This story is a sequel to the Shepard/Miranda fiction of Ramen and Cherry Lambrini, this story will contain elements of: graphic violence, drug abuse, consensual sex, non-consensual sex and femmeslash. If these things are really not your thing then I understand and am fine with you not wishing to read more; thanking you kindly. :)

Author's Note: First off, hello old and new reviewers, hope you're having a great time playing ME3 (despite the terrible endings) like I am. Second playthrough here I come 8D But I'll be plain now, this fiction is not Shepard/Miranda despite it being a sequel to a Shepard/Miranda fiction. I know some of you will be disappointed and upset by that but who's to say I won't make more Shepard/Miranda fiction? Miranda IS my favourite character after all. There WILL be elements of Shepard/Miranda as well as Shepard/Kasumi but overall this story is Miranda/Kasumi. 'Wait wut?' I hear you say, but hear me out for a moment. I was challenged to do this fiction by a very nice friend who wanted to see if I'd be up for doing a story where Miranda and Kasumi end up with one another instead of them always pining for Shepard. At first I was like 'Hah, thanks but no thanks' but you know...I actually liked the idea. So if you can, trust in me to make this fiction and the Miranda/Kasumi pairing as believable as possible.

Thanking you kindly!

Raw

A Partnership

Miranda Lawson stretched with a yawn escaping from her lips, leaning back more comfortably into her chair and allowing her eyes to close in surrender to the wave of sleep that washed over her.

The sound of people bustling around the wards below her on the Citadel seemed to be the only thing that was keeping Miranda from falling asleep, which surprised her considering the amount of running and hiding she had been doing would have been enough to knock the living hell out of any other person.

Not her, no she had to be awake and fully functional and never let her guard down for a second in case something bad came to bite her back in the ass; something that Miranda herself was slowly growing used to when it came to decisions she had made in the past when she had served under Commander Shepard.

A bitter laugh escaped her throat. Oh Commander Shepard, the same Shepard who was now incarcerated by the Alliance HQ demanding answers from the Commander about the actions that had cost billions of batarian lives in just one press of a button.

Miranda hadn't even had time to say goodbye properly to the blonde Commander, only leaving with a quick promise that she would make sure the galaxy didn't go to hell whilst Shepard dealt with the Alliance's ping-pong games of politics; hardly a goodbye fitting Miranda's standards.

And Miranda had been making sure of it, had been on the run as well and still she was doing all she could to make sure Cerberus didn't come crashing down onto humanity in a way that could only mean certain dangerous consequences she didn't want to think about – didn't need to think about it because with people like Kai Leng then Miranda didn't even need to think twice on the horrors that Cerberus couldand would put on the galaxy.

So she had been running and ducking and hiding and building a somewhat programme of her own, nothing compared to Cerberus or the Alliance or even the Blue Suns or the Blood Pack but it was big enough that Miranda had some reliable resources and intel on what was happening around the galaxy; another plus of knowing the Shadow Broker and Commander Shepard she supposed.

These contacts and intel was what was keeping Miranda up right at this moment, sorting through and leafing them into little categories was a major piss-take, something the ex Cerberus agent knew she really should have got used to when she took in the amount of times she had done this on the Normandy but the lack of company also didn't do incredible things to her working performance.

Which she would never admit, the amount of times Shepard and Kasumi had burst into her office to declare something ridiculous and not worthy of her attention had almost brought Miranda to the point that she had very nearly strangled them both with her biotics.

Instead she had just cursed them both and threw the nearest thing at their retreating forms, grumbling softly each and every time she missed.

And now that they weren't here and she had all the time in the world Miranda found herself not being able to concentrate or find the will to fill out these records and establish alliances with small trading companies posted around the Citadel, the whole thing was completely aggravating and it left Miranda feeling frustrated enough that she got up quickly from her chair to slam the open window of her apartment closed.

She couldn't sleep. She couldn't work. She couldn't think. What the hell was happening to her? How had it all fallen apart so quickly?

Miranda glanced back down at the sheets of reports and assignments she was supposed to be looking at with a sigh, bringing up a hand to rub at her face and under her eyes to try and soothe the dark eyes away from lack of sleep due to the pressure she had been placed under.

It was obvious that what she needed was sleep yet she couldn't allow herself relax enough to let herself fall under the spell of her own drowsiness and quickly discarded the thought of sleep away as if waving goodbye to a passing thought.

Her terminal pinged then, breaking Miranda away from her illusions and thoughts to drag her back into reality to show her that another three messages had been sent (coded, just as she had requested) and that they were expecting a reply from her in less than 48 hours. Great.

Really what she needed was a bloody secretary or at least someone who could help take this ridiculous weight load off her shoulders, not that Miranda would go looking for one despite her complaints because this mission was just too important to allow anyone else to get involved; especially if said person could be working undercover for Cerberus.

Maybe what she really needed was a damn drink, it would make much more sense than being holed up in this dingy apartment waiting for Shepard's stupid ass to crawl out of the Alliance HQ and besides that she seriously doubted she would be the first thing on Shepard's mind with a whole galaxy of Reapers attacking everything.

Though could she risk it? Sure she had been perfectly safe for over two months now but that didn't mean for once second the Illusive Man or Kai Leng had dropped their game, if anything it just meant they were biding their time, waiting for her to come out of the woodwork just to be the ones to squish her under their heel like they cockroach they probably saw her as now that she had left them.

Miranda weighed up her options as carefully and precise as she always did, taking in little details of what she would have done before and after Shepard's surprising influence on her and thinking up every little scenario that could end up with either her lying face-first in a ditch or actually enjoying the splendour of alcoholic beverages running through her veins.

The former Cerberus operative ran a hand through her hair with a frustrated growl escaping her lips, chucking the datapad she had been looking at back down on her desk and making her way towards the door that would lead her out to the Citadel.

There was no point being cramped up in that apartment with her stress levels as high as a child's sugar levels after eating cake, if she was going to remain undetected then she would have to try and remain as calm, neutral and natural as everyone else around her and if that meant going out and having a drink then so damn well be it.

Making sure to lock her apartment door Miranda made her way towards the new club that had opened in the Citadel, a club that slightly resembled Chora's Den with the ironic (and by ironic Miranda meant that the name made her want to crush something with her biotics) name of Purgatory – the prison ship herself, Kasumi and Commander Shepard had rescued Jack from.

It would only be a quick drink, just one and then she was gone from the club to actually collapse in her bed sheets in exhaustion just because her own insecurity had proven to herself that she was becoming more and more capable of running away from everything; a realization that Miranda was not taking well considering the reason she was going for the drink in Purgatory in the first place.

Before she would have steeled herself against her desires and had gone back to her apartment to force herself to go to sleep, damn the consequences and all that. Now Miranda was stuck in a whirlpool of emotions and conflictions that made her feel dizzy on her feet.

Was it because Shepard was gone? No it couldn't be, sure she missed her and would do anything to be by her side but both herself and Miranda knew that they would be kidding themselves if they believed that anything was going to work between them with this war was going on so right now Miranda was stuck in the loop of not knowing where she stood anywhere really; between Shepard and the situation she was in right now.

Miranda refused to think any more about it and crossed over using a small bridge to head towards the club's entrance, completely enraptured with her rampant thoughts until something brushed against her shoulder and caused her jolt in reaction with her hands coming upwards to curl defensively into her abdomen.

Not many people noticed but the ones who did seemed to walk a little bit faster towards the club, hesitantly looking over their shoulders to stare at her as though one wrong move could end up with them being wheeled into hospital; and maybe they were right, if they were a Cerberus spy anyhow.

Soon she relaxed and continued making her way through the numerous crowds of turians, asari, humans, krogans and salarians alike until Miranda was bathed in the darkness of the entrance hall Purgatory offered, a shelter of sorts that she knew in reality would not be enough to hide her presence if a Cerberus agent really wasafter her.

It surprised her how well the Citadel workers had managed to build this club in a matter of weeks instead of what Miranda would have assumed would take months, the workers must have been pressurized to build something to try and get rid of the stressful news of the Alliance and Cerberus's actions despite these said actions being merely whispers so far.

Miranda knew how to work her way around a nightclub but tonight she felt on edge, as though she was treading on thin ice and that the walls were being pressed in around her each and every step she took; it was a feeling of fear and Miranda despised herself for feeling it and reacting in such a pathetically weak way to it.

The beat of the music thrummed through the soles of her shoes, enough rhythm to remind Miranda where she was and for her to push on forwards up the stairs towards an enclosed table that would hide her from the rest of the club's view – this was just a way she preferred it.

Sitting down with her back to the wall and her eyes peeled on the entrance Miranda waved a passing man over (one who was already taken in immediately by her mere presence), whispered in his ear to go buy her a drink and then settled back down again with her head rested against the seat's cushions.

Miranda found her thoughts wondering towards the issue at hand and how said issue was starting to nibble away at her inside; all because of her damned father and his ridiculous ways of trying (along with Cerberus) to catch her unaware and bring her in fast enough that she wouldn't cause any more trouble than she already had.

That and she was becoming increasingly worried about a group of tech experts that had seemingly vanished off the face of the galaxy what with the lack of communication she was being given and if she lost them then she lost tech, and if she lost tech then she would sooner or later fall behind into Cerberus's waiting arms.

"Bloody brilliant," Miranda mumbled with a hand coming upwards to snatch the glass the stuttering man had brought away from his hands and let it land with a thud on the table, refusing to knock the liquid back right now despite it being the reason she was here in the first place.

She waved him off with her eyes following his back, taking in the pronounced spine that she could just about tell from beneath his shirt and smirked slightly when he began to run up the stairs in the fastest attempt ever to get away. Foolish.

Movement from beside her, someone sitting down next to her, it took almost everything not to pull out her pistol but Miranda remained still and took her chances by glancing over with her anxiety quickly changing into shock at the sight of someone she thought she would pretty much never see again.

"I really would not recommend drinking that," the person next to her told her, painted lips spreading into a cheeky grin. "Seriously though, is the world full of amateurs? Even a blind hanar could tell that drink was poisoned."

Miranda bristled slightly at the implication that she hadn't known herself. "I knowthat it's poisoned, which is why I didn't drink it. The fools of Cerberus think me so stupid? Though I probably should have gotten the drink by myself, I do fancy one."

As if the person had known immediately what Miranda had been thinking of, a gloved hand moved up with a glass of red liquid and placed it in the palm of the ex Cerberus's operative's hands with a small chuckle.

Miranda cocked her brows at her companion before she lifted the drink up, sniffed it (her nose crinkling in distaste) and chugged it down her throat with a small cough that she covered up with the press of her fingers against her lips.

Her companion beside her laughed and had the cheek to elbow her in the rips, causing Miranda to throw a glare in the person's direction.

"Maybe next time you'll warn me that you plan to give me that horrible stuff you call alcohol," Miranda said bitterly with a roll of her eyes, slamming the glass back down with her cobalt hues searching for answers in the hazelnut orbs that stared back at her. "I don't know how you and Shepard can stand the stuff, it's not even enough to get you drunk."

Kasumi Goto gave her an exasperated look from what little Miranda could tell from under her hood, sidling in closer until she was pressed into Miranda's side to slip something into the raven-haired beauty's hand before she moved away, pretending to play with the cuffs of her suit.

Miranda didn't bother opening it yet, she could pretty much tell it was a VI recorded messenger that had most likely been encrypted several times over and would be a complete pain in the arse for her.

"Ignoring the fact that you just pressed a VI recorded messenger in my hands," Miranda started with a drawl that made herself shudder at how strange it sounded coming from out of her mouth. "What areyou doing here? I haven't heard news of you from the intel I've been using."

Kasumi sipped smugly at her cherry lambrini, a free hand coming up to pat at the side of her nose. "Maybe you should get better intel Ms Lawson because I've been here for a while, on the run actually."

The old Cerberus operative didn't even have to force her snort of indignation this time, curling a leg over the other and clicking her tongue in annoyance. "What, you too? I know you're normally on the run but whom by? Cerberus?"

The thief nodded in confirmation, propping her feet up on the nearest ledge that held up the table and granting Miranda another smile that Miranda returned with an icy scowl; now was not the time to get distracted by Kasumi Goto.

At the confirmation that Cerberus was also after Kasumi, Miranda turned away with a sigh to rub at her forehead once more in a wild attempt to try and make some sense of the whole situation and why she and Kasumi had been specifically targeted by Cerberus instead of the other squadmates that had been with Shepard at the time of the Collectors.

Okay so she knew why she was being targeted even if she hadn't been sharing Shepard's bed at the time, but the Illusive Man had no reason to believe Kasumi was nothing more but a mere squaddie doing her job and not really caring what happened to Shepard even with the galaxy near the brink of chaos – so how had such information leak?

"Either way I'm just here to enjoy the rest of my splendours with a nice drink with an equally nice old colleague of…"

Miranda snapped her head up to give the thief a look that could only be described as suspicious. "Tell me the real reason why you're here Kasumi."

Kasumi opened her mouth to say something before she shut it again with two fingers pinching at the side of her lips, gesturing to the increasingly frustrated Miranda that she wouldn't say anything on the matter; which in a way was a damn shame, because Miranda was going to get an answer whether the thief liked it or not.

Ignoring the thief for the moment Miranda instead turned her attention on the VI messenger in her hands, placing it on the table and flipping it open to reveal a holographic image of none other than Commander Shepard who…

"What the hell did she do to her hair? It's tame." Miranda found herself commenting with a sarcastic tone before she could stop herself, withdrawing further into her seat at Kasumi's snorting being the only reaction she got.

"I assume…" Kasumi started with a wave of her hand that went through the green holographic image of Shepard, distorting the image at the intrusion, "it had something to do with being back with the Alliance again, that or maybe Shep's trying to give herself a more…classical edge."

Miranda withheld a dry laugh at the thought of Shepard being classy and pressed the activation button, resting her chin in the palm of her hand as she leaned forward to stare deeper into the 'eyes' that the VI presented of Commander Song Shepard.

"Miranda this is Shepard, I won't go into too many details but let's just say this: I need you to be safe and the only way for me to at least sleep at night would be if someone I trusted with my own life to look after yours whilst I'm in the Alliance HQ," mini Shepard voiced, her tone taking on a dangerous edge that made Miranda shiver in a desire that had long since repressed. "Don't even try and tell me you don't need any help either, because I know you Miss Miranda Lawson and I know that even if you were just a head, a simple, little head then you still wouldn't ask for help with anything. So for once just listen."

Miranda clicked her tongue in frustration; there went the thinking that Shepard's flaw of being easily distracted was long gone – in fact if anything, it had just gotten worse and the string of almost inaudible chuckling from Kasumi next to her did nothing but cause Miranda's irritation to intensify.

The mini holographic image of Shepard crossed its arms with a sigh, a reaction Miranda could relate to in these dark times with Cerberus and everything else in the galaxy after her hide, however it didn't become less unnerving to see Shepard react in such a way; it was actually sort of terrifying once Miranda thought about it.

"From recent intel Kasumi managed to sneak into the Alliance HQ for me I've found out what happened to your tech experts…"

Miranda didn't hesitate once. She crushed the VI with her biotics with one curl of her fingers, leaving it on the table to smoke and for the machinery to splutter until it whirred so loudly and quickly that it finally died out with a little 'poof' noise.

Next to her Kasumi gasped and for a while Miranda didn't understand where the sharp pain in her arm had come from until she turned to see that Kasumi's knuckles still rested on her arm; apparently the thief had thought punching her arm would get her point across.

Miranda couldn't find it in herself to force the calm façade on herself so she let the anger, irritation and sadness swallow her whole until her fisted hands were shaking underneath the table she and Kasumi sat at.

"How in god's name did you two know?" Miranda whispered with a deadly glint in her eye, not allowing herself to remain guilty (or hopeful) that Shepard would mention something about them and now she had just crushed the only device that could answer her question. "How did you know that my tech experts were missing? That I hadtech experts was supposed to be a well-kept secret!"

The notorious thief had the decency to look apologetic but still didn't remove her hand from Miranda's arm, instead she gripped it and pulled Miranda in closer so that what felt like hair (Kasumi's hair, it was that long?) brushed against the lobe of the old Cerberus operative's ear.

"Could we at least explain this somewhere where there isn't about five Cerberus officers trying to kill us both?" Kasumi whispered with an impish lilt to her voice, causing Miranda to look over her shoulder and shudder to try and shake the feelings off.

There were more Cerberus officers in here? Even after all this time of Miranda slipping and sliding away from them and they still seemed to find a way to get at her? This was becoming borderline ridiculous.

She nodded once and stood up whilst pressing the VI messenger into one of her many inside pockets of her casual clothing – too risky to leave it here, some people would eventually recover it and analyse it and they would all be in trouble.

"I can't even have a drink without trouble finding me," Miranda murmured to herself with a somewhat satisfied smile, a thing that had not come to her face for months until now. "I think it's one of the burdens of knowing both the Illusive Man and Shepard."

Kasumi didn't answer her vocally but with a sharp gesture of her head, signalling for Miranda to follow her outside of Purgatory and into the nearest elevator that the thief collapsed against when the doors finally closed.

"Shepard sent me to you," Kasumi started out of nowhere with a pant of exertion, her back facing away from Miranda's all-knowing azure hues. "I made her a promise once that I'd always be there if she needed me and when she said she needed me to do something for you, well, it was a littledifficult to say no."

Miranda didn't attempt to understand the reasoning behind Shepard and Kasumi, not because she didn't want to exactly but because even when Shepard and Kasumi had been on the Normandy with her to fight the Collector's their relationship was still not completely friendship however at the same time that was what it contained. It was too complicated to explain and just too complicated to comprehend.

Everyone had that one thing they ignored, the one thing they could always see in the corner of their eye but choose to ignore it anyhow: with Miranda it was Shepard and Kasumi and the way they saw one another – a puzzle if she ever saw one as jarring and jagged as this one.

Shepard was also one of the most egoistic people she had ever met when it came to the people around her, she was ultimately selfish in thinking that Miranda needed someone's help (especially someone like Kasumi, for crying out loud) and so she would receive it and damn the consequences.

Tch, that was Shepard all over, ultimately selfish but also ultimately human.

Miranda crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the back wall of the elevator, letting out an exasperated grunt that caused Kasumi's head to jolt upwards to stare at her.

"So you thought it would be…What? Nice of you to look after me?" Miranda grumbled with her face pulling downwards into a frown. "You can tell Shepard thanks but no thanks, I'm fine on my own and I most certainly don't need your help."

Kasumi made a noncommittal noise at the very back of her throat, her hands curled into fists. "Why are you always so stupidly stubborn? You need a tech expert and I AM a tech expert!"

Miranda sighed in vexation, looking upwards to stare angrily at the elevator ceiling with her lower lip trapped in between her teeth to prevent herself from saying she most likely would regret if Shepard found out she had (as the blonde Commander always said) been 'gobbing off'. Typically British, typically Shepard.

So Miranda moved onto another tactic, something that she was good at doing when things didn't end up her way. "That still doesn't explain to me how you or Shepard knew that my tech experts were missing, so cut to the chase and give me some answers here."

It took a while (along with Kasumi murmuring soft complaints that Miranda had little to no patience for) but soon enough the thief finally turned around to stare directly into Miranda's eyes with her lips curled downwards into a sceptical frown.

"Before I tell you," Kasumi started with her fingers picking at the red fabric of her suit in an attempt to keep herself distracted, "you need to promise that you won't kick my ass to next week."

Miranda's jaw tightened in aggravation, "Kasumi…"

"I may have accidently been stealing your tech for about…two monthsor so." Kasumi admitted with a sheepish grin, rubbing at the top of her head nervously whilst backing herself into the nearest corner the elevator provided. "It was some nice tech too, did you know they had those Quantum M64-Lite regenerators? They did some crazy things to my cloaking device! So hey, you can't say they didn't go to good use!"

Miranda took time to process the information and her feelings at being told that technical equipment (her technical equipment!) she had kept hidden for so long had actually been dying down in quantity without herself or the tech experts she had previously worked with noticing a damn thing!

And Kasumi! Kasumi had been the one stealing such precious, expensive tech that Miranda had worked her arse off to obtain from companies, mercenary bands and the rest of the galaxy that had been clever (or foolish) enough to help her get such equipment without alerting higher authorities like Cerberus. And now it was gone!

She didn't even know what to feel angry at; the fact that not only were her tech experts dead but they hadn't noticed valuable equipment was missing or the fact that Kasumi had been the one stealing that valuable equipment in the first place.

At that point Miranda decided she would rage quietly about the inexperience of her tech experts when she was alone, right now she was going to try and form a way to strangle Kasumi Goto with words alone.

"So not only did you steal my tech right under my expert's noses…" Miranda whispered with a deadly glint in her eye, hand coming upwards to cup the curve of her chin and for her fingers to dig into the bone to control her wrath. "But you deliberately used my tech knowing that it belonged to me in the first place! How the hell does your mind work Goto?"

"To be fair I honestly didn't know it belonged to you until I hacked into one of your experts omni-tool and discovered they were sending most of the stuff to you!" Kasumi protested with her hands placed in the air as though she was surrendering to Miranda's hard stare. "Besides you owe me! If I hadn't of deleted most of the records on you then I bet Cerberus would be crawling all over…Did you hear that?"

Miranda wished she hadn't heard the almost silent thump from overhead, but she had and right now she was on edge by the mere sound of it and why the hell did this elevator not go any faster?

"Yeah I did," Miranda confirmed with a whisper and a nod of her head, moving forward to press herself and the thief into the doors of the elevator with her eyes glued to the ceiling. "And if I know the Illusive Man then…"

Kasumi sent her a wide-eyed look underneath her hood, nudging the open doors button with her elbows at the fastest pace imaginable whilst her mouth worked freely as it always did when she was put in crazy situations like this one.

"So not to sound like I'm giving the enemy ideas," Kasumi said with her elbow still jamming at the button whilst her eyes remained focused solely on the elevator ceiling. "But this is the Citadel for cryin' out loud; they wouldn't try and assassinate you here would they?"

Miranda threw a sideways glance in the master thief's direction, "what do youthink Goto?"

The sound of thudding on the thin bars of the ventilation shaft brought them both back to reality and when the elevator door finally opened they both shot off in a flash to speed down the corridors of the ward, Miranda speeding towards her apartment whilst Kasumi dragged behind with hesitation on where to go.

Miranda almost ordered the thief to stop following her by the time she was just around the corner from her apartment however she realized that maybe having Kasumi with her was actually a benefit for this very moment, at least this way she wouldn't easily be surprised or overwhelmed by Cerberus forces if they had decided to infiltrate into her home.

"This way!" Miranda ordered with her arm coming upwards to grip at Kasumi's wrist, pulling her forward into the alcove that led them to the very back of Miranda's apartment.

Soon enough they both ended up at the door Miranda had been running towards, the old Cerberus operative stepping forward to press the pad of her thumb on the scanner's screen with a tight knot in her jaw forming as she took in the still empty room that looked exactly like it had before she had left for Purgatory – which of course didn't mean anything once you looked at things in a different perspective.

Miranda peered in the room for a moment before she took a huge leap of faith and practically ran inside with her feet taking her towards the direction of the storage cabinet where she kept most of her pistols and SMGs; once there she opened the cabinet and slipped the Shruiken and the Locust in their respected sheaths around her waist with her hands moving upwards to flick a switch that was on the very top corner of the inside of her cabinet.

'Try and find me now,'Miranda thought with a smug smile, proud of her own device that would place her on an entirely different route than she was actually on just in case any Cerberus operative or soldiers came in looking for her.

Now that was done she would have to go about acquiring most of her data from her terminal and transfer it to her omni-tool which wouldn't take that long and…

"What the hell are you doing with that?" Miranda seethed with her eyes wide at the sight of Kasumi Goto messing around with one of Miranda's more valuable technical devices that her tech experts had been sending her. "Don't you know that cost me more than 250000 credits for that? Put the damn thing down!"

"But it flashes different colours!" Kasumi said as she whirled the rubber device around her finger once, presenting it to Miranda with a childish giggle.

"Of course you'd find that interesting," Miranda said with a sigh, reaching over to snatch the object from Kasumi's hands and scouring all over her room for the bag she had come in with when she had first started using this apartment as her head of operations. "If you want to do something useful then get all that data from my terminal and transfer it to your omni-tool, I'm going to need it."

Kasumi looked surprised at the sudden change of heart but knew best not to ask many questions when it seemed pretty damn obvious that what was happening right now was a bid to escape from Cerberus and to do so that meant that both herself and Miranda would have to be hitching a ride to some other place where Cerberus would lose track of them for a while.

"Does that mean I do get to follow you around for a bit?" Kasumi couldn't help but ask despite her own nattering voice telling herself not to do such a thing. "Because if so then you really need to make up your mind, I'm getting mixed signals here!"

Looking up from sorting out some of her old dossiers out Miranda rolled her eyes and allowed her mouth to move in that vicious way she saved for times like this where her life was on the line if they didn't stop stalling soon, "what is happening is that we'll both get a ship off to the Citadel, you'll transfer the data from your omni-tool to my own and then I'm dropping you back off on Earth."

"What for?" Kasumi demanded with her lower lip pouted out sulkily, "you know Shepard told me to look after…"

Miranda stood up then with her azure eyes hardened into an icy glare, the gaze alone shaking Kasumi to the core until she felt her own arm curl around her waist in a hug that did not supply enough warmth to battle against Miranda Lawson's expression.

"I'm not arguing any longer about this Kasumi, are you done with that data or not?"

Kasumi wanted to argue, to tell the old Cerberus operative that she couldn't talk to her that way but she had promised Shepard to be as civil as she possibly could and well there wasstill some patience in her yet.

So instead she nodded and deleted the rest of the data off the terminal with a flick of her wrist, offering Miranda a hand (which Miranda refused) to help her up from her kneeling position on the floor.

"Let's go before Cerberus decides to skin me and send it back to my mother," Kasumi murmured with a playful smile creeping across her face at the horrified look Miranda sent her way, "oh don't worry, it's a Japanese thing."

"Right… Let's go."

I hope you enjoyed the first chapter faithful and new reviewers :3 This will take place before and in between the events of Mass Effect 3 so yes, it'll contain some spoilers so be careful if you haven't already played the game (why AREN'T you playing the game?) and know that you're reading this at your own risk. ;)