A life on the extranet is not worth living, but there's a lot to catch up on if you've been dead a while.
Shepard refilled her glass to the brim of Elasa: the only substance that seemed to have any impact on her in this life-time. The sharp burn on her tongue, down her throat and in her stomach was pleasantly welcome. Anything else barely touched the sides – Liquid, solid, emotion, or a punch to the gut all just reinforced the feeling that she was now nothing more than a talking tin can.
She used to hate the taste and particularly the smell, but she had beaten her senses into submission. She now hated the depressive, conflicted cliché she had become, as she drank the spirit while consuming endless articles, videos and reports on the past. That the Asari liquor was nicknamed Sorrow's Companion was gloomily appropriate.
With two years worth of news to review – most of it inane garbage and bickering politics that obscured the real threat – Shepard spent most of her downtime staring at a terminal screen in the Captain's cabin, aboard the sterile ship that claimed to be the real Normandy's successor.
She had been too emotional; too invested in what was her mental present, rather than the actual present, when the Normandy SR-II had been unveiled to her. When Shepard had woken up, it felt like only hours following seeing her ship torn to shrapnel. This new Normandy wasn't reality, but it felt more real to her than the odd, yet innately terrifying memory of being asphyxiated in a punctured suit as the Normandy fell into atmos.
To see that name painted on the hull of a shiny new ship briefly made the Normandy's destruction feel like a bad dream. They must have taken her approval as another successful hook into her reconstructed flesh.
Shepard now saw the ship as another puppet string, all carefully manufactured to keep her in place.
The woman, permanently clad in a white catsuit, who had been so rude to enter her cabin unbidden and interrupt her introspection, was not so much a puppet string – but the right hand of the puppet master.
Miranda declared her presence behind Shepard with a quick clearing of the throat.
"Shepard, I have an issue I'd like to discuss."
"By all means, invite yourself in," Shepard muttered, low enough for her words to be unclear but in a tone that was unmistakeable.
"Apologies for interrupting like this, but you weren't responding to comms and Yeoman Chambers wasn't clear on your position, so I thought I should check personally."
Chambers.
The worst tailor-made trap that Cerberus could produce. They must have known of Shepard's relationship with a subordinate and thought her inclinations an area to capitalise on, but they selected the wrong brand of wide-eyed innocence to float her stealth boat. Chambers couldn't make it much more obvious, due to the blatant flirtation on the their first introduction. Purveyor of pillow secrets would no doubt make Kelly more valuable to Cerberus than the faux-psychologist cover she was insisting upon.
Shepard shook her head slightly, took another sip of alcohol and silently ordered herself into a state of calm in which to deal with her second-in-command.
That silent order had become a pre-requisite when dealing with the majority of her Cerberus-employed crew, and it usually worked to the desired effect of not completely losing her mind.
Shepard suspected that her tenuous grip on calm may not hold.
"What can I do for you, Miranda?" she asked as she turned in her chair to face the woman.
"I wanted to discuss fire team assignments," Miranda said. "Specifically, why I haven't been on mission since first docking on Omega for the Professor."
"Thought I was in charge," Shepard said, folding her hands across her chest, as if that may repel anything that Miranda chose to say.
"Yes, but as your XO–" Miranda started.
"You're Cerberus' XO," Shepard countered calmly. "Technically the ships' XO. Not mine."
"Shepard, I don't see the useful distinction," Miranda said, her lips tightening. "But as the XO on this ship and an experienced officer, I can be–"
"You're not assigned because you're not," Shepard shrugged, cutting her off once more. The Commander had to admit she was getting a kick out of exploiting a chink in Miranda's armour, and expressing her own disdain for Miranda's position was deeply satisfying.
Miranda grunted, expressing her exasperation by raising hands in the air. "I came here to talk to you professionally. And if you'd let me explain I'd tell you it's essential that I see you in action so I can monitor your performance."
"Ooh, will I get graded?" Shepard asked, standing up and jamming her hands in her pockets. "What's the curve? Be good to know the standards the other zombies set before evaluation. Wanna ace it."
"It's important – it's my job, Shepard," Miranda said through gritted teeth, trying not to rise again to Shepard's ire.
"Yeah, and it's my life," Shepard retorted. "Not hooked up to your machines any more."
Miranda took a breath. She did not envision this conversation going as poorly. Shepard seemed to be itching for a battle, and Miranda was struggling not to give it to her. The stakes were too high to walk away and leave Shepard fighting an empty room.
The Illusive Man had enquired several times as to her consistently not being on Shepard's ground team. Miranda couldn't let him think communication had broken down, or that she'd lost Shepard's confidence – which would put the whole mission, and her position, at risk.
"Besides that, you could find that my abilities would make me a valuable part of the team. Right now you're going mostly with tech, which isn't as effective against the Collectors as biotics – and I just happen to have skills in both," Miranda set out, hoping to win Shepard over with sounds tactics.
By the roll of Shepard's eyes, Miranda knew she had failed.
"I go out with those that have my back," Shepard said dryly.
"'Have your back'? Are you serious? I made your 'back'!" Miranda couldn't hold back any longer. She was long past tolerating Shepard with a smile. "I made you!"
"Made me?" Shepard echoed. "Made me? Better get on the vid-com and tell that one to Captain Hannah Shepard on the SSV Orizaba cause she'll be glad to hear she doesn't have a bastard child dragging her legacy through the mud."
"Brittle bone and charred flesh. There wasn't even enough good meat on you for a pound of pyjak sausage," Miranda snapped back. "I pumped life into that corpse. I resurrected you. For all intents and purposes, I made you, Shepard."
"Haven't I expressed enough gratitude for scraping me off a planet face and remoulding me, plastic and metal, to do your Overlord's bidding?" Shepard laughed sarcastically. "Sincerely. Fucking thank you."
Miranda paused again, bowing her head and digging her fingernails into her hips. She had to calm this down.
"Shepard – is your problem with me? Or Cerberus, or the situation?" she asked tensely.
"I couldn't possibly choose just one," Shepard drawled, going down the few steps to the table where the bottle of Elasa was stationed.
Miranda looked at the level of the pale green spirit left and wondered how long the Commander had been working on it. She didn't seem that inebriated, beyond the volatility and argumentative nature there wasn't any slurring or staggering. She wondered how often the Commander drank. And if this was more hidden than she knew.
"I've always said if you had questions or concerns that I'm here," Miranda said softly, watching the Commander refill her glass. She watched Shepard's face after taking a gulp: she didn't look like she was enjoying it at all.
"It's my second drink, if you're curious," Shepard said loudly, aware that Miranda was staring at her and supposing what she may be thinking.
It was indeed her second drink and while the alcohol may have dared to disrupt her internal filter, it was the months and the missions with Cerberus that had eroded the filter in the first place.
"I don't know what you did to me. What you remade me as. I have to live with being here this way, but I don't have to like it," Shepard replied, staring straight into her glass.
Brilliant Shepard, just adds to your reluctant martyr cult persona, Miranda thought. She was only half sure that she hadn't uttered it aloud.
"I can't trust my own body – Do you have any idea how bizarre that is?"
Miranda tried to appreciate what Shepard was saying, but struggled as she knew what Shepard's insides looked like and was completely assured of the quality of her work. Of course, she had missed Shepard's point.
"Have you to thank for that," Shepard said, the venom dripping from the false gratitude.
"There's nothing wrong–"
"And that voice – I hate your voice. I – just – anything –" Shepard spat erratically, her hand suddenly raised and closed to make a tight fist, just grazing Miranda's cheek.
Miranda bit her tongue, quite literally, and closed off her throat. She didn't dare breathe until she had explored all contingencies for how to handle this.
Miranda was intelligent, but not intelligent enough to calculate how to diffuse the situation while anticipating how this erratic Shepard may react before she needed to draw breath again.
The Commander's green eyes dared her to speak. Instead, Miranda exhaled wordlessly, which just invited Shepard to continue.
"That voice woke me up. To this. Brought me back. For this."
The fist Shepard had so tightly clenched struck swiftly to the right, away from Miranda's head, and into the fish aquarium. Fish of all colours and sizes scattered immediately.
When Shepard withdraw her hand, the tiniest crack appeared on the reinforced glass tank.
Maintenance required on outer glass. Service has been requested from the your nearest Space Fish team, the VI chirped.
"You want gratitude for servitude. For slavery," Shepard said in a low voice. She stepped back from Miranda, and recoiled from her own destructive actions. But she wasn't done speaking. "To be despised and suspected by my own. To recruit thieves, gang leaders and assassins on a ship that they made like the Normandy to fool me into forgetting that I work for a racists."
"Shepard, we're not racists–"
"Many other mixed race ships out there?" Shepard asked, subconsciously rubbing her knuckles with the palm of her other hand. "Another trick to sate me."
"We've tried to get the best team we can for the Collectors," Miranda reasoned.
"And it's just a coincidence that they all come with a questionable résumé, I suppose. Who else would take buckets of credits from terrorists?"
"And we're not terrorists," Miranda said, suppressing an exasperated sigh.
"Miranda – I've seen it. I've seen the inhumane and abhorrent experiments. Militarising the Rachni and Thorian creepers. And Akuze… Tell me you know about Akuze."
Miranda made sure that not a muscle twitched in response. Of course she knew about Akuze. Or she knew what she'd been told.
"Cerberus planted a distress beacon to lure an Alliance team to a Thresher Maw nest. They were massacred. And they killed a Rear Admiral to cover it up," Shepard said darkly, remembering Kahoku's lifeless body. "Who the fuck does that? Uses a call for help to kill responders?"
"Shepard, that was a rogue cell–"
"Hell it was," Shepard snorted. "I was at those installations – the credits and the resources it takes to get Rachni from Noveria and Creepers from Feros. I got a call from someone in Cerberus command trying to bribe me. Voice was masked so it could have been you."
"It wasn't," Miranda said, her jaw tightening.
"Too much of a company girl to question the line," Shepard said, advancing again menacingly. "I don't know if they're so far in your head that you don't notice, or they have too much over you that you don't dare look at the blood on your hands. You've been at the Illusive Man's side, servicing his ego while he slaughtered for the 'sake of humanity'–"
Not only did the words repulse and revolt her but they taunted; and Miranda saw Shepard's fist clench once again. Miranda's trained instincts took over – She formed a fist of her own and swung it into the Commander's gut.
As Shepard staggered backwards, Miranda knew she had allowed panic to make a serious error in judgement, which was uncommon for her.
"Shepard, I'm sor–"
Without chance to finish her apology, Shepard had floored Miranda with a biotic Pull, yanking her off her feet and dumping her to ground, shoulder first.
As the sharp pain spiked through her shoulder blade straight through to her fingertips, Miranda lifted her hand with outstretched palm towards the Commander – to send a Slam her way.
Shepard rose higher in the air, just dangling over her bed. Miranda closed her fist, bringing the Commander hurtling back down, cracking her back off the frame and onto the floor at the far side of the bed. A painful groan could be heard from the other side.
Miranda pulled herself to her feet, to gain sight of Shepard on the floor and to ready herself for the next blow, even as she called for a ceasefire.
"Shepard, stop!"
But Shepard had already launched into another attack and closed the short distance with a Charge.
When Shepard's body collided with hers, it sent them both crashing back into the aquarium. That tiny crack was the weakness that caused the glass to shatter in shards around them. As they both fell to the floor, cascades of water and fish tumbled over them.
Miranda forced Shepard off her with a hard elbow to the eye, and then turned on her side to survive to the deluge of water from above. She was vaguely aware of the aquarium VI chirping another message, this one proclaiming the situation critical and need for urgent maintenance. That much was obvious, she thought.
Barely pausing for breath, Shepard leapt back on top of Miranda. The broken glass crunched underneath her kneecaps. And Shepard's hands went straight for Miranda's throat.
"If there was a kill switch, or a control switch, how close to death do you think you would let yourself get before you gave the game away?" Shepard growled, her arms shaking with the tension of her own restraint, not letting the strength past the wrist through to the fingers.
Though Miranda could feel the pressure on her windpipe, she wasn't constricted enough to lose breath – just be absolutely sure that she was at Shepard's mercy. Her own hands remained free, should she need to attempt to prise Shepard's hands from her throat. For now, she feared doing so would escalate the situation and cause Shepard to tighten her grip around her larynx. Pushing her was not what she wanted to do, especially as the entire point as far as Miranda was concerned was the illusion of Shepard's control.
Beyond the strategy and the game theory, Miranda looked into Shepard's eyes and knew that control what was she needed because the Commander felt she had none. Everything had spiralled so dramatically, and these hands around her throat were just trying to gain grip on something. As much as Miranda tried to keep herself calm and wait for her opening, a part of her was unnerved by Shepard's unpredictability.
She knew the insides were rebuilt right, but the brain was another area entirely. Field stress testing had been the only agreed upon method once Miranda had to wake Shepard in the midst of the station coup. The Illusive Man thought throwing Shepard directly into the fight against the Collectors would be most productive, where the only correct response as he saw it would be for her to engage fully with them in the face of this foe. The severity of the situation had forced Shepard's hand – and her back into the field quicker than Miranda had planned in their original time-line. The Commander was an exceptional woman, but in her resurrection Miranda was God – and the Cerberus officer had feared this critical failure since the project began.
Miranda remained still, and maintained eye contact with Shepard. As she explored further, Miranda determined this wasn't science gone wrong, but a human on the edge in desperation.
Shepard didn't like that Miranda lay as still as a corpse. It felt unnatural in a fight. She should be battling for her life, not leaving the end up to Shepard alone. Shepard had threatened her death with her words, and still the woman remained motionless. Apart from her eyes, which were patiently waiting and almost… understanding. This felt wrong.
If Shepard pushed, maybe she would find that kill switch. She bet it would be so quick that she wouldn't feel it. Not like being strangled to death, or asphyxiated in the black of space. Like a light going off, or a mech powering down.
She just had to squeeze.
She didn't want kill Miranda. Well, she didn't want to murder her.
No. She didn't want to kill her.
Shepard slackened her grip, which all too suddenly let her guard down. Miranda broke free with a full body surge that landed on Shepard as a head-butt, knocking her back.
Miranda flipped their positions, Shepard with her back on broken glass and Miranda as the aggressor.
As Miranda grabbed Shepard's left wrist to pin to the ground, Shepard took hold of Miranda's left wrist to push back in the air. There they were, mirror image of restraint, each tightening their grip on the wrist they controlled. Almost like dancing.
In the struggle, pushing back, pushing down, attempting to twist the other wrist free – it all began to feel that the whole situation had gone well past the point of meaning.
The grip stayed tight on each respective wrist, but the urgency was gone. The silence that followed was both awkward and sedating. The longer the pause, the more at ease each felt with the status quo; but the longer the gap before anyone speaking, the more important the next words became.
"I think we're a pair of bloody idiots," Miranda said eventually, with a small smile.
"I think I'm a broken mech and you're a terrorist drone," Shepard replied. "But idiots all the same."
As Miranda laughed, the water shook from her damp hair onto Shepard's heated face. The echoes of laughter felt good in Miranda's gut and helped un-spool the tension within her.
"You maybe want to get off me now?" Shepard asked tentatively.
"I'm not letting go first," Miranda said.
"Neither am I."
As uncomfortable as Shepard felt – broken glass in her skin, soaked to the bone and she was sure she was lying on a dead fish – it started to feel strangely comfortable.
Shepard had a realisation that startled her. This was as much, and as close contact that she'd had with another since she came back. It's odd to think how rare it is to have flesh touch with another; and when she did she found it to be an incredibly solemn and lonely thought. The warmth on her wrist, and weight compressing her body was bizarrely reassuringly. Yet somewhat thrilling.
"Shepard, you're not a mech. Or a zombie. There's no kill switch or control button," Miranda said gently. "You're just you. I worked very hard to see to that. I promise."
"And you're perfect, so it would follow that I'm perfectly reformed," Shepard said dryly.
Miranda stopped short of letting her instinctual reply leave her lips when she realised how flirtatious it would sound. That's not what she actually wanted to say, was it? She was just getting swept away on a tide of witty repartee and wanted to impress, but not actually express that sort of notion? Surely. Unprofessional. Absolutely.
Miranda looked down at Shepard. The Commander's expression was inscrutable. It could either be confusion about the long pause, or confusion at having figured out what Miranda's next words would have been.
No. Impossible.
Miranda started to shiver as the cold from the water started to seep through. This chill suddenly highlighted where there was heat rising on both of their bodies. Miranda was now acutely aware of how she was positioned: straddled atop Shepard, directly over her groin and leaning down onto her.
"Are we OK?" Shepard ventured, hoping to break whatever deadlock Miranda and her mouth were struggling with.
"Yes," she nodded, with a casual shrug. "Just once in a while, take me out."
"Take you out?" Shepard repeated.
"On mission, Shepard," Miranda said firmly, her cheeks warming to give her a nice carmine tinged complexion. "On mission."
"I can hardly argue that I don't need any psychological evaluation," Shepard murmured.
"Me neither."
Miranda found herself staring at Shepard again, trying to analyse that mind through the green eyes. She knew every feature of Shepard, having spent over a thousand hours scrutinising every dent, curve and flaw to ensure that she was perfectly reconstructed as she was. She had thousands of pictures of the Commander, almost every known capture with which to compare.
From rebuilding to resurrection, the one feature Miranda didn't have control over was the eyes. She couldn't fabricate that sparkle, that glint of the Hero of the Citadel. That would only be evident when the Commander awoke again to life.
Staring into them was the easiest and the most rewarding part of Project Lazarus.
Miranda bit her lip and involuntarily tightened her grip on Shepard's wrist to pull herself back to reality. She felt the immediate need to withdraw from this beguiling and bizarre situation.
"Gonna get off you now."
"Yeah," Shepard exhaled sharply, pulling herself from her own thoughts. "That'd be great."
A/N - Wrote this while trying to rewrite SIO Chapter 25.
Sorry... Don't know what I was thinking...