bowl away. Liara looked exasperated with the response; Javik read on her face the realization that she was in over her head. She stood up, taking the bowl with a smile, and went to refill it. Tessa turned her curious gaze to Javik.

“What kind of gun is that?” she asked, pointing to the assault rifle peeking over Javik’s shoulder.

He pulled it from his back, turning it over in his hands so she could get a better view. She leaned over her knees, craning forward to inspect it. Javik would hand it to her, but Liara watched from the kitchen and he didn’t want a lecture on gun safety, so he invited her to come closer. Tessa approached cautiously, eyes tracing the refined lines of the weapon. It enthralled her, a decidedly good trait.

“A Prothean particle rifle,” he replied, switching off the safety and pointing it away to demonstrate the glow along the barrel. “It doesn’t rely on inferior thermal clip technology and can fire a steady beam to obliterate the enemy so long as it doesn’t overheat. You are interested in weapons?”

“My dad was an N7. Just like the commander. He showed me all kinds of guns and taught me how to shoot, but never anything like this. This is really cool,” Tessa crooned.

Liara watched the pair from the kitchen, stirred by how naturally Javik brought Tessa out of her shell. The irony that he could be so gentle while showing a child a gun wasn’t lost on Liara, but she couldn’t find it in her to critique him. Not when he double checked the safety was on and allowed Tessa to hold it, his hands hovering near hers the entire time. She almost wanted to hate him for it, for his ability to be so soft and open on a whim, but instead she internalized it. Memorized it. This was the man she could raise a child with.

And you will if you don’t do something soon.

In this moment, that anxiety held no weight. In fact, for the first time since she learned she was pregnant, Liara could envision a scenario in which she leaned into motherhood. Potentially even a relationship with Javik, though she still doubted he had the capacity to love her. She wasn’t even sure at this point if she could love him. But this helped, she thought, her lips forming a frown at the notion.

>>>>>>>

Shepard draped her legs across Garrus’ lap as he described his encounter with Leta Candiril. He kneaded his thumbs into her feet as he spoke, his fingers digging deeper and harder the longer he talked. Shepard didn’t interrupt, though her legs jerked as he hit a sore nerve. He paused to apologize, but the break just gave him a chance to sit with the profound frustration, and his head dropped back to the couch. He heaved a flanging sigh, chest deflating.

“She sounds like someone I know,” Shepard teased. Garrus groaned.

“You can be hard-headed and still know what’s good for you. I get a bad feeling about her, El, probably because she does remind me of myself. She’s going to screw this up. I did mention the part about the solitary, damaged datapad containing this intel, right?”

“You did. I don’t like it either, but she doesn’t know me. And for whatever reason, she doesn’t trust me. But she trusts you. Use that to our advantage. Maybe distract her long enough to get that data,” Electra suggested, wiggling her foot to get Garrus to resume the massage.

“To do that, I’m pretty sure we’ll have to give her what she wants. So what do you say? Down to tell Hackett to lay off?” he asked. It was Electra’s turn to groan.

“He’s going to think this method is even stupider than we do, but I can talk him into it. For now. I don’t expect it to last as long as I imagine she wants it to,” Shepard said. “As for the interview, that can be postponed as long as I want. And if what she’s predicting is true, we might just use that to our advantage.”

“How so?” Garrus asked, though he already knew what she meant.

“Dare them to make the first offensive strike. If she’s right, we’ll do the interview and they’ll want me dead like never before. Except once we have Candiril’s intel, we’ll know what to expect. We’ve already confirmed it has something to do with those tattoos. Maybe a direct form of indoctrination that doesn’t rely on the artifacts. Whatever it is, it’s clearly an imperfect system if Leta and others walked away from it,” Shepard mused.

“I don’t like the idea of using you as bait. Which is what we’d be doing. I agree the interview is a great tactical tool, but you being at the center of it… I don’t know. Maybe Leta has a point. Maybe we aren’t ready for a large-scale attack. Not when we don’t know what they’re capable of. C-Sec isn’t what it used to be. Most of the Alliance is tied up elsewhere. If her numbers are right, we’d be outnumbered three to one,” Garrus pressed.

“All the more reason to strike while the iron is hot. The longer we give them to regroup, the stronger they’ll become. More women will die. More people will get indoctrinated. How many times have we gone into a fight blind? I’m not scared of them.”

Garrus could understand why Leta wanted to leave Shepard out, not that she truly ever had that option. Garrus could at least pretend to play along, though he hoped he could just convince Leta to see reason. For his own sanity, he hoped Shepard could see a little reason, too. He looked over at his mate and wondered how her stomach had gotten so big in such a short amount of time, almost as if overnight. Another month and she might not be able to stand without some help.

“Just… talk to Hackett. Try to lay low for while, please? Do it for your crazy husband,” he entreated. “Maybe with this new information, Liara can switch up her methods and we won’t need Leta’s intel after all.”

“I’m not entirely sure Liara’s still working. She practically just adopted Tessa,” Shepard said.

“Right. Remind me again to thank her. You have a pretty strong track record of taking in strays,” Garrus ribbed. “How is she? The girl.”

“Hard to say. She seems a little starstruck, and I can tell she has questions. I’m still not sure how I’m going to answer when she inevitably asks how I know her mom. Do I tell her the truth? It feels wrong to lie,” Shepard sighed, rubbing her forehead. “I was hoping I could set up a trust and call it a day.”

“I was hoping she wasn’t real, but your hunches aren’t often wrong, so it was a shallow hope. How are you holding up?”

“Ask me again later. I don’t know what I’m feeling anymore,” Shepard replied. She wasn’t lying. She hadn’t been able to form a single, cogent thought all day; instead, she had to ignore the way every shadow took a shape in her periphery, the way her matter hugged her bones like mist. The whispers never really went away anymore, but had rather shifted into a form of tinnitus, seeping in and out of her awareness, growing loud when everything else got quiet. Piercing, draining, chanting. Shrieking through her atoms like radioactive isotopes.

Garrus watched her recede into herself as she often did, her eyes dimming as she slipped away. He was beginning to realize that questions about her well-being were always loaded. Never a simple good or bad or hungry or tired, but a reminder that she hadn’t felt solid since waking in Huerta. As much as the image of her unresponsive in the hospital haunted him, at least then he didn’t have to actively watch her slip away. He didn’t yet question if she’d be strong enough to bring their son into the world, and he wasn’t burdened with the knowledge that her every waking moment was being hounded by an invisible enemy.

His nightmare flashed into his mind, so real he could almost feel her blood on his fingers, and he had to grip her thigh like it was the only solid ground for miles. Would she want to stay on this side if given the option to leave? Garrus hated himself for questioning it, but questioned all the same.

He wished they could just disappear for a few years. Leave this fight to someone else. During that brief repose on Tuchanka, he’d seen some of her spark come back. For that briefest of moments, she was unburdened, hopeful, happy. Then Rannoch happened and the cold crept into the crevices of her mind again. He didn’t want to mention it, but he noticed how her eyes often flickered to dark corners, how they reflected the slippery monsters and an infinite watery depth. Sometimes at night, she’d talk in her sleep, conversations with ghosts, and a trickle of blood would spill down her cheek.

They both snapped to attention at the sound of the back door opening. Karin called out as soon as she entered, likely so they wouldn’t pull a gun on her, and found the pair in the living room. For usually being the hub of Normandy crew activity, she was surprised to find them alone. This was a good thing – once the baby arrived, it’d be a long time before they’d be able to get quality alone time.

“Surely you didn’t forget our appointment,” Karin clucked, laughing as Shepard’s face shifted from confused to questioning to remembering with a light smack on her forehead.

“Sorry. It’s been a weird day,” Shepard said, getting up to join Chakwas in the garage. “I didn’t even realize how late it’d gotten.”

“It’s no bother. You know, many expectant mothers find themselves forgetting things, losing their train of thought. It’s normal, even when the world isn’t actively rallying against you.”

Karin swiped the dust from the exam table that had been set up in the garage after leaving Huerta and invited Shepard to lie back. Garrus leaned against the wall. He was eager to see Sirius again – the last time had been at their wedding, and he’d clearly grown since then. Their eyes were glued to the ultrasound screen.

When Sirius came into view, Garrus had to get closer. Had to study every little detail, astounded yet again by the changes that had taken place over the last month. The tiny crest, which would remain small until adolescence, had taken a more defined shape, as had his mandibles. Turian plating surrounded his much more human face, though the shape of his face had a certain turian angularity. Similarly, his legs were bent like a turian’s, and the nubs that would one day grow into spurs had begun to form. Garrus’ heart soared in his chest and he reached for Electra’s hand, squeezing it as they looked at their child in real-time. They watched him stretch his tiny legs before curling back up, and Shepard rested Garrus’ hand on her belly so he could feel him moving.

“What a spectacular little creature,” Karin marveled, rotating the holoscan around to see the various angles. Had she known she’d be studying novel hybrid fetuses in her late career, she would have specialized in obstetrics. Either way, she’d learned more about both human and turian pregnancy in the last five months than in her entire life, and that it was her dearest friends she studied brought her the greatest fulfillment she’d ever known.

“You’re right around twenty-five weeks, just about six months along. As you can see, he’s grown considerably, and by all metrics, looks to be perfectly healthy. I’ve learned that turians gestate slightly longer than humans on average, but based on the development, I’d wager to say you’re going to be due somewhere between 40 and 42 weeks. He’s still larger than a turian fetus due to being half-human, though that shouldn’t be a problem as he is on the smaller end for a human fetus. Your nutrient levels have evened out considerably, and you’ve put on eight pounds. Bravo. How have you been feeling? Any weakness, pain, nausea?”

“I’m always tired, but that’s standard. No more persistent pain since I started PT, except my tit* feel like punching bags. Nausea evened out pretty fast, too. I can feel my strength returning. I’m hungry all the time,” Shepard extolled.

Until now, she hadn’t registered how much the physical pain had subsided over the past month, though she hadn’t noticed largely because she’d felt so scattered. She didn’t want to think about that right now, not with the image of Sirius on the screen. Garrus hadn’t looked away once, his eyes memorizing every inch of his son.

“Good. Aside from the contractions you experienced on Palaven, your pregnancy seems to be relatively healthy. I’d say normal, but I don’t think that word has any place in this situation. Now on the topic of your false labor, I must emphasize that excessive stress and physical exertion put you at a higher risk of complications the further you progress. As a member of your crew, I understand the complicated nature of your profession, but as your physician, I cannot stress enough how beneficial rest will be in the coming months. As for the birth, I strongly advise delivery by C-Section in a highly controlled environment. First of all, we don’t even know that a full term half-turian baby can safely pass through your birth canal. Secondly, I believe natural birth may be… mentally strenuous for you. There is no way to say this delicately, I’m afraid. You have demonstrated a concerning level of aversion to your pregnancy when under duress. I don’t want to risk any kind of mental block, thus sedation is best,” Karin explained.

Electra chewed on those words, the memory of that false labor coming back. Or at least what Garrus had told her. She herself couldn’t actually remember saying those words, but her nightmares had played it out enough times that she didn’t need to. She had no qualms with being put under and having Sirius safely removed from her body. Whatever could ensure they both survived unscathed, she’d do it.

“I want it to happen on the Normandy. I wouldn’t feel safe anywhere else. I need to know there is no one in the vicinity who might try to harm us,” she insisted, and Karin nodded.

“I’ve already discussed this with Steven, and the med bay on the Normandy will be updated to house the equipment needed to perform this procedure. If you feel comfortable with it, we may also bring aboard additional medical staff should anything go awry,” Karin suggested.

Garrus immediately nodded his head, anything to ensure he wouldn’t have to do anything but be there as Shepard’s support, but Shepard appeared wary.

“Barring complications, could you perform the C-section on your own?” Electra asked.

“Yes. Barring complications. Perhaps we could look into procuring a Sirta MedMech, though they’re prohibitively expensive and, these days, hard to come by. It would have to be a private purchase. The Alliance would never sign off,” Karin shook her head.

Electra wanted to insist upon it but knew Karin wouldn’t mention the cost if she thought Shepard could afford it. Even with credits to spare, the idea of blowing a large sum on a one-time purchase seemed counterintuitive. Especially now that she’d taken on the financial responsibility of Tessa Blake.

For now, she’d have to think about it. Having anyone in the room that she didn’t personally know perturbed her, though she was certain that Garrus would obliterate anyone who tried to hurt her or Sirius.
They wrapped up the appointment with Karin taking blood samples for lab testing and sending over copies of the sonogram to both Shepard and Garrus. In these dark times, to have such a simple source of light readily available ported a worth more than all the credits on the Citadel. Karin again insisted Shepard keep out of trouble, surprised that she now acquiesced without a fight, a far cry from her gung-ho attitude coming out of the coma. Ordinarily, Karin might consider that a win, but she couldn’t help regarding it as a tired resignation.

Could she blame the commander? Progenitor spiraling out of reach, the leviathans threatening the galaxy and her sanity, and somehow even more unanswered questions than she started out with. Worse, they were likely unanswerable questions, at least in any pragmatic sense, and Karin was nothing if not pragmatic. She knew Shepard felt the same, struggling to accept nebulous mysticism and wishy-washy notions such as fate.

Unfortunately, they had little else to work with; not even the geth could give them a measurable, scientific answer. Perhaps the nature of science had irrevocably changed. Not that Karin truly believed that. No, the answers were all there, obfuscated by the misty darkness encircling Shepard’s uncanny existence.

Karin’s omni-tool pinged – a message from Steven.

SH: Door’s unlocked

The man had such a way with words. Karin packed up quickly and hailed rapid transit all the way over to Tayseri Ward, having to switch over to the Alliance private transit once she got in range of the temporary headquarters. From there, she hurried through the weaving blocks until reaching the barracks. Just as he promised, his door opened for her and locked as soon as she entered.

Steven lounged in his recliner, scotch poured but untouched. As soon as he heard Karin enter, he procured a bottle and poured a finger for her. She sauntered over, slipping out of her boots and jacket as she approached, and perched herself in his lap. She took the glass from his hands, clinked it on his, and took a sip, her eyes never once leaving his. She’d seen Steven tired before, but she’d never seen him defeated. Apparently, whatever Shepard had was contagious; Karin couldn’t afford to be next.

“How is she?” he asked.

“You know our girl, indomitable force that she is,” Karin shared, then added after finishing her scotch, “I worry about her mental state more than anything. I fear she’s slipping.”
“Can’t say I blame her. Recovered Anderson today. There’s not much left,” Steven sipped his drink. A shadow had fallen over his eyes.

“About time. Where was he?”

“Keeper tunnels up near the tower. We looked there before, but it’s like the Citadel had been holding on to him. Preserving what little was left. Think Shepard can handle it?”

“I think she’d more than handle it, Steven – I think it would be good for her to see him one last time. The man was a father to her. If anyone deserves the chance to say goodbye, it’s Shepard,” Karin assured, holding out her glass for another finger. Hackett dutifully poured before finishing his own, pouring himself another.

“I know it’s hard to believe, considering I’ve made a career out of pushing Shepard to the limit, but I’m soft on her. I find myself worrying about if I’ve done enough.”

“What more can you do? She’ll be a mother soon. Very soon. Keep up the support. She’ll never ask for it herself, but heaven knows she needs it.”

Steven reached up to move a strand of silver hair from Karin’s forehead, his fingers lingering on the smoothness of her skin. He’d take her right then and there if he had it in him, but the night begged him to go slow. Before Karin arrived, he’d read over Shepard’s full report about the black-out for probably the twentieth time since she submitted it. Then he’d gone over the footage from the Progenitor base. And the report on the leviathans.

It was far too late in his career to be dealing with this magnitude of strangeness. To be considering a reality in which the dead aren’t really gone, only away, reachable across some unchartable nowhere. When he’d seen Anderson’s face in the body bag, he’d wondered if he’d only just returned for a time, if he’d be gone in the morning to wither in someone else’s nightmares.

None of it sat right with Hackett, which is why he spent so much time worrying about Shepard. He was at least somewhat responsible, though he couldn’t name a single person who could’ve done what she had. It had to be her. Had to. Just as he had to be the one to put it all together. He finished his drink, contemplating that puzzle.

>>>>>>>

By all accounts, Dr. Michel appeared trustworthy. People came and went, all accounted for. With each new visitor, Dr. Michel herself greeted them at the front desk with a warm, if not tired, smile. From the time she made Oriana’s appointment this morning, Miranda studied all of this from the bench on the opposite side of the ward. She’d already run background checks on everyone working at the tiny clinic and found nothing notable. Nothing to justify her wanting to cancel the appointment. In fact, every minute she spent trying to find a reason, she discovered ten more reasons this place was good enough. More than good enough. Damn near perfect considering Miranda had officially lost all faith in the Citadel’s institutions.

She received a message. Chakwas.

KC: Unfortunately, I am unable to perform the procedure. I’m sorry, truly. I do, however, vouch for Dr. Michel. She’s given no indication of indoctrination.

Garrus said the same when Miranda grilled him on it. Even looked a bit bashful when he mentioned the doctor owed him a few favors and could probably squeeze them in on the fly. He’d been right, of course - Dr. Michel had so far been nothing but totally professional, efficient, and accommodating. Miranda grit her teeth. An asari couple exited the clinic; one of them beamed at the doctor, shook her hand enthusiastically while her lips formed a litany of thanks.

Disappointing indeed.

Moments later, a message from Oriana saying she’d finished packing her few belongings. They’d both agreed that moving in together made sense now that Miranda had a (somewhat) permanent residence in Tiberius Towers. At least, no one had shown up yet and told Miranda to leave from the apartment just above Shepard’s, but Oriana didn’t need to know that. Miranda just wanted to have her in arm’s reach, and she’d live more comfortably there anyway. Foolishly, Miranda thought maybe she’d be comfortable enough to change her mind.

Before returning to her car, Miranda squinted across the distance to the clinic. Dr. Michel reviewed something on a datapad and checked her watch. Probably confirming Oriana’s appointment, which had been hastily scheduled to an hour from now. I typically close down appointments at 1700, Dr. Michel said. But I’ll make an exception for any friend of the Legate.

Miranda was a lot of things, but tardy wasn’t one of them. No matter how badly she wanted to be.

When Miranda pulled up to Oriana’s apartment, she helped her pack the bags into her skycar in almost complete silence. Miranda found herself at a stunning loss. She’d never struggled to speak her mind, and yet she couldn’t find a place for abortion in idle conversation. It wasn’t like discussing war crimes or weather or politics or suicide missions. The topic felt small, too small to hold even in her bare, unremarkable hands, smaller even than that tiny life that never asked to live.

Existence didn’t prove desire, did it? Perhaps that’s what Miranda struggled with more than anything, and that shocked her. She’d never been sensitive about these things. About anything. So why was she tempted to drive the skycar straight back to the Towers and lock her sister in a closet for the next eight months?

Control freak, she scoffed at herself. Simple answer, really, though it didn’t exactly help the quivering burn rolling in her chest. Selfish, she chastised. That stung a bit better.

Oriana stared out the window as they drove, her thumbs twining in her lap. Her silence hung differently from the one that seethed and twisted around Miranda. Limp and tired and dim, wrapped around her like a unwashed comforter. If Miranda knew what it meant to be truly brave, or selfless, she’d reach over and hold her sister’s hand.

“Do you think it will hurt?”

“Probably not,” Miranda clipped. Sighed. Shook her head. “I did my research. It shouldn’t take longer than thirty minutes. That’s all. They’ll give you something for any pain, and then I’ll take you home to sleep.” Miranda swallowed. “Tomorrow, it will be like it never happened at all.”

Oriana nodded but didn’t tear her gaze from the window. Her thumbs never stopped twisting around and around.

“I knew that, too. I don’t know why I’m so nervous,” she sniffed. Miranda caught a fraction of her misty eyes in the glass reflection, all washed out against the blur of city light. “This is… the right thing.”
“Yes. It is,” Miranda affirmed through tight lips. She echoed it to herself, over and over and over.

By the time they reached the clinic, she’d lost count of the number of affirmations she’d scattered like breadcrumbs across the ward. A path to lead her back to a time before acceptance. Before the blistering finality of the present. She blinked away some of the heat building in her cheeks, and ferried her sister to Dr. Michel’s warm, trustworthy crypt.

All in the span of an unceremonious hour, Miranda’s definition of hope had been gently taken to the back room and rearranged. Extracted. Discarded. One pathetic hour, about as routine as a grocery run. Less time than it took Miranda to get ready most mornings. Dr. Michel re-emerged from the small operating room, her face neither revealing or unkind. Just resolute in the way you’d want a doctor to be. Miranda pretended she didn’t feel sick at the sight of her.

“Oriana’s resting, but she’ll be ready soon,” the doctor said. She hesitated, then took the seat beside Miranda. “I reviewed your file, Ms. Lawson. Is now a good time to discuss?”

Miranda sat up straighter. “What did you find?”

“The fertility tests you had were unfortunately fairly conclusive. The neoplasms discovered on your ovaries have rendered you infertile. However, if you would like another consultation, I am more than happy to help. I will admit, I am probably not as qualified as whatever specialist you visited on Illium, but I can perform the necessary tests and an ultrasound to reassess your current situation.”

Miranda nodded as the doctor spoke. Her eyes flicked to the woman’s wrist, making sure yet again that she didn’t support the telling black smear of Progenitor’s infection. Dr. Michel never mentioned anything about the nature of Oriana’s pregnancy, nor did Miranda bring it up. Did she know? With the up-tick in cases, and the popularity of her clinic, surely she must know by now. It hardly felt relevant in Miranda’s circ*mstance, anyway, though she only bothered checking again because the apparent laws of nature had been rewritten.

Was it truly more impossible that she have one normal, human child than a turian mating with a human? A quarian with a drell? She sucked in her breath - that was a dangerous question, one she’d been very careful to compartmentalize with every other silly notion resembling self-loathing.

“When?”

“My assistant will send you my availability, and you can schedule a time that works for you,” Dr. Michel replied, once more offering her maddeningly kind smile. “For now, let’s get your sister home.”

And just like that, Oriana was safe. No fanfare, no fuss. The painkillers made her sleepy, and she hardly opened her eyes except to be led from the clinic to the car, then the car to Miranda’s sofa. Progenitor hadn’t gotten their hands on her. She hadn’t been maimed, murdered, erased. She hadn’t suffered any severe trauma, or even received a single harming mark. Sure she’d spent a great deal of the last week in tears, but that only seemed normal considering the situation. Average, actually, for a young girl in her shoes, and now she had her whole future given back to her as if it had never been threatened in the first place.

Miranda watched Oriana sleep from the stairs. She’d kept an eye on her omni-tool all night, waiting for any sign that this would turn into a catastrophe. Anything to justify the dread and sadness and guilt. What a mess she’d become. She missed the self-assured Miranda, the Miranda that never questioned her actions or desires. The Miranda made a weapon. She imagined this must be something similar to what Shepard felt. Her whole life had been spent honing herself to achieve the impossible, and when she finally did it, she was left with a razor so thin it could shatter. Emptiness and ache. Nothing to show except everything, as if that could be enough.

The intercom dinged. Miranda’s eyes snapped to the video feed at the elevator. Shepard, arms crossed and hip co*cked, stared blankly into the camera. Miranda cleared her, but instead of having her disturb Oriana, met her in the atrium.

“Shepard. Everything alright?”

“I need your help with something. You got a minute?”

Miranda considered her sister, then how heavily she’d been sedated, and invited Shepard inside. Miranda led her up the stairs to her bedroom and closed the door behind them. Miranda sat on the edge of the bed, trying to rack her brain for reasons Shepard would go to her of all people - she’d already told Shepard everything, and that had been made moot after everything Miranda read in the report. She shuddered under the silver intensity in Shepard’s eyes.

“Are you still tied to the Alliance? I know you’d started some unofficial contract work around the end of the war, but I never asked how deep that went.”

“Not in any way that matters,” she replied. The question caught her off-guard; she wasn’t aware she had any affiliation with the Alliance.

“Good. Garrus met with someone who’s been investigating Progenitor on her own, and she’s asking for the Alliance to back off in order to work with us. She won’t work with me either. I’ve got Garrus dealing with her directly, but I need boots on the ground in other sectors.”

“She must have some pretty important information if you’re willing to call off the Alliance. I’m surprised you’re not asking Liara.”

“I already have, and she’s digging up everything she can. Leta Candiril - Liara can send you more information on her. According to Garrus, she knew about that facility for months. She made a lot of claims, and we have no way to verify that information. It doesn’t help she’s making that next to impossible. I know you looked into them while we were away.”

Miranda tilted her head. “You already know they’re elusive. Anyone with good intel is automatically suspect.”

“Exactly. I don’t trust her. Garrus really doesn’t trust her, but she trusts him for whatever reason. I can’t risk him breaking that, so he needs to play along. You, on the other hand, don’t need to follow the same rules. And you’re not traceable to the Alliance, so I’m not breaking any deals.”

“Double-agent?” Miranda asked.

“Something along those lines. I need you to go where he can’t and she won’t. And I need someone who knows how to get in and out without making a mess,” Shepard said, her mouth ticking up. “I’m not exactly known for my subtlety like you are.”

“No, you aren’t,” Miranda agreed with a smirk. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Nothing yet. I just wanted to count my cards before taking this all the way up to brass. Hackett’s going to be a tough sell. So thank you for being so willing.”

“Seeing as I’d personally and thoroughly like to crush the scummy bastards, it’s no problem.” Miranda’s fist clenched on the bed. “Where do you play in all of this? I’m trying to get used to seeing you on the side lines.”

“Ah, you know me, playing mediator as usual,” she waved her hand and rolled her eyes. “Unofficially? I’m bait. We’re just trying to get as much information as we can before we ring the dinner bell.”

Miranda nodded. She was certain Garrus hadn’t agreed to that, nor could she blame him. Not that it didn’t make sense. She’d used herself the same way, and stolen Oriana’s identity to pull it off. At this point, she’d do it again just for the chance to do it right, and by that, not leave a single one of those monsters breathing.

“I’ll do what I can,” Miranda promised.

The twitch in Shepard’s jaw fell back as she unclenched her teeth, and the arms she’d kept tightly bound at her chest relaxed against her middle. For the first time since coming into the apartment, she allowed herself to look around the similar layout. The former owner had a bit more brutalist taste, but the lines were all the same.

“How’s she holding up?” Shepard asked, jerking her shoulder back to the door.

“She had an abortion today,” Miranda said. She realized she hadn’t spoken the truth out loud until this moment. The words sounded like the automated staccato of a turret. Shepard’s face softened in a way Miranda didn’t often see, but she had the mercy of not saying something stupid like I’m sorry.

“Garrus told me she’d be seeing Dr. Michel. Glad to know we still have someone on the Citadel we can trust,” Shepard said. “How are you?”

Miranda studied the commander. Her friend. She could count on less than one hand the people she placed in that category. Even now, even after confessing her selfish, stupid wishes, she wanted to pretend she didn’t know why Shepard asked that. Shepard would understand if Miranda lied - people like them lied all the time to make it to the next morning, hour, second - but at the same time, Miranda wondered if they’d officially run out of excuses to keep everything so repressed.

Shepard gave them their lives back. Gave them time, the one thing they assumed they’d run out of, and the one thing that bound up all the parts of them that were broken. Temporary sutures made out of moments and future tenses. Of mornings and hours and seconds.

Miranda hadn’t felt this childish even in her youth. So utterly mutable. So minuscule against the backdrop of relative infinity.

Finally, she answered, to the best of her ability, “f*cking crushed, Electra. But I’m still here, and so is she. I don’t know if I’m allowed to ask for more than that.”

Shepard nodded, ducking her eyes to her feet. “Ah, right. None of us planned this far ahead. No wonder we’re awful at retirement,” she huffed, half laugh, half sigh. “The Alliance needs to hire specialists to help us reintegrate into the present.”

“I think they call that therapy,” Miranda chuckled. Shepard snorted. “I’d rather keep working.”

“That makes two of us.” Shepard joined her to sit on the bed. “Don’t ask me how I know this, but I just have a feeling our kids will be friends.”

Miranda’s throat locked up. She dropped her head to Shepard’s shoulder. “You do have a history of being right about these things. I won’t start questioning that now.”

And she didn’t. Somehow, Shepard’s solid shoulder beneath her temple, Miranda believed with all certainty that their children would grow up together, and for the first time since she woke up, she surrendered to that. Surrendered to the loss, to the emptiness that came with boundless amounts of undeserved opportunity. And she, Miranda Lawson, sobbed for the first time she could remember.