She's wandering past the shuttle bay, moving from task to task with the same focus she'd had since the age of seven when she hears a sound that doesn't belong. She doesn't have much experience with bars—or breakages, for that matter—but she knows the sound of splintering glass when she hears it. It's well into the night shift, and she can't hear the banter that marked the occasional game of poker between the crew she pretended not to know about. She's already moving to investigate when the first gunshot cracks through the air; she can hear the glass shatter, tinkling as it hits the floor.
She rounds the first Kodiak, wondering who decided to shoot bottles in what amounted to the middle of the night, and barely restrains her gasp of surprise when she sees the two figures, one turian, one human. The fact that Garrus Vakarian occasionally practices his aim by blowing bottles of turian brandy into useless shards doesn't really surprise her – it's the fact that Shepard is joining in. It was so out of character for the man, who if anything is more professional than she is, that she resorts to pinching herself, on the off chance that she's simply overexerted herself and is having a particularly weird dream.
She's about to say something—why, she doesn't know, but for some reason she wants to make her presence known—when she notices the silence. A silent Shepard is nothing new, and even Garrus is a lot quieter than his profile says he's supposed to be, but this silence wasn't just an absence of noise. It was… profound, like she's left the Normandy and walked into the middle of a papal inauguration.
She's often wondered exactly how the two of them learned to shoot. Insofar as it could actually be called shooting – in a hundred firefights, she doesn't think she's ever seen one of them miss. They worked in tandem, in sync; when they'd first encountered Garrus, Shepard's only response to the turian's query as to what he was doing on Omega was a simple 'There's no Shepard without Vakarian.'
It had only taken her a single battle to understand what he'd meant. The turian had only known Shepard for a year, hadn't fought alongside him in two and to say he was running on empty was like saying Shepard was 'a good shot', but as they rose in unison over a wall, replacing two different mercenaries' brains with tungsten bullets, the only way she could describe the way he fought at Shepard's side was that he belonged.
Looking on the sight before her, she thinks she understands how they'd become so skilled. It's in their quiet reverence, the way they handle their guns like precious stones, like children, in the dead of night when they don't think anyone's watching. It's the way they don't speak, pour all their considerable focus into hitting the target and nothing else. She'd been drilled in how to use a gun since she was ten, but she thinks she could have been born with one in hand and still never be as good as they are. Sometimes, she thinks the sniper's mantra of 'one shot, one kill' had been invented solely for them.
She thinks it's a little ridiculous, the way she's waxing lyrical about the two of them when they're shooting at beer bottles, but somehow the target doesn't do anything to break the moment. It somehow makes it more… right, just two friends—Garrus is the closest thing Shepard has to a friend, and it's only now she's beginning to understand why—relaxing, enjoying a little downtime together. It's a testament to both her life and theirs that they don't notice nor care for the discrepancy of using target practice as a leisure activity.
Another bottle explodes, opaque shards glinting in the artificial lights; it has split into pieces, two halves that disappear before her eyes in a piece of shooting she'll never forget. Garrus fired the first shot, but Shepard fired the second, the shot that he somehow deflected off one fragment and into the other. If he'd been anyone else, she might have called it a fluke, but she knows enough about Shepard to realise he never does anything by accident.
When she glances at him in stunned disbelief—she knew he was a good shot, but she didn't think that was humanly possible—the sight takes her breath away. His eyes are closed, Carnifex levelled like it's a part of his arm, and he's smiling. She was more than a little surprised when Harbinger didn't appear a few seconds later, bearing gold, frankincense and myrrh and proclaiming peace for all eternity.
She must have made some noise, a slight gasp, something, because suddenly his smile drops and his eyes open and the gun drops, and whoever she'd been watching vanishes, replaced by Commander Shepard, Special Tactics and Recon. The change is flawless; it's like the Shepard who practised trickshots on beer bottles never existed. She feels like an interloper; for the first time in her life since her father, she has a sense that she's somewhere she doesn't belong.
"Lawson. Hope we're not breaking any Cerberus protocols here."
Garrus' flanging voice breaks the silence, and she's had enough experience with him to know what his subharmonics sound like when he's being sarcastic. For the first time in four months, she feels a little ashamed for the way she's treated the crew. It's illogical, the protocols are there for a reason and Cerberus built the ship and brought Shepard back to life and they should be grateful, but that doesn't change how she feels right now. It's only when the turian looks at her a little quizzically—at least, she thinks it's quizzically—that she realises she hasn't answered yet. Shepard still hasn't spoken and she doesn't think he's going to.
She opens her mouth to start the lecture she swears she's given to one person or another at least five times before, but then she remembers the way Shepard smiled and the only thing that comes out is a mumbled almost-apology and she knows she sounds nothing like the way Operative Lawson is supposed to sound.
"Oh, no, no! What you're doing is perfectly fine. I'll just be… going now."
As she turns on her heel and leaves, perhaps a little faster than her usual, dignified stride, she realises it's the first time since she joined Cerberus that someone has driven her out of a room simply by looking at her. But for some reason, she's too nervous to care, and it's only when she hears the harsh crack of a pistol and another bottle shattering and breathes an unconscious sigh of relief that she realises she was worried her interruption might have made them stop.
The third time Kasumi catches her watching the contest, notes the way she smiles unconsciously whenever Shepard does and tells her she's got it bad, Miranda doesn't bother to deny it.