Mass Effect:

The Road Not Taken

Part One

Commander Jane Shepard had thought she'd seen it all. From Saren and the geth to Sovereign the Reaper, Jane believed that she could handle anything sent her way.

Until, well, now.

She stared at Joker incredulously, her green eyes taking him in. He was dead serious. What he'd just said... He was dead serious.

"EDI?" Jane prompted.

"Mr. Moreau is one-hundred percent correct, Commander," the AI responded. "The soldier is in the med-bay as we speak."

Jane rubbed her eyes, moving strands of her red hair out of them as she did so. "Just so we're clear... What, exactly, happened again?"

Joker took his eyes off of the Commander and began piloting the ship again. "I was flying the ship, obviously, 'cause I never move, when we came by Horizon." Joker motioned to the planet with his head. "You guys went down there, and I was innocently still piloting when an N7 soldier hit my window shield."

"In space?" the Commander asked.

"In space," Joker confirmed.

Jane shook her head. "And what's the status of this soldier?"

"Stable," EDI answered. "Dr. Chakwas is handling the soldier. In her care, their survival odds have increased seven-fold."

"What do we know about this soldier?" Jane pressed. "Other than they wear N7 armour."

"Their armour was created within the last two years," EDI explained. "However, the battle damage to the armour indicates many years of use. Further pursuit of records into the soldier's identity reveals no information."

Jane's brow furrowed. The fact that EDI couldn't find anything on them was big. Jane's curiosity piqued as she studied the holographic blue orb that was their ship's AI.

"Dr. Chakwas will allow me to see them, right?" she asked.

"Affirmative. Dr. Chakwas has requested your presence involving the matter."

Nodding, the Commander made her way from the cockpit to the elevator, taking the long strides she always did whenever she was in a rush. In the elevator, she hit the button that would take her to the med-bay and crossed her arms impatiently. The soldier was wearing N7 armour, and yet there were no records of them?

The elevator doors slid open, and as Jane stepped out Garrus intercepted her. The turian still had a bandage on the right side of his face from the rocket he'd attempted to dodge, and he was in his trademark blue armour. His crystal-blue eyes gave his thoughts away; he wanted to speak to her.

"Shepard," the turian acknowledged. "Can we talk for a minute?"

Garrus Vakarian was possibly one of the only ones on the Normandy SR-2 that Commander Shepard would ever willingly stop for when she was in a rush. Perhaps that was one of the reasons she had recently admitted her feelings towards the turian...? Jane wasn't sure, but she did know that both she and Garrus had been taken off-guard when she'd admitted them. Jane stepped to the side and leaned against the wall, tucking her hands behind her back and giving the officer her full attention.

Garrus scratched one of his mandibles with a taloned finger. "About this soldier..." He cleared his throat. "I've got a pretty good idea who they are."

Jane was all ears. "How?"

"She served with me when I was 'Archangel'." Garrus crossed his arms. "She disappeared when my squad died. I figured she was dead, but..."

"Wait, 'she'?"

"Right. She said her name was 'Verana Hidparkas'. Didn't talk much after that." Garrus smiled as much as his turian physiology would allow him to. "But she was a damn good shot with a sniper rifle."

"Did she wear that armour?" Jane asked.

Garrus nodded. "Never saw her without it. Reminded me of yours, to be honest, and she managed to keep with the colour scheme of my little band of misfits."

Jane rolled her eyes, but she was grinning. "Been in to see her yet?"

"I saw her through the window," the turian admitted, shrugging his slender shoulders.

Jane motioned for him to follow, and so they made their way to the med-bay. The doors slid open with ease, revealing the recently upgraded white room. Dr. Chakwas was examining a datapad, writing in some notes, no doubt, when the two entered, and so she respectfully shut it off for the moment.

"Commander," the old doctor regarded, "Garrus. Thank-you for responding so quickly."

"No trouble, Doctor," Jane assured her. Her eyes flickered over to the only occupied bed. "Our soldier?"

Dr. Chakwas motioned towards the figure clad in blue, with a secondary red colour. Jane recognized most of the armour: the N7 soldier was wearing a Recon Hood with red lights, a Hahne-Kedar chestplate, Armax Arsenal shoulder guards, Hahne-Kedar arm gauntlets and Hahne-Kedar greaves. EDI had been right; it looked like the armour had gone through hell. Multiple scrapes, scratches and dents in the armour took away from the colour, and there looked to be a rupture in the armour's left gauntlet, as if something had stabbed Verana through the arm. There was a thick purple substance around the area, but no sign of a wound.

"I've had her on life-support for a while now," Dr. Chakwas explained readily. "Her condition is stable now, but it could possibly change. There is no guarantee that she will awaken, either."

"So, how do you know it's a girl?" Jane asked.

Dr. Chakwas smiled. "She told me so, before she fell into her coma."

"She's in a coma?!" Garrus exclaimed.

She nodded. "For now, yes. Though I hope she will reawaken soon. I can't get that mask off of her for the life of me, and there's a broken voice-changer under there as well."

"A voice changer?" Jane repeated.

"She had that when she joined-up with me," Garrus explained. "But even though she had it, she was quite avid in defending her gender. She was... confusing."

"Speaking of which..." Jane cleared her throat. "Why in the world was she floating through space?"

Garrus scratched his head. "I can't say I know the answer to that, Shepard."

"Perhaps I may be of assistance?" EDI perked up, appearing in her corner of the room. "After further analysis, I have discovered footage from Horizon that includes this soldier."

A screen descended from the roof. Garrus grunted his surprise while Jane whistled low.

"Even though I don't like the guy," Garrus muttered, "the Illusive Man sure has taste."

"Tell me about it," Jane replied.

On the screen, it showed Verana walking around Horizon, an assault rifle and sniper rifle strapped to her back. The attack of the Collector's forced her into action. The camera changed to an angle that observed the Collector ship. Verana was a capable fighter, and managed to get to the ship. The doors closed on her, so she fearlessly began to scale the ship. However, some "Dragon's Teeth" (mechanical spikes that erupt from wherever they'd been planted and impale their victims, transforming them into husks) shot out of the walls of the Collector ship. Verana was clearly heard screaming as it impaled through her arm, but she managed to pull her arm off.

Garrus glanced back at Verana and examined her broken gauntlet, as Jane had before, but his attention returned to the screen when he heard the Collector ship taking off. He, Shepard and the thief Kasumi had been on Horizon then. Verana was holding onto the ship desperately, and then the ship went off-screen.

"She must've let go when they reached space," Garrus observed.

Dr. Chakwas activated her datapad. "She healed from that wound. I've taken pictures of the blood around it, but it's as if she'd never gotten hurt."

Jane tapped her chin thoughtfully. She had no idea what to do with the N7 soldier, so she looked to Garrus. He shrugged.

"Keep her here for a bit," he suggested. "If she wakes up, I highly recommend her as an ally. She's never let me down."

Jane nodded. "Doctor," she said, "if she wakes up, let me know immediately. Please take care of her."

"Of course, Commander," the doctor agreed. "Finally, I will have my time taken up. You two only ever come to me for help if rockets explode beside you."

Garrus shook his head. "Ha ha, Chakwas," he grumbled. "Very funny."

It was later that night that Jane crept from her Captain's quarters to the mess hall to grab something to eat. Having been too sick to her stomach earlier to eat due to the crap she'd experienced on Horizon (what with Ashley blatantly accusing her of siding with Cerberus), now she was ravenous. The Mess Sergeant Rupert Gardner was fast asleep, just like most of the rest of the crew. When she glanced through the window of the med-bay, she could see that Dr. Chakwas was sleeping in one of the beds, just in case Verana was having trouble. Jane felt sorry that the doctor would be sleeping there for a while, due to Verana's coma.

Jane made something quick to eat and didn't waste time in wolfing down the food. She thanked herself for being in the right mind to get those better rations that Gardner had asked her to get. Her stomach thanked her too.

The Commander was on her way back to her cabin when she heard someone in the mess. Certain that no one had passed her and that she hadn't seen anyone, Jane peeked around the corner. She thought that, maybe, Garrus would be there, but it definitely wasn't him.

Now that she could properly see Verana standing up, Jane noted that the woman was probably as tall as she was, if not taller. Verana peered into the fridge, massaging her once-injured arm and crouching to look at the bottom shelves. The soldier sighed, their voice changer now audible to Jane. The Commander glanced at the med-bay to make sure that she wasn't just imagining Verana, but she was, indeed, missing from bed.

Jane crept up behind the N7 operative and glanced over their shoulder. Verana was examining some of the dextro foods, to which Jane raised an eyebrow at, but she replaced them on the shelf of the fridge and grabbed some human-friendly food instead.

However, the soldier hesitated. Suddenly, she sprang up, slamming the door of the fridge closed and sending a kick Jane's way. If she hadn't been trained the way she had, Jane wouldn't have been able to block it. Jane raised her arm and deflected the kick away from her head, and quickly jumped back to prevent any up-close attacks. Verana reached for her thigh and tried to grab at something—a pistol, Jane noted—but realized that it wasn't there.

"It's not nice if you attack someone out of the blue," Jane quipped, holding her fists in front of her in a ready position.

Verana didn't say a word, and instead crouched, her arms ready to catch either of Jane's non-existent punches. Jane saw Verana tense, and her fingers took on a "clawed" guise to expel the tension.

A few seconds passed in silence before the door to the main battery room slid open. Garrus strode down the hallway and frowned when he saw the two human women.

"Verana, stand down!" he ordered with every bit of authority that a turian General would have over his troops.

Verana's head snapped to him, and she clenched and unclenched her hands for a moment before she stood up and saluted him. Jane had to laugh at the display; Verana must have really respected Garrus when they were in the squad together.

"Didn't expect to see you up so soon, kid," the turian admitted, cracking a very turian smile. "Didn't expect you to be letting off steam with Commander Shepard, either."

Verana's salute ended and she turned to Jane. She nodded her head; Jane decided that it would be the closest thing to an apology that she would get.

"No problem," Jane assured the N7 soldier. "You just surprised me."

"I think Dr. Chakwas is going to get the worst shock," Garrus quipped. "Shepard, shouldn't you be asleep?"

Jane shrugged. "I got hungry. Sue me."

Garrus' eyes moved to Verana. "And I suppose that's why you're up, too?"

The soldier nodded. Garrus sighed. "Well, I hope they've got your favourite food on here. I don't want you following me everywhere again. That was disturbing."

Jane went to the fridge and picked up the plate of food that Verana had been looking at. "Here; after this, I'd appreciate it if you went back to the med-bay and got some sleep. I want to speak with you in the morning."

Verana accepted the plate of food, nodded to the Commander, and began to heat it up. She seemed to know her way around the ship.

"Sorry about that, Shepard," Garrus apologized. "She probably didn't realize who you were."

Jane shrugged. "I snuck up on her. It's mostly my fault."

The turian officer glanced at Verana, who sat down at a table to eat. She'd lifted her Recon Hood up to just beneath her nose, and so her pale skin showed as she ate.

"She's a good kid," Garrus told the Commander. "But she's got a hell of a mouth when you piss her off. I got to experience that once, and prayed to the Spirits that I'd never have to go through that again."

"So I take it she's mostly calm?"

Garrus shrugged. "Verana doesn't like being forced to overlook something that's happening in front of her. She'll want to act, but if ordered to stop, she will. You can tell what she wants from her body language though."

Jane and Garrus watched the soldier eat for a time before she got up and placed her dish in the sink, like Jane had just a few minutes ago. She regarded the two for a minute before heading back to the med-bay. Jane trusted that she'd stay in there for a time.

"Well, I've got to get back to calibrating," Garrus mumbled. "I'll see you around, Shepard."

Jane nodded and watched the blue-clad turian go. "Yeah... You too."

_/-\_

Tali'Zorah nar Rayya (or vas Normandy, as she was now known) haunched over her console in Engineering and glanced at the buttons with a dull interest. At the moment, she just didn't feel like doing anything to the Normandy. She had a minor headache, no doubt caused by Engineers Daniels and Donnelly, who were constantly blabbering about things Shepard could do to improve the ship, and that they hoped she would come down soon so they could explain this to her. Tali wondered why they didn't just ask EDI to tell Shepard.

The quarian tapped the glass of her helmet in thought. She wondered if she shouldn't just get some sleep and something to eat. Her trial, and the revelations about her father, Rael'Zorah, had left her drained, but she was no less thankful that her name had been cleared of treason. Somehow, Shepard always came through for her.

Tali's thoughts were interrupted when she heard something in the deepest reaches of Engineering, where one of Shepard's newest people, a human woman named Jack, had made her home. Curious, the quarian descended the steps and peered into the darkness. Jack was grappling with the blue N7 soldier that Tali had seen around. The story was that this human, Verana Hidparkas, had hit the window shield of the Normandy SR-2 while Joker was piloting it, slipped into a coma when she was brought aboard, and woke up only a few hours later. Tali remembered Dr. Chakwas shaking her head when the quarian had inquired about it, as if the old doctor couldn't believe it herself.

Jack shoved the soldier back into the wall and lunged at her, her powerful biotics powering her fist. Verana side-stepped, grabbed the back of Jack's bald, tattooed head and slammed it against the wall that she'd just been pushed into. Jack wasted no time in recovering and kicking the taller woman in her chestplate, but Verana grabbed the biotic's boot and twisted her leg around, forcing Jack to look the other way. Eventually, Jack escaped her dire situation, and she and Verana hit each other for a few more minutes before the two stared each other down, panting.

And Jack was smiling.

Verana held a hand out to the biotic, which she grasped and shook. Tali knew that they were acknowledging one another, and they'd likely be better on the battlefield together if Shepard took them along.

"Well damn, Blue." Jack released Verana's arm and stood up, crossing her arms over her chest. "Looks like that armour's not just for show."

Verana stood up straight and gave the human biotic a thumbs-up, to which both Tali and Jack smiled.

"Yeah, yeah. I get it. None of that mushy shit though," Jack said.

Verana nodded and began to head up the opposite set of stairs, the one that Tali wasn't on. Tali silently returned up the steps and headed to the elevator, deep in thought. She wondered how Verana could get on Jack's good side so easily with just a few punches. Her own specialty was in tech, so she wasn't likely to get on the convict's good side physically. Then again, the quarian was glad that she wasn't in Yeoman Kelley Chambers' place; she didn't want to be poking and prodding at Jack to learn why she was so "crazy", as Joker put it.

Tali met Verana at the elevator. They stood in front of it together, waiting for it. Tali shook her head when she wondered why the Illusive man could afford to recreate the Normandy, but couldn't manufacture a faster elevator. Tali noted that the two of them, she and Verana, were similar that neither could tell if the other was examining them, due to the helmet Tali wore and the Recon Hood that seemed to be Verana's "trademark", other than the blue of her armour.

Verana crossed her arms beside the quarian and attempted to scratch an itch on her face, which seemed to fail. The soldier sighed, the static sounds of her voice changer made audible. Tali wondered why this person had to hide so much.

"Elevator."

Tali snapped out of her thoughts at the word and quickly hopped onto the elevator, seconds before the door closed. "Thanks," she replied.

Verana nodded, but said nothing else. Tali took a chance to examine the human. She couldn't help but wonder what fights she'd been in, what with all of the scuffs, scrapes and dents in her armour. She didn't seem to want to fix it, though, or else she would have at her earliest opportunity.

The elevator door opened, and so Verana stepped off, followed by Tali. The quarian watched the human stride briskly to the med-bay, where Dr. Chakwas had requested she be once every few hours for check-ups. Tali wrung her hands together in thought.

"Tali?" The quarian jumped at Shepard's voice and spun around.

"Shepard!" Tali exclaimed. "I didn't hear you..."

Shepard shrugged and rubbed the back of her head. "I was wondering if we could talk?"

Tali nodded. "Of course. What do you want to talk about?"

"I just wanted to know how you were holding up," Shepard admitted.

"Fine. Better than fine, actually. Thank-you, Shepard, for what you did in front of the Admiralty Board."

Shepard nodded slowly. "I'm not really good with politics. Can't stand 'em, but... What can you do?"

Tali laughed. "Come on, Shepard; let's get something to eat. Have I got something to tell you..."

"Ooh, is it interesting?"

"You've got no idea."

_/-\_

As per usual, Samara sat cross-legged in her quarters aboard the Normandy SR-2, staring out at the stars with a vague interest. Her mind was troubled, despite the peace her latest action had brought her. Samara's daughter, the Ardat-Yakshi named Morinth, had just found peace in the Goddess' embrace, thanks to Shepard.

And yet, the Justicar was troubled.

Samara stood up and stared at the stars that sped by—or, rather, that they were speeding by. In her mind, she reached for her Code. Perhaps it could give her some small comfort for her daughter's passing. She recited it in her head repeatedly until her mind had calmed, and then turned away from the view port to look at the door.

Without her realizing it, someone had entered her room. She had glanced at the blue-clad figure when she'd come aboard the Normandy, and when she'd left with Shepard to seek out Morinth, but she'd had no interactions with the soldier at all. A thought raced across her mind: was this person a threat? "Verana" was the name that Shepard had supplied the Justicar when she'd inquired.

As if sensing the Justicar's sudden thoughts, Verana motioned to the floor, and then to herself. She waited patiently for the asari's permission while Samara examined her.

The Justicar nodded and sat on the ground cross-legged, staring into the star-speckled blackness that was space. Verana sat beside her in the same position, and they sat in silence together, watching the stars.

One uneventful hour passed before the young human stood up and stretched her legs. Samara wondered what could have made the humans so impatient, always having to move and do something while Verana stretched. The human eventually seemed to have her blood circulating again and stared out of the view port while standing. It wasn't long after that the human decided it would be best to leave. She opened the door, but Samara could feel her pause. Exactly what did the soldier want?

"Sorry."

Samara's eyes fluttered open at the human's voice. There was likely a voice changer underneath, she noted. The asari looked back at the human, but the door had already closed. She was gone.

Samara turned back to the view port and gazed outside. Something to the right of her caught her eye. Looking to the spot that Verana had sat, she saw a small locket, with a very masterful engraving of the Ardat-Yakshi monastery on Lesuss. Samara gently took the small thing into her hands and examined it with care.

She felt that she understood why humans have to move and do something all the time.

_/-\_

Urdnot Grunt was in the happiest place he could be in his head. Pride swelled through him as he, his Battlemaster Shepard, and the tall, blue-clad human marched back to the Normandy. Still covered in the blood of the Thresher Maw, varren, and klixen, Grunt's elated mood made him aware of the fact that the human named Verana had multiple battle-scars on her armour—all of them old, indicating her experience as a warrior.

Grunt's blue eyes watched the human woman steadily. She hadn't replaced her assault rifle, an M-15 Vindicator, onto her back, as if she didn't consider the mission completed. With Urdnot Wrex's blessing, Grunt completed his rite of passage and became part of the krogan clan Urdnot, and so had holstered his shotgun. Shepard didn't seem to mind that the young human's weapon was out though.

Shepard was receiving a message, and so stopped in her tracks, bringing her two main fingers up to her right ear, where her headset was. Verana crouched beside some of the rubble of Tuchanka and sifted through it curiously. Grunt's eyes didn't leave the soldier. He wanted to see the reasoning behind her blatant disregard for communication. Not that he was a big fan of "talking"—Grunt preferred action, above all, but he wanted to better understand the person he'd just fought side-by-side with.

Against the klixen, varren and Thresher Maw, Verana had been fearless. She'd swapped in-between her sniper rifle (an M-98 Widow), her assault rifle, and her pistol (she carried an HMWP Master Pistol X, and to his understanding, the weapon was Spectre issue), but if any creatures came too close, she'd kill them with her fists. She and Shepard were the only humans Grunt knew that would dare do such a thing, as humans seemed to rely on their weapons the most.

Grunt stepped up behind the human and growled low in his throat. Verana seemed to understand the krogan gesture, and so she stood up and faced him, but didn't holster her weapon.

"Do you speak like the humans do?" Grunt asked.

The blue-clad human nodded slowly. The krogan grunted; he couldn't see past the red lights in the eyes of her Recon Hood, so there was no telling the human's facial expression.

"Do you know any other languages?" he pressed.

He could have described the human as looking thoughtful—her head gently tipped backwards to show him her body language, and then her head came flying at him, into the segmented crest that hadn't yet turned into a full plate like a grown korgan's. He stumbled backwards in surprise at the human, and when he looked at her, the message was clear: she understood krogan quite well.

Shepard finished with the message and led them back towards the Normandy. Grunt walked beside Verana, a smile tugging at his lips. He'd just found two interesting humans.

_/-\_

It didn't matter how old they got; Kasumi adored books, especially if they were made of paper. In her quarters on the Normandy, she had a shelf full of them. Some of them she'd stolen, some had been given to her, and others had been bought, but they were all hers. The Executive Officer, Miranda Lawson, preferred datapads, and never failed to speak about their obvious superiority to Kasumi. But no matter what, the master thief preferred the smooth, musty-scented surface of her paper books.

That's why she was pleasantly surprised when the mysterious, blue-clad soldier named Verana asked to read them.

Ever since arrived on the ship, Kasumi had tailed each and every one of the crew members to learn about them. From the stuck-up Miranda, to the completely and utterly insane Jack, she had learned everything she needed to know about her team-mates and the crew of the Normandy SR-2.

Except Verana.

The soldier always seemed to know when Kasumi was following her, even if her cloaking device had been activated. No matter what the master thief did, or where she hid, Verana always knew exactly where she was. Kasumi, of course, had asked Commander Shepard if Recon Hoods gave the wearer the ability to detect one in their cloak, but she only got a raised eyebrow and a, "No... Why?" Suffice to say, Kasumi left the conversation by turning invisible.

Verana had entered the port viewing deck of the Normandy where Kasumi had made her home, looked at the books on the shelf and pointed to them. Kasumi looked incredulously from her beloved shelf of books to the blue-clad soldier before she came to a decision.

"Only if you're careful," she told Verana.

Almost excitedly, the human woman chose her book, sat on the couch near Kasumi, and carefully turned through the pages as she read. This went on for several days. If Shepard didn't choose Verana or Kasumi to go out on a mission with her, Verana would appear in Kasumi's chosen room and point at the books, waiting for Kasumi's permission. She would then read the random book she chose for hours and then return it to its rightful place on the shelf. Kasumi, after Verana had left, would check said book to ensure its quality remained, and it always did.

It was about two weeks after Verana first read one of Kasumi's books that the master thief had been wandering about the ship. She'd decided to try to find out where Verana was staying during the time the soldier had been aboard the Normandy, but she couldn't figure it out. It seemed that no one knew where she'd made roots. Sometimes, she spent time with Dr. Chakwas in the med-bay, and others she'd be in the CIC, looking over the blueprints of the Normandy SR-2. She was a slippery one, to be sure.

Kasumi gave up on her search eventually and headed down to Engineering, thinking that Daniels and Donnelly would want to play some Skillian-five. Jack was currently out with Shepard, so there'd be no one to interrupt their loud game of poker. Kasumi was just crossing above the area that Jack had made her home when she heard a noise. Activating her cloaking device, Kasumi kept down the steps into the dark recesses of Engineering and listened for the noise again.

She recognized it when she heard it: someone was in a lot of pain, and trying their best to be quiet about it. Jack's absence presented the perfect domain of solitude. Kasumi, despite her cloak, used the deep shadows to her advantage, and found the one making those sounds.

Verana was cradling her left arm, her knees close to her chest as she rocked back and forth. She'd raised her Recon Hood enough so that her neck and mouth were visible, and so Kasumi could see Verana biting her lip, trying to divert the pain in her arm to a more distracting one at her lip. To Kasumi, it looked like the Verana just wanted to dissolve into a ball of nothingness and disappear for a little, as if she didn't want to trouble anyone else with her pain.

Kasumi deactivated her cloaking device and crouched in front of the soldier. "Verana, are you all right?" she asked tentatively.

She took a few deep breaths and then nodded, holding her arm just a little closer to herself.

"What's wrong with it?" Kasumi pressed, indicating the woman's arm.

Verana shook her head. It wasn't something she wanted to talk about quite yet, it seemed. Kasumi sat beside the soldier and put and arm around her comfortingly, since she had no idea what she could do. If Verana went through the trouble of hiding herself from others, it wouldn't do any good to talk to Shepard about it. Verana would talk about it when she was ready. Kasumi was certain of it.

When the soldier had calmed down and didn't seem to be hurting any longer, Kasumi helped her up. "Come on; let's go play some Skillian-five. It always puts me in a better mood. Mostly because I usually win, but hey."

Verana pulled her Recon Hood over the bottom half of her face and neck and followed Kasumi up the steps to where Daniels and Donnelly were. Kasumi and Verana, during the entire game, were neck-and-neck, so the only ones who truly lost were the enthusiastic engineers. Verana had a good poker-face, but her body-language would give her away.

The next day, Kasumi walked into her quarters from the shower to find a book in the place where she usually sat staring out at the stars with her memories of Keiji. She looked at her bookshelf, but saw none out of place. Kasumi picked up the book and wondered briefly if Verana had been reading in the Port Observation while Kasumi had been showering, but the thought left her as a paper note fell out of the book. She picked it up and read it quickly.

It's blank.

Put whatever you want in here.

And thanks.

Kasumi read the brief note a few more times before she leafed through the pages of the book. It was, indeed, blank. Kasumi grinned, picked up a pen, and began to write.

_/-\_

Zaeed Massani could survive a gunshot to the face like a pro. People knew that, too; the right side of his face had been grafted back on due to one. He'd founded the Blue Sons, hunted slime-balls across the galaxy, and now, he was serving aboard the Normandy SR-2 because of a deal with Cerberus. One that didn't exactly go fulfilled, but he stayed on anyway; Shepard was the kind of person you followed into Hell and back, and that was just what her team was going to do.

But for all of his achievements and experience, fighting a kid half his age was proving difficult.

Zaeed knew that it shouldn't be like that; he'd been around longer, fought harder, and yet it wasn't enough. But Zaeed wasn't one to give up. He'd keep fighting until the last dog died, and then some. The old mercenary forced himself onto his feet and raised his fists, his eyes focused on his adversary.

He didn't know much about the blue-clad N7 soldier he was facing; she was quiet, always moving about the ship, but she'd somehow gained the respect of some of his team-mates. Jack, Grunt, Tali, Kasumi and Samara to name a few. Garrus, of course, was a given; Archangel would never have let her on his squad in the first place if they didn't respect each other.

Zaeed had wondered how long it would take for him to properly meet the N7 operative named Verana, but he had been right to assume that it'd be in this kind of a situation. Both soldiers, old and young, were stressed. There hadn't been shore leave, Shepard hadn't brought Zaeed with her for a while (obviously giving him some time to calm down because his Blue Sons co-founder, Vido Santiago, escaped when Shepard's conscience wouldn't let her leave those refinery workers behind), and Shepard still wasn't entirely certain that Verana was at one-hundred percent, despite when she'd brought the soldier along when they went to Tuchanka for Grunt's rite of passage.

The old mercenary assumed that Verana had spent some of her time on turian vessels, since they would fight to get their stress out. Her stance as well was very turian as she waited for him to come at her again. Zaeed had already had his head smashed against the table in the mess hall, his back thrown to the ground, and his body tossed across the table where Mess Sergeant Gardner would lay out the food he prepared (at least no food had been on it at the time).

Verana knew how to fight and use her environment to her advantage, Zaeed had to admit, but he just kept getting up. And even though they both were tiring, it was Verana who was the most exhausted.

A few of the crewman cheered the two fighters on. Zaeed tensed and then ran at Verana, readying a strong punch, when Jane Shepard entered the mess.

"Stop this instant!" the Commander ordered.

Not fast enough; Verana connected her head with Zaeed's effectively knocking him to the ground with the brute force that came from her head (a very krogan move, the old mercenary noted), and Zaeed's fist hit the human hard in the gut. Both of them were in a certain degree of pain that rendered them speechless (or, at least, rendered him speechless).

"What the hell do you two think you're doing?!" Shepard demanded.

Zaeed held his throbbing forehead and looked up at the Commander. "Letting off a bit of steam, is all," he grumbled.

Shepard crossed her arms and glared daggers at them both. "And why do you have to let off steam this way?"

"Well, I can't exactly shoot anything on board, now can I?" Zaeed retorted. "Unless you allow us to have some target practice on that geth in the core, mulling about it isn't going to help!"

There were a few choice words that the Commander used on them that made the rest of the crewmen silently disperse. Zaeed managed to block most of it out and was nursing his head when his thoughts went to Verana. Her left arm, although obviously not her favoured arm, was definitely her strongest, but she tried not to use it as much as possible during their brawl.

Zaeed wondered if he couldn't get her to tell him why not over a few friendly drinks. She'd earned that much, to say the least.

_/-\_

Sighing as she typed at her computer terminal, Executive Officer Miranda Lawson gave up on creating her report to the Illusive Man and rubbed her tired eyes. She knew that she'd been working too hard, but she couldn't get her mind off of her previous mission. Shepard, despite their disagreements about Cerberus, had taken Miranda to Illium, where Oriana, Miranda's genetic twin sister, was about to be taken back by their father. Shepard had helped to save Oriana.

Of course, Miranda had thanked Shepard as soon as the mission was over, and was relieved to have even had a conversation with her sister, but that was not the reason she was still troubled from the mission. There were more issues that needed to be addressed, but this one needed to be taken care of immediately.

"EDI, will you ask Verana to come to my office?" Miranda asked the AI.

"Of course, Ms. Lawson," EDI acknowledged, blinking in and out of Miranda's office.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at Miranda's door. Miranda pressed the button that allowed the door to open and beckoned the blue-clad soldier inside. From the moment Verana had arrived on the Normandy, Miranda's curiosity had gotten the better of her and she'd hacked through multiple Alliance files to discover what she could about the silent soldier. When that turned up nothing, Miranda had contacted Cerberus to aid her.

But, similar to Shepard, Verana was a complete unknown.

Verana sat in the chair opposite Miranda's desk and nodded to her, regarding her solemnly. Miranda folded her hands together and gave the soldier a once-over.

"Verana," she began, "I wanted to thank you."

Verana shrugged and waved her hand, indicating that what she'd done was no big deal. And yet, Miranda felt that it was something worth acknowledging. When they'd been on Oriana's tail, fighting through the seemingly-endless supply of mercenaries that her father had hired, Miranda had let her guard down. Verana noticed, and saved Miranda not once, but twice. Without the soldier, Miranda wouldn't have had that conversation with her twin.

"I'm serious," Miranda said sternly. "You killed a merc that nearly shot me in the back of the head, and then you almost got badly hurt when you protected me with your shields. I just wanted you to know that I'm grateful for what you've done."

Again, Verana waved her hand, but she nodded that time. Miranda smiled.

"There's nothing else I wanted to speak to you about," the Cerberus officer lied casually. "So if you wanted to get back to what you were doing—."

Verana held a finger up and then brought up her omni-tool. She pressed a few buttons with lightning-speed, and then graciously left the room. As she did, a notification came up on Miranda's desktop. Curious, Miranda opened the notification, which led straight to her e-mail. A new one had come in from an unknown sender.

It was a picture of Oriana and herself, smiling. The picture had obviously been taken from a distance and had been zoomed in, but it was a nice picture nonetheless. Miranda shook her head slowly from side-to-side when she saw the message attached to it.

To cope with the separation.

Visit her often.

Miranda knew that Oriana would hack into her e-mail and see the picture. She also knew that she'd have to get a gift of thanks for their blue-clad N7 soldier.

_/-\_

Mordin Solus' day started out as a very dull one. Having gone over his notes numerous times to ensure that his formula would hold out when Shepard's team assaulted the Collector base on their so-called "suicide mission", Mordin's lightning-speed brain already confirmed that his formula would work.

Later in the day, Shepard had entered the Science Officer's lab and he'd told her of his fondness for Gilbert and Sullivan. After singing to successfully entertain the human Commander, he'd gone about humming the theme of "scientist salarian" wherever he went. Eventually, he went to the med-bay to check on Dr. Chakwas' status on injecting the rest of the team with his formula. He was surprised to see their blue-clad companion Verana there as well.

"Ah, Mordin," Chakwas greeted. "I was just about to give Verana your formula."

"Progress?" the salarian asked.

"Very well. It's working just as well as it did on Horizon. No current side-effects. An excellent job as usual, Doctor."

"Thank-you, Doctor," Mordin replied, smiling. "Injuries not numerous lately?"

Chakwas shook her head. "They've been taking care of themselves. Makes me lonely sometimes, but I've become much better at Skillian-five."

"Engineers Daniels and Donnelly hard at work. Good people. But the scientific mind allows no room for poker."

"But it allows room for Gilbert and Sullivan?" Mordin smiled wider at Dr. Chakwas' retort.

"Always room for Gilbert and Sullivan."

Dr. Chakwas injected Verana via needle and then pressed a cotton ball against her skin where the needle had gone in (Verana had to remove one of her gauntlets and roll up her sleeve for the needle). As Dr. Chakwas' back was turned, Verana leaned over and grabbed a bandage. By the time Chakwas had turned back to Verana with one in hand, the soldier had already secured it to her skin and rolled her sleeve down.

"I suppose I should have remembered that you like doing things yourself," the old doctor sighed. "Very well. You're free to wander again."

The blue-clad soldier nodded to Chakwas and slipped her gauntlet back on, leaving the med-bay. Mordin stayed a while longer to hear a more detailed response from Chakwas for his formula before he returned to his lab.

He heard a sound, faint at first, but when he focused on it, it became louder. He looked to where the sound was coming from and saw a small radio system. Wondering who could have left it there, Mordin picked it up and examined the songs in them. All Gilbert and Sullivan.

The salarian shook his head, but turned the volume up nonetheless.

_/-\_

The drell assassin Thane Krios was no stranger to silence. Many of his contracts had depended on such a thing, and so he became an expert at it. He also, within the first few hours of his arrival on the Normandy, managed to figure out what each and every gesture that Verana Hidparkas made.

So it wasn't uncommon that Verana would enter the drell's life-support sanctuary and have private, wordless conversations with him. Thane found that he enjoyed the conversations. He'd voice a question, and she'd mostly give him vague answers, but she was always honest.

Thane put his scaly hands on the table. "So, Verana... Where are you from?" The human soldier made a few quick gestures. "Earth?" She nodded. "Any cities I know?" She shook her head and made another gesture. "Small? Ah, a small place on Earth. Did you stay there long?" Again, she shook her head, and then made some wild gestures that Thane needed to take a moment to interpret. "Ah. The turians? So you went to Palaven for a time?"

Thane brought his hands up to his head and rested it in his palms as Verana went on to explain (vaguely) about herself. She'd been born on Earth, was raised by her father on Palaven, but she spent a lot of time amongst many different species'. She'd only really heard stories about drells and hadn't come across them much. Thane wasn't surprised; his kind were elusive.

The drell nodded and contributed to their conversation where necessary. He had been enjoying their time together when the door to the med-bay slid open. Thane saw that it was Commander Shepard. No doubt she had come to speak about the mission where they pursued Kolyat, his son.

Verana got up immediately and left the room before Shepard could open her mouth to apologize for interrupting them. Thane guessed that the younger soldier was uncomfortable around her superior officer. They both watched her go.

When the door closed, Shepard pointed at it. "I don't think she likes me."

"I think she just doesn't know how to act around you," Thane offered. "She's likely more used to having turians bark orders at her."

"That'd explain why she listens to Garrus," Shepard grumbled. "Wait, what do you mean by that?"

"She just told me that she spent a lot of time on Palaven, after her birth on Earth."

"Ooh..."

Thane invited the Commander to sit down, which she did. As he suspected, the topic went to Kolyat. But Thane's mind wondered why a human would be trained by turians, and what her parents must have thought about it. Maybe he'd ask, next time.

_/-\_

Jacob Taylor couldn't stand waiting. Sure, he was patient, but it was ridiculous now. The suicide mission that the Illusive Man had tasked them with was steadily looming ever closer, and Shepard had put thousands of credits into upgrading the Normandy SR-2, even going so far as to take time out of their busy schedule to get some closure for the crew (himself included), but he wasn't sure if he could wait any longer.

Shaking his head, Jacob left the armoury in the CIC and took the elevator down to the mess, where he was certain some food could calm him down. He couldn't think of any other way around his impatience, and exercising would only rile him up more.

Sitting down with the food Mess Sergeant Gardner handed him, Jacob began his meal. He glanced into the window of the med-bay when he'd stopped for a drink and saw the blue-clad N7 operative, Verana Hidparkas, speaking with the geth named "Legion". Jacob eyed the two for a while, wondering what they could be talking about. After a time, Verana shook her head and her shoulders; she seemed to be laughing. Jacob was certain that the geth didn't really make many jokes. That was about as likely as EDI making jokes.

Verana shook the geth's hand and left the med-bay, nodding to Dr. Chakwas on her way out. Jacob racked his mind with things he knew about Verana, and came up with basically nothing. Even after talking to Miranda about the soldier he'd gotten no more answers. She walked up to the fridge and was eyeing the dextro foods when Gardner tapped her shoulder and handed her a plate of food; the same Jacob had.

Verana sat at the opposite end of the table than Jacob, rolled her Recon Hood up above her mouth and began eating. Jacob could confirm that she wasn't a robot now, and he did so readily. He peeked up at her while pretending to be immersed into his meal: her lips were curvy and full, her neck was slender for a soldier, and now that he knew the proportions of her neck, he concluded that her shoulders were slender too, as if she was more of an athlete than a soldier.

Jacob reprimanded himself for staring at her and went back to eating. She was a fast eater and finished before him, so she slid her Recon Hood back down, stood up and carried her plate to the sink. Gardner thanked her, and she nodded in return. Jacob watched her leave the mess, but she left him with something to think about.

At least it'd help his patience.

_/-\_

Jane's breath came out in rapid gasps as she sprinted away from the Collectors. She spun around for a moment to fire her pistol at the pursuing Collectors. Only a few went down, but the former Protheans were strong, and Jane realized that she was just wasting ammo.

The end run was the longest yet. Jane's lungs begged for air, but if she stopped, she'd be caught, and she'd die along with the Collector's. She wasn't going to die at the very end, with the Normandy in sight.

Garrus hopped into the ship first, followed by Tali. The platform crumbled as the Collector ship shook, the explosions beginning to start. In a panic, Jane pumped her legs harder. She heard a Collector behind her, coming closer. She wouldn't have enough time to spin around and shoot it in the face. Jane squeezed her eyes shut as she heard the Collector lunge for her—.

The Collector, milliseconds after Jane heard a gunshot, squealed in pain as it met its death throes. A sniper shot. Jane opened her eyes, expecting to see Garrus and his trusty sniper rifle, but she instead saw Verana, and the N7 soldier was reloading.

With newfound vigour, Jane scurried up the slope and launched herself over the gap, waving her arms to get some extra distance. She latched onto the floor of the Normandy's airlock, and Garrus pulled her up, bringing her close to him. She sighed in relief as the door closed, separating them from the former Protheans, and crumpled into Garrus' arms in exhaustion.

She opened her eyes slightly to look at the soldier, who holstered her sniper rifle onto her back. Jane smiled at Verana.

"Thanks," she said weakly.

Verana's eyes seemed to regard her behind her Recon Hood, and then she nodded. "Anytime," she replied curtly.

Commander Jane Shepard was looking forward to the sleep she'd get. Suicide mission? Bah. Everyone was alive, and the Collectors would be no more.

Joker would see that they all got away, safe and sound.

End of Part One