Disclaimer: Not mine.
"Better luck next time," said Aria, her customary smirk firmly in place as she sat back down, looking out into the crowds below.
Better luck next time. Shepard heard a gravelly voice say those words in her head. Wrex. But why does that have anything to do with Aria?
Being dead for two years hadn't helped her memory. She remembered all of the important things – like sentient machines bent on galaxy-wide destruction (and she wished she could forget that) - but personal stuff was hazy, which frustrated her to no end. As much as the Lazarus cell had tried, she had not come back completely whole.
Better luck next time, the voice taunted her.
Yeah, she wished she had better luck with her memory.
Shepard did remember a painfully slow elevator ride down to the garage on the original Normandy where most of her crew was stationed. She would talk to all of them, one at a time. Wrex would stand against the wall in the shadows and clean his gun, pretending not to eavesdrop on the conversations.
When she got to him, he didn't talk much. Then again, he was a Krogan. Various grunting noises made up a good chunk of his vocabulary. He wasn't really interested in talking about the genophage, but he didn't mind sharing his war stories –
War stories. Wrex fought an asari, a commando, that used to be his friend –
Aria said that wasn't the first Krogan she'd pissed off.
Wrex had gotten a note after he blew the merc base they fought in.
"The note said 'Better luck next time,'" she whispered, momentarily forgetting where she was.
The asari's head snapped back toward her, voice low as she asked, "What did you say, Shepard?"
The commander held her gaze. 'Sometimes you'd rather disappear than be forced to kill someone,' Aria had said. She hadn't been able to fully hide her remorseful expression. And seeing it flash across her face for a split second was more than enough for Shepard to throw caution to the wind when dealing with the queen of Omega and satisfy her curiosity.
"Aleena," she blurted out.
She had to give credit where it was due. T'loak had barely raised her eyebrows in shock before she recovered. "I don't know anyone important on Omega that goes by that name," she said in a clipped, icy tone. "If there was such a person, I'd have heard. Now if you'll excuse me, I have other business to attend to."
Shepard didn't buy any of that for a second. She didn't budge from her seat. "You said you'd been a mercenary," she said. A smirk to replace the one that had since disappeared from Aria's face had found a place on her lips. "Does the name Urdnot Wrex mean anything to you?"
I'd read the Mass Effect wiki about the speculation surrounding Aria being Aleena, and thought it was really cool. Let me know what you think :)
To be continued.