Title: Second Chances
Author: KalenCaelli
Rating: M (for later chapters)
Disclaimers: Mass Effect 2, its characters, and its storyline are owned by Bioware. I merely borrowed them for a little bit. My version of Shepard is mine. This story will contain violence, sex, swearing and other things your mother warned you about.
Author's Notes: This story is a departure from my normal Dragon Age fair. I played this game for the first time probably a year ago and fell in love with it. Behind my original Dragon Age, it is probably my most played game of all time. That being said there are a few things I want to make clear.
This is not a finished story. I apologize for that, but with the impending release of Mass Effect 3, I thought it important to go ahead and get this story out. I still remain committed to you, my readers, never having a story that will go unfinished, but that being said, please do not expect updates on a regular interval. I will post updates as often as I can, given my work schedule, my volunteer schedule, and my home schedule. I will do my best to post as often as possible, but a lot depends on my muse's ability to keep up. I never want to put out an inferior product for the sake of publishing.
The second thing I want to point out is that while this story will cover events as laid out in Mass Effect 2, it is not going to be a carbon copy of that story in terms of dialogue, characterization, or even the stray plot departure. I will use elements from Mass Effect, and occasionally even dialogue, however. For the sake of clarity, any and all communication from a third party that takes place over a communicator will be in bold.
The final thing is that I do not know all the paths this story will take. That means any and all relationships are subject to change as I see fit. I would love to say that for sure Shepard would end up with either Miranda or Liara (those of you who know me know I'm a die-hard shipper of both).
As always, this is dedicated to the most wonderful lady in my life – my wife.
Kalen
Chapter 1: Miranda
Perfect.
Miranda Lawson trailed a finger across the porcelain skin, fingernails grazing over the curve of a hip. Those eyes grazed over a pair of perfectly round breasts, past the dip of a collarbone and up a long, lean neck. She traced the tip of an index finger across the silken smoothness of those lips, up across a curve of a brow, and down a cheek that was still marked with the faintest lines of pale scars.
She was perfect.
"Miranda!" Those azure eyes shot up, flashing in irritation. Wilson, that sexist prig, was glaring at her in annoyance, arms folded across his chest as he leaned against the wall. "I thought you were off with Jacobs and Anderson doing some tech...thing."
The pent-up frustration of unspent lust. She smirked, allowing her hips to deliberately sway as she sauntered around the medical table. His eyes narrowed in anger, and Miranda almost laughed in delight. He wanted her. From the moment she had first met him, she'd been aware of the way his gaze followed her across the room, unholy thoughts lurking behind those dark eyes. She had humored him, even indulged him, watching with satisfaction as he pushed himself beyond even his own limits.
And it had worked. The day Shepard's heart began beating was a personal triumph, the day they had transferred the memories an even greater one.
They had done the impossible.
"It's not too late, you know." Wilson's voice cut through her reverie. Seeing Miranda's confusion he hurriedly added, "For the control chip, of course."
She shook her head. No doubt Wilson would like to see Shepard with a control chip, which in and of itself should have been enough reason to refuse, but truth be told she had harbored her own reservations. Shepard, for all her heroism, was an unknown. Her previous actions suggested she would be less than sympathetic to Cerberus — the asari had all but assured her of that. But it was that empathy, that compassion, which had not only enabled Shepard to mold her previous crew into a force that had taken down both Saren and the Geth, but also save the Citadel from Sovereign.
They needed that now, more than ever. That fire. That passion. Limit her, and it was a possibility that she would be less than who she was.
Unacceptable.
"There will be no control chip," the order carried a note of finality that drew an angry scowl from the Cerberus scientist. Miranda lifted her gaze, fixating the shorter man with a pointed stare. "Begin transferring the final algorithms. Inform me when she wakes up."
She left the room without waiting for a response.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
It was a peculiar thing, this sleep. Hovering on the edge of awareness, she dreamed.
At first, the dreams were muddled, glimpses of memories and feelings. Pain, joy, despair, even arousal, all jumbled up in a never-ending cycle. They eventually gave way to things more distinct. Mindoir. Torfan. Her mistakes, her triumphs, the demons that haunted her.
There were other memories too. A glimpse, a touch, a whisper of hot air against a naked ear. The slide of skin against skin. Ragged gasps, thrusts, and counterthrusts.
Then there was the darkness, whisperings of nightmares to come. The Reapers.
You cannot escape me, Shepard. I will destroy you.
When she awoke, she was sweating.
The green eyes squinted open, slamming shut almost immediately from the glare of the overhead lights. They were too bright, and the pain ripped through her head...
"Shepard."
Where the hell am I?
"Shepard, you have to wake up."
That voice — it was familiar, feminine. She had heard it before. Somewhere...
"Get up, damn it." Panic now. "They're coming to kill you."
Those green eyes opened abruptly, and without even thinking about it, she rolled off the side of the table, landing on her elbows and knees. Nausea tugged at her belly, and she wretched a few times, bile tickling her throat.
That voice was talking again. Something about a locker and...
She pushed to her feet, padding on bare feet towards the indicated landmark. The lockers were along the far wall, but unsecured, and she found one that had a set of nondescript white armor with a small yellow and black logo. Now where had she seen that before?
"Shepard, come in. Do you read me?"
She dressed, then tapped the side of her helmet, toggling the com switch. "Who the hell is this?"
A pause. "There's no time. You have to get moving. This facility has been compromised. They're coming to kill you."
"Who's coming...?" The comlink crackled off. "Damn it!" those green eyes narrowed, examining the clip in her sidearm. Empty. Great. Just what she needed.
"There's a clip ahead of you on the ground." Now, how the hell did she...Oh. Those eyes immediately leveled on a tiny, nearly inconspicuous security camera in the corner of the room. So she was being watched.
"One more time, who the hell are you? And what the hell happened to my crew?" Those memories were muddled, hazy glimpses into the past and flashes of clarity.
A figure, long and lean, banging against the viewport...
A sharp pain flashed behind her eyes, and then there was a sucking sensation, as if all the air was being pulled out of the room. Spots began to swim in the periphery, and she fell to her knees, gasping, clawing...there was a voice screaming at her on the intercom, but she didn't hear it. She couldn't breathe. Hands pulled at her helmet, whipping it off, grabbing at her face and throat. Her face...what had happened to her face?
"God damn it. Breathe! You're panicking. Shepard, breathe!"
She inhaled sharply, a deep, shuddering gasp that left her head pounding and her heart racing. Another breath, and her pulse began to slow.
She panicked. She never panicked. Not since...
"Shepard, come in."
She pawed at her comlink, still slightly dizzy from the memories.
"Where is my crew?" Each word was like the crack of a whip. "And who the hell are you?" Words were spoken slowly, deliberately, so there was no misconception.
You didn't fuck with Jordan Shepard.
Another pause, and this time Jordan could hear the deliberate catch in the voice. "My name is Miranda," spoken after a moment's hesitation. "I was there the first time you woke up. Do you remember that?"
She did now. They were vague memories, fuzzy. She remembered an incredible pain, and a woman standing over her body, yelling for more sedatives. A woman, so now she had a face to pair with the name. Miranda.
Jordan glanced around the room, her eyes honing in on that unfamiliar logo now. Where was she? Not an Alliance facility, surely.
It was starting to come back to her. The alert, the attack. Red lights flashing overhead. The groan of cracking bulkheads and scream of blaring alarms. Shouts and frantic cries suddenly silenced. The Normandy was burning.
I'm not leaving without you.
Liara, go.
"I will answer whatever questions you have as soon as we are out of harm's way. Just know that Doctor T'Soni is safe. You, however, have mechs closing rapidly on your position. If you do not get a thermal clip soon, you are going to die."
She was moving even before Miranda had finished speaking. Jordan picked up the clip on the way to the main door, slamming it into her sidearm and noting grimly that it was only at half-capacity. Every shot needed to count.
Leaning against the wall, she inhaled deeply, taking a moment to steady her nerves. Slamming her hand against the switch for the door, she entered the next room as soon as the metal parted, darting for the nearest cover, a low-lying planter three meters in. A few stray bullets passed overhead, wild shots, mostly. And quickly she ducked out from behind cover, sending two bullets towards a lumbering mech across the room.
Its head exploded, the body collapsing in a shower of sparks and smoking circuitry. Without waiting to check her progress, Jordan spun out from the cover, sidearm ready as she paced towards the fallen mech, grimly noting that its rifle had fused to its hands as a result of the explosion. Another bullet flew overhead, and this time she fired without thinking, hitting the second mech in both kneecaps and one wrist before it collapsed.
She holstered the sidearm this time, examining the mech's rifle. It was unmarked, military issue, though not standard Alliance fare. Semi-automatic with a nearly full clip, which was a promising start. No laser scope though, and from what she could tell it would need some serious modifications to withstand any punishment.
Then again, beggars can't be choosers.
"Shepard, come in...large mechs clos...have t..." whatever message this Miranda had been trying to send clearly faded into static. Not good, Jordan noted grimly, quickly picking up her pace. This clearly had turned into a rescue operation, and as usual, someone else was holding all of the cards.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
There were just too many of them.
Jacob Taylor crouched behind a narrow railing, wincing as the glass shook against the hailstorm of bullets. It was supposed to be bulletproof, but he didn't like taking chances. The only other cover was a narrow pillar, and every time he tried to leave his current position he was forced back by the ten or so mechs across the way.
A small gap in the firing window opened, and he stood up from cover, sending a wild spray of fire across the walkway, followed by a pull with biotics that sent at least one mech tumbling towards its doom. Still, more reinforcements arrived, and there was even more than before. How many of these damn things were there?
"Need a hand?" The distinctly feminine voice came from his left, and Jacob did a double take as soon as he realized who it belonged to. Shepard... but how the hell...?
"You're not supposed to be up yet." Those green eyes narrowed in anger that quickly gave way to something else. Something dangerous. Deadly. He barely suppressed a shudder.
This was the real Commander Shepard. The hero of legends. The savior of the Citadel.
And probably the galaxy's only hope.
"Care to fill me in on the details of our little misadventure?"
Some more bullets impacted against the glass, which creaked ominously in retaliation. Shit. "Now's hardly the time, Shepard, but if you help me take out these mechs, I'll tell you whatever I know."
A lazy smile stretched across Shepard's features, those green eyes darting past the glass, calmly assessing the situation. "Stay down," spoken with a hint of amusement.
Stay... "Wait, no, Shepard don't..." he reached for her arm, but she was already emerging from fire. Shit, Miranda is going to kill me. He lurched from cover, eyes scanning across the platform to find a target for his biotics.
One problem though. There wasn't a piece of machinery that hadn't been reduced to a smoldering mess of wires.
Jacob glanced briefly at Shepard, who was now examining the rifle with cool detachment. Wow, she was everything they said. And more.
Much, much more.
Then again, he thought grimly, she needs to be. Or we're all screwed.
"I'll take that explanation any time now." Cool, calm, collected — the epitome of a perfect soldier.
Jacob nodded, pacing a few feet away as he collected his thoughts. "Do you remember the attack on the Normandy?"
"The details are a bit fuzzy, but I'm starting to get the picture," came the droll reply. "It was bad, I take it?"
"You could say that," Jacob smiled briefly, crossing his muscular arms in front of his chest. "My name is Jacob Taylor. I'm a soldier, like you. And the truth is that, well, Shepard, you died."
Nothing, no change of expression, not even a flinch.
"Clearly, there is more to this story since I am standing right here," her tone was dangerously low.
"Shepard, when I first saw you, you were nothing but meat and bones." A flinch. Jacob felt bad, springing this news on her like this, but he was a firm believer in honesty. Besides, how could they expect Shepard to work with them if she was always looking for a knife in the back?
"I...see..." though she clearly didn't. Her skepticism was written all over her face. "And so you brought me back..."
"We brought you back because we believe that the Reapers are a threat, but it's taken a long time to bring you back, Shepard. Two years, to be exact. That's what the Lazarus project is. It was all about resurrecting you."
Shepard's mouth opened, then closed, then opened and closed again. The soldier closed her eyes, clearly struggling to put all of this together."
"My crew...?" Her voice was tightly controlled, visibly struggling to wrap her mind around all of this.
The smile left Jacob's face. "Most of them made it, Shepard. Joker, Ashley, Dr. Chakwas, even that asari," he added off-handedly, remembering that she was someone of some importance.
"Liara," Shepard's shoulders relaxed noticeably. She took a deep, shuddering breath, those green eyes coming into sharp focus on Jacob. "You said most..."
"Navigator Pressley, a few others," he admitted, watching those eyes close, and then open, the pain replaced with a new hardness.
"I...see." A resigned sigh escaped her lips. "You said it's been two years?" He nodded. "So where am I exactly?"
He hesitated. He should have known that this question would come. Technically, he was not authorized to inform Shepard that this was a Cerberus facility. That information was to come from directly from Miranda. But Shepard wasn't scheduled to wake up for at least another week. And the base was under attack.
But perhaps Shepard didn't know who Cerberus was. Or maybe her exposure to the organization was limited.
Either way, he had to come clean.
"Shepard...this is a Cerberus facility." Shepard's eyes darkened, her posture growing deathly still. The temperature in the room seemed to drop at least ten degrees.
"And exactly what interest does a terrorist organization have with keeping me alive?"
Oh yeah, she'd definitely heard about them.
"As much as I would love to explain all of that, Shepard, we need to get to an escape shuttle as soon as possible." As if on cue, his comlink began to crackle.
"Is anybody there? This is ...son. I'm trapped in the server room and.. Argh! They're cutting ... doors."
Jacob tapped his communicator. "Wilson?" he ignored Shepard's hawkish glare. Whether she believed him or not, Jacob was a soldier, and his first priority had to on saving as many people as possible. "This is Jacob. I'm here with Shepard."
"Shepard's...alive?" More static. "Never mind. You need to get to the server room...holed up here. Killed everyone...not much time."
Jacob frowned. Wilson was in the medical branch; technically, he shouldn't have any access to the server room. But it was possible that the security lock down had triggered a malfunction in the system.
Shepard's hand closed over his shoulder. "We'll talk more about this later. Right now, let's go rescue your friend."
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Her head was beginning to throb.
Jordan had long since tuned Wilson out, ignoring the scientist's ungrateful whining and incessant complaints. They'd found the man, as expected, in the server room, though he'd been injured the process. Nothing more than a flesh wound – a bullet had grazed his calf, but from the way he'd carried on, you would have expected that he was in his final moments of life. She'd instantly disliked him, though she could not exactly pinpoint the reason why, but all the same had helped patch up his leg and gotten him onto his feet.
They'd encountered little resistance since that time, only a few loose clusters of mechs that had been easily dispatched, but the near constant bickering between him and Jacob was beginning to wear her patience thin.
"I'm telling you, we need to go the other shuttle bay." Wilson's eyes darted rapidly across the room, as if expecting an ambush any moment.
"That area is overrun." Jacob replied calmly, though his voice bore the telltale signs of tension. "We need to keep moving forward."
Jordan was a short distance away watching the last of Miranda's mission logs. She exhaled softly, watching the mysterious woman fade from sight, the last of the puzzle pieces slipping into place.
First and foremost was that she had died. Not exactly the way she had wanted things to happen, but there it was. Somehow, Cerberus came into possession of her body.
Her body. Jordan would not soon forget walking into that room, with dozens of screens streaming holos of muscles and bones and tests results — all of her, she realized with a shudder.
Somehow, over the course of two years they had put her back together again. No small feat. Lastly, there was the undeniable fact that someone on this base was trying to kill her. Considering how many credits had been spent on this project, it was a bit disconcerting. Someone really must want her dead.
So now she needed to figure out who was behind it all.
She shifted past Wilson and Taylor, listening for the telltale signs of them falling into step behind her. Whatever mystery she had walked into, she could ill-afford to spend her last moments waiting for trouble surprise her.
Funny how it should anyway.
No sooner had she opened the shuttle bay door, seeing a very alive Miranda standing in front of her (this she only recognized because of her own hazy memories and the few fragmented journal entries she'd pieced together), but then, much to her surprise and dismay, Miranda lifted her gun.
"Miranda," Wilson's voice came out in a startled squawk. "But you were…"
The Cerberus operative lifted her pistol, sending a bullet point-blank into the scientists' forehead. "Dead?" Her lip curled up into a snarl.
"Miranda, what the hell..." Jacob sputtered, as Jordan lifted her rifle, leveling it at the woman's chest.
"Wilson tried to have me killed," Miranda's eyes remained on Jacob's form only briefly before shifting over to Jordan, the more obvious threat. "He was sloppy, left his fingerprints all over the system."
"Was that really necessary?" Miranda's eyes narrowed sharply at the accusation.
"Shepard, he sent two dozen mechs to kill me. Those drones decimated my staff, not mention you, I might add."
She survived two dozen mechs? "He could barely walk straight." Jordan countered, still unwilling to concede the point. "Do you really think he was in a position to hurt me?"
"Not anymore."
Jordan barely suppressed the urge to wipe that smug smile off of the brunette's face.
The smile faded. "Look, Shepard, we really don't have the time to argue about this. Let's get to safety and then we can discuss this."
Jordan slowly lowered her rifle. "Why should I go anywhere with Cerberus?"
Miranda shot an irritated glare towards the dark-skinned Cerberus operative. "Jacob," her tone carried a hint of menace. "I should have known your conscience would get the better of you." His posture stiffened, mouth clamping firmly shut though it was clear he wanted to argue the point. Miranda shook her head slightly, eyes coming into sharp focus on Jordan.
"You can come with us or choose to stay here, Shepard. The rest of the escape shuttles have already gone. I doubt there are any survivors, and I can't be sure Wilson didn't include some self-destruct sequence in his tampering. Of course, if you stay, you'll be sure to let us know?"
Jordan's lip twitched. Oh, this one was going to be an absolute joy to work with.
She took a step towards the shuttle bay, pausing briefly by the brunette, her voice low. "If I did that," she paused, allowing the words to linger, "I wouldn't have the pleasure of watching you explain how Wilson nearly destroyed a four billion credit investment, Ms. Lawson."
She continued on towards the shuttle bay, casting a brief glance over her shoulder towards the Cerberus agent, who was practically fuming.
Jordan smiled.
A joy.