A/N: So, second story on here. And I'm all nervous again, haha. I really hope no one's disappointed by the genre change. Happy reading:)

General Disclaimer:

The characters in this story don't belong to me – though I often wish they did – but are copyrighted to their respective owners so, let me make it clear that I will make no profits off of any of these stories. So, you know, please don't sue me.

Personal Disclaimer:

If you don't like Mass Effect, Miranda/(FEM!)Shepard, or girlxgirl in general than read no further.

You've been warned in an effort to save both your time and mine.

Oh, and just remember that there is a difference between a critical critique and a flame.

So, now that all of the unpleasantness is out of the way, please enjoy My Suicide Mission.

When I was handed the remains of one Commander Natasha Rowe Shepard it was no wonder I saw her as more of a personal challenge than a human being, considering she more closely resembled a melted lump of plastic than a person at the time.

Restoring every aspect of her to just the way it had been when she'd died: her looks, her memories, her very nature…all of these things ensured that the Lazarus Project would be a tremendously intricate task, one I would take from the Illusive Man's hands eagerly. I wouldn't do so because it was a quest to restore the great Commander Shepard, savior of the Citadel, but because I wanted to conquer the most difficult and comprehensive assignment anyone in Cerberus had ever undertaken. I wanted it, not because it was the right thing for the galaxy or for humanity, but to prove that I could accomplish what no one else would dare attempt.

During the months that followed, though I poured through endless personal files, Alliance debriefings, personnel reviews, and psych evaluations, Shepard was still little more than a project to me. An incredibly complex one, I grant you, but still, she wasn't a person in my eyes.

And then, something happened. I remember sitting at my desk just staring at the readout, suddenly and completely baffled by what I saw there. I knew what Shepard had done, of course, but it wasn't until that moment that it finally hit me how tremendous it had been. And, as the moments passed, I found myself wondering: how could one woman do so much? So quickly? So…well?

In the time it had taken me to read about her accomplishments, she'd saved the known universe and every sapient being in it. She'd assembled a multi-species crew, earned the loyalty of each and every member along the way, and completed countless death-defying missions culminating with her personally leading her team to Ilos from which there would, most likely, be few – if any – survivors. And, if that wasn't enough, she bloody saved them; all of them, if you discounted the pre-battle loss of Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko on Virmire.

I mean, really…it just wasn't possible. But…it was.

In a fit of pique, I tracked down every lead I could find, no matter how insignificant the connection might seem. I watched every interview, every mission debriefing, every promotion ceremony even. But none of it helped to explain why this woman, this one woman, was so damned special.

She was a child of the earthen slums, for god's sake; shuffled from home to home until she was thirteen when, according to what little I was able to find, she'd apparently had enough of the U.N.A.S.'s foster system and quickly lost herself in the streets of her native New York City.

By all accounts, however vague they were, for five years she ran with the Tenth Street Reds, aiding in the gang's rise whilst managing to keep herself surprisingly clean. She'd earned a reputation, and a fearsome one at that, but it hadn't extended beyond the streets themselves. She was never convicted, never caught, never even prosecuted; it seemed that, even then, she'd displayed the skillset that would ultimately lead to her being trained as an infiltrator.

It was only days after her eighteenth birthday that she restarted her life by enlisting in the Alliance military and once there? She blazed through their Special Forces training program as if it had been child's play, leaving a dozen new records in her wake and, if the rumors of her philandering nature were true, a trail of broken hearts as well.

At twenty-two, just four years after her enlistment, she was forced to put her considerable talents to use on Skyllian Verge colony of Elysium. Able to hold the line against the substantial offensive presented by the combination of batarian slavers and crime syndicates…it was no wonder the feat earned her an N7 recommendation. That's when the world started looking at her too; the highly regarded MVC proficiency ranking marked her as something far beyond the standard Alliance issue.

With that I finally had the how; Shepard was skilled, obviously, and she used those skills to her advantage, just as anyone who had them would. But I then found myself faced with a new query: why? I'd read and re-read every report on the Skyllian Blitz, looked over every eye-witness statement, dug up her personal debriefing even…but none of it explained why she hadn't just fought her way to a ship and taken off with as many of the colonists as she could. No one would have blamed her for it; she was one woman against an army of bloodthirsty raiders. If anything they'd have slapped a medal on her chest for saving as many lives as she was able. So…why do it? Why risk such a promising career, such a promising life, for a bunch of nameless colonists?

Wilson said it didn't matter but I insisted that I had to know; that, in order to recreate her just as she was, I needed to be aware every single thing about her, every facet, every instinct, every decision. Because if Shepard wasn't put back exactly as she had been, then all of the work put into Project Lazarus would have been for nothing. I, of course, refused to let that happen on the grounds that it would have been my greatest personal failure. Or so I told myself at the time.

From there, I found myself reviewing her death, a situation similar to Elysium in many ways, excluding the outcome. Another insane moment where, instead of just saving her own now-priceless life like any sane person would, she chose to risk herself for someone else.

I was all but consumed with a burning need to know, to understand, how someone from such humble origins could become the standard by which all of humanity would be forever judged and then throw it all away for one medically-defective pilot. Alliance Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau was one man and, though admittedly talented when placed at the helm of a starship, he couldn't compare with her, not Commander Shepard, the first human Spectre. So why? Why didn't she just leave him?

Desperate, I tracked down what little of the video footage had been recovered from the SR1's destruction in hopes that it would give me some hint as to why this woman would risk – and ultimately sacrifice – her life. And it was only then, in that very moment, my eyes glued to the holoscreen as she quickly alternated between pleading with and screaming at Mr. Moreau before forcibly pulling him to his feet that it, that she, began to make sense.

Shepard wasn't just a list of impressive accomplishments; she was a person with indomitable strength and a sort of…unbridled ferocity I had never seen before. When she risked her life it wasn't for the chance to become a martyr for humanity or to earn yet another trophy for her mantel; it was because she cared about him. He was her pilot, her brother-in-arms, her friend…and she treasured him for it.

I scrolled to the next vid in the queue, this one of Mr. Moreau's debriefing after the fact. There I watched him speak in a hollow tone about the commander who'd sacrificed her life because he hadn't wanted to lose the Normandy. And, as the interview ended and the screen turned to static, I realized that this was far more complicated than I'd previously believed. Jeff Moreau had loved her; a fact that had been clearly written all over his face.

How did she do that? How did she just…make him love her? Perhaps it was just lust. Natasha Shepard was a beautiful woman, with her bright green eyes and golden tresses; a fact almost as widely acknowledged as her prowess in battle. Or perhaps he'd been in love with the idea of her, the projected magnificence, the iconic image of a peerless commander fighting for the survival of the galaxy.

Intrigued, I watched each and every one of the other debriefings, and on the face of every crewman from the ex-C-Sec officer Garrus Vakarian to their chief medical officer Dr. Karin Chakwas, I saw that same haunted look, the same hollow depression which lead straight to their now-broken hearts. They loved her, each and every one of them. In a few short months, she'd earned not only their loyalty…but their love.

And, if that wasn't baffling enough, I was then forced to note that the bulk of their feelings weren't even amorously based. In fact, when it came to romantic love, you could write off the actions of only two squad members: Dr. Liara T'Soni, her asari paramour, and also, surprisingly enough, the deceased LT. Kaidan Alenko, the latter supported by at least a dozen and a half post-Virmire reports where his love and loyalty for the fair-haired Commander was mentioned. But, returning to point, the rest of the team carried no romantic connotation to their affections for her. As both friend and leader, they simply…loved her.

During those months together, likely without even realizing it, she'd become the living embodiment of everything they were fighting to save, and, because of that, they'd been willing to risk their lives, not for the faceless masses that called the galaxy home, but for her, their own personal suicide mission.

It explained everything: why the team had fought so well together despite the differences of race and creed, why they'd succeeded where others would have failed, even why they'd been so content to let themselves be separated after her death; for without her, their immovable center, they had no drive, no connection, no…purpose. But, more than any or all of that, it explained why she, above all others, needed to be brought back.

It was only after coming to that realization I was able to finish her mental reconstruction and finally see the rest my work with clear eyes; now I could focus on the more simplistic aspects of the project, of her, like replicating her skin tone and finding the precise shade of her hair, twice. And, though the knowledge that her naturally golden tresses were actually deceptively natural was intriguing, it was time consuming work, returning her physical appearance to its previous state. But, as it was as necessary a step as those spent recreating her mind I had them completed without issue.

I remember she woke once and looked at me with such clarity on her features despite the copious amount of narcotics in her system and the fact that her vitals were crashing and her body all but short-circuiting from the stimuli; it was only luck and quick thinking we didn't lose her. I must have screamed at Wilson for hours afterwards – I'd long since lost count of how many times I'd told the simpering fool to check and re-check his bloody estimates – and I wouldn't leave him alone with her for weeks. But, more than any of that, I remember the sudden tightness in my chest which had accompanied the frenzied beeping of the monitors. I don't think I'll ever hate the metallic pinging of an EKG as much as I did in that moment.

And then, as quickly as it began, it was finished or nearly so. Two years spent pouring life into a corpse and, suddenly, it was almost over; she was almost ready.

We'd already begun working on a plan of how best to awaken her and execute the rigorous mental testing that the Illusive Man required. There would be so many questions to answer, so many doubts to waylay; keeping her from shooting her way out once she realized we were Cerberus was sure to be a task in and of itself.

Though, as it turns out, we needn't have bothered.

Before she was finished, before she was ready, the base was attacked. My first thought was that it had to have come from inside, a notion validated when our own security drones began firing at us. I was rightfully pissed but not overly concerned; between my biotics and the pistol on my hip, I was more than capable of taking care of the ones that stood between me and safety.

I was nearly to the shuttles when I remembered Shepard who, no doubt the intended target, was still laying unarmed and unconscious in the lab. Without hesitation, I turned back, tapping into the main comm. channel as I raced to her position. I watched other members of the science team fall under fire but I moved past them, over them, unblinkingly. They were expendable; she was not. "Wake up, Commander,"

No response.

"Shepard, do you hear me? Get out of that bed now - this facility is under attack," another wave of mechs fell before me, but I was far too preoccupied with my now-raging thoughts to notice. What if she isn't aware? If that last dose of sedatives hasn't worn off? No. I shook my had been long enough, more than long enough; her cybernetics had a tendency to burn their way through the standard human dosage before we could finish administering it. What if they already…I nearly faltered asI shook my head vehemently, refusing to allow myself to finish the thought. She was alright; she had to be.

It was then that I heard her groan and nearly fainted as a nearly palpable wave of relief crashed over me. I cleared my suddenly tight throat. "Shepard! Your scars aren't healed but I need you to get moving; this facility is under attack!" The mechs were everywhere but I didn't care if every single one of them stood between me and her; I would get to her and then I'd get the both of us the bloody hell off this station. Shepard. I thought, stepping over yet another batch of biotically-dismantled mechs. She's all that matters.

It was in that moment, backtracking to her location, I realized something so startlingly monumental that made the world go quiet in my ears. Suddenly, I understood that I needed to save her life not because I'd spent the last two years trying to give hers back to her, not because I was the designated head of the Lazarus Project and the Lazarus Cell, and certainly not because of my pride.

I needed to save her life because, despite never having truly heard her voice or looked her in the eye, like every member of her team before me, I'd lost my heart. I had to save her because, somewhere along the way, she'd become my suicide mission too.

And I wasn't ready to die.

A/N: So, super nervous about this, like I said above. Mostly because I know my fellow Miranda/(FEM!)Shep fans can get a little brutal; I hope I don't disappoint!

R&R if you please (or if you don't please)