He found himself there again, a small space station that had become a final safe haven for mercenaries. He knew that he had been a dumbass the last time, but he hoped she could forgive him.
He didn't expect to feel welcome, and he never expected to meet her there.
But there she was, her red hair flowed in the air and her green eyes pierced him.
She clenched her weapon and squinted her eyes and almost hissed with anger; "Massani."
"Branno," he almost growled back, but without stopping he picked her up over his shoulder.
He prepared himself for a fight, but she didn't start one, she just let herself be carried away to an office nearby.
He locked the door, cleared a nearby countertop and placed her to sit there.
He placed his hand on her cheek and looked her straight in the eyes.
"I was a goddamned asshole last time," he said.
"I know, I was there," she bit her lip with a smile and locked her legs behind him, pulling him closer. He kissed her passionately and it felt like he had never left, like the last night they were together just picked up where it ended.
They had been so good together, but he had let her too close and starter to care about her a bit too much, and trying to do what he thought was the right thing, what was best for her, he had denied her attempts, thinking she deserved someone younger than him, someone better than him. He had left her here, on the same counter, without a kiss, ripped her legs apart and bolted like a dog with his tail between his legs. He would have never guessed that a woman he had never slept with would have such an effect on him, but there, in the middle of the blood of the suicide mission, all he could think about was her. And now he just didn't give two shit's about any opinion, even his own.
He ran his hands down her back and pulled her against himself, fearing that if he would stop being blinded by lust, he would just burst into tears and cry the whole night long. The only thought he let into his mind was a fearful amazement of her compliance, having previously had the time to overthink on the spaceship trip over here, that she would have moved on and rejected him this time.
With ease and more kisses, she unclipped his armor and started to undress him. He in turn unclipped her gunbelt, placed their collective firepower on the counter and unbuckled her belt buckle.
While kissing she felt his erection pressing against her crotch and all she wanted was to feel in inside of felt even better than she had ever imagined, all these lonely nights when she had been too afraid to approach him or after he left, or maybe she had wanted it for too long and cared about him too much, but she didn't care about these things anymore, now that she had him there.
She hadn't noticed when exactly she started to like him. From the first word she knew that she was either going to hate him or the opposite, or both. He always made her laugh, even if nobody else found it funny, and soon enough that scrawny, covered with scars, ugly looking son of a bitch was the most desirable man in the world for her. His scent drove her crazy and fueled her wet dreams, and now she climaxed having him around and inside of her.
He rested his head on her breast and again tried not to start crying, a lifetime of emotions broke free and washed away, leaving a clean slate where he could feel freer than he had felt as long as he remembered.
"Come with me," his voice almost cracking, trying to keep composure.
"I thought I just did," she joked.
And there was a knock on the door, or did they just now notice the pounding on the door.
"Is this even your office still ?"
"Who cares," she laughed, "Nope, I got bunked down to front desk."
"Bastards."
"That's life, shit happens and then you die."
"So come with me, I have an operation set up on the Citadel, I could use a hand."
"Hand, mouth, whatever - let's go...just promise me, that none of that bullshit anymore, like last time."
"Oh sweetheart, never again, that's a promise."
She holstered her gun and took a deep breath, they had to face the angry knockers outside, leaving the room with heavy air of sweat and sex. And for some reason she didn't care, didn't care that everyone could hear them, didn't care about her obvious sex hair, she was too happy now.
"C'mere," he picked her up over his shoulder again and exited the room proudly.
"Ya'll all a bunch of bitches - later, I quit," she declared to her newly former colleagues as he made his way back to the ship that had brought him there.
She had never seen a space station as big as the citadel were even though it took only couple of hours to get there, and after the gig he had promised to take her on a vacation, on an actual planet. He would have let her wander the station but it was the night regime and most everything was asleep and closed.
She finally had a shower and something to eat, sinking into his bathrobe. They probably wouldn't have had separate showers if he hadn't gone out, getting the food.
She felt his arms around her, he picked her up and sat on the bed with her, she faced him, "What gives, Zaeed, why now, why me ?"
"You are the sweetest thing in the universe, shit's about to go down and I want you as close as possible, so that you'll be safe..."
"Some heavy shit, if you are acting so not like the Zaeed I know."
"The reapers are coming and none of us might survive."
"Heavy," she sighed.
And that night he wasn't having sex, he was making love to her.
Years ago...
She was too weak to react, all she could do is to register a blurry image of a man and a dragging feeling. At that point she had no ideas that here kidnappers were killed, that she had been liberated, that she was being carried to safety by that one lone man. He was hired to retrieve a merchant's daughter from batarian slavers, he didn't even expect to find her alive, but there she was, a bloody mess - still breathing. Never believing that she would survive even to her next breath, he gently placed her on a cot in the crew's cabin, injected her with heavy anesthetic, just to make at least her end a bit less painful.
Minutes passed, hours passed, a whole day passed and stubbornly she didn't stop breathing, she was actually feeling better, the pain was still there, all the broken bones, but she didn't feel any pain. He sat on a chair next to her, resting his feet on the edge of her cot, waiting her to die, getting bored out of his mind. The air in the spaceship always felt dry, he took a sip of water and instinctively gave her one too, she gulped the water down as it was some magical life essence. He felt his patience brake, almost physically, and took a course for the closest space station with a hospital.
He should have known that this deal would not be easy, something in his gut felt wrong, it was too little work for too much money, but for some reason he silenced his inner thoughts and accepted anyway. That shit for brains weasel merchant Branno didn't want to pay him anything before his daughter was brought back to him to his planet, not even for her medical expenses. And now he kind a regretted handing her over to the doctors, it was too late to just space her out of the airlock with her kidnappers. All he could do now was to stand there, on the other side of a huge glass wall from her and wait for her to die soon, so the cost of keeping her alive would be as low as possible and he could go back and beat at least half of the sum, he felt entitled to, out of the merchant.
The so called last nail in the coffin was when the doctor said that she was finally doing well enough to be removed from intensive care, he h ad to finally accept that he was at loss, new plan was to take her back and beat the whole amount out of her old man.
"She's awake," said the nurse, "If you want to go see her." He didn't want to but still did, she looked almost unrecognizable from before, still badly hurt but like a human being now.
"Thank you," she tried to whisper loudly, "...for what it's worth."
He said nothing, pressed his lips together, didn't want to cross the last line of humanizing her, that there might be a person inside that piece of meat with a price-tag.
"He screwed you over, didn't he ?" she asked cautiously, "I'm sorry."
"He WILL pay, one way or the other."
"Can I help...it's the least I can do and I know what hurts him real bad."
"Why would you ?"
"He screwed me over too, pushed me in front of the slavers to save his own sorry ass."
"Why does he want you back for ?"
"I guess, he remembered how many of his dirty secrets I know."
A most unexpected ally, had he gravely misjudged her, can a old dog learn new tricks, well he had nothing to lose at this stage.
"Zaeed Massani," he reached his hand out, "Welcome aboard,"
"Milandra, unfortunately, Branno," she shook his hand.
Her spirit might have been elevated and ready to cast revenge but her hand was too weak to even properly squeeze his hand, it was actually he who did all of the shaking. She needed a lot of healing and it would take it's sweet time.
There was no need for him to stay at the hospital after the week he had spent there, so he decided to continue working whilst waiting. For five months he ignored any attempt the merchant made to contact him. For five months he read every monthly update she sent him, but deleted these without replying. For the first two months she was too exhausted to think about anything much and for the last three she started to slowly go crazy for being cooped up into her room and constantly annoyed by the medical staff. When finally she got to write the last letter to him, a word that she was declared well enough to continue her civilian life.
They were to meet up at the last junction on the route to Station 232, her home, and take the last shuttle together. Now he wished he had gone to see her at least once in the hospital, he looked around trying to find one characteristic he could recognize, like a headless chicken he walked warily around the terminal. He was about to cherish the idea that she might not show at all, maybe having shit for brains runs in the family, the plan of extreme pain started to crawl back to his head. When suddenly he felt a tap on the shoulder and there she was, looking like nothing had ever happened to her, or was this someone else just janking his chain.
"It's me, Milandra," she got slightly upset, "Should've jumped by sometime maybe."
He didn't even know that the one thing he did remember was her voice, it was clear and louder now, but distinctly the same, with the same fighting spirit behind it. And the young woman that had transformed from the human remains he last saw looked mighty easy on the eye as well, she looked like a crisp summer morning to him, if he only was twenty years younger. A part of him wanted to shoot himself in the leg for turning into a goddamn romantic.
"Did you really kill all these slavers, aboard the ship I was held, by yourself?" she asked, "Is it difficult to do?"
"Doing it as longs as I have, all you see are just walking corpses, feels like I'm just doing everyone a goddamned favour of cleaning those son's of bitches up."
"Could you teach me...the fighting stuff - I wanna learn to protect myself."
"Bloody hell, girl," he smirked.
"You don't think I can do it," she lifted her fists to her face, leaned backwards with her shoulders raised.
He tried not to laugh;"This is how you lose a fight, the best way to win, is not to let things go that far," he started to correct her pose, pushed her hands and shoulders down and whole body to lean forward, "the key is to make them believe, that fighting you would a bad idea...in your case I would also include a huge gun."
He kicked open the door, breaking all three locks holding it shut and sending splinters from the doorpost to fly across the room.
"Whoops," he trusted her to do the talking, if that failed, he always had his gun to make some trouble, "Did we knock too hard ? You really should invest in some sturdier doors, dad, I mean, anyone can just walk in like that," she continued calmly and took a seat on the other side of the table of a terrified merchant.
"I believe you've met my new friend, Mr Massani," she continued like a professional extortionist and gestured him to take a seat in the other chair next to the table, "And I heard that you owe him some money, plus some extra for bringing your little girl back safely."
"Honey, but business has taken some setbacks lately."
"Oh really, well - how would your business react if I would to give the routes of every ship in your not-so-legal supply network to Mr Massani here."
"You wouldn't."
"Dare me," she leaned over to Zaeed and whispered quietly, "Just make a face that I'm telling you some names."
"Stop it," the merchant screamed furiously.
"Start transferring!" and quietly again, "I actually have some names if this doesn't work."
With shaky hands the merchant tried to type things as fast as he could to his computer, "Done, I believe that should suffice."
Zaeed checked his mobile communicator and saw a whole bunch of zeros added to his account.
"And some extra to forget the names Milandra just told You."
"See, that wasn't hard," she smiled victoriously, "He wanted to shoot you, but I was like, let's ask nicely first."
He stepped into a dingy tavern, it was a dump, lowest of the low, on a space station built in a asteroid, Perfectly suited for the lowest of the low. He would have been surprised to see her behind the counter if it wasn't for her hail that had brought him there. It was good to see her well and kicking.
"Zaeed," she welcomed him with a wide smile, "Have a seat at the booth, I'll be right with you."
She placed a bottle and two shot glasses on the table and sat down, opposite to him, "I don't actually work here."
"So, I don't have to actually pay for this," he filled one of the glasses and took a shot.
"Hell, why not," she shrug her shoulders and poured herself also a drink.
"So,what brings me here, sweetheart ?"
"I actually work for station security, I'm here undercover...it's amazing how a bit of booze will loosen one's lips - lately I have noticed a lot of batarians around here, they all have a slaver's tattoo somewhere and they all start up with talking to this guy over there," she pointed at a batarian in the corner booth furthest to the room, "So, I'm thinking of an attack sometime within next two days."
"Don't see how I can help."
"You're the only one I know, I want to hire you to help me organize an offensive and show these asshole that this station is not easy pickings."
"Have you told your superiors that ?"
"I tried to tell to the chief of security and the mayor, but they both laughed at me, apparently I'm not qualified enough, apparently the only info worthwhile info I give them is about jay walker and drunk drivers."
"Want me to go "persuade" them?"
"Please, leave the talking to me, I had to give up my most valuable secrets to get the council to build blast doors around the station, we already held off two raids thanks to these, the moment we see their ships, the station will shut close and wait for three days for the Alliance forces to come to our rescue, I guess they figured out our defenses, this time they will have a sizeable force inside the station."
"How do you expect to fight them?" he had asked and somehow agreed to meet at her apartment after her shift was over.
"I spent every cent on supplies for a situation as such," she opened the door to her closet and revealed an extensive collection of weapons, "The council will probably just negotiate a treaty and actually hand over some of the people on a silver platter with security forces just blindly following every order their given, I have about twenty people ready to hold arms, all civilians, but they have spirit."
"Look, sweetheart, not that you don't have a great collection here, I'm just not sure you will be able to win this fight...not like that."
"I'm not giving up," she said with a hidden darkness in her voice, she might have seem to be carefree but there was always this presence of darkness, "I have 20.000 on my account and I'll give you all I can "ask" the council after the attack, and there is no shuttle out of this rock for the next three days."
"I should have know," he wanted to get mad at her.
"Probably."