A/N: First, more thanks than I could ever put into words to Gina and Ny, for being the fantastic people they are and going over my first MEBB story with a fine tooth comb, giving it so much attention that I could NEVER have expected from two people who aren't even IN the fandom! Second, thanks again to both of them for understanding when I chucked the whole thing out, started over (with the same basic premise of Arien Shepard, at least, just earlier in the timeline) and even though Gina never got to see this, she deserves as much beta credit for it as Nyruserra does. Thank you, both, so much!
MASSIVE props to mythicbeast, who saw the cracktastic idea for this story and said 'hey! I wanna illustrate that!' and spent god knows how many hours creating the gorgeous artwork you see before you. She's truly amazing and I'm so lucky to have gotten her.
Arien Shepard scrubbed her face with her palms. There was no way this mission was ever going to work. As if working with Cerberus wasn't bad enough...she sighed and rubbed her head in complete exhaustion.
She shouldn't be this tired. Hell, she'd just spent the past two years sleeping, for all intents and purposes (she was a little iffy on exactly when she went from dead to alive/asleep, anyway), but dammit, this was beyond exhausting. Even the comforting familiarity of Joker's presence in the cockpit (and damn, did he hate that word) couldn't compete with the utter wrongness of this entire situation.
She was sure (well, at least eighty percent sure) that any one of the wonky things happening right now could be handled on their own. It was just - the combination.
Take Cerberus, for example. Given what she knew about the Collectors from the Illusive Man (and she really had to come up with something better than that to call him), she could pretty much stomach working with Cerberus, at least until she could get the Council and the Alliance behind her. She could even go far enough to say that she might, maybe, owe them - just a little - for bringing her back from the dead, though that was debatable. At least dead, she wouldn't have had these problems. By itself, Cerberus was something she could handle.
An AI-infested Normandy re-creation - she could handle that on its own, too. Yeah, Joker might bitch and moan, but it had its advantages. If the damn thing weren't spying on her for Cerberus, she might not have any sort of problem with it at all, though she had a healthy respect and a mortal's natural fear of artificial intelligence. Besides, it was bound to keep Joker on his toes, and she was all for anything she could do to tweak his nose, just a little. He was cute when he was flustered. On its own, however, the AI was something she could take - even if it was a spy.
Miranda Lawson, by herself, was nothing Ari couldn't handle. Cocky, conceited and too damn comfortable in a catsuit, the woman was hell on high heels, but compared to Ari, she was still growing in her baby teeth. Ari knew that as perfect as Miranda thought she was, her biotics hadn't been proven in battle to the extent that her own had been; if it ever came down to war between them, Ari would wipe the floor with her. Again, another thing that, by itself, that wasn't such a big deal.
Coming back from the dead - she could even handle that - on its own, at least. Yeah, it was weird and there were those bizarre scars that hadn't healed yet and glowed with unnatural light, reminding her every time she looked in a mirror that she wasn't entirely human anymore, but she hadn't felt entirely human since she was sixteen, like she had a monster living inside her, so again, this was something that by itself, could be easily handled. Well, maybe not easily, she admitted to herself. Of everything, coming back from the dead might be the second most unsettling thing she had to deal with.
And the first...Ari scrubbed her face again and let out a sigh, grateful that she still had the captain's quarters to herself for privacy. The most unsettling thing, and perhaps the thing that made all of the rest so completely overwhelming, was him. She growled low in her throat. On one hand, she could almost - almost - understand the need for it - er - him. They were bringing her back from the dead, for the love of Ash's God. Growing a spare Shepard for parts would make sense, in a sick, twisted, Cerberus kind of way. But they hadn't gotten it right, and now, in this world, existing alongside her, was him. They hadn't even given him a name. He was currently holed up in what Miranda had thought was going to be her office/quarters (and how quickly Ari had set her straight on that - she'd created this mess, she could give up her quarters to it) reading through Earth literature to try and discover a name he felt summed up who he was.
She was tempted to throw it - him - out the airlock - and Miranda with him, if only because she was the one who'd grown the damn thing and should suffer the same fate it - he - did.
A clone - of sorts. And no one would tell her anything about him. He was her genetic twin, save for one little, bitty chromosome - how Miranda had missed that, she had no idea. The black hair, blue eyes, and light gold skin that on her had created an oval face with a pointed chin and a smattering of darker freckles across her nose had created in him a rugged, stunning combination of male attributes that honestly had her wondering if dragging him up to her cabin and having her way with him was just a glorified form of self-gratification, given that he was literally created from her. He was, to put it simply, gorgeous, and she would be lying if she didn't at least admit it.
And that was at least part of the problem. Every single female on the ship seemed to recognize how attractive her counterpart was - even Doc wasn't immune to his slow, easy smile. What really drove her nuts, though, wasn't that the female population of the Normandy was infatuated with it - him - whatever. She threw her hands up. What was really driving her completely round the bend was that Joker - steadfast, dependable, loyal Joker - couldn't even be counted on anymore.
Any time she'd tried to head up to the bridge (cockpit, whatever) to drop in and visit with him, the way she'd always done on the old Normandy, there it was. Leaning against the railing that separated Joker from the AI, laughing in its solid black armor, calmly ignoring the fact that he was stealing the one person on the ship she trusted from her, taking away her one safe haven.
Her omni-tool pinged with an incoming message, and she pulled up the display.
How about 'Anakin'?
It was from her duplicate, and she stared at it for a full minute before realizing he was asking her opinion on a name for himself. And when the realization sunk in, she stared for another five, just wondering if he really, truly appreciated all the implications that the name would carry. The original Star Wars movies might have been made over two centuries ago, but they'd been heavily protected by various copyrights by the Lucas family and by Disney, and it hadn't been until just before she'd died that there was even talk about rebooting them now that the patents, trademarks and copyrights were finally going to expire. They were some of the only true classic Earth films, and practically required viewing for anyone joining the Alliance space program - and her duplicate wanted to name himself after the villain who was redeemed in the end...she shook her head. She really needed to find out more about how he'd gone from a vat-grown (almost) clone to the powerhouse of military precision she knew him to be after their run on Freedom's Progress.
Why not Luke? she asked.
Too whiny. Besides, Anakin has a more interesting story. And Joker said it would give you apoplexy. She laughed at the immediate response.
You know, it's been historically noted that most viewers believe Anakin to be whinier than Luke, she typed. However, I'm inclined to agree with you. Fancy yourself a Chosen One, do you?
Not in the least. Honestly, I only watched them because Joker suggested we could be Ari and Ani Shepard and seemed appalled that I didn't know what it meant. I like it, though.
She read his response and sighed. Of course Joker was behind this. Those two were practically joined at the hip. Fine, she replied. I formally name you Anakin Shepard. Now go to bed, and yes that's an order. I'll need you rested when we get to Omega.
When the screen remained empty for another five minutes, she shut down the 'tool and headed for the bridge. Maybe now she could get in some time with her helmsman.
"Hey, Commander, I can't believe you're really going to let him name himself after the Dark Lord of the Sith!" Joker said as she walked up behind him, spinning his chair around to face her.
She smiled indulgently. "I thought it was your idea?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah, well, I thought it'd be funny, but I didn't expect you to go along with it," he muttered. She crossed over to where her duplicate - Anakin (oh gods that would take some getting used to) - usually leaned and assumed his familiar position of butt against the railing and arms crossed over the chest.
"What, did you suddenly realize that having a best friend named Ani will do nothing for your manly appeal?" she asked with a smirk.
He grinned. "You wound me. My manly appeal can handle having a friend named Ani - and if anyone wants to mock the name, I'll just remind them what happened to Vadar."
"You mean sacrificing himself to save his son and dying as a Jedi instead of a Sith?" she asked with a teasing grin. This is what she'd missed the past two days, knowing that Joker was right bloody there and not being able to talk to him.
He glared at her. "No, Commander Sarcastic, I meant that he turned all evil and killed everyone that came near him." He rolled his eyes.
"Kind of loses its bite when you have to explain it like that, doesn't it?" she teased, still grinning. As Joker started muttering under his breath about smart-assed commanders and stupid sith lords, she settled more comfortably against the railing and crossed her feet at the ankles.
Standing here, talking to Joker, like no time had passed, gave her faith. Maybe Anakin was a little overwhelming. Maybe Miranda thought she was running the show when really, the woman wasn't half quick enough to even keep up. Maybe she was working for Cerberus until she could get better allies. Maybe she had died and been resurrected. Standing here, none of that seemed insurmountable - even all stacked up together. She had the Normandy. She had Joker (and she hoped he knew that he wasn't getting away with that half-assed reason he'd given her earlier for why he'd joined Cerberus). She'd find the others, somehow. And she'd be whole again.
"Earth to Shepard," Joker called, pulling her attention back to him. She grinned down at her favorite pilot.
"Sorry," she said. "Look, why don't you let Patel take over for you. I'll need you awake and alert when I'm on the ground on Omega."
He nodded, and Ari headed back to her quarters, determined to get some rest.
Omega had been hell. No two ways about it. Ari stood under the pulsing water in her private shower and let the hot water run through her short, black hair. First that nightmare with Archangel - fighting her way across an entire bloody field of hired mercs only to find out that the legendary Archangel that had the merc bands of Omega up in arms was Garrus. Garrus, who'd needed her, once upon a time, before she'd died and come back to life with glowy scars and a psychotic, badass clone, to guide his moral compass, which seemed determined to point opposite hers no matter what. She could still see the blue-black of his blood, staining the floor below him, pooling on the floor of the shuttle that Patel had flown in almost immediately after she'd finished off that damned gunship, drip-dropping on the deck plating of the ship as they rushed him from the cargo bay to the medbay, where Chakwas was even now working on saving his life, mixing with the water that ran down her body in rivulets as she tried to wash the horrors of Omega off while she waited for some word on his condition.
Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe the clone, Anakin, wasn't the thing that would make everything else unbearable. Maybe it was knowing that twenty crewmen had died, including Pressley, when the Normandy had been blown to hell, not counting her, but somehow, her entire groundteam had survived - until she came back. Maybe, what broke her, would be finding them again, and watching them all die because she couldn't just stay the hell away.
Who would be next? she wondered as she struggled for air in the humid little shower. Her imagination was being cruel, and she could think of no way to stop it. She'd been too late on Freedom's Progress, too slow, and instead of that idiot, it had been Tali laying under the heavy foot of the YMIR mech, crushed until there was nothing left of her but a pulp. She'd find Ash again, only to see her taken by the Collectors - too slow, too stupid to see a trap that was as obvious as the scars running along her body. Wrex, her mountain of a krogan, stronger than anyone she'd ever met with a heart the size of the Attican Traverse, buried under a horde of husks as he futilely tried to throw them off with bright blasts of blue biotics. Liara, sweet, innocent, Liara, broken and bowed before the self-proclaimed Queen of Omega. There was nothing worse in her imagination for Kaidan than what had already become of him, and she closed her eyes against the burning sting. It should have been her on Virmire - barring that, there should have been some way to save them both. Cerberus had found a way to save her, why couldn't they have found one to save him?
As she dropped into the corner of the tiny cubicle, the hot water pounding around her, her knees slid up and she wrapped her arms around them, letting the sobs come, and Arien admitted to herself that she'd been lying, trying to keep herself from doing this very thing. There wasn't anything that could break her; she was already broken. She'd lost someone she'd cared about, maybe even loved, back on Virmire, and everything they learned after that - everything they did - seemed hollow. The Council was grateful enough that she'd stopped Saren and Sovereign, but she'd known, even before her death, that they didn't really believe that there were more like it, that Sovereign wasn't alone. They cheapened Kaidan's sacrifice with their refusal to admit the truth.
And then she'd died - she'd actually fucking died. Trying to wrap her mind around that while she was barely holding on by a thread, begging the Universe to let her keep her best friend, was impossible. She knew she couldn't ignore it forever. She'd been too slow, then, just like today. If she'd moved a little faster, maybe they both would have made it to the shuttle. Maybe she wouldn't have been so desperate to save Joker that she'd forgotten that the shuttles could be launched from inside. She'd just been so surprised - floored, even - to see the stars winking at her from the gaping hole in the CIC that she'd had to stop and stare, just for a few heartbeats. Those few heartbeats could have saved her life. Once she'd woken, and realized that by some miracle (or science, as it turned out) she wasn't dead, she wondered if that had actually been the trade - her life for his. Jacob had said that it was just servicemen and Pressley that hadn't made it, but she'd wondered. And then he'd shown up, all bow-legged swagger without crutches and carrying more bitterness than she remembered but with the same green eyes under a different ballcap and that same scruffy beard and that same damn smile that could make galaxies cry in sheer happiness if he ever deigned to actually bestow it on them - she'd almost started crying then, would have blamed it on seeing the new Normandy.
"Hey, Commander."
It's funny how clearly she could hear his voice, no matter what was going on.
"Think maybe you've been in there long enough, ma'am. Doc sent us up here to check on you."
She snapped her head back so quickly it smacked against the wall behind her. "Dammit!" she shouted, reaching up to rub the spot and glowering at the two men who'd somehow let themselves into her private quarters - hell, into her private head, at that.
"Flight Lieutenant, I hope you have a damn good reason for being in here," she growled, raising one eyebrow questioningly. She allowed herself a quick glance over at the other occupant of the tiny room and stifled a laugh when she saw that he was politely averting his eyes. Clearly Cerberus. The Alliance hadn't had a separate head for men and women for over a hundred years. You got real used to being comfortable naked around members of your crew, even if you were in command. You didn't have anything they hadn't seen before and wouldn't see every morning in the communal showers. Obviously there were no genetic memories of that floating around in Anakin's head.
Joker ignored her and reached over her head to turn off the water, pulling a towel off the shelf and dropping on the lid of the commode. "We'll wait for you in your quarters, Commander."
Anakin was still staring at a space on the wall above her head, and his eyes merely shifted to the floor as he left the room. She wanted to laugh, which, if she were willing to examine what had just happened, was probably a vast improvement. There were times - a certain cock of the head, a tilt of the lips, an emphasis or word use exactly the way she'd have done it - that she could tell without a doubt that regardless of the difference in their memories, the way that they were created, the different experiences that had shaped them into the people they were - she could tell he was created of the exact same genetic material she was. This, though - she allowed a small, weak chuckle to break through - this was all him. Almost perfect genetic clone or not, Anakin was definitely his own person.
And one obviously created by Cerberus. The thought came from the back of her traitorous mind, and she couldn't help but wonder what else they'd done recently. Still, it was worth remembering. Cerberus had been so focused on creating a pro-human organization that they'd forgotten to move forward with the rest of the human race. It was there in the little things; things that maybe didn't say much to the casual observer, but that spoke volumes of subtext. The gendered bathrooms were actually a really good example, she realized as she finally reached for the towel and started drying her dripping hair. She couldn't think of a place that still had them, anywhere she'd been. Not on Mindoir, when she'd been growing up, not on aunt Hannah's ships, nor on the various stations they'd been to - not even the Citadel had them. Even the original Normandy didn't have them. Humanity had sort of - evolved past that point. It hadn't been easy, of course, and there were incidents - she remembered that from her history lessons. Humanity had a violent history, and anything remotely resembling equality - be it racial equality, gender equality, sexual equality - there was always violence. But by the time humanity had found the first proof of alien life, down in the South Pole, equality had been, for the most part, achieved.
So, was it a meaningless, nostalgic gesture on Cerberus' part, a nod to bygone days - days that were probably better left in the past, to be sure, but still - or was it indicative of an underlying system of beliefs. While the rest of humanity evolved, spread out among the stars - even mated across species (something she knew Cerberus was definitely against), was Cerberus staunchly opposed to any form of forward evolution for equality? Did their human's first motto actually hearken back to something darker? She shook her head and ran her fingers through her damp hair, pushing it away from her face. She was probably overthinking this. Anakin's refusal to look at her could be something as simple as a discomfort with being her genetic clone to having never seen a naked woman before (though again, going back to the gendered heads, that would indicate that it wasn't just the Normandy that had them) to finding her scarring repulsive.
One thing she knew - until she could get better allies, she was stuck with Cerberus. And after Anakin's help with rescuing Garrus, she was pretty sure she was stuck with him, too. She wrapped the too-small towel around herself and smiled. She still wouldn't deny that he was attractive - well, no - attractive didn't even cover it - but somehow, in noticing all the little ways he reminded her of herself, she couldn't help but feel like he was family. Not a sibling. She'd had those. Two sisters, and no one, no matter how much she grew to like them, would ever replace Brittney and Amber. But, when she was little, before her family had split apart at the seams and her dad had lost contact with his brother, she'd had a cousin. John. There was an accident - she never did ask aunt Hannah for the details, but she could see it in her aunt's eyes sometimes. A certain way she'd say things, or a tilt of her head - she reminded her aunt of the son she'd lost. That's what Anakin was, in a way. He was a cousin - a genetically identical cousin. Family.
She smiled at that, a real smile, something she thought might break her face, because it stretched her scars in ways she hadn't felt yet, and she realized that she hadn't done this since she'd come back to life. It hurt, but it was a good hurt. The kind that let her know she was still human, underneath all the new tech. Definitely a good hurt.
Making sure the towel was tucked under her arms securely, she pressed the button beside her bathroom door and stepped into the frankly intimidating space that was her personal cabin. The empty fishtank that took up the majority of one wall seemed to mock her with its silently flowing greenery, and she wondered if it was worth the effort to pick up some fish to fill it. It seemed a waste to have all that space just - unused. But then, whose bright idea had it been to put a fishtank on a space ship anyway?
Someone cleared their throat from the sunken living area-cum-bedroom and she stepped away from the little office nook and down towards the lounges that formed an L shape in the corner. Anakin was reading something on a datapad, his head against the bulkhead behind him, and she smiled - it was probably Harry Potter. Joker had introduced him to more than just Star Wars so that he'd understand the 'Classics'. At the other end of the sofa, nearest her bed, looking perfectly at home and comfortable with his feet up on the table and his arms crossed over his chest was her helmsman.
"Doc says Garrus will be fine," he said before she could ask, and she was grateful. Anakin had been there, had seen that she and Garrus were friends, had conceptual knowledge that there was a bond between them, but Joker - Joker had been there from the beginning. He'd watched - well, mostly listened from the feed in her helmet - as Garrus had gone from the weary, jaded C-Sec officer to the hero who'd come to see that sometimes - most of the time - doing the right thing means doing the hard thing. The easy way is almost always the wrong way. She'd learned that from Hannah Shepard in the months after the death of her family on Mindoir. She'd been determined to pass that lesson along.
"Good," she said. "I know we're not here for a social call, boys. What's on your mind?" She smiled with that. She'd never known Joker to just drop into her cabin, and if Anakin wanted to talk to her, he was more likely to send a message to her omni-tool.
"Well, Doc said you looked pretty upset about Garrus," Joker started, but Anakin cut him off.
"We're supposed to make sure you don't try to kill yourself. 'It was damn near impossible to bring her back from the dead once, I don't fancy having to watch Miranda doing it again,' and I quote," he said. There was no malice in his words, and she could almost hear the perfect imitation of Doctor Chakwas in his tone.
She laughed. "Kill myself? Not likely. And since I already killed the bastard that took a rocket to his face, I'd say I've reached my quota for death and destruction for the day." She said it as lightly as possible, hoping that neither would mention that she'd been crying in her shower when they arrived.
Anakin opened his mouth, but Joker stood up, cutting him off. "Alright. See ya, Commander," he said, effectively stopping whatever highly insensitive thing was about to come out of the other man's mouth. Following behind Joker like a chastened puppy who didn't understand what it did wrong but was determined to never do it again, Anakin shot her a glance over his shoulder before the two of them were closed out by thesnick of the door.
Ari allowed herself a small smile, and a fleeting thought that those were her boys crossed her mind. One, a socially awkward and clueless lab creation that was still learning what it meant to be human, the other, a bitter man who hid his emotions behind a mask of sarcastic quips and deflective statements and she realized she wouldn't trade either of them. Joker didn't surprise her; she'd always had a soft spot for the wise-cracking helmsman and finding out that her stupidity in those final moments of her life hadn't killed him had been something of an absolution – that maybe just this once the Universe wouldn't punish her for being too slow, too stupid to do what needed doing. She couldn't save her family, she hadn't been able to save Kaidan, but at least she'd saved Joker. That was something. Her smile grew. Anakin was a surprise, however. When she'd first met the nameless clone, on the shuttle to Freedom's Progress, she'd been horrified. She'd wanted nothing to do with him. And now – she laughed – now he was family. Just another Shepard. The galaxy needed more of those.
She dressed and headed down to the conference room, ready to meet with the others for the mission debriefing.
The urge to put a hole in the wall behind the salarian was becoming stronger, and Ari wasn't sure how much longer she could resist it. A quick glance to her right showed her that Anakin had the same problem. Miranda, on her left, seemed to be fascinated by everything that the babbling scientist was saying, and not for the first time, Ari wished that the plague hadn't limited her choices on which of her teammates she could bring with her on this mission. Still, she decided, her hand reaching towards the pistol on her hip, if she had to choose human companions, Miranda was a damn sight better than Jacob or Zaeed. Jacob might be a biotic, but he was nowhere near as powerful as Miranda, and Zaeed was more of the 'shoot-first, ask-questions-never' type.
"Hey, Commander, you gonna shut him up anytime soon?" Joker asked from her earpiece, and she saw Miranda stiffen from the corner of her eye.
The other woman had made her opinion of Joker's quips in her earpiece known on their last mission, when they'd gone on their search for Archangel, and she'd told her then what she could do with it.
"I don't know, I thought I'd see how long it took him to run out of breath," she murmured, suddenly seeing the humor in the situation. Anakin snorted, and looked pointedly at her hand, which had nestled itself securely against the grip of her pistol.
She finally interrupted the scientist, Mordin Solus, and explained why they were there. And of course, he just couldn't say 'Of course, Shepard, whatever you need.' Oh, no. There was always some problem that needed fixing. In this case, a plague that needed curing – and a whole bunch of vorcha that needed killing. Her smile became feral; killing vorcha was definitely something she could do. Her day suddenly looked much brighter.
"Fifteen," she shouted, as she watched the head of another vorcha explode through her scope.
"Seventeen!" Anakin called back, from across the room, where a biotic charge had just knocked back a vorcha with a flamethrower that he wasted no time pumping full of rounds from his shotgun.
"You're both insane!" Miranda screamed, pulling a third from off a balcony above their heads and letting it fall to the ground before looking between them like they were lab experiments – which to her, Ari guessed they just might be.
"You're just mad because you haven't been keeping track!" Anakin yelled in her direction as he charged into another. "Eighteen!"
"Sixteen and seventeen!" Ari crowed, having managed to take out two snipers from the balconies.
"Krogan charging!" Miranda warned them, and Ari spared a glance for the mountain speeding up as it ran in their direction. Anakin already had his shotgun pointed at it, and was shooting and laughing as he fired round after round into the krogan's armor.
"Dammit, do I have to do everything myself?" Ari demanded, pulling out her own shotgun and adding her rounds to his.
Miranda ignored them both and pulled the krogan off its feet, walking over to where it lay stunned for the moment and putting several shots into its head. "Twenty-two," she said calmly, as they stared at her. Anakin whooped with laughter and charged into another vorcha, while Ari just shook her head.
"Now we're having fun," she said to Miranda, who had a faint blush on her cheeks as she ducked back into the cover they were sharing.
After the plague was cured and Mordin was safely aboard the Normandy, Ari decided to invite Miranda up to her quarters. She still wasn't sure what she thought of the woman – it was obvious that Miranda believed in Cerberus completely, but there had been times during the day's events when she could see that cracking, just a bit, maybe, but cracking. Of course, someone would have to be completely heartless to not be moved by the sight of that batarian dying of the plague – Ari hated batarians – she had since they'd raided her home and killed her family, and that hadn't changed when they'd raided Elysium and she'd been forced to defend the colony while on shore leave. But she'd been heartbroken for the dying batarian, so convinced that humans were behind the plague. It had been all she could to do stop herself from looking at Miranda and shouting that this is what Cerberus would do given half a chance, and she should know, she'd seen what they'd done. There was a list of planets she'd been to on her last galaxy-saving mission that were all Cerberus facilities gone horribly, horribly awry.
The door chiming pulled her from her thoughts and she granted the other woman access, a small smile cracking her face as Miranda all but rolled into the room. A line from an ancient vid she loved came back to her watching the other woman, and she almost laughed: like jello on springs. That was Miranda.
"You wanted to see me, Shepard?" There was wariness her voice, and Ari gestured towards the seating area.
"Get comfortable. And call me Ari. With two of us on board, saying Shepard might not work out so well," she added with a laugh. "And relax. It's not like the Headmaster's office. You're not in trouble," she said when she noticed Miranda was sitting upright and still on the comfortable sofa.
"What can I do for you, Shepard?" Miranda asked, still sitting perfectly erect, and Ari sighed. Earlier, she could have sworn that underneath that catsuit was a woman made of actual emotions and not a robot, but away from the euphoria of victory, apparently they were all business.
Arien crossed the room to her private stocks – she'd bought a few bottles of Serrice Ice brandy for the doctor and a few for herself, as well – it never hurt to lubricate a conversation, and she had a feeling that this one would require the equivalent of a fifty-five gallon drum of the lubricant. "Would you like a drink?" she asked, holding up the bottle for Miranda to inspect. One perfectly manicured eyebrow raised elegantly before she nodded.
Ari poured them both a healthy dram of the brandy and set the cut-crystal glasses on the table in front of them. Miranda had seated herself in the corner of one of the sofas, and Ari chose the other sofa, so that they were still sitting near enough for comfortable conversation, but each woman had her own space. Two stallions in a field, she thought dryly.
"I'd like to talk to you about Anakin, actually," she said, raising her glass to the other woman and taking a large swallow. Miranda did the same.
"What has he told you?" Miranda asked, settling herself into the corner of the sofa more comfortably, which Ari considered a victory, albeit a minor one.
"Not much. I'm not going to judge you, Miranda. You did what you thought needed to be done. I might not agree with it, but I know enough about Cerberus to recognize that this course of action was completely logical to them," she started, but the other woman's bitter laughter cut her off.
"Judge me? For something I didn't even know was happening?" she managed, and Ari could hear the waver in her voice.
"What do you mean? I thought you created him?" she asked slowly, setting her glass on the table.
Miranda drained her glass quickly and poured herself another before she answered. "I provided the genetic material. I even helped with some of the modifications they wanted done, but the project itself – I didn't know what it was for. It wasn't until about five months before you woke up that I even realized what had happened. They presented me with this fully grown person and said I could fix my own mistakes."
Ari studied Miranda before she answered, since the other woman didn't seem inclined to say anything else – her eyes were turned inward, as though she was lost in thought, and she drained her glass a second time. If what she was saying was true, someone else had created the clone – Anakin – and then foisted responsibility for him off on her when he turned out to be a 'mistake'.
She thought about how to phrase the next question. "I take it they didn't mean to create a male – no, scratch that – if they were growing him for parts, I'm sure they didn't," she muttered.
"Parts?" Miranda turned to her in surprise. "Oh, god, you really don't know, do you? He was supposed to be the solution in case I failed. If I couldn't bring you back, or if you were too damaged mentally when we brought you back, they wanted to have a clone of you to put in place. Lazarus was meant to bring you back to life. Echo was meant to replace you if Lazarus failed."
Ari tried to process that – her mind tried to wrap around the fact that they were going to create another Arien Shepard to live her life if she didn't make it – and then laughed. "Kind of funny that the backup plan failed and the long-shot didn't," she said, smiling at Miranda.
A third glass of brandy had made it into the other woman's hands, and she finished it off before smiling back. "I've often thought that, though I didn't intentionally sabotage their work – didn't even realize what it was they had me working on until they presented me with my 'failure'. Still, watching the two of you together, I find it hard to believe it was a failure, Shepard," she said the last a bit wistfully.
"I know when we first met, you were ready to kill us both and find some other way to stop the Collectors," Ari said softly. "I'm glad you didn't – beyond the obvious reasons, I mean. The three of us make a good team, Miranda. Throw Joker into the mix, watching our backs from the Normandy, and there's nothing we can't beat. If we had any idea how to go through the Omega-4 Relay, I'd do it now, with just the two of you at my back."
Miranda set the glass down on the table with a slight clink and stood up. Her face was relaxed into what Ari thought might be the most natural smile she'd ever seen from the other woman. "Thank you, Shepard. That means a lot to me. There's a lot about me you don't know, and I'm not ready to talk about, but knowing that you trust me at your back – it means more to me than you realize. I should go." She paused, as though she wasn't sure about what she wanted to say. "I enjoyed this. I'm not used to having friends, Shepard, but if I was, I imagine they'd be something like you. Which is, perhaps, why I've never had them before."
Arien laughed at that and saw the other woman to the door. They'd be at the Citadel soon, and she was ready to take on the Council, the Alliance, and the whole damn galaxy to stop the Collectors – and their masters. It was on.
Months later, walking through eerie hive-live halls, Joker's voice in her ear, Miranda on her left and Ani on her right, she had to admit that they'd all come a long way. She was grateful for her crew – her ground team was comprised of some of the most amazing individuals she'd ever met, and she'd somehow whipped them into a team – she still didn't know how she'd done that. And here they were, in the belly of the beast, Tali back at the ship with Joker and the rest of the crew, desperately working to fix the Normandy. Garrus holding down the fort with the rest of the ground team, keeping the Collectors off her ass, with Ani and Miranda at her sides, ready to take those bastards head-on and blow them to hell.
Bring it on.
Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck
She didn't know how much longer she could run. The base was going to blow any minute, there were husks coming out of the walls, literally it seemed, Miranda was limping from the beam that had fallen across her after the destruction of the human-Reaper, Ani was bleeding heavily from a wound in his shoulder and she was gasping for breath, throwing shockwaves ahead of them to try to keep the path clear of husks so they could just make it to the Normandy, where Joker was calling encouragements in her ear, urging her to just go a bit faster, to please make it, that she couldn't die again – at that she put on another burst of speed, throwing herself into a biotic charge that flung her into an approaching husk. She beat its skull with the butt of her gun while it was still stunned and kept running.
She burst into the brightness of the supernovas outside the base and blinked rapidly. There was the Normandy – and Joker with an assault rifle braced against his shoulder firing into the masses of Collectors and husks behind them.
"Move, move, move!" she shouted at Ani and Miranda, willing them to move faster, to get to the Normandy before the Collectors caught up to them.
She turned and threw another shockwave into the mass of creatures behind her, desperate to give the other two a chance to make it, and when she started her run for the Normandy again, she saw that both of them were panting heavily in the open airlock. Whatever happened next, at least they'd made it. Her team. Her family. The three of them standing there – it was enough to give her one last burst of speed, and she took a running leap towards the ship even as it started to pull away from the base or the base started to fall away from it, she couldn't tell.
And then she was falling, and the memories she'd never had of dying came back, in those endless moments of free fall. She remembered hitting the button on the shuttle and floating weightless in space as the old Normandy broke apart around her, realizing that her suit was rapidly losing oxygen and panicking as the planet's gravity took hold of her – and then nothing. Just falling – like right now – and then nothing. She waited for the nothing to take over again, when she felt a strong arm grab hers, stopping her free fall, and looked up to see blue eyes that were identical to hers.
"Don't you dare, Arien Elizabeth," he growled.
Miranda grabbed her other arm, and the two of them hoisted her into the airlock, where she gulped two grateful breaths before running after Joker to the bridge, knowing that everything would have been pointless, all of the efforts to get the ship flying again, keeping everyone alive during the fight on the base, all useless unless they could get back through the relay.
"Go, go, go," she murmured under her breath, one hand gently resting on Joker's shoulder and the other bracing herself on the railing between him and EDI. She could feel Ani and Miranda behind her, holding on for dear life as Joker weaved through debris trying to outrun the explosion – and there was the relay!
And with the familiar sensation of her stomach falling she felt the relay kick in, felt the mass effect fields grasp the ship in their power and fling them through space, warping reality around them until they exited the field on the other side, not too terribly far from Omega, where it had really all begun.
"Patch me in, Joker," she said. She watched his fingers fly over the displays in front of him and she marveled at the dexterity until he nodded up at her with a smile. "This is Shepard," she began, addressing the ship. "In case you couldn't tell by that spectacular bit of flying, we've just come back through the Omega-4 Relay. You owe yourselves and your team a round of applause. We couldn't have made it through this without each and every one of you. We'll be heading to the Citadel for repairs immediately, where we will take some much needed shore leave…"
She woke in the medbay.
"Ari?" a gruff voice asked after she tried to rid herself of a heavy weight on her right arm, and she looked over to see Joker's head, devoid of its ballcap, resting on her.
"That's Commander Ari to you, Flight Lieutenant," she said, realizing that her throat was dry and raspy.
"Yeah, well, next time try not to break my arm, Commander Ari," he grumbled. She raised an eyebrow at the half-asleep figure. Did he mean when she'd tossed him into the evac shuttle so long ago, or had something happened recently?
"You kind of snapped his arm when you passed out, Commander Ari," said someone from the next bed over, and she smiled. She recognized that voice.
"Passed out?" she asked, looking over at Anakin. He was propped up on pillows with his shoulder bandaged, and she vaguely remembered he'd been wounded.
"Yep, middle of your victory speech, too. Very impressive." He nodded in satisfaction, a grin creeping across his face.
"Now, now, Anakin, there's no need to tease Arien," Miranda said from the doorway. "Honestly, I leave for three minutes and the two of you both decide to wake up."
Ari watched her carefully as she limped slightly across the medbay. "Crew's on shore leave," Joker mumbled from somewhere around her right elbow. "You promised them, after all. Wasn't gonna break your promise – even though you broke my arm."
The other three laughed at that. She wondered if he knew he talked in his sleep. Ani and Miranda dropped into a quiet conversation and Ari looked around the medbay quietly. There was damage, even here, but nothing that couldn't be fixed. The Normandy would be whole again. She looked down at her elbow, where Joker's head shifted in his sleep, and then over to Miranda and Ani, and smiled. There they were, just like the Normandy. Damaged, a little battered, but still there. They would all be whole again.