Title: For Science!
Disclaimer: All characters belong to Bioware.
A/N: My printer decided to forget it had the ability to print today and I ended up getting off track from my work and read some stories. :P
One thing led to another and BOOM I was on KMeme for the first time. I had steered clear of that site, mainly because I'm sure I would never leave. Never Ever. And, luckily, I saw this prompt which freed me from hours of reading and I ended up with this. Ah, I'm calling it a oneshot and calling it a day. Also, no beta.
KMeme Prompt: "I would like a story where FemShep is a scientist that [doesn't] want to be a soldier and feels like she is a lie. Would prefer FemShep/Liara."
Summary: Shepard will do anything for her love of science; too bad it hasn't done much for her. Just a short look at a Shepard whose passion doesn't lie with the gun clenched tight in her hands. KMeme prompt fill. Ended up with no real pairing, just hints at Shepard/Garrus.
"Careful," Shepard chided, almost absentmindedly as Mordin reached for the formic acid. "That's—"
Mordin quickly scoffed, "Not undergrad."
She smiled, looking up from her own mix of chemicals—a simple mix of toluene and hexanes—and rolled her eyes. "From the way you've been manhandling bottles, I wouldn't have guessed."
Mordin sent her a light glare, but was noticeably more careful after as he opened the small bottle and removed a half milliliter's worth of the toxic substance. He added it to his mix in a small reaction tube and hit the interface on the desk; the fabricators producing a stand with a small clamp that he secured the tube to. Once safely locked in place he hit a few more buttons, causing the space under the tube to warm, and set it reflux for an hour. Once the mix was popping erratically, Mordin looked over at her work and raised a salarian brow.
Shepard felt her cheeks heat.
"Every time I start something more time consuming I'm called away," she sighed as she reached for vial with a sample of Collector's tissue in it. "And then you take over and reading the results in your lab notes is a nightmare."
Pulling free the cork from the vial she placed it aside (sure she'll lose track of it in mere minutes) and used the blunt end of her spatula to cox the fresh piece of flesh out into a waiting beaker.
Shepard hit a few buttons on her side of the table and an orange dome appeared over the beaker with a hole at the top that quickly sealed itself once she poured her mix in.
Both her and Mordin jumped back at the loud, resonating pop and the harsh, sharp snap of the shattering of glass. The glass hit the doom, making the field flicker from the force and a bit of purple smoke wafted up from the black bits of burn flesh; swirling as it was trapped inside.
"Interesting," Mordin muttered as Shepard did a fist pump.
"That was awesome," she grinned out, rushing to write it down on her data pad.
"Unexpected. Although, Collector's genetically unstable. Direct contact to simple hydrocarbons disastrous." He then looked at his bubbling mix and smiled wide, clearly excited at the idea of what his more complex mixture would do. Shepard felt herself grow giddy at the thought.
Collector tissue was a completely foreign substance. No records to look up, or recorded experiments to look at; just what was in front of her.
And Mordin and she were more than happy dumping every known chemical in the universe on it for science.
It exploding was just a bonus.
"Commander Shepard," EDI chimed and Shepard felt her heart drop. "You are needed in the mess hall. Jack and Lawson are causing a scene."
Shepard held in a sigh. "On my way," she said as she gave a sad glance at Mordin's reaction. There was no way she would be done in an hour—not when dealing with them—and Mordin wouldn't be able to wait for her, as she knew the end product would be too unstable to last very long.
"Will record," Mordin said, understanding her sad look. "Will even repeat once you are free." She smiled at his attempt to cheer her up and gave his shoulder a pat as she passed.
One floor down and Shepard momentarily forgot about her melancholy as she took in the sight before her.
The place was a mess (ha, the mess was a mess, to be exact). Food everywhere, tables overturned, people cowering in fear, and Miranda and Jack being held back by Jacob and Garrus.
Jacob looked to be having a hard time holding Miranda back as he seemed unwilling to apply too much pressure to his hold on her. Garrus was having much more luck with Jack, as he wasn't one to hold back his strength in general, but Shepard knew the only reason the tall turian wasn't being flung back into a wall was that Jack was more interested in screaming every profanity in creation at the XO, who was uncharacteristically screaming back.
She was missing exploding Collector flesh for this?
Cerberus had been kind enough to outfit her with a form of biotics while they rebuilt her and, even though she still preferred her guns and tech to the sometimes spastic nature of her imitation biotics, she had still learned the few moves her body could handle from watching her biotic crewmates.
Throw was one of them.
Garrus and Jacob both pulled back the two women in panic as a table crashed between them. It broke from the force and, while she didn't mean to startle everyone so badly, she was pleased at the shocked silence that followed.
"Everyone," she said quietly, not bothering to raise her voice, "but Garrus, Jacob, and the two little girls, are dismissed." No one needed to be told twice as they fled the mess hall.
Jack was the first to move as she shook free of Garrus' hold with more force than needed. She faced the commander with a deep scowl and said, "You know what this bitch said—"
Shepard held up her hand. After Pragia, she knew how cruel Miranda could be with her words, and after dealing with Oriana, she knew Miranda just lacked the proper means to express herself. It was a shame, really, as both her and Jack were a lot alike, but it was the similarity they saw in each other that scared them.
Miranda saw in Jack all the hate and anger she's felt inside, and what could happen if she ever truly gave into them. And Jack saw Miranda as a dog on a leash, bowing down just so she wouldn't be fucked over, something she's probably thought of doing many times to spare herself the pain of fighting.
It was a shame, really.
Shepard sat on the only still upright table and placed her chin in her hand, causing all four occupants to give her looks of caution.
She sighed, a sad feeling welling up deep in her chest. Was it too much to ask for a moment to herself without her crew losing their minds?
Shepard closed her eyes and slowly opened them. "It seems impossible for you two to get along, but I have no intention of losing either of you from this mission. So here's how it's going to go; you're both going to clean this mess, no biotics, with me supervising. Then you're both going to go your separate ways. You'll never do missions together; you won't ever frequent the same floor of this ship at the same time. Miranda, you're barred from levels four and five, unless I'm with you. Jack, your barred from level three. I'll have a station set up down on level five next to the workout area for you to eat and you will use my private bathroom as you need."
She hated the idea of giving Jack free access to her room, as that woman tended to always accidently break something—as being gentle was for pussies, apparently—but it would have to do.
Jack looked annoyed for a moment, but shrugged before nodding her agreement. Garrus didn't seem to like the idea of the less than stable biotic having access to her room as well, but only sent her a questioning look that meant she would be hearing about it later in private.
Jacob, who had let go of Miranda during Shepard's little speech, seemed to look relieved, but Miranda looked livid.
"That's absurd, Shepard!" Miranda balked. "I'm XO of this ship and you can't possible block my access of it." She glared and Shepard found herself wondering how long she had been down there, and if it was still time to quickly wrap things up.
"I can and I did," Shepard said simply, not bothering to glare back. "Garrus, Jacob, you both may leave or stay and play babysitter with me. Jack, Miri, get to work."
Miranda's face deepened to a dark red and Shepard was sure the only reason Jack wasn't causing a fit was from how much she was clearly enjoying Miranda's reaction.
It took a bit more prompting, but soon both biotics were cleaning at opposite ends of the room. If they had worked together then they would have been done in an hour, but seeing how they stopped and glared when they ventured to close to each other, they took over two.
Jacob and chosen to leave at the start, after seeing Miranda wasn't about to lose her temper again, and Shepard was a little surprised when Garrus had sat himself down on the seat next to her. As she was still sitting on the table top, that gave her a rare moment to tower over her alien friend.
At first they just sat there, watching the women work, until Shepard's mind began to wander. Thinking of different test to run with the Collector flesh and if they could somehow use what knowledge they gained to their advantage in their fight against them.
Lost in thought, she was a little surprised to see she was fingering Garrus' fringe. He didn't seemed to mind, as he was looking at what looked like cannon specs on his omni-tool, so she didn't bother stopping.
She never noticed that his fringe was darker at the ends, near black were the rest of him was so pale. They were pointed at the ends, but rounded enough were it didn't hurt when she pressed the pads of her fingers to them.
His plates were smooth to the touch and Shepard didn't think twice when she leaned her weight down on him; lacing her arms around his neck and resting her chin on his head. He gave a gentle laugh and reached up and squeezed her hand before going back to his omni-tool.
Miranda and Jack gave her odd looks, and even once Jack tried to give her a playful glare, but for some reason Shepard just didn't have it in her today.
She was tired.
She wanted to say it was at her disappointment at being interrupted every time she so much as walked into the lab. And that every time she tried to sit down and read the latest news from the universe—something about an entire civilization that had uploaded their minds into a virtual reality and were now being set free, with the help of live volunteers willing to switch places with them—she had a stack of reports to do.
Shepard had thought, long ago, that she would spend her life in a lab, working on cures and medicines, but it turned out she was far better at taking a life than saving it.
You're more useful on the field, they all said as she could make any gun she touched dance. She was the fastest and strongest and most tactically thinking of her peers, but she wasn't the best when it came to what she loved. She was just never the smartest there.
So she resigned herself to her fate, surprising even herself as she excelled in it. She was a leader by nature and it was easy to say reassuring words to the masses, as she was always telling them to herself.
Yet, she was still a scientist at heart, and her armor would never fit as well a lab coat and goggles.
Would just never feel right against her skin.
And that was something she would always just grin and bare; just… just not today.