Morinth's Revenge

"Shepard, can you believe it has been so long since we were last here?" asked Samara, her arms folded with efficient pause before adding "I can scarcely believe it myself!"

I looked at her, then around at my personal quarters on the Normandy with the hope to indicate that I had been busy before her arrival. Meeting her gaze, I answered her; "You're surprised that it's been so long, after everything that we went through with the Reapers?" I queried, offering a solemn glimpse of amusement before regaining my composure.

"Well, a lot has changed since we last went to Omega." was all that she offered in reply. After a silence that stretched the room, with both of us lifting our lips as if to speak, only for nothing to come out, the faint sound of murmurs started to escape from Samara's lips.

"I will leave you to it, Commander, but I thought you should know that we will soon be arriving – and Joker has asked to speak to you"

"Dismissed" was all that I felt appropriate to say in that moment, although Samara didn't wait for me to finish the word before she swept out of the room – leaving me once again to the quiet confines of my personal quarters – sort of.

"Do you know how hard it is for a Turian to hide on que in such a small space? … I think I deserve a trophy for that performance" came Garrus' deep, lazy voice as his body gritted slowly from underneath the bed.

"World class performance" I smirked, "although I think you've probably damaged the bed".

"Never liked it that much anyway" was his quick reply, regaining his composure, brushing himself down and striding towards me.

I looked at him and felt myself loosen as he wrapped his arms around me. He was... Garrus. My Garrus. I kissed him and it felt right, regardless of the fact that I was human and he was Turian. He'd been there for me from the beginning, fighting for us to win. Never straying my side, even when I was working for Cerberus, an act of which had gained me few friends and many enemies.

"Were my ears acting up or did Samara seem strangely excited to be returning to Omega?"

Shaking my head, I smirked a little whilst looking up at him – impossible not to do when there is such a height difference between us - "Nah, that's her uninspired voice. It's not an Asari colony, those are the only ones that make her excited."

"I suppose you have to go talk to Joker, huh?"

"Back to the mission" I confirmed with a knowing sigh, placing a hand on his cheek and kissing the spot where he had been scarred years earlier. Those scars that first drove me wild, according to Garrus, although I had always argued that I had loved him before then.

I felt Garrus' face drop a little at talk of the mission; which surprised me, as Garrus had always been the member of her team most focused on the mission at hand, charging into battle with his guns at every opportunity that she gave him.

"What's wro-"

"Do you remember when we were fighting on Earth and we said that if we both survived the Reaper invasion, we'd retire somewhere tropical? Guess it's easy to say that at the time, not so easy to actually abandon people that ask for your help. There's always going to be a reason to stay and fight."

I smiled a little in memory of that conversation back on Earth. I remembered him talking about retiring somewhere tropical, maybe even finding out what a Human-Turian baby looked like. I remembered dismissing the idea, with Garrus telling me that I was merely worried that daddy's rifle collection would scare junior – and me joking that I was more afraid of him liking the idea. Two trained killers in the family was enough.

I remembered the conversation and how it made me feel. It didn't however change the fact that soon we'd be heading out to a mission.

I was a little lost for words as I unravelled myself from around his waist slowly and turned towards my armour locker. Whilst trailing my fingers along my battle armour, I focused my eyes away from him. Next to my armour stood the Cerberus Assault Armour that I had been wearing on the day that I told Garrus that I wanted to be more than friends. Not working for Cerberus, I had no need to wear it on the battlefield, but it still remained for the memories. I knew that if I turned to look at Garrus, I'd be able to see all too well the hurt in his face of my sudden demeanour. But we had a mission to focus on.

"The mission is what matters right now. We'll talk about this later Garrus" I said non-committal, then remained still until he turned to leave.

"Sure. Right. The mission. Sure thing, Commander".

I sighed a breath of relief as he exited my cabin. He must've sensed my avoidance of the subject and observed how quickly I backed away from the discussion, but I convinced myself that I couldn't be distracted, I hadn't become Commander Shepard by putting my personal life before my work. Garrus respected that – didn't he?

Suiting up for battle, my mind quickly turned to the mission at hand. Reports from Omega spoke of a gang of Blood Pack Pyros attempting to over-run Omega. Aria was fighting them off as best she could but had requested my help personally through my private terminal – and Aria wasn't someone that I particularly wanted to piss off. Besides, she had been a valuable war asset in the fight against the Reapers.

Stepping out onto the bridge, my eyes sought Joker. These past two years had been hard on him. If there were any way that I could've saved EDI – whilst still maintaining that the Reapers were destroyed – I knew that I would have done it. That didn't mean that I lived guilt-free. Before alerting him of my presence, I saw his vacant expression look over at the seat beside him – where EDI once sat.

"Joker. You wanted to see me? Why? Are we not cleared to land on Omega?"

My words were spoken with enough blunt force to stir him out of his thoughts, although immediately following there was a hesitation on his part, which made me fear that he had taken my inquisitive remarks as something aggressive.

I sought his eyes as he turned his chair to face me, although his face was guarded. A ghost of what it had been.

"Commander, when you were on Omega.. recruiting Samara... you said that Morinth was killed?"

"She was. I was there. I saw Samara kill her myself. We saw the body"

"That's what I thought Commander. Only.. when I attempted to get the Normandy cleared to land... she answered the call. Said that her mother was on board and she needed to speak to her. Said her name was Morinth. She wants to see you and Samara in Afterlife when we've touched down..."

I placed my fingers on the throbbing pain in my forehead, attempting to comprehend this information. That didn't make any sense at all. She was dead. I had seen Samara kill her – I had helped her. And this was years ago, there was no way that it was the same Morinth. Even if she could've been revived, why wait so long to seek revenge?

"Can I suggest you maybe not-go? She sounded really hacked off" Joker intervened, turning back to his controls. Shortly after, I could feel the weight of the Normandy under my feet start to descend.

"I should go. Prepare the crew. Have you told Samara?" the words had barely left my mouth before Joker tisked and gave a small reminiscent chuckle.

"Sure, as if I'm going to tell our homicidal Justicar that the daughter she killed might be wanting to repay her for mommy's love. Nope, I'll leave that one to you, Commander"

"Appreciate it" I smirked, glad to hear some remnant of humour was still intact between them. I started walking down from the bridge and towards the galaxy map.

The Normandy had been around Tropai in the Silean Nebula when I initially received the message and now we had reached the Omega Nebula, it was soon time to go in with the crew and scope out the facility for Blood Pack. However, Morinth was still spinning around in my head.

Morinth was an Ardat-Yakshi and knowing her killing streak, surely there would be more evidence of her presence on Omega. Then I remembered Liara speaking of how the Asari government were hesitant to disclose the Ardat-Yakshi monastery to us in a distress signal during the time we were fighting reapers. If Morinth had only traveled to Omega recently, had she fled to Illium or another asari colony, with the asari government covering up her existence? How many victims had she claimed since they believed her death in 2185?

There was a chance that this was all a ruse, a trick, using Morinth's name. But that led to more questions, for not many knew the details of their encounter with Morinth. Nor would anyone else have any reason to request the presence of myself and Samara. They were clearly expecting us to come armed.

Should I tell Samara?

Should I go meet Morinth in Afterlife, or ignore the request?