Mass Effect and all related characters and places are owned by Bioware - I just make them dance for my own amusement.

For the purposes of this story, we'll assume there's a lot of boring crew quarters and other rooms on the Normandy that we never saw – the one room seen in game doesn't seem like enough for the whole crew.

~xxx~

Freya Shepard sighed as she stepped out into the CIC. After the incident in Miranda's quarters, she found herself mentally frazzled. She stepped over to her private terminal, not really intending to do anything. Yeoman Kelly Chambers, always adept in reading the emotions of others, moved over to the Commander's side.

"Is something wrong, Shepard?" she asked quietly, so as to go unnoticed by the nearby crewmembers. Shepard sighed again, and leant against the edge of the console.

"I just had to stop Jack and Miranda tearing each other limb from limb," the Spectre replied, closing her eyes and massaging the bridge of her nose.

"Really?" Kelly gasped, covering her mouth with a hand.

"You sound surprised," Shepard said, standing back to full height and turning to face the redhead. "Something I should know?"

"Oh, nothing," Kelly replied. "Sorry Commander, I just......I didn't think Miranda would act like that."

"Well, to be fair it was mostly Jack that was being violent," Shepard explained. "She was throwing a chair at Miranda when I turned up."

"How awful," the yeoman replied. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Well you could talk to Miranda," the Commander said. "I'll deal with Jack."

"Commander, there's......something you should know..."

"...what?" Shepard asked, her tone suspicious. Kelly shook her head.

"Not here – my office," she said curtly. Shepard nodded, and followed as the redhead led her into the elevator.

Before long, they had reached Kelly's small personal office, often used when she needed to evaluate individual crewmembers' psychological state. While Kelly usually consulted crewmembers at their posts in a casual manner, she had mentioned that having the privacy of this room allowed her to discuss some of the more personal matters with them. Shepard looked around for a moment, having never visited the room. Kelly moved behind the small desk that dominated the room. Curiously, she quickly grabbed what appeared to be a framed photograph and quickly shoved it into the nearest drawer. Shepard frowned, but pretended not to notice; there were more pressing matters after all.

"Please, sit down, Commander," Kelly said with a smile, seating herself behind the desk. Shepard did as instructed, crossing her legs.

"So – what's the big secret?" the Spectre asked. "Clearly there's something I haven't been told."

"Shepard......you have to understand, what I'm about to tell you can't leave these walls," Kelly warned nervously, clearly not comfortable with imposing such a request on the Commander.

"Fair enough," Shepard replied with a wave of her hand. "Just get to the point."

"Alright..." Kelly said with a sigh. "It all started about a month ago......when you rescued Jack from Purgatory..."

~26 Days Ago~

Miranda Lawson stepped confidently down the steps to the lower decks, a datapad held under her arm. She was furious with Shepard for making her give their newest recruit access to the Cerberus Network. She was baffled by the Illusive Man's decision to include Jack on the list of potential team members for Shepard's 'suicide squad,' the woman was clearly a danger to the mission, and with her feelings towards Cerberus, was unlikely to comply with both regulations and orders. Still, Shepard had the Illusive Man's trust, so Miranda had no other option but to comply.

As she neared the convict's makeshift bed, the tattooed woman looked up, a smirk upon her face.

"Well well, if it isn't the cheerleader," Jack remarked scathingly. "I take it you've come to apologise for being born a bitch."

"Here's the data you wanted," Miranda said coolly, ignoring the other woman's words and holding out the pad. "This will allow you access to all of Cerberus' classified files and records."

"Shepard's pissed you off good, hasn't she?" Jack replied, continuing to grin as she took the datapad. "Running around like a fucking errand-girl."

"What I think is irrelevant," Miranda stated flatly. "I follow orders."

"What a tool," Jack remarked casually, already starting to flick through information on the pad. "I bet you don't even sleep – you just hang yourself up next to the spanners and screwdrivers."

"I know my place," the Cerberus agent replied coldly, turning on her heel and striding away. "I hope you learn yours."

"You're a tool with a nice ass, I'll give you that!" Jack cackled as Miranda disappeared from view. Miranda paused for a moment, a momentary flare of blue light around her clenched fists, before forcing herself to remain calm and continue on her way.

~Present~

"Well, they didn't exactly seem to be the best of friends when we found Jack," Shepard remarked. "I'm not surprised Miranda wasn't very happy about having to give Jack the data."

"No....she wasn't," Kelly replied. "In fact she vented all of her frustrations about it at me when I visited her."

"Oh? What did she say?"

"I...don't really want to say..." the Yeoman said, looking away. "...she swore me to secrecy."

"Kelly, don't make me pull rank on you," Shepard said, and then instantly regretted it. "....but you'd enjoy that anyway, wouldn't you?"

"Well..." Kelly started, her face now matching her hair colour. "...she said she should have wired your brain up differently during the Lazarus Project..."

"She told me as much," Shepard replied, rolling her eyes.

"That's not all..." Kelly continued. "She also said she wanted to blow you out an airlock and repeatedly ram you with the ship."

"...huh," Shepard smiled. "I may have to have a talk with her..."

"Don't you want to hear what happened next?" Kelly offered, clearly thinking of ways to stop Shepard leaving. The Spectre thought for a moment, before leaning back in her seat.

"Go on then,"

"Well, things were quiet for a few days," the redhead continued. "It was the day you were exploring that abandoned research station – the one on that desert planet."

"I took Miranda and Jack with me to make sure they could work together..."

~22 Days Ago~

"I'm starting to think that outfit of yours is a good idea, Jack," Shepard said breathlessly, dragging herself up the final few steps of the stairway that clung to the outside of the crumbling building. "I'm roasting..."

"Quit complaining," Jack replied, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the twin suns as she surveyed the surrounding area.

"Who said I'm complaining?" the Commander said, smiling slightly as she stood beside the tattooed woman and stared out at the surrounding desert. "Maybe I'll find us a nice ice planet next time."

Jack didn't respond, and just stepped over to the edge of the roof. While the side of the building with the stairs backed onto a desert, a deep canyon was present on the other side, and the decrepit research station was right on the edge of it, in danger of collapsing into the huge scar on the planet. As Shepard set about repairing the roof-mounted solar power generator, Miranda made her way up the stairs, having stayed inside for a few moments to rewire the systems that Shepard was attempting to repower.

"You don't often see these old solar panel systems anymore," Miranda said, standing beside where Shepard was crouching. "As soon as Element Zero was discovered, pretty much all research into other energy forms just stopped.

"I've seen them on quite a lot of deep space probes," Shepard replied, poking her head into an open panel on the side of the machinery. "And small research posts that can't afford a dedicated generator."

"Is it salvageable?" the raven-haired woman asked, careful to keep an eye on Jack at all times. "Just standing up here could cause the whole building to fall over the edge; EDI said the edge of the canyon isn't stable."

"You wanted to come," Shepard reminded her with a smirk. "You were quite happy to send me down to that old ship that was teetering on the edge of a cliff, on my own."

"I can understand why you wanted some extra help," Miranda replied. "But did you have to bring her?"

"She's a part of the team," the Commander reminded her. "We have to include her just as much as everyone else."

"It'd be easier to put her in Grunt's tank and be done with her," Miranda said harshly. "He's an unstable krogan, and I trust him more than that." She gestured at Jack.

"Starting to lose your human-centric views?" Shepard teased, attempting to restrain her annoyance at Miranda's barrage against Jack.

"I'd hardly call her human," Miranda replied. The Commander just rolled her eyes, before pulling herself out of the open machinery, and closing the hatch behind her.

"Power has been restored," EDI's voice stated. "You can now safely recover the data. Be advised – the structural integrity of the canyon wall beneath the station is incredibly weak; exercise caution."

"Let's get this done quickly," Shepard said. "I don't want to stay here a moment longer than we have to."

"I'm gonna stay up here," Jack called from her position overlooking the canyon. Miranda gave Shepard a look, and the Spectre just raised an eyebrow.

"...why?"

"Because I fucking said so," the bald woman replied gruffly. Miranda just shook her head and started down the stairs. Shepard followed, glancing over her shoulder at Jack, who was still just standing upon the edge of the building, staring out at the arid landscape.

Shepard breathed a sigh of relief as she and Miranda entered the cool interior of the building. She made a mental note to have Garrus and Jacob help her design some sort of lightweight version of her usual armour – something that didn't leave her swimming in her own perspiration. Miranda was already at the console, working away.

"The radiation from the suns is interfering with our uplink to the Normandy," Miranda explained. "We can talk to them – but we can't transfer data."

"I suggest you transcribe the data to an OSD," EDI suggested. "It will only take slightly longer than a direct download." Miranda nodded and pulled the small disc from her pocket. As she began the download, Shepard looked out over the rest of the station. The console they were at was situated on a walkway above the area she assumed whoever had worked at the station had conducted most of their research. Various computer stations littered the room, covered in a mixture of dust and sand.

Shepard stepped over to the other side of the walkway, simply curious as to what would be visible from the new vantage point. However, she hadn't seen the toolbox sitting half-on, half-off the edge of the walkway. Caught by the Commander's foot, the small metal box flew over the edge, clattering to the floor several metres below. In the silence of the building, the noise seemed deafeningly loud. Shepard froze, and slowly turned to Miranda, her was staring at her with a mixture of shock and surprise. They remained like that for several seconds, before seeming to relax.

"My bad," Shepard said gingerly, earning a roll of Miranda's eyes. However, no sooner had the Cerberus agent turned back to the console, than a loud crash rang out through the building, far louder than the first. Shepard looked over the walkway, and saw that the toolbox had knocked into a large canister, that had clearly rolled down a nearby staircase. And like every other canister or barrel that Shepard had come across in her life, it exploded. The building shook and seemed to lurch to one side, the sound of twisted and banging mental ringing out through the musty air. Shepard ran to Miranda's side, just as the dark-haired woman pulled the OSD from the console.

"We need to get Jack!" Shepard shouted over the increasing noise, ducking as a nearby light fell from the cable that had suspended it.

"Forget her," Miranda snapped. "There's no time!"

"Get up to the roof – I'll get the Kodiak and pick you up," the Commander said, already making her way to the doorway that led to the landing pad.

"But-"

"That's an order!" Shepard replied angrily, briefly turning to face Miranda. "Go!" The Spectre disappeared through the doorway, leaving Miranda alone. Letting out a growl, she placed the OSD back in her pocket and headed to the doorway that led to the outside staircase. She was flung into the railing as the building lurched again, and she nearly stumbled. She ran as fast as her legs would allow, following the stairs as they wound about the outside of the structure. Reaching the roof, she saw no sign of the tattooed woman.

"Jack!" she shouted, desperately looking around. She wasn't afraid of not finding the other woman – she was afraid of what Shepard would do if she didn't.

"Fuck!" came the grunted reply. "Why'd she send you?!" Miranda looked over to the side of the building that was overlooking the canyon, part of which had already started to collapse, and saw a pair of tattooed hands barely visible among the twisted metal of the severed roof panels.

Carefully, Miranda made her way over to the other woman, trying her hardest not to provoke any more collapse. However, she couldn't help but panic when she saw what she was facing – not only had part of the building collapsed, but so had the canyon edge beneath it. Below Jack's dangling body, she could see the bottom of the drop, easily more than a mile below.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Jack snarled. "I don't need your help!"

"Shepard would kill me if I didn't help," Miranda replied, working out the best way to get closer to Jack without making more of the ceiling collapse. Another series of shakes set her stumbling, and she nearly fell straight forwards over the edge herself.

"Then don't help me," Jack spat. "At least I'll die knowing you're going to."

"Believe me, it's tempting," the raven-haired woman replied. Happening upon an idea, she lowered herself onto her front, and slowly edged herself towards the other woman.

"What the fuck are you doing?" the convict asked, letting out a groan as the metal piping she was holding in one hand started to bend.

"Saving your worthless life!" Miranda replied, reaching out a hand and continuing to edge forwards, spreading her weight as wide as possible.

"I ain't gonna owe you shit, alright?!" Jack replied.

"Alright," Miranda replied, still desperately reaching forwards.

"Right, okay, yeah – fucking help me then!" the bald woman demanded, gingerly letting go of one of her handholds, and reaching towards Miranda's outstretched hand. For a fleeting second, their fingertips brushed, but it still wasn't close enough. Miranda looked behind her, and saw a small vent roughly level with her feet. Seeing no other option, she shifted her foot behind the small raised area, and moved further forwards, using the vent to stop herself from sliding down the increasingly inclined roofing. She grabbed Jack's hand, firmly locking her fingers through the other woman's.

"On three, I'm going to pull," Miranda instructed. "Try and kick yourself up on the edge." Jack nodded, staring intently into Miranda's eyes. "One....two....three!" The dark-haired woman wrenched Jack up with all her strength, and as she did so, Jack pushed against the crumbling side of the roof with her feet, propelling her up further. If one were to view the action in slow motion, it would appear as though Miranda were moving from laying upon her front, to a sitting position, and then onto her back. For Miranda herself, the movement struck her with such force that it knocked the wind from her, causing her to let out a yell. Things were only complicated, when Jack's tattooed body came crashing down upon hers. With no energy left to move herself, Miranda just stared up at the other woman, who was still gazing intently down at her.

For the briefest of moments, the sound of the rapidly collapsing building seemed to fade. Miranda's breathing slowed, and Jack continued to stare down at her, unblinking.

The moment was broken as the engines of the Kodiak Drop Shuttle roared overhead. The two women looked up, to see the large side-door of the shuttle open, Shepard standing upon the edge of it, a harness wrapped around her waist, allowing her to lean forwards without falling. Jack struggled off of Miranda, and quickly took a running leap at the shuttle. Shepard steadied her as she entered the shuttle, and quickly moved out of the way. Miranda was still laying upon the warm surface of the roof, gazing up into the sky.

"Miranda!" Shepard called. "Get in here, now!" Broken from her reverie, the dark-haired woman scrambled to her feet and took off towards the shuttle. Following Jack's example, she took a running jump and ended up being helped into the vehicle by Shepard. Once both women were onboard, Shepard jammed her fist down on the door controls, and the hatch closed.

As the shuttle moved clear, the entire research station began to slant further to the side, as the cliff-face beside it began to collapse. Rapidly, the building crumbled into a mass of twisted metal panels and pipes, quickly being consumed by the falling rubble as the entire station appeared to vanish in a cloud of sand. Shepard breathed a sigh of relief as she leant against the door, closing her eyes and running a hand through her sweat-slicked hair.

Miranda and Jack remained as far away from each other as the small room would allow, never looking at each other.

~Present~

"So what's the relevance of that?" Shepard asked. "Miranda saved Jack's life – surely that would make them less likely to fight each other, if anything."

"Miranda came to me the next day," Kelly continued. "We've known each other for a while – I was going to be your personal therapist if you hadn't been woken up early when the Lazarus Research Station was attacked. Anyway, she came to my office in a complete state..."

~21 Days Ago~

"I need help, Kelly," Miranda sighed as she collapsed into the chair opposite the Yeoman's. Kelly instinctively reached towards the framed photo on the desk, but Miranda wordlessly reached for it, and turned it over. "She's never going to be interested, Kelly," she said. "She's only got eyes for that asari – I told you."

"I know," Kelly replied indignantly, snatching the photograph of Shepard back. "But this isn't about me – what's wrong?"

"Alright..." Miranda said, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. "You must have read Shepard's report on what happened?"

"Yes, although I had to persuade the Commander herself to tell me that she destroyed the station with a toolbox," Kelly explained. "That part was conveniently left out of her report."

"What did she have to say about what happened on the roof?" Miranda asked, her eyes still closed, as if she was embarrassed to look the redhead in the eye.

"Well, not much..." the Yeoman replied, sounding suspicious. "Just that you helped Jack up, then she flew the Kodiak up to get you – and that you were momentarily stunned, probably exhausted from pulling Jack up."

"Something like that..." the dark-haired woman replied. "But.......oh Christ Kelly, I'm ankle-deep in shit..."

"What happened?" Kelly asked softly, knowing that it took something extremely bad to force Miranda to actually use expletives.

"When I pulled Jack up......she was on top of me..." Miranda explained. "And......and all I could think about is just how much I wanted to grab her and kiss her..."