After The Battle

Jack blinked, brown eyes staring at the vid screen in front of her. Her body was rigid, every nerve in her body frozen as list after list of names ran up the holographic interface. She was standing in the shambled remains of an Alliance headquarters in London. After the Reapers fell, some weird red light utterly decimating them that came from the sky, Jack had made her way as fast as possible to the FOB. Bodies were strewn in the rubble streets, not all of them human or Reaper either. There were people riding out constantly on mako tanks and in kodiak shuttles to pick up the dead and wounded, but the biotic had ignored them the entire way.

Instead, she'd run on the last bits of energy she'd had through what was left of London, hardly anything of the city even looked recognizable anymore. As she went, Jack used the half destroyed Big Ben clock tower to find her way back to the base, most of the passages she'd taken earlier in the fighting to get to where she'd been collapsed or destroyed in some other way. One reason being, the giant reapers crashing out of the sky.

Sirens had rung through the city about five seconds after the wave of red light, echoing off the once glorious buildings and through the bloodied night. Jack had been forced into an underground shelter for about three hours before the all clears had been given, some really loud soldier screaming at her to take cover until she at last had. The sound of actual reapers falling dead was something that unlike everyone else in the hold was terrified of, wondering if they'd be crushed even twenty stories underground, had been like music to Jack. They'd won, they'd killed the machines, they were alive.

But as she'd waited for release, some medic tending to her immediate wounds, Jack's mind had drifted from the thrilling excitement of victory, to one person only. Miranda. Was she alive? Was she hurt and stranded out somewhere still in harm's way? The thoughts had turned from a stray curiosity to a storm of worry in Jack's mind, growing louder and stronger as the terrible three hours dragged along. Though she'd tried, her omni-tool wasn't able to call or message her down in the shelter, which only made her more agitated.

As soon as the sirens had ended, Jack had rushed up the stairwell to the surface and broken into a dead sprint. Her legs didn't stop until she was in what was left of the FOB, about fifty soldiers and officers mulling about trying to figure out just what had happened. It was then, that Jack had seen the first person carried in towards the morgue. The biotic had followed, silently as she caught her breath, until they led her to where more bodies than she could count were lined up one by one down a stretch of a street, rowing back and forth together. Those that had already been identified were in body bags, those that hadn't, were exposed for onlookers or the coroner.

Despite all the death Jack had seen, from those she'd witnessed passing by or caused with her own two hands, a pit had formed in the bottom of her stomach as she worked her way down the rows. Every face she stared at until she was certain she didn't recognize it, eyes keened for only one face in particular. There were a few women with raven long hair, but their faces were too heavily damaged for her to make out the rest, each one making Jack reel with worry. She kept telling herself over and over again she was just being stupid, that Miranda of all people would have survived because she was smart enough not to get herself killed, but that wasn't helping Jack feel much better.

After she'd checked every last face there was to check, Jack had made her way out to where a listing of the dead and missing was posted. Any soldiers, agents, or known civilians that hadn't reported in yet were listed as missing, and it was there that Jack was standing at frozen. Text with a bluish hue was running up at a slightly fast pace, hardly enough time for Jack to really catch the names as they went by. Once it hit the L's, her body really started to run cold.

"Lamberly, Langley, Laslo..." Jack muttered the last names as they went by. "Lat'ra.. Letyu." She paused, processing what she'd just read. "No Lawson," Jack whispered, taking a step back and letting other people rush towards the board to see. The pain in her chest lifted, and she felt a bit of hope run through her body. Even though it could have meant that Miranda just hadn't been reported missing or dead yet, she was going to be the optimist for a change and take it in good stride. Smiling despite the gloomy scene around her, Jack clenched a hand in a fist and started to laugh a bit.

There were some others celebrating the sudden death of the Reapers also, and as she started to laugh louder and louder until she sounded rather bad with euphoria, cheers and shouts joined in. Jack turned to these other Alliance soldiers, and held her hands up in the air in triumph. Instantly they started to jump around cheering as well. Some slapped each other's backs, danced, whooped and hollered and shouted out to the sky. One man tore off his helmet before throwing it down into the dirt, jumping up and shaking a fist happily in the air.

With the last bit of energy Jack could manage, her body flared with biotics, wrists flicking upwards to let off a burst of energy that sailed high into the sky before it detonated. It looked almost like a firework explosion, and she grinned from one ear to another as she watched it. As soon as it had faded back into the grey clouds that covered the night sky, Jack felt her head sway.

All the fighting she'd done caught up with her at last, and she trekked her way over to where she saw some lady in uniform handing out rations. Still not too used to the whole concept of rank and file, Jack cut in the line right up to the front, not bothering to look at who she'd just pissed off. It was an officer handing out the rations, blonde hair falling out of her messy ponytail.

"Here," the officer said, obviously not caring about the little infraction and holding out a meal-ready-to-eat package.

"I need double," Jack said, "biotic."

Nodding her head, the officer replied, "Right," she handed the package she'd been holding to the man behind Jack, and then pulled a blue MRE and handed it to Jack. "Here you are, damn good work today."

A half smile was offered back, Jack in a particularly cheery mood as the reality of dead Reapers started to settle in. She crossed over to a set of crates that were in a corner of the base, large metal walls and crumpling buildings around her that had made up the perimeter. There were a few pre-fab buildings that had been moved into the area at some point in the past, mostly the wounded being tended to inside or a sleeping quarter Jack could spot being made. Every muscle and bone in her body ached as she sat down, leaning against the cold container and taking in a long breath.

The thought of the Reapers finally being dead, the giant killing machines defeated at last, almost sounded too good to be true. She had no idea what that red light was, and no idea what had happened, but she wasn't going to ask questions. Sure, eventually, but right now she didn't give a damn if it meant she could stop fighting for a second and catch her breath.

Jack tore into the MRE, ripping open the package and shaking out was inside. It was military rations, made to last a god-awful amount of time and need no prep work at all, so she doubted it would taste good but she didn't care in the slightest if it gave her a bit of energy. She had already eaten half of a thick cracker thing when her omni-tool started to chirp on her wrist. Pausing for a second, she glanced down to see it was a message.

Hoping it was a certain raven haired woman finally letting her know she was alive, Jack opened it up. She'd managed to let her worry for Miranda subside once she'd not shown up on the roster, figuring that after everything she'd been through Lawson could keep herself alive a little bit longer, but as she pressed the accept button her heart started to race with worry.

It was Miranda, which made her smile instantly and let out a breath of relief, but as she let her eyes flicker down to the actual message, she felt her stomach plummet to her feet.

Help. Trapped under rubble. Getting bad. Old hotel.

"Shit!" Shouted Jack, jumping up from her crate and rushing towards the first engineer she saw. She looked around wildly, finding a small woman talking with some grunt and ran towards her. "You, fuck, can you trace who sent me this?" She demanded, grabbing the shocked woman by the shoulder and whirling her around.

"W-what?" Stammered the terrified woman, blue eyes bulging with alarm.

"I said can you fucking trace this!" Jack repeated with terrified annoyance. The feeling she had in her heart, a wrenching pain, made her want to run all the way out to Miranda and find her that instant, but she'd not have a single idea where to go. "There's someone trapped out on the damn battlefield, and she needs help now! Either you can do it, or I'll find some other egghead who can!"

"Yes!" The engineer said, obviously flustered, and reached towards Jack's omni-tool, "I'll need t-to see it." Jack quickly handed it over, and stood there, breathing down the engineer's back essentially as the small woman vigorously typed in keys and buttons until suddenly there was a different image on the screen. Jack narrowed her eyes, making out an old map of London with a blue pinging dot on it. "There, they s-should be in that a-area."

Jack quickly snagged it, bursting with too much energy to bother thanking the engineer and then raced to where she saw a kodiak shuttle. There were about five soldiers loading on, two of them medics, and one a pilot. "Wait!" Jack shouted, closing the distance before they could shut the door. "Shit hold it! I need your help!"

They paused, the pilot poking his square head out of the shuttle door that remained open. "Yeah? What with? We've gotta get to civilian evacs pronto miss, can't delay." He had to shout over the already purring engines, the shuttle floating about a half a foot in the air, sending blasts of warm wind in Jack's face as she rushed over.

"I have the location of someone who needs immediate rescue, she's trapped under some rubble, I can't get to her in time!"

The pilot nodded his head, and gestured for her to hop on board. "Where's she at?"

"Shit, I don't really know," muttered Jack as she cam aboard, zooming out of the map some to get a better look of the area. "Southwest of Big Ben by one and a half miles, some ugly ass hotel or something."

"All right," the pilot said as he began to make the ship lift off the ground, Jack grabbing a handle that was mounted on the ceiling of the shuttle, holding her other hand out towards him for a better look should he need it. Her mind was racing, thoughts and worries of Miranda consuming every last bit of it. "Got it, you should probably tell them we're coming," suggested the pilot.

Nodding her head mutely, Jack carefully made her way to the back of the shuttle and tried to call Miranda. It rang, several times, but she didn't pick it up. The medics and two escort soldiers could easily tell how much trouble the tattooed woman was in. Aside from the beating she'd gotten in the battle, she didn't look too worse for ware. It was the worry she could hardly keep off her face that gave it all away. As far as they could tell, Jack must have really cared for the person on the other side, because she was near hysterics.

"Dammit Cheerleader," quietly hissed Jack as the fourth call went dead, "Pick the fuck up already!"

The fifth call rang, Jack feeling her heart plummet down further and further as it went without a response. "There might be interference," suggested the female medic in the group, a sympathetic look across her pale face. "Whatever that red light was, killed the Reapers, I wouldn't be surprised if most forms of communication are down. That your friend got a message to you at all, is pretty impressive. When we land, there might be a better signal."

Jack looked up at her, hoping that there was more than just pity in her words. There was some confidence, so she nodded her head, but that didn't stop her from trying to call Miranda a few more times, each of which ended in vain. The messages she'd tried all ended up failing to send as well, making her swear up and down at the device until she shut it off and simply held onto a support pole to stay standing as the shuttle started to shake more.

"We're landing!" Called the pilot from up front, Jack nodding her head anxiously. Her stomach was twisting and churning as the shuttle hit the ground softly, the side doors opening on both sides and the five on foot rushed out while the pilot stayed inside.

They'd landed in a small clearing between what was most likely once a hotel parking lot. There was no sign of any tall building around though, a few crumpled piles of rubble that might have once been hotel lodging or stores around. With one sweep around, none of them were certain they were in the right place. Instantly Jack dialed up Miranda, her fingers cold in the night chill.

"Jack?" Came a strained voice, relief washing over the ex-convict as she heard the woman's accented voice come through broken static.

"Hey," she said a bit softly and then cleared her throat, "Where are you? I've brought some help," she said more firmly.

The sound of something shifting on the other side of the line came through before Miranda responded. "I was in a hotel fighting some husks when that light hit. They died, but next thing I knew things the sirens were going off and I couldn't get out in time. Some kind of space debris fell through and decimated most of the building. I think I'm in the basement, but the upper levels collapsed and... Jack my leg's.. it's broken."

The convict tensed at the pained admission, a fist clenching at her side as she tried not to react badly. She had to stay calm, think clearly, come up with a plan; Miranda couldn't afford for her not to. The other four were already spread out searching through the ruins, obviously they'd been actually trained for this sort of thing. "Look Miranda, I've got two medics, and two other soldiers here with me," she tried to be reassuring, "If you can give us a sign which one of these piles of shit you're under, we'll find you. I promise."

Miranda coughed violently on the other side, "I remember being in the southern most lodging," she said when she caught her breath, each wheezing gasp making Jack's chest ache. She wasn't used to feeling this way to another person but after Shepard's party on the Citadel a few weeks back, and them talking again, she'd realized just how much the ex-Cerberus operative meant to her. It was terrifying, but at the same time a part of her liked it, a lot.

She wasn't going to let some falling Reaper junk take that away from her, no way in hell.

"She's under that one!" Jack shouted, pointing at the rubble Miranda had indicated. Instantly the four others moved over there, both of the soldiers were biotics and began to lift rubble into the air and discard it to the side. Jack ran over to help despite being drained. Miranda started to cough worse below, "Just hold on Miranda," Jack urged firmly as she started to glow blue and purple.

With the other two biotics, and the medics poking around as they cleared more and more rubble, Jack started to see what might have been a basement once upon a time. The building had been rather tall before hand, lots of glass from several windows in the mix of destroyed furniture and broken framing. "Miranda!" Shouted Jack, "Can you fucking hear me dammit!"

"Only on the call," Miranda said, sounding like she was trying not to give away how much pain she was in.

"Damn, she's probably on the other side than," said one of the biotics, a taller man with red hair. The rubble before them was huge, and it felt like swimming in a pool of stone as they started to clear more and more, bodies straining with the effort. The biotic men seemed to have been less exhausted than Jack, and one glance at their armor told her they were a more support rather than assault class of biotics like she was. Probably did the same job her kids did for the war effort. Which meant that they were no where near as drained as she was.

Still though, Jack wasn't going to give up on Miranda and let someone else try. Gritting her teeth as sweat dripped off her brow, the woman reached her arms out and lifted one last large piece of rubble before she moved it to the side just about a foot away from the old lodging. Blue eyes were staring up at her, relief and pain awash a dirtied cream face. "Cheerleader!" Shouted Jack with euphoria, stumbling down to where she and the other two biotics had cleared the way, the medics right behind her.

Before she could stop herself, Jack tackled the wounded woman who was just as relieved to see her as well, bringing her into a fierce hug that soon had Miranda cringing. But no words of protest came so the tattooed woman gave it her all. When she pulled back, the medics having moved in to inspect Miranda, Jack stepped to the side and let them help her. Miranda was looking up at Jack with a gratitude she wasn't familiar with.

It was a gruesome scene they'd uncovered. The concrete had domed around Miranda, making Jack guess she'd saved herself from total crushing with the help biotics. She'd probably been using it nearly the entire time since she'd been trapped, and at least from the message time that was about two hours ago. Miranda's left leg was twisted in a very wrong way, both of the medics already giving it a look that said broken in several ways. There was a lot of blood around them too, but Miranda assured them they were from wounds she'd already tended to herself with omni-gel.

"You're alive," suddenly whispered Jack, as if it were unreal. "You're fucking alive..."

Miranda looked at her, a tender smile on her face, "Thanks to you Jack, I might not be otherwise" She spoke as gently and quietly as Jack did, either they didn't want the others to hear them or they just didn't have the strength to otherwise.

"Let's get her back to the base, we can move her properly to one of our makeshift hospitals afterwards," the female medic said, the other nodding his head in agreement. "Bring the stretcher!" Shouted the woman back to where the two biotics had been catching their breath.

Jack found herself holding Miranda's hand as they brought it down, and then carefully placed Miranda on it. The woman cringed in pain, taking in deep breaths as they adjusted her, trying not to make the discomfort too obvious. But Jack could tell, she was in hell. And that knowledge made her feel bad for the woman she cared for worse than not knowing.

As Miranda was carried onto the shuttle, the medics at her side once she was safely down, doing things that Jack didn't completely get but it looked like they were helping her. The woman medic pulled out a syringe and gave Miranda a shot that had her gasping for a moment before she drifted off into sleep. "A pain sedative," she explained before Jack could say a word. "She's lucky to have such a good friend."

Jack nodded her head, and then looked at Miranda's limp form, relief and exhaustion taking hold as she sat down besides her and closed her eyes. It had been one hell of a day. "What's your name?" She asked the medic.

"Rebecca Weaver."

"Jack," there was a momentary pause, "and thanks."

The sound of beeping filled the air, stirring Miranda from her groggy sleep to her new surroundings. She was in a hospital, of sorts. From what she could piece together with her head still muddy it was some old warehouse the Alliance had turned into a hospital for the time being. Moans of pain and dying echoed off the metal walls, a sticky heat in the warehouse.

Miranda shifted a bit where she lay, finding herself on a stretcher still but this one made to be carted rather than carried. She was also dressed in a simple gown and her left leg was raised above her head slightly, wrapped in bandages. Taking a few moments to piece together everything as the drugs wore off at last, Miranda spotted the machine that was reading her vitals to the side of her on the left. On the right, was Jack who was resting against the stretcher.

A smile grew across her face as she saw the sleeping biotic besides her, brown hair free from its ponytail and falling messily around her especially where it was still shaven. The smile on her face grew as she started to recall the look on Jack's face when she'd found her, and the worry in her voice over the call they'd shared. Somehow, Jack had really grown to care for her even if she wouldn't outwardly admit it. Lawson was just fine with it though, and was willing to let Jack move at whatever pace she though, it made her heart burn warm at the way Jack had been. It was kinda like out of those novels she liked to read in her small bit of downtime when she really needed to unwind. There was a small bit of her that wondered if it would end the same way too.

Suddenly Jack was shifting besides the stretcher, mumbling as she stirred to alertness. Jack stumbled to her feet, shaking her head to try to wake up faster. "Jack," Miranda said with a smile on her face.

Blinking, Jack stretched and nodded her head. "Hey Cheerleader, you look like shit," she smiled back after her eyes stopped blurring. "I guess we'll have to wait a bit to celebrate properly." Jack herself was bandaged and patched up, a wrap around her arm from where a husk had bit her. She had her jacket off, which only displayed more of the former criminal and her injuries to the raven haired Miranda. Miranda's blue eyes swept up the toned body of the biotic in front of her, striking her rather deeply at how much Jack had changed since she'd first met her.

What was once a rather caustic, violent and murderous criminal had somehow been transformed into a more grounded, mature, and sometimes kind woman. It wasn't just Jack who had changed though. Whenever Jack hung around her, Miranda could feel herself acting a bit different. She was more playful and would smile a lot more too, and when they flirted it made her blush or her heart soar.

She wasn't used to feeling these butterflies whenever Jack laughed, or the way one look from the other woman could steal her breath away when she gave it to her just right. After they'd finally met back up after the Reaper War had started, though they'd been separated often during the ensuing conflict, they'd started vid-comming and messaging one another. It was a whirlwind of talk and stories, Miranda listening to Jack go on with pride about her kids as she unwinded before bed. It was a huge risk with Cerberus hunting her down back then and the Reapers, but Lawson had found herself surprisingly willing to take it. Precautions were always taken, but somehow they'd managed to keep in touch enough for the feelings they'd half admitted before to manifest into something far more concrete.

Each time she'd tried to name it was difficult, Lawson not sure if she was even willing to go that route just yet. But trapped beneath that hotel, all she'd thought about was Jack, and if she was safe and alive and if she would come and rescue her. Miranda had always been capable of saving herself, and maybe she'd have eventually thought of something to get out of there, but the fact that Jack came so swiftly made her blink with awe. The smile that had grown across Jack's face, tender and concerned but optimistic, made Miranda smile in return.

Miranda shook her head with a laugh, messy black hair around her. "I suppose so," she agreed, "But I wouldn't object to something a little more low key."

Cocking an eyebrow curiously, Jack leaned in towards Miranda. "And what in the fuck is low key for you?" She cheekily asked, biting her lip.

Miranda reached out with both hands and leaned forward as far as she could. Lips smashed against one another, relief and joy mixing with the impassioned kiss. Neither of them wanted to pull back, but eventually Miranda did, and she smiled at Jack almost nervously. "You know, I never thought I would have someone care for me as much as you do," she said softly, hands cupped on her lap.

"Well how can you tell how much I care for you?" Jack asked curiously, almost shyly.

"The way you talked to me, your voice, your behavior, just everything Jack," Miranda replied, "the look on your face when you saved me, it's not something I can soon forget. I'm so very thankful that you feel like this to me, that somehow I've become worthy of it even."

"And...?"

Blue eyes looked up into browns, firm and certain but honest too. "And I feel the same," Miranda admitted.

Jack instantly pulled her back in for a kiss, the two of them ignoring the complaints of nearby wounded for them to get a room. "Good," Jack whispered huskily afterwards, "because the moment we can get out of here, your ass is mine."

A warm laugh escaped Miranda, relief from the war being over, from being rescued, and from being reunited with Jack for good, all putting her in an overly good mood. "I wouldn't want it any other way," she purred in Jack's ear.

AN: Happy birthday Amity!