A/N: We went to a carnival to watch some fireworks. I dunno.
It's chilly, though it's nothing she isn't used to. Honestly, she hardly notices it beneath her oversized sweater. Miranda begged her to wear something more professional. Shepard hadn't listened.
The cold isn't the problem. What's really distracting is the gravity, the weight of her feet, the pull on her calves. When was the last time she has touched down on Earth? Months ago. The arrival. The invasion. The first push.
She had been a different person then. Better even.
"I can't do this."
Shepard stops in the middle of the path. It's lined with trees and obscured by the dark and not at all how anyone had intended for her to make her grand entrance. Crickets sing around her and there is a bat in the sky and mosquitoes keep settling on her arms. She slaps one away.
"I don't want to."
Miranda stands beside her, silent. She doesn't argue the claim and shifts her weight to her right leg, glancing at the ground. There is only dirt beneath them though they travel through a field, the grass worn away by the hundreds of families that had been plodding through it all day. She lets Shepard make the call that, frankly, they both knew she was going to from the very beginning.
"I can't do this," Shepard repeats to fresh ears as soon as the connection is made.
There is a long pause on the other side of the line. Miranda imagines the panic that must be settling, the horror. Already Shepard was late, and now this. She thinks she might even be able to hear a dozen hearts actually drop, all the way from here.
"R-really?"
She can't help but smile, even as her chest tightens with pity.
"Really," Shepard replies, solemn and steadfast. It's her way of late, she has apparently lost all others.
Miranda's smile fades.
"I have to say, you are certainly putting me in a horrible situation."
"I know," Shepard admits, genuinely apologetic. She hesitates, debating the words that rest upon the tip of her tongue. They slip out along the crest of a sigh. "Once upon a time you put me in one too."
Again, silence.
"Fair enough."
The call ends.
They stand in the middle of the path, neither eager to take the lead in either direction. Just yards ahead they can hear the laughter and excitement. Lights flash over the trees, clouding the sky and obscuring the stars. There is music, nothing neither Shepard nor Miranda would ever be remotely interested in. It's pounding and exuberant and tasteless. Joyful.
"Rather harsh, no?" Miranda ventures, no accusations presented.
"He'll live," Shepard returns. Her eyes remain fixed on the sights that are just out of reach.
They hear it then, the muffled voice over a microphone, the disappointed rumble groaned out into the night. The news has clearly been delivered.
"We could go to Europe instead," Miranda half-jokes. "I hear in England they are giving away free balloons." She crosses her arms as the wind picks up and spends a good three seconds swirling playfully around them. "Or would you prefer another planet entirely?"
Though Shepard still can't seem to tear her eyes away from the lights, Miranda watches as her lips betray her amusement. The question isn't answered.
"Home then?" Miranda presses.
She has become quite accustomed to letting moments of quiet reflection play out of late, but tonight is a struggle. Their presence could be discovered at any moment, and she really isn't dressed for such weather. Best to move things along.
At last Shepard acknowledges her with a glance. "I wonder how many of them know your name," she muses.
"More than I would like I'm sure," Miranda returns without pause.
There has been an unfortunate amount of pictures circulating of late. Their secrets, which had been well kept, seem to be getting away from them. Still, Miranda has to admit that at least a year of relative anonymity was rather impressive given the attention on Shepard.
"Less than I'd hope," Shepard corrects, and Miranda grits her teeth.
Part of the action stems from her frustration in a conversation they have shared a thousand times too often, the rest because the wind has kicked up again, tossing a dozen leaves about between its biting fingers. She stands a little closer to Shepard.
There is a sudden uproar from the festivities. Again, there is a voice in the microphone. They strain to make out the words but fail to. Shepard frowns as she hears the crowd break out into laughter.
"They can't even see how selfish I am," she mutters softly.
Miranda is sure she is not supposed to answer.
She does.
"Because you're not."
There is a high whistle and then a resounding blast that echoes about them. They are showered in a purple flash before it quickly fades. Together they turn to face the spectacle as yet another rocket is sent skyward. Hundreds of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' float over the trees.
Shepard's nose crinkles up in disdain. Sulfur stings it. The bat is long gone and the crickets have stopped singing. The mosquitoes still attack, even through the thick material of her sweatshirt.
She swats another away.
They watch the entire display. Countless fireworks explode in the sky, fogging up the entire night in an ugly gray cloud.
"Sometimes I hate them for it," Shepard mumbles conversationally as a burst of green cuts through the dark and rains down, "for having the audacity to make me want to save them no matter the cost."
The sparkling streams of lime sizzle and pop, crackling loudly before dissolving into haze.
A burst of red.
"I know."
A burst of white.
"Sometimes I hate you for it too."
A burst of blue.
"I know."
Complete chaos erupts as Miranda graciously accepts the apologetic smile Shepard turns to offer. Whistles, cheers, and applause overcome their senses as the ground rumbles and their bodies tremble with the grand finale that is set off. Dozens of fireworks take flight at a relentless pace, the brilliance of one masking the next.
The onslaught of contradicting colors is blinding and Shepard squints in the harsh light as she tugs her companion close. She tries desperately to focus on her, on the way their lips move together, even as deafening booms rattle their bones. Miranda makes it easier to stay in the present, to resist getting dragged back into running over uneven ground and diving past beams of molten lava and collapsing onto charred corpses.
Miranda makes it easier to rationalize impossible decisions.
They pull away as the explosions ebb, relaxing muscles they had not realized they had tensed. The applause seems even louder then, which Shepard finds trouble accepting as a possibility. She turns to face the lights again, squinting as though she can somehow make out the celebration even through the distance and mask of trees. Miranda mimics her actions, linking her arm through Shepard's as a breeze bites at her legs. It is also high in the air, whisking away the smog left behind by the show to be someone else's eyesore.
Shepard's gaze shifts towards the empty sky. "Maybe I'll call Joker tomorrow."
Miranda lets her head rest against Shepard's shoulder. "I think EDI would like that."
"Yeah, she probably would," Shepard agrees.
Miranda smiles softly in the dark, humming as she shifts closer. It's warmer like that, their bodies pressed so close.
"It's been ages and I'm still stuck where I was."
"A year is not so long in the grand scheme of things."
"Maybe not." The words are insincere and full of doubt. "How do you go about forgiving yourself?"
Miranda closes her eyes and Henry Lawson bursts out of some insignificant window she'll never see again in a shower of glass and blood. She opens them.
"I'm still working on the formula."
The crickets are chirping once more and Miranda knows her tone has betrayed too much. She pulls back a fraction of an inch, shields herself. Shepard lets her. She's too tired for prying, for forcing Miranda into uncomfortable conversation.
"Thank you," She feels compelled to offer as a substitute, for all she has been given. For two years and everything since. For a mind. For a body. For a love. For a trillion and six completely unfair and spontaneous therapy sessions.
For the millions that are sure to still come.
Miranda doesn't say 'you're welcome'. She never does. That would be acknowledging there is something that Shepard is right to be thanking her for.
She never did do well with genuine gratitude.
"I'm cold," she says instead.
"Right," Shepard allows through a laugh. "Let's get back before we're spotted."
Still linked, they turn and retreat through the field, away from the celebrating masses. The further they get, the more stars they see. Beyond them, millions of planets remain hidden from sight. Throughout them the anniversary is celebrated in a thousand different ways.
It's all rather revolting.
"So, 'no' to the balloons then?"
"'No' to the balloons."
A/N: Mind control, non consensual alterations, or genocide.
YUM